From a preoccupation with the transcendental and occult that informed Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada’s guitar driven psych rock, and reached its apotheosis in the acclaimed Occult Architecture diptych, Stars Are the Light sees the band synthesise the abstract and metaphysical with the embodied and terrestrial. Branching out from Occult Architecture Vol. 2, the album has a sonic physicality that is at once propulsive and undulating; it puts dance at the heart of an expansive nexus that connects the body to the stars. These are songs about embodied human experience — love, change, misunderstanding, internal struggle, joy, misery, alienation, discord, harmony, celebration - rendered as a kind of dance of the self, both in relation to other selves and to the eternal dance of the cosmos. Taking disco as its groove-oriented departure point, Stars Are the Light shimmers with elements of ’70s funk and ’90s rave. Johnson’s signature guitar sound is at its most languid and refined, while Yamada’s synths and oneiric vocals are foregrounded to create a spacious percussiveness that invites the body to move with its mesmeric rhythms. With Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, Spectrum) at the mixing desk in Portugal’s Serra de Sintra, (known to the Romans as “The Mountains of the Moon”) the area’s lush landscape and powerful lunar energies exerted a strong influence on the vibe and sonic texture of the album. On embracing disco as an inspiration, Yamada says,
“It’s something we hadn’t referenced in our music before, but its core concepts really align with what we were circling around as we made the album. Disco is dance music, first and foremost, and we were digging our way into the idea of this endless dance of bodies in nature. We were also very inspired by the space and community of a disco – a space of free self-expression through dance, fashion, and mode of being; where everyone was welcome, diversity was celebrated, and identity could be fluid; where the life force that animates each of us differently could flower.”

Los Angeles seven piece, The Warlocks release their hotly tipped new album Phoenix, on Mute in conjunction with City Rockers. Released on Birdman Records last year in the US, the British release of Phoenix features two new songs 'Red Rooster' and 'Isolation'.

Rock band from Reykjavík. Formed in 2000.

The Limiñanas are back on Trouble In Mind (where they belong) with their third album, Costa Blanca ! Once again recorded at their home in the south of France by Lio himself, Costa Blanca pushes the envelope of their signature Franc-o-phonic sound; the coloeur café cool of Gainsbourg, the hypnotic drone of VUera Cale, and the spiky fuzz of Davie Allan. This time around the band laces the tunes with a dramatic flair of French New Wave soundtracks & the percussive sonic accents found in Morricone s work in Il Gruppo, particularly The Feed-Back whose funk-laced tracks incorprate elements of avant-classical and experimental sonic elements. Fans of the band will no doubt hear familiar passages; melodic themes that appear & disappear not only over the course of this album, but that also reference The Limiñanas entire ouevre - melodic jump-cuts that are sonic echoes of previous tunes & future melodies. Thematically, Costa Blanca is an insular record, with subjects that reference Lio s youth growing up in Spain in the 1970 s near the Mediterranean Sea & lyrics which are nostalgic odes to the music, films, girls, books & cars that shaped his world. The first edition of Costa Blanca is pressed on 150gm mixed vinyl, includes a printed inner sleeve, & a download code.

A band as kinetic as L’Eclair cannot stay idle. So when the pandemic hit, they stayed true to form and began recording a new album. With their former records usually recorded in a few days, live to tape, they took a decidedly different approach with this LP. Recorded in four sessions spread out over nine months, the group and their trusted engineer (and manager) Benoit Erard were able to spend more time, energy, and consideration on the production. This new approach gave them the ability to reflect and revise, allowing them to focus more on composition, arrangements and structures. The result is their fourth album Confusions: a sprawling hour-long, 12 track record- their most diverse, concise, and focused effort to date.
Confusions finds L’Eclair finding themselves, having distilled their mastery of groove and rhythm down to a science. Club vibes, psych grooves, rhythmic trances, and ambient comedowns are all present in equal measure, while maintaining a cohesive and consistent flavor throughout. Confusions is both expertly crafted and joyfully spontaneous, danceable yet ethereal, emotive yet cerebral. The shifting moods and melodies imbue the album with a depth that demands repeat listens.
Their influences are on full display here, with nods to CAN, Piero Umiliani, and Tangerine Dream- seamlessly blended with the unique sound L’Eclair has established over the years. New influences are also apparent, such as the house grooves of 80’s Madchester and Aphex twin, as well as the textures and ambience of Boards of Canada. As with past L’Eclair releases, Confusions is sure to attract some fans of hip-hop, recalling the likes of producers Madlib, MF doom, and Dilla. The ever-present dub and house influences bubble up here and there but despite the many inspirations behind Confusions, the sound is pure L’Eclair.
credits
Recorded between August 2020 and April 2021 at le Gatillon.
Mixed by Benoit Erard in June 2021 at Ritmo Studio in Leysin.

The next one on my you-must-hear-now list is from L’Eclair. These guys are out of Geneva, Switzerland and recently on the Beyond Beyond Is Beyond label who seem to have the magic touch when plucking these kinds of finds out of thin air (or parts of Europe). The thing is, the BBIB team usually has some deep, out-there, mind-bending psychedelia to offer up. But with L’Eclair’s Polymood, we’ve got something a little bit different, something delectably groovy. The instrumental band’s music is anything but Swiss neutral, but a decidedly funky and totally singular sound. This is can’t-put-it-down, smiling-for-days good, I think you’ll dig.

What can one expect of an album called “Sauropoda”? Think of it as a 2am youtube find. Or that weird looking soviet prog funk LP reissue you never dared to buy. It actually sounds more like a L’Eclair show. Most of the new album comes from deep jams the band road-tested following the recording of Polymood. Some of the tracks faithfully capture the live sound of the band while the rest includes carefully crafted dance floor grooves, last minute studio fantasies and genuine late night jams. L’Eclair is about all those things. And things never sound the same twice.
Sauropoda was recorded in the mountains with the band’s live engineer Benoit “Gérard” Erard. In case anyone ever wonders about the way L’Eclair sounded in 2018, Sauropoda would be the correct answer. Proto-groove was born.
Now, where shall we head to, baba?
Record at Le Gatillon on the 15th and 16th of October 2018 by Benoit “Gérard” Erard. Mixed by Benoit “Gérard” Erard at his parents’ place in Leysin. All songs written and performed by L’Eclair.
L’Eclair is:
Sébastien Bui – International Keys
Elie Ghersinu – Dino Bass
Stefan Lilov – Broken Wah Guitar
Yavor Lilov – Kicker’s Delight/Endless Kick/Bronto Kick
Quentin Pilet – Bongos Driver
Alain Sandri – Mellow Lifestyle and Congas
DJ Laxxiste - 440 FX

The Avalanches’ new album, We Will Always Love You, will be released by Astralwerks on December 11. An exploration of the vibrational relationship between light, sound and spirit, The Avalanches have moved beyond the party-up exuberance of their youthful music to a tender, reflective sound infused with hard-earned life wisdom. Building on the sample-based approach of their classic albums Since I Left You and Wildflower, We Will Always Love You is their most song-oriented album yet, made with an array of guest singers and writers.

Three Demos is a very unique release, featuring the very first demo recordings for songs from Julee Cruise’s initial LP with David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, Floating Into the Night.
These early versions are fascinating glimpses into the genesis of what became Floating Into the Night and the minimal key ingredients that made the material alchemize. An early version of the album opener “Floating” originally began with a stunning spoken-word intro later dropped entirely from the album version. A revelation in their overarching simplicity, the three-song collection is devoid of the LP’s additional arrangement flourishes, and yet still manages to present the same emotional depth charge with only voice, synthesizer and lyric.
A deluxe reissue of Julee Cruise's second album 'The Voice of Love' is also available via Sacred Bones Records, exclusively on 2xLP and CD. Order at
releases August 17, 2018

沉寂7年后，21世纪最具持久创作活力的纽约乐队 Gang Gang Dance 宣布回归。他们的全新专辑《Kazuashita》将于6月22日正式发行。
《Kazuashita》是乐队继2011年名作《Eye Contact》后的首次重聚，他们带来的 shoegaze 与电子氛围，依旧令人沉醉不已。拥有脱俗嗓音的 Lizzi Bougatsos 也是乐队背后的主脑，十多年来，她和伙伴 Brian DeGraw、Josh Diamond 一起，不断试图打破音乐与艺术的界线。如今，他们已从一支即兴组合，成为无论在 Coachella 音乐节还是惠特尼艺术双年展上，都能从容表演的乐队。
专辑在纽约的数个录音室与艺术空间录制，由 DeGraw 担任制作，并得到鼓手 Ryan Sawyer、制作人 Jorge Elbrecht 等的鼎力相助。

One of the brilliant facets of recorded music is that while it can frame forever in time one of humanity’s most fluid art forms, those captured sounds themselves can go on to become an active launchpad for the ideas, memories, emotions and feelings of those listening. Returning with their third album Hot Motion, Temples have not just provided a strong demonstration of this dual static/frenetic nature, but they have also created a record that revels in this beautiful contradiction. A brilliantly crafted, thoughtfully recorded collection, the album’s propulsive, seemingly immediate songs soon reveal an impressive depth of ideas and energy with subsequent listens because, as its title warns, Hot Motion is not a record that stands still.
I’m excited for people to experience these songs for the first time,” declares singer and guitarist James Bagshaw. “They are constructed in such a way that the album should feel relatively instantaneous, but we did not water down our creative ideas. Getting that balance can be hard, perhaps on the last record on some songs we used too many layers to create depth, but making this album we discovered that depth doesn’t simply come by layering things, it can come from the intensity of an idea.”

Keiji Haino is a Japanese musician and singer-songwriter whose work has included rock, free improvisation, noise music, percussion, psychedelic music, minimalism and drone music. He has been active since the 1970s and continues to record regularly and in new styles.

The sleeve tells you so much about the process. It's a picture of a lone figure. Suited up and immersed in interplanetary protective gear, he walks out across unmapped terrain. In the distance, a mountain range towers over the roughly gridded sand he's striding. This is very much a solo mission - giant steps into the unknown. Inside the helmet, there's all the uncertainty and madness that such a pursuit brings. That sleeve (designed, as ever, with Mark Farrow), comes wrapped around And Nothing Hurt - Spiritualized's eighth album, the follow up to 2012's Sweet Heart, Sweet Light. From the opening lullaby of A Perfect Miracle through to the fading Morse Code at the close of Sail on Through, it painstakingly wraps layer upon layer of gloriously transcendent sound together to create a mesmerizing and cinematic collection of songs. There are points - the thunderous climax of On the Sunshine; the spectral waltz of The Prize; the towering guitar solo on I'm Your Man - where the waves of blissful noise are almost overwhelming, where one can imagine the studio's speakers vibrating themselves off of the walls. Which is an incredible feat when you discover that the album was conceived and recorded almost entirely by one man - Jason Pierce, AKA J.Spaceman - in an upstairs room in his east London home. Sat in an edit suite in Whitechapel a month or so after finishing recording, Jason talks honestly about the painstaking, frustrating process of creating And Nothing Hurt. "Making this record on my own sent me more mad than anything I've done before. We'd been playing these big shows and I really wanted to capture that sound we were making but, without the funds to do, I had to find a way to work within the constraints of what money I had. So I bought a laptop and made it all in a little room in my house." Whereas bedroom recording is commonplace for a generation of musicians who've grown up with horizon-expanding tech, Spiritualized have long used the studio as they would an extra member of the band - as a vital building block in the construction of some of the most cherished records of the modern era. This time would be very different. With no grounding in digital recording, Jason had to learn everything from scratch. "The biggest thing for me was to try to make it sound like a studio session. There are bits that I went to a studio to record - mainly drums and percussion. I mean, there's no way I'm going to get timpani up my stairs. When I came to terms with how I was going to make the record, I assumed it was going to sound like Lee Perry - all flying in from different angles; all extraordinary and not hi-tech in construction. But I was new to it all, I didn't have all the short cuts people use when they're making records - I just sat there for weeks… for months… moving every level up bit by bit just to try to get the sounds right." For the listener, the nine tracks on And Nothing Hurt effortlessly replicate the scale and power of Spiritualized's previous releases, whether it's the sonic blowback of On the Sunshine, the last dime in the jukebox love letter of Let's Dance or the swell of an imaginary orchestra that seems to lift Damaged towards the heavens as it plays out.