For the past decade, the New Orleans band Lawn has thrived on the palpable chemistry between co-lead singers and songwriters Mac Folger and Rui De Magalhaes. Though each boasts distinct sensibilities—Folger’s songs are breezy, jangly, and personal while De Magalhaes’ are biting and propulsive post-punk—they’ve seamlessly blended their idiosyncratic styles over three unassailable indie rock full-lengths, while becoming a fixture in a thriving New Orleans scene, and sharing stages with artists like Momma, Hovvdy and Omni.
De Magalhaes had moved to Chicago following the release of the 2022 Bigger Sprout, and released an acclaimed solo LP under the name Rui Gabriel via Carpark Records, which earned praise from folks like Pitchfork, Stereogum and Paste, but Lawn, despite recently uniting in New Orleans, have been quiet.
Today, following the announce of a recent run of tour dates with Momma, the band are announcing their return, signing to Exploding In Sound and sharing their first new music since their 2022 LP, a single called “Sports Gun.”
Engineered by Greg Obis (of Stuck) at Chicago’s Palisades Studio and mixed by Dave Vettraino (Dehd, Deeper), “Sports Gun” simmers with intensity thanks to its pummeling bass riff, layers of feedback-laden guitars. It’s galvanizing, loud, and unrelenting.
De Magalhaes says of the track:
“Sports Gun is supposed to be written from the point of view of a coach/parental figure who
pushes the subject to their absolute limit without regard for them otherwise. It came from a shortstory I wrote pre-pandemic. The idea was that any trauma – long or short term notwithstanding -would only be implied, if that, and that we only get to experience the narrative through a very thin, biased lens. It’s a frail attempt at writing something inspired by Julio Cortazar, but I still thought it fit the drive of the song. It is supposed to be more about the lengths some people go to accomplish something, conflating happiness with ambition, and overall being inept at being content.
I knew that we were going to an actual studio this time around, so we built the song around the idea that it would sound “heavier” for us. We had wanted to record with Greg [Obis] and really loved the sound he was getting from his own music, so we were open to the notion of layering as much noise as we could. The original demo had a slightly different beat and I sort of rapped the lyrics. Once we got into the studio and everyone started adding their own take, I just went for the yell instead.”
Baltimore-born and Hamburg/Berlin-based, Sophia Kennedy shares new single ‘Imaginary Friend’ where she explores what it means to let go of a persona you’ve created yourself. Taken from new album Squeeze Me out 23rd May via City Slang, which follows the release of DJ Koze’s album Music Can Hear Us where Sophia is featured on two tracks. “Imaginary Friend is a song that has come a long way. It’s gone through many different stages to become what it is: a pop song”, Sophia says. “The song is also about a kind of transformation or metamorphosis of the different stages of coping with grief. It is about longing for reality and saying goodbye to an imagined idea of a person. Memories and longing can become obsessions, the imagined friend becomes an enemy. The decision to let go is therefore a liberating blow.” Director Timo Schierhorn said on making the video, “I’m not only a huge fan of Sophia Kennedy’s future-predicting pop songs, I also deeply admire her unique acting abilities. When we began developing ideas for the video, it quickly became clear that she needed a very specific kind of stage — something massive, hard to control, and a little bit dangerous. So we rented a 5.8-ton lift and moved it within just two millimetres of a three-million-euro glass facade. It gave her a performance space suspended 24 meters above the ground, where we could only communicate by radio.” He adds, “Cinematographer Tom Otte filmed from inside a shopping mall, through layers of glass, as Kennedy performed between six and nine characters in a single take. Every take was brilliant, but we had to choose just one. I still wonder who she was looking at. Far in the background, always present: the Atlantic.”
Stripped down compared to her previous works, Sophia embraces her talent for catchy melodies with pop appeal and psychedelic flourishes on Squeeze Me. A cinematic quality runs through the entire album’s 10 tracks — it’s no surprise, given Kennedy once studied film. Rigor and beauty, humor and melancholy, fatalism and strength – Squeeze Me inverts everything about Sophia Kennedy, echoing the album cover. Either she or the rest of the world is upside down, depending on each of our perspectives. More focused and more pop than ever, Squeeze Me is Kennedy’s most cohesive album, perhaps even a kind of artistic manifesto. It’s a multilayered, self-assured statement that thrives despite—or perhaps because of—all the inner and outer crises around and across it. Squeeze Me doesn’t ignore the world outside but instead counters it with one of its own—one we somehow recognize but have never glimpsed quite this way before.
Following her self-titled debut (2017, Pampa Records), a radiant dance between the glamour of the Great American Songbook, electronic textures, and clubland influences, earning her international acclaim, Kennedy released her second album, Monsters (2021, City Slang), and delved deeper into surrealism and transcendence. Now on Squeeze Me, Kennedy and her long-time musical collaborator and co-writer Mense Reents sketch a more disillusioned commentary on the status quo of the world at large. The complexity of interpersonal relationships, questions of power dynamics, and the quest for self-determination —longstanding themes for Kennedy—run as a cohesive narrative throughout the album.
More minimalist than her previous works, Squeeze Me brims with Kennedy’s gift for catchy melodies with a certain pop appeal and psychedelic hues: repetitive piano chords, shimmering synth bass lines, strangely flickering choirs, and even a scream set the sonic stage. The songwriting on Squeeze Me thrives in its stark simplicity, finding beauty in paring back. Over the hum of an organ and steady drum-machine beats, Kennedy casts off a stale, supposed dream state with irresistible charm and effortless cool. Sophia will play her second ever London show on 19th November at Shacklewell Arms – her first was almost 8 years ago in 2017. Tickets on-sale now.
Squeeze Me is out 23rd May via City Slang Records Pre-save / Pre-order
Tour Dates May 30th DE – Neustrelitz – Immergut Festival October 8th DE- Cologne- Bumann & Sohn October 9th DE-Offenbach – Hafen 2 October 10th DE-Stuttgart – Merlin October 11th CH-St. Gallen – Palace October 13th DE-Munich – Kranhalle October 14th AT-Vienna – Flucc October 15th DE-Dresden – Tonne October 16th DE-Leipzig – Conne Island October 19th DE-Berlin – Lido October 25th DE-Hamburg – Knust
Toronto psych-rock experimentalists LAMMPING return with “Never Never,” a full-tilt collaboration with Montreal rockabilly legend Bloodshot Bill, out May 6 via We Are Busy Bodies. The track supports their upcoming album Never Never, set for release on June 27, which marks the first installment of an ambitious four-album journey that will span genres, collaborations, and sonic time-travel over the next year.
After remixing Badge Époque Ensemble’s Clouds Of Joy album, Lammping’s Mikhail Galkin found himself re-immersed in the kind of sample-heavy hip-hop production he’d explored years earlier under the name DJ Alibi. Drawing on a style rooted in early ’90s East Coast rap but layered with live instrumentation and offbeat textures—somewhere between Pete Rock and The Avalanches—Galkin began blending those techniques into Lammping’s heavy psych-rock foundation.
The spark for Never Never came when the band reached out to Montreal rockabilly legend Bloodshot Bill, whose voice—gritty, elastic, and totally distinctive—felt like the perfect wildcard. The two had crossed paths over a decade earlier, and when Bill came to Toronto for a show, they booked a quick session. One track turned into three, and the album took shape around Jay Anderson’s breakbeat-style drumming, live jams, and flipped samples.
“‘Never Never’ was the first song that came out of this series of sessions, and it felt like a reset,” says Lammping producer Mikhail Galkin. “I was getting back into sampling, digging through records, pulling loops, then flipping them into songs. There are certain voices that always stood out to me. I always liked Bloodshot Bill’s voice and how he manipulates it and felt it would be a really cool instrument, so to speak, to feature on our stuff. It’s pretty harsh at times, but then he can drop it super low when needed. It generally has this animated feel.”
Originally built around a saxophone loop unearthed by bandmate Jay, the song became a springboard for collaboration. “I think the loop was kinda mischievous and rhythmically interesting, and it was recorded quite hot so it had a little bit of distortion. BB gravitated to it and used it as a springboard to write the song. He also shares a love of ’80s rap—when we were driving in his car, he had LL Cool J, Run DMC and Ultramagnetic MCs playing and all that, so it made sense that this project happened.”
Layer by layer, guitars, drums, and other samples were stirred into the mix, resulting in a gritty, genre-bending track that feels both chaotic and strangely cohesive. “I feel like BB is almost rapping on it,” Galkin adds, “but it still doesn’t become a hip-hop track. How weird the result became is what I love about the songs—I never get tired of it.”
Paired with a hallucinatory video directed and edited by Galkin himself, “Never Never” acts as a portal into the first chapter of Lammping’s upcoming 4 part series—a celebration of psychedelic music, hip-hop, the DIY punk aesthetic, and unfiltered creativity. It’s a record that doesn’t just reference influences, it inhabits them with total sincerity.
Today Swedish italo disco / synthpop duo Sally Shapiro share new single “Did You Call Tonight” from their upcoming album ‘Ready To Live A Lie’, which is due May 30th via Italians Do It Better.
On the track, the band said “Microcheating is the theme of this new single. Musically it’s inspired by 80s electro breakbeat, a bit slower and funkier than our usual style.”
Made up of producer Johan Agebjörn and an anonymous female vocalist who uses the pseudonym Sally Shapiro; the duo are known for their dreamy, melancholic sound and nostalgic homage to 1980s Italo disco and gained international recognition with their debut album Disco Romance (2007), which was then followed by My Guilty Pleasure (2009), Somewhere Else (2013) and their debut for Italians Do It Better Sad Cities (2022).
The name “Sally Shapiro” has always referred to both the duo, as well as the enigmatic anonymous singer whose real name is something else. But “Sally” is also a third entity: the fictional character singing about her love stories. It’s now been 18 years since Sally Shapiro’s debut album Disco Romance, that took influences from italo disco and indie pop with a naive and youthful flavor, as if everything “Sally” did was to “walk in the moonshine thinking about my love affairs”, as she once put it.
Ready To Live A Lie may, however, be the duo’s darkest album yet. The lyrics have shifted from the euphoria of first love to exploring “Sally’s” struggles in long-term relationships—love triangles, boredom, resentment, and the lingering sense of loneliness.
Ready To Live A Lie is out on Italians Do It Better on May 30th and includes the duo’s acclaimed Pet Shop Boys cover Rent.
Taking inspiration from synthwave, italo disco, nudisco, indie pop and bossanova, the album becomes their fifth studio album & their second for Italians Do It Better – again mixed together with label founder Johnny Jewel (Chromatics, Glass Candy, Desire).
Sally Shapiro’s forthcoming album ‘Ready To Live A Lie’ is now available for preorder on vinyl 2LP (pink vinyl or transparent electric blue vinyl), CD and digital from their Bandcamp page.
The Beths — the New Zealand-based quartet of vocalist Elizabeth Stokes, guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and drummer Tristan Deck — announce signing to ANTI- and release the new single/video, “Metal.” “Metal” is the first taste of new music from the band since the release of 2023’s Expert In A Dying Field (Deluxe), the expanded version of their beloved 2022 album.
Following Liz Stokes’s recent, sold–out solo show at Largo in Los Angeles with special guests Courtney Barnett and Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords), The Beths announce a world tour across North America, the UK and Europe this fall. The band returns to the U.S. for the first time since playing Coachella, Bonnaroo and Newport Folk Festival, and supporting The National, Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service in 2023-2024. They’ll headline some of their biggest venues to date including The Wiltern in Los Angeles, The Fillmore in San Francisco, The Salt Shed in Chicago, Brooklyn Paramount in New York City, Union Transfer in Philadelphia, 9:30 Club in Washington, DC and more. Tickets go on sale Fri. May 2 at 10am local and are available here.
Today’s single “Metal” was born out of a time of rigorous touring, mental health struggles, and several diagnoses for Stokes. “In some ways ‘Metal’ is a song about being alive and existing in a human body,” she explains. “That is something I have been acutely aware of in the last few years, where I have been on what one might call a ‘health journey’. For parts of the last few years, I kind of felt like my body was a vehicle that had carried me pretty well thus far but was breaking down, something I had little to no control over. All of the steps in the Rube Goldberg machine of life are so unlikely, and yet here we are in it. I have a hunger and a curiosity for learning about the world around me, and for learning about myself. And despite all the ways that my body feels like a broken machine, I still marvel at the complexity of such a machine.”
“I can hold that knowledge in one hand, and yet with the other hand I can point to my reflection and just be like ‘you are shit’. Or ‘ugly’. Or ‘worthless’. I can reliably respond to any suggestion that I might be able to achieve any small thing with ‘no’. And these are variations of the ‘short word’ referenced in the song.”
Sonically, the track sees The Beths fully embracing jangle rock. Stokes says, “There was a propulsion to the acoustic strumming pattern on the original demo. Tristan’s drums meet that feeling so perfectly, the feeling of a train pushing up the tracks. Jonathan got to play his Burns 12 string guitar as sparkly as he wanted, and Ben as usual can’t be contained to the lower register. I think we ended up with an arrangement that embodies the frenetic intricacy of an engine in action. There’s a lot going on, until there isn’t.”
2023’s Expert In A Dying Field (Deluxe) expanded upon the brilliance of The Beths’ acclaimed 2022 album, “another collection of tunes that cements their status as one of the great guitar-pop bands of this present moment” (Stereogum). The third studio album from The Beths, Expert In A Dying Field was released to a wealth of critical praise, and was named one of 2022’s best releases by the likes of Pitchfork, The Ringer, Stereogum and more. Surrounding its release, The Beths were profiled by Rolling Stone, made their U.S. television debut on CBS Saturday Morning, and performed a NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert, The Beths are undeniably one of the most exciting indie rock bands to emerge in recent memory.
The Beths Tour Dates: Thu. Sept. 18 – Dublin, IE @ Button Factory Sat. Sept. 20 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall Sun. Sept. 21 – Glasgow, UK @ SWG3 TV Studio Mon. Sept. 22 – Leeds, UK @ Project House Wed. Sept. 24 – Bristol, UK @ O2 Academy Thu. Sept. 25 – Birmingham, UK @ XOYO Fri. Sept. 26 – London, UK @ Roundhouse Sat. Sept. 27 – Brighton, UK @ CHALK Mon. Sept. 29 – Tourcoing, FR @ Le Grand Mix Tue. Sept. 30 – Paris, FR @ Le Trabendo Wed. Oct. 1 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique Fri. Oct. 3 – Cologne, DE @ Kantine Sat. Oct. 4 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Sun. Oct. 5 – Hamburg, DE @ Krust Tue. Oct. 7 – Stockholm, SE @ Slaktkyrkan Wed. Oct. 8 Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret Scene Thu. Oct. 9 – Copenhagen, DK @ Pumpehuset Sat. Oct. 11 – Berlin, DE @ Lido Sun. Oct. 12 – Munich, DE @ Strom Mon. Oct. 13 – Zurich, CH @ Plaza Wed. Oct. 15 – Barcelona, ES @ Razzmatazz 2 Thu. Oct. 16 – Madrid, ES @ Nazca Fri. Oct. 17 – Lisbon, PT @ LAV Thu. Oct. 30 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel* Fri. Oct. 31 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse * Sat. Nov 1 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl * Mon. Nov. 3 – Dallas, TX @ The Studio At The Bomb Factory * Tue. Nov. 4 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s * Thu. Nov. 6 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren * Fri. Nov. 7 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern * ^ Sat. Nov. 8 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore * Wed. Nov. 12 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades * Fri. Nov. 14 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom * Sat. Nov. 15 – Seattle, WA @ The Moore Theatre * Sun. Nov. 16 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom * Tue. Nov. 18 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall * Wed. Nov. 19 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre * Fri. Nov. 21 – Kansas City, MO @ The Truman * Sat. Nov. 22 – St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre * Sun. Nov. 23 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed (Indoor) * + Tue. Nov 25 – Cleveland, OH @ Globe Iron * Wed. Nov. 26 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Roxian Theatre * Fri. Nov. 28 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall * Sat. Nov. 29 – Montreal, QC @ Beanfield Theatre * Tue. Dec. 2 – Boston, MA @ Royale * Wed. Dec. 3 – Providence, RI @ Fete Music Hall * Fri. Dec. 5 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount * # Sat. Dec. 6 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer * Tue. Dec. 9 – Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club *
Montreal based multidisciplinary artist Annie-Claude Deschênes returns with new single “Main de Fer“, out now via Italians Do It Better & Bonsound.
On “Main de Fer”, Annie-Claude Deschênes fuses minimal techno with avant-garde to trigger a disorienting exploration through emotional isolation. An invisible grip engulfs the mind and erases the contours of the self, leading to a silence where breath is extinguished as the soul dissolves in the shadow of control. Its disturbing soundscapes and fragmented textures challenge the blindness of the self and others, offering us the opportunity to free ourselves from our inhibitions in a controlled chaos.
As a key figure on the Montreal independent music scene for the last two decades, she has left her mark as a performer & visual artist with Duchess Says & PyPy; two bands that are renowned as much for their electrifying live shows as they are for their artistic sensibilities. Always forward, her exploratory approach takes her into uncharted territory with her debut as a solo artist. The urgency that characterises her work remains, but frustration & aggression give way to introspection & vulnerability.
Over the course of her career, Annie-Claude Deschênes shared the stage with a number of renowned bands, including The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, The Black Lips, The Hives, The Hot Snakes & Buzzcocks, among others. Her debut solo album titled ‘LES MANIÈRES DE TABLE’ was released last year via Italians Do It Better & Bonsound.
Emerging from London’s underground music scene, The Sick Man Of Europe is distinctly monochrome in its outlook. Each note counts in this climate – economical but played with absolute precision and conviction. Propelled forward by machines and seeking solace in repetition. There are echoes of the post-punk and European art rock pioneers at the cusp of the 80s, but re-tooled for the present. The same fears. Looking for answers or something to believe in, but finding more questions in an age of absolutes.
Today we announce the debut set-titled album from The Sick Man of Europe, which is set for release June 20th via The Leaf Label and the lead single/video “Obsolete” is out now.
The Sick Man Of Europe demo tape arrived in a brown manila envelope accompanied by a short typewritten letter. Information was limited but what was clear, from the name, the imagery and typography, right through to the music – the project arrived almost fully formed. Minimal, but with a strong eye for the right detail.
On the eponymous debut album, that eye is focussed firmly on the battle between the internal and the external; the tensions between human identity, technological advancement and the pursuit of meaning in the modern world. “Where does the machine end and humanity begin?” TSMOE asks. “Can we transform ourselves in an increasingly impersonal world? Every day we feel the pressure to adapt and fit in, but that’s often at odds with our need for solitude and self-reflection. That’s where this record comes from.”
The Sick Man Of Europe name connects the current post-Brexit landscape to the austerity of Thatcherite Britain and the social conditions that shaped the likes of Bauhaus and Joy Division. These are touchstones for TSMOE, but the influence and discipline of Neu!, Suicide and Swans are just as intrinsic to the sound. Produced as a reaction to previous musical projects, TSMOE was looking for clarity and complete control in its creative endeavours. It’s consciously anti-rock in its recorded approach – no low-end bass guitar, minimal effects and no live drums. Dedication to the craft of focussed song writing rather than attempting to follow current production trends.
Lead single “Obsolete“ was the first track produced under these self-imposed restrictions. “There’s nothing more human than the fear of the inevitable and we’re reminded of it everywhere we look,” TSMOE explains. “As the relentless pace of progress takes over, everything we’ve ever made is retired so quickly in the name of endless growth. At what point do we become obsolete?”
The term ‘the sick man Of Europe’ has been associated with many nations over the years, having first been coined by Tsar Nicholas I to describe the Ottoman Empire in 1833, and has been used more recently as a label for the UK, Greece and Germany. It means something different depending on when and where you grew up, and the music of TSMOE holds that same ambiguous power. The debut album is a timely release as cold war maps are re-drawn and geopolitical tensions ramp up. TSMOE is a global citizen of an increasingly fractured world.
The Sick Man Of Europe will be released on black vinyl and as a limited edition of 300 on ‘Sanguine Red’ vinyl for sale through indie shops and on Bandcamp. The album follows the release of the Moderate Air Quality EP on cassette in February, and the EP tracks are included on the CD version of the album.
The Sick Man Of Europe accompanied Snapped Ankles on their recent UK tour, and will be performing widely over the course of this year with more dates to be announced soon.
Tour dates: Fri 16 May – Alternative Escape, Brighton UK Sat 17 May – In Colour Festival, Leeds, UK Sat 2 Aug – Multitude Fest, Milton Keynes, UK Sat 26 Jul – Deershed Festival, North Yorkshire, UK Sat 2 Aug – Multitude Fest, Milton Keynes, UK Sat 30 Aug – Manchester Psych Fest, Manchester, UK 23-25 Oct – Left Of The Dial Festival, Rotterdam, NL
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announce their 27th album Phantom Island, out June 13th, and share its lead single “Deadstick.” If you’re worried that, 15 years and 26 albums into their epic quest, polymorphous psychedelic voyagers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard might be running out of new frontiers to traverse, then let their latest opus set your mind to rest. The band’s second release on their own (p)doom records label, Phantom Island sees our intrepid heroes add a new dimension to their ever-evolving songcraft, embracing the symphonic and embroidering their tangles of lysergic riff and melody with strings and horns and woodwind.
The roots of the album can be traced back to the group’s legendary show at the Hollywood Bowl in June 2023. Gizz met some members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic backstage who urged them to take part in an annual series where the orchestra plays alongside rock and pop acts. Fast-forward to 2024, and the Gizz are hunkered down in their clubhouse, plugged into tiny practice amps and choogling to their hearts’ content. The results of these sessions yield that year’s Aria-nominated Flight b741. But these sessions yielded ten further songs that didn’t quite fit the Flight b741 vibe, and which, Mackenzie says, “were harder to finish. Musically, they needed a little more time and space and thought.”
Quickly, the group’s collective mind leapt to the LA Philharmonic. “The songs felt like they needed this other energy and colour, that we needed to splash some different paint on the canvas,” Mackenzie says. He reached out to friend, British historical keyboardist, conductor and arranger Chad Kelly. “He brings this wealth of musical awareness to his chameleon-like arrangements,” Mackenzie says. “We come from such different worlds – he plays Mozart and Bach and uses the same harpsichords they did, and tunes them the exact same way. But he’s obsessed with microtonal music, too, and all this nerdy stuff like me. Lead single “Deadstick” puts Kelly’s elaborate orchestrations on display, raising the graceful and complex song to the sublime, transforming it into a giddy jazz-rock riot.
On the song’s accompanying video, directorGuy Tyzack says: “I started off wanting to create a frame that looked like a landscape painting with many different people and set pieces dotted about. Deadstick refers to when a plane propeller stops midflight so I decided to have a massive plane made out of cardboard crash land into a beautiful location. The song is big and chaotic so then I went about casting swing dancers and eccentric extras to fill the landscape.”
If Flight b741 was an album of rambunctious adventure stories, Phantom Island picks up that thread, spinning its tales of quests and piracy out into the stars. But it’s a more interior album than its predecessor, more melancholy – more “introverted”, Mackenzie says. Sure, these are tales of high adventure in galaxies far, far away, but the focus is less on the action, and more on the interior lives of those adventurers, reflecting the kind of insight Gizz have gleaned from 15 years of travelling the world and leaving their homes behind to take their music to the people. There’s a wiser, more mature, more sensitive Gizz at play here, questioning their place within the universe, their responsibilities, the ties that bind. “When I was younger, I was just interested in freaking people out,” admits Mackenzie, “but as I get older, I’m much more interested in connecting with people.”
King Gizzard will embark on their 2025 Phantom Island orchestral tour this July. Featuring a different accompanying 29-piece orchestra in each city – and ably led by conductor & music director Sarah Hicks – the tour will see the group perform with some of the country’s most renowned ensembles, before concluding with Field of Vision, the band’s own 3-day residency camping event at Meadow Creek in Buena Vista, CO. This represents the band’s only U.S. tour of 2025, so don’t miss out on your fix for a full calendar year. A full list of dates are below with tickets available here.
KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD TOUR DATES (New dates in bold) Sun. May 18 – Tue. May 20 – Lisbon, PT @ Coliseu dos Recreios * Fri. May 23 – Sun. May 25 – Barcelona, ES @ Poble Espanyol * Thu. May 29 – Sat. May 31 – Vilnius, LT @ Lukiškės Prison 2.0 ^ Wed. June 4 – Fri. June 6 – Athens, GR @ Lycabettus Theatre City of Athens # Sun. June 8 – Tue. June 10 – Plovdiv, BG @ Ancient Theatre ^
Fri. June 13 – Sun. June 15 – Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival
Mon. July 28 – Philadelphia, PA @ TD Pavilion At The Mann (w/ Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia) $ Wed. July 30 – New Haven, CT @ Westville Music Bowl (w/ Orchestra of St. Luke’s) $ Fri. August 1 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium (w/ Orchestra of St. Luke’s) $ Sat. August 2 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium (Rock ‘n Roll Show) $ Mon. August 4 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion (w/ National Symphony Orchestra) $ Wed. August 6 – Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia Festival (w/ Chicago Philharmonic) $ Fri. August 8 – Colorado Springs, CO @ Ford Amphitheater (w/ Colorado Symphony) $ Sun. August 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl (w/ Hollywood Bowl Orchestra) $ Mon. August 11 – San Diego, CA @ The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park (w/ San Diego Symphony Orchestra) $
Fri. August 15 – Sun. August 17 – Buena Vista, CO @ FIELD OF VISION at Meadow Creek %
Fri. October 31 – Manchester, UK @ Aviva Studios (Rave Set) Sat. November 1 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton (Rave Set) Sun. November 2 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton (Rave Set) Tue. November 4 – London, UK @ Royal Albert Hall (w/ Covent Garden Sinfonia) Wed. November 5 – Paris, FR @ La Seine Musicale (w/ L’Orchestre Lamoureux) Thu. November 6 – Tilburg, NL @ 013 (Rave Set) Fri. November 7 – Den Bosch, NL @ MAINSTAGE ( w/ Sinfonia Rotterdam) Sun. November 9 – Gdansk, PL @ Inside Seaside Festival (w/ The Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra) Mon. November 10 – Berlin, DE @ Columbiahalle (Rave Set) Tue. November 11 – Prague, CZ @ SaSaZu (Rave Set) Wed. November 12 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer (Rave Set) Fri. November 14 – Copenhagen, DK @ Poolen (Rave Set) Sat. November 15 – Gothenburg, SE @ Gothenburg Film Studios (Rave Set)
* w/ Etran De L’Aïr ^ w/ King Stingray # w/ King Stingray, DJ Crenshaw $ w/ DJ Crenshaw % w/ Babe Rainbow, Gaye Su Akyol, King Stingray, Mannequin Pussy, Memo PST, Pearl Charles, The Mystery Lights, The Songs For Kids Band!, White Fence, DJ Crenshaw
Paddang is a psychedelic rock trio formed in Toulouse (France) in 2020. With Osees and King Crimson all over the radio and a band name inspired by a surf spot in Indonesia, Paddang are speeding through a cosmic epic that sounds like a Herbert prophecy. Far from hiding behind a wall of fuzz or a mountain of reverb, the three voices dictate the tone and invoke an urgent need to do something in a world on the brink of chaos. Their debut album ‘Chasing Ghosts’ was released in March 2023, backed up by a fifty-date tour in France (including festivals such as Ecaussystème, Musicalarue, Montauban en scènes, Guitare en Scène, V&B Fest and support slots with bands such as MADAM, Pogo Car Crash Control, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, and It It Anita).
Their second album will be released on June 6th 2025 on LE CÈPE RECORDS & STOLEN BODY RECORDS. After a first single, ‘‘PRESSURE’‘ released in April, the band will reveal on Friday a second track from the album, “PREDATOR” : youtube.com/watch?v=vudrz5XHbK8
Fierce and visceral, “Predator” explores the fragile boundary between human nature and primal instinct. It’s a raw track about survival, fear, and the predator that lies dormant within each of us. With powerful vocals and a relentless rhythm, it delivers an urgent message—where rock becomes a weapon against apathy. “Predator” is more than just a song; it’s a cry against the loss of our humanity. Shot like the final episode of a thrilling B-movie, the “Predator” music video picks up where Pressure left off. Deep within the belly of a cave, the Lizard Corp industrialists have gone too far, recklessly exploiting Draconite, a stone of mystical energy. Mutated into reptilian creatures, they launch a savage hunt for Moros through the scorched landscapes of a dying planet. Rescued at the last moment by a mysterious guardian inspired by Quetzalcoatl, Moros sets off for Agartha—a legendary city where she hopes to find a glimpse of peace.
Last March, Brooklyn’s Punchlove released their debut LP Channelson Kanine Records. Composed of multi-instrumentalists Jillian Olesen, Joey Machina, Ian Lange-McPherson, and visual artIst viz_wel, the group’s debut earned praise from outlets like Stereogum, Bandcamp, FLOOD and Paste, who called the album “one of the most compelling shoegaze debuts in recent memory” and included the album on their Best Debut Albums of 2024 list.
The album’s reception has paved the way for a busy start to 2025 for the band, who have already toured across the UK and Europe, and will be heading out in the US later this month. Last month, they also released a new single called “(sublimate)” that teased a promising new direction for the band. The track moved beyond the shoegaze swirl of their debut, introducing layers of glitchy electronics and a heavier sound, a wave of industrial-inflected noise pop that Consequence called “further proof of the Brooklyn-based outfit’s proclivity for tasteful disturbance.“
Where every Punchlove release to date has been self-produced, “Today You Can Learn The Secret” was co-produced with Xav Sinden. As Olesen explains, the track was inspired by an experiment in automatism that led to a revelation about the way her digital life had been impacting her subconciously.
Olesen says of the track:
This release is a surrealist, portal fantasy-inspired encounter with the unconscious mind. This latest song started with just the title itself (“Today You Can Learn the Secret”), and then Ian wrote all the instrumental parts. When it came time to write the lyrics, I had started leaving an open notebook next to my bed each night as a creative exercise in automatism I’d read about somewhere and basically started waking up to find all kinds of scribbles and chicken scratch all over the pages each morning. It was like scary psychological Christmas each morning. At times there was really raw stuff in there. It kinda freaked me out, but it was also exciting and really started to shift my perspective on my own humanity, as well as the world around me. It felt like I had a new window into understanding how certain things were really affecting me, and to start grasping the nuances of how I had been unknowingly absorbing and filtering my (excessively digital) daily stimuli on an unconscious level, from which I could begin to make real changes. So outlining my own experience and some of the recurring themes of these bizarre dream entries, O is the journey of moving from an outward facing, always-on, digital world in towards the deepest, darkest, realms of ourselves, where we are found face-to-face with our own humanity and mortality in new and unexpected ways.
