Shoegaze – Page 4 – 7th Level Music

Strange Ranger announce new album with new single, “She’s on Fire.”

Strange Ranger announce their transcendent new album, Pure Music, out July 21st via Fire Talk, and present a captivating new single/video, “She’s On Fire.” Strange Ranger’s music occupies a space best described as uncanny; on Pure Music, the band indulges an obsession with Loveless, but they infiltrate any comparison to shoegaze with overtures to disco, house, and experimental pop. “She’s On Fire” is only a rock song until just after the midway point, when the drums throb, the snare skitters then snaps, and suddenly, you’re in a sweaty pit of swaying bodies dancing as Isaac Eiger (vocals, guitar) and Fiona Woodman (vocals, synth) harmonize, “I would have thought the rhythm of the club might lead me somewhere.” It’s one of the best songs in their discography, with an accompanying video that presents their vivid, cinematic aesthetic to match.

“When you’re young, it feels like life has a kind of arc to it and up ahead in the future, there’s some point where all your experiences converge and this fog of confusion will lift and you will have arrived,” says Eiger, speaking on the inspiration behind the band’s new single. “This is definitely not true and increasingly, music is the steadying hand I lean on when looking for meaning. It provides a spiritualism that feels absent from much of life and I want to be as close to that feeling as possible.”

WATCH STRANGE RANGER’S VIDEO FOR “SHE’S ON FIRE”

Ever since Stranger Ranger hit the house show circuit many years ago, Eiger has returned to a Burial quote from one of his few recorded interviews: “Being on your own listening to headphones is not a million miles away from being in a club surrounded by people. Sometimes you get that feeling like a ghost touched your heart, like someone walks with you.” Though that Burial quote resonates, the songs that make up Pure Music have a pulse so strong they’re practically breathing; not touching your heart, but gripping it. Pure Music is easily the band’s most exciting and ambitious work to date.

Eiger, Woodman, Nathan Tucker and Fred Nixon recorded Pure Music at a cabin in upstate New York as a blizzard raged outside. The album elucidates the promise of No Light in Heaven, a mixtape that hinted the band was cocooned in a state of near total transformation. Pure Music emerged from the same sessions, and while No Light in Heaven resembles, in places, bygone iterations of Strange Ranger’s sound, Pure Music was made with so little concern for what anyone might expect of them, as if they were a band without history. It’s an album that feels out of this time, one that lives in a dimension running parallel to ours.

It’s been four years since Strange Ranger released the spirited Remembering the Rockets, and in the interim period, the band surveyed a range of electronic production techniques, determined to integrate them on Pure Music. That effort is apparent from the outset; opening track “Rain So Hard” is scaffolded upon layers of oceanic synths, the trill of a marimba, and a mournful guitar part that mirrors the lyrical content. Written while Eiger and Woodman were in the process of breaking up, “Rain So Hard” captures the romantic loneliness of a late subway ride home. Despite the breakup, Pure Music is Stranger Ranger’s most collaborative effort to date. “With a few exceptions, I can’t tell whose production ideas were whose, when I listen back to it,” says Nixon. “We were literally trapped in this cabin, manically working at all hours, and the energy was crazy, in a fun way.”

Pure Music embodies that manic state through interstitial interludes laced with YouTube samples that connect each track to the next so as to submerge the listener in its world, one that rewards catharsis. “Music makes us transcend the feeling of being alienated from or trapped by the world,” Woodman says. “I want the experience of listening to Pure Music to be euphoric.”

PRE-ORDER PURE MUSIC

WATCH STRANGE RANGER’S “RAIN SO HARD” VIDEO

PURE MUSIC TRACKLIST
1.Rain So Hard
2. She’s On Fire
3. Dream
4. Way Out
5. Blue Shade
6. Blush
7. Wide Awake
8. Ask Me About My Love Life
9. Fantasy
10. Dazed in the Shallows

STRANGE RANGER TOUR DATES
Sat. June 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ TBA w/ Blood & Zeke Ultra
Sat. June 17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Heaven w/Chanel Beads

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Review: Bodywash – I Held the Shape While I Could

The title of Bodywash‘s new record, I Held the Shape While I Could, is a perfect summary of how it feels to be barely holding your life together and then finally, sometimes blissfully, being able to drop that façade when you’re alone and just cry your eyes out.

The record was made as both Rosie Long Decter and Chris Steward were coming out points in their lives that had resulted in dissatisfaction, alienation, boredom, and heartbreak. Opening track “In As Far” sets up a major theme of the album (breaking through ennui by being willing to face it head-on) with Steward’s synths that burst open like the sun through clouds. “Picture Of” has Decter reminiscing about a past lover and how sometimes the memory is better than the relationship truly was (“You were hard to believe, asking everything close. You were hard to prove. Something to see and not know.” / “I decide to lie and wait, picture of desire in a frame.”)

“Massif Central” is Steward’s buzzing shoegaze tale of losing his Canadian work status in 2020 due to a typographical error, thus leaving him alienated and unemployed just as we were all hearing the early warnings of the pandemic. “Bas Relief” is an instrumental, sounding like ocean waves and wind and some kind of early 1990s mall music tape that’s been left near a space heater.

Steward sings about trying to fit in as half-Japanese, half-British (“To feel half is not to feel whole.”) and Canadian. “Kind of Light” is about Decter trying to fit in after after the end of a relationship while others are enjoying love around her (“Pull back all the ways you count her gone. Spend a year living trying to hold yourself to a certain kind of light.”)

“One Day Clear” is almost a spoken word piece as Decter tells a lonely tale and Steward plays simple, hypnotic, looping synths behind her. “Sterilizer” is a tale full of bright shoegaze guitars while discussing the idea trying to make a relationship work, but knowing, in your heart, that, while it feels good now, it’s probably going to make both of you bitter in the long run (“We talk inside of swallowed pride, still I warm your sleep tonight.”).

“Dessents” floats right into the snappy, electro-thumping “Ascents” – which is a lovely song about Decter and Steward’s friendship forged even harder during their long drives to gigs while working out their relationship woes. The shimmering sound and wispy vocals on “Patina” (another song about moving past an ended relationship) remind one of some Besnard Lakes tracks, which isn’t surprising when you consider that Jace Lasek from The Besnard Lakes recorded and mixed the album.

Decter is at least in the process of healing by the time we get to “No Repair.” Her vocals are a bit melancholy, but her voice doesn’t seem to be carrying as much weight, and the instrumentation behind her helps rejuvenate her and us. Lyrics like “And sometimes when I’m quiet and alone, I need no repair. If this is as far as it goes, write it in handfuls of air. You were there.”

That’s a lovely lyric to end a lovely album.

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Kali Horse release new single, “Wigs,” that encourages you to become someone new (if you feel like it).

Kali Horse (formerly Kaleidoscope Horse) is a psychedelic art-rock band from Toronto, ON. Their sound is theatrical and dreamy – bouncing between highly melodic and rhythmic, groovy sections. Driven both by strong song-writing and abstract sound-play, the band creates dimensions that are often jarring in comparison to one another, playing on tension and release. The contrast between Desiree Das Gupta’s powerful alto, and Sam Maloney’s feathery vocal timbre creates a balance of light and heavy, backed by full band harmonies.

Kali Horse’s world is an immersive world that they invite the audience into. Kali Horse are storytellers, their music is about telling a story with sound rather than a specific genre. The band are queer, multi-instrumentalist performers whose friendship is the bond of the band.

Sam and Des have been best friends for a decade and have been making music together for 7 years under different names, they are a huge part of the Toronto music community.

Kali Horse feature guest players from the Toronto music community on their recordings, including Luna Li (plays all the strings, violin, harp), Dylan from Hot Garbage plays stand-up bass and Sam’s partner plays singing bowls and tum drum.

Regarding, “Wigs,” Kali Horse says, “Ever wanted to change everything about yourself? Wigs is about trying things on – identity, bravado. Ever had a day so bizarre you felt like a different person? Through self-experimentation you discover a healthy aggression. You remember you’re worth a little more than what you’ve been putting up with, and you want everyone to know. The drums are in 7/4, the guitars in 4. You tell the moon what to do. You let the band catch up. You might not know where you belong, but you know nothing’s going to stay the same. Electronic trash drums mixed with a live kit thrash while the synth bass waves beneath. Wigs is a command, and Kali Horse will not stay in line.”

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Poison Ruin get creepy with their new single, “Resurrection II.”

Poison Ruin have released their latest single “Resurrection II” – a cathartic tale of the undead rising to take revenge upon those who have unknowingly wronged them. It’s full revenge fantasy with melodic rocking, equally split between surf motifs and new wave of British Heavy heavy metal riffing.

Watch “Resurrection II” (Official Music Video) via YouTube
Listen / Share / Playlist Here

Evoking a rich tapestry of ice-caked forests, metaphoric peasant revolts and silent knights, Poison Ruin stab at the pulsing heart of what it means to live under the permanent midnight of contemporary life. Their forthcoming album Harvest gazes at the world with a sense of grave seriousness, its stare softened only by the alluring seduction of a dream world’s open-ended possibility. These songs move with a type of uncanny confidence, assembling an array of references to past styles and sensibilities that collapse in on one another, congealing into a truly unique sonic landscape.

With Harvest, Poison Ruin aligns their sonic palette to their godless, medieval-inflected aesthetic symbolism, creating a record which strikes with an assured sense of blackened harmony.

“I’ve always found fantasy tropes to be incredibly evocative,” vocalist/guitarist Mac Kennedy notes, “that said, even though they are a set of symbols that seem to speak to most people of our generation, they are often either apolitical or co-opted for incredibly backwards politics.”

With Harvest’s lyrics and imagery, Kennedy reworks fantasy imagery as a series of totems for the downtrodden, stripping it of its escapist tendencies and retooling it as a rich metaphor for the collective struggle over our shared reality: “Instead of knights in shining armor and dragons, it’s a peasant revolt,” he explains, “I’m all for protest songs, but with this band I’ve found that sometimes your message can reach a greater audience if you imbue it with a certain interactive, almost magical realist element.”

These are not superficial or self-aggrandizing political statements. Rather, Poison Ruin stares into the abyss of present-day life with a sober and empathetic outlook, portraying our cracked reality as a complex and difficult to parse miasma of competing desires.

Philadelphia’s Poison Ruin first emerged in April of 2020 with their eponymous EP, which was followed shortly by a second eponymous EP the following February, both self-released. While they share a certain affinity for rough-around-the-edges, lo-fidelity stones with their compatriots Devil Master and Sheer Mag, Poison Ruin wants things bleaker. The up-tempo guitar heroics of their first two EPs (which were collectively released as a S/T LP in February of 2021) have been dragged through the trenches, emerging as a heavy morass of breathless gloom. With Harvest, Poison Ruin have constructed a richly chilling fable out of modern living. Their tale is as lurid as it is seductive, as much a promising fantasy as it is a dreary portrait of reality itself.

Poison Ruin’s Relapse debut, Harvest was mastered by Arthur Rizk. It sees its release on April 14 alongside the reissue of their eponymous 2021 LP which has established the band as one of punk and the underground’s newest beloved treasures. Poison Ruin will tour extensively this year. They’re currently touring across the Southwest and hit SXSW next week, plus NYC and a hometown PHL release show. In April they head overseas for a full EU / UK run including a performance at Roadburn. See below for a full list of dates.

Pre-Save / Playlist Harvest on Digital Platforms Here
Pre-Order Harvest on Vinyl / CD Here
Pre-Order S/T on Vinyl / CD Here

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[Thanks to Bailey at Another Side!]

“Don’t Fade Away” from Beach Fossils’ new single.

Today, Beach Fossils announce Bunny, their first studio album since 2017, out June 2nd on Bayonet. In conjunction with today’s announcement, they present its lead single/video, “Don’t Fade Away.” Throughout the last fifteen years, Beach Fossils have steadily earned their stature as one of the most definitive and enduring bands of the 2010s New York underground, consistently reaching new listeners as their sound has grown from the DIY solo project of Dustin Payseur to an influential four-piece dream pop band, self-produced, self-managed and self-released. Bunny represents strength through vulnerability.

“Sharpening their fidelity and dream-pop instincts on every successive release” (INTERVIEW), Bunny continues the stunning evolution of Beach Fossils’ sound, pulling elements from the jangly melancholy of What a Pleasure EP (2011), the gritty, post-punk inspired tracks from Clash the Truth (2013), and the lush arrangements of Somersault (2017). Inspired by the psych-pop of early Verve and Spiritualized albums and perennial influences like the Cure, Wire, the Byrds, and the Velvet Underground, Bunny was produced and recorded by Payseur himself, with Lars Stalfors (St. Vincent, Soccer Mommy, Lil Peep) mixing. Payseur remarks that in creating this album, a bigger emphasis was made for stronger attunement to pop structure. “When I wrote the first record, there were no choruses; it was instrumental guitar parts in between verses. This is the first record where I’ve consciously thought about writing a chorus.” Throughout, he’s joined by core band members Tommy Davidson (guitar), Jack Doyle Smith (bass), and Anton Hochheim (drums).

From poignant words about a family member’s cancer battle and the joy of being a father, to small, but meaningful moments with friends, Bunny is the band’s most vivid, grounded and personal work to date. The songs reflect on depression, love, adventure, loss, mistakes, New York City, friendships coming and going — a mélange of granular pieces in the process of continuing to find yourself. Payseur’s collage-like lyrics communicate through tone and mood as much as narrative; New York poets like Frank O’Hara, Ted Berrigan, and Anne Waldman were on his desk, as was the Tao Te Ching.

Today’s single, “Don’t Fade Away,” is an instant earworm. The video, directed by Kevin Clark (Finneas, Flatbush Zombies), sees Payseur crooning across a beautiful array of late night backdrops, from elevator cabs to Los Angeles’ El Capitan Theater. Of the track, Payseur adds: “‘Don’t Fade Away’ is about missing old friends, being on tour, self-medicating, longing, anxiety, love, being an idiot, having fun, embracing your mistakes and keeping your spark.”

Watch “Don’t Fade Away”

Beach Fossils have sold-out concerts at venues including Brooklyn Steel in New York, The Wiltern in Los Angeles, Thalia Hall in Chicago, and beyond, and played Coachella, Bonnaroo, Primavera, and Post Malone’s Posty Fest. The band’s latest release, 2021’s The Other Side of Life: Piano Ballads, hit No. 3 on the Billboard Traditional Jazz Albums chart and the band recently cracked seven million monthly listeners total across all platforms. Bayonet Records is a genre-expansive independent label Payseur co-founded in 2014; it continues to serve as an incubator for a diverse roster of developing artists.

Pre-order Bunny

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Ratboys send us a new single from “Black Earth, WI.”

Today, Chicago-based band Ratboys return with “Black Earth, WI,” a new single/video out today via Topshelf Records. This is their first new piece of music since 2021’s Happy Birthday, Ratboy and 2020’s beloved Printer’s Devil. Clocking in at eight-and-a-half minutes, “Black Earth, WI” is their most expansive and adventurous track to date. It opens with a country-tinged sound, and as the instrumentation swells, so does Julia Steiner’s voice: “Singin’ hey now // What was that sound // Lighting a match // Just to freak you out // Then on the other side // I saw fifty yellow lines // Pushing up against the window // And with one almighty lightning strike // The Great Lake rose up behind // Said, ‘Baby, you best turn around.’” The self-produced video is made of manipulated, found VHS storm chaser footage.

“We recorded ‘Black Earth, WI’ live off the floor in Seattle last year at the amazing Hall of Justice and it was our first time recording straight to tape,” says vocalist/guitarist Julia Steiner “We had to be conscious of how many takes we could fit onto a reel, but lucky for us, take two was the one.”

Watch Ratboy’s Video for “Black Earth, WI”

Stream “Black Earth, WI”

Ratboys is made of Julia Steiner (vocals/guitar), Dave Sagan (guitar), Marcus Nuccio (drums), and Sean Neumann (bass). The band will bring their vivacious live show to SXSW later this month. A list of all shows and confirmed showcases can be found below.

Ratboys Tour Dates
Sun. March 12 – St. Louis, MO @ Central Stage
Tue. March 14 – Austin, TX @ Cheer Up Charlie’s Indoors (High Road Touring Showcase) – 12:30AM
Wed. March 15 – Austin, TX @ Hotel San Jose (South by San Jose) – 3:00PM
Thu. March 16 – Austin, TX @ Cheer Up Charlie’s Outdoors (Topshelf Records Showcase) – 12:00AM
Fri. March 17 – Austin, TX @ The Ballroom (SmartPunk Showcase) – TBD
Thu. March 30 – Notre Dame, IN @ University of Notre Dame – Stepan Center
Sat. April 22 – Iowa City, IA @ Strauss Hall at Hancher

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Bodywash release “No Repair” ahead of their new album due this April.

Bodywash — the Montreal duo of Chris Steward and Rosie Long Decter — present their new single/video, “No Repair,” from their forthcoming album, I Held the Shape While I Could, out April 14th on Light Organ Records. Following lead single “Massif Central” and its “infinite heights” (FLOOD), “No Repair” swells with lap steel by Micah Flavin, evoking a melancholy waltz while Long Decter’s hummed vocals drift in and out of time. “Write it in handfuls of air,” she sings on the ballad, “you were there,” insisting on both absence and presence in the end. “No Repair” features Ryan White on percussion and was mixed by Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes) with Harris Newman mastering the track.

Long Decter explains: “In my early 20s I found myself in a disastrous love triangle—or what Chris took to calling my ‘bizarre love oblong.’ It was a mess of bad decisions and repressed queer longing and those things you chase because you hope they will prove you are real. I found myself writing repetitively about light and air and the absence of tactility. ‘No Repair’ came from the decision to let all that go; to try to lose the shape of it. I started writing it in 2019 and finished it with Chris in 2021, letting it simmer over two years of lockdown and sitting with myself. It feels strange and sweet to be releasing it at a time when I have a new sense of ground underneath me and someone to share that feeling with. The video, filmed in my living room (and briefly in an outdoor parking lot during -30 Celsius), puts some of those themes into a different context. Loneliness after a party transforms into a dismantling of things, and rearranging them somewhere else.”

Watch Bodywash’s “No Repair” Video

Over I Held the Shape While I Could’s twelve tracks, Steward and Long Decter reflect on their separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the fallout. As they prepared to release their 2019 debut Comforter, Long Decter and Steward both experienced alienating shifts in their personal lives, leading to a mutual sense of dislocation. They began writing new material that was darker, more experimental, and at the same time more invigorating than the soothing dream pop on Comforter. The resulting I Held the Shape While I Could is a record that lives in the sonics of decay and renewal: breaks that burst forth from a squall of fuzz guitars, drones that glitch and stutter like ice willing itself to thaw.

There are many places like home, and on I Held the Shape While I Could, home is a mutable thing; a location that is fixed until it isn’t. Across the record, Steward’s abstract guitars and Long Decter’s cascading vocals act as ambient throughlines, blurring the digital and organic, gesturing toward something intangible, just out of reach. Home is a process — the back and forth of guitar riffs and vocal hums, of files sent and received across the ocean. A world imagined and sculpted together.

Alongside I Held the Shape While I Could, Bodywash will release Take Form, a 30-page booklet that expands the world of the album. Designed by Yoon Rachel Nam (Desert Bloom, Cedric Noel), Take Formfeatures the complete album lyrics alongside poems, a short story, and guitar tabs by Long Decter and Steward, as well as art by Kristina Pedersen. This 50-copy limited run creates a new resonance for the recordings.

Pre-order Take Form

Bodywash Tour Dates
Fri. Mar. 17 – Austin, TX @ Hotel Vegas (The Nothing Song SXSW 2023 Official Showcase – 9PM)
Sat. Mar. 25 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Fest – Neurolux
Tue. Mar. 28 – Portland, OR @ No Fun Bar *
Wed. Mar. 29 – Tacoma, WA @ Spanish Ballroom *
Fri. Mar. 31 – Seattle, WA @ Homegrown in the Basement *
Sat. Apr. 1 – Vancouver, BC @ 604 Studios *
Sun. Apr. 9 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
Mon. Apr. 10 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
Wed. Apr. 12 – Toronto, ON @ Baby G +
Thu. Apr. 13 – Ottawa, ON @ Live on Elgin
Sat. Apr. 15 – Montreal, QC @ La Sotterenea +
Mon. Apr. 17 – Boston, MA @ O’Brien’s
Tue. Apr. 18 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fire
Fri. Apr. 21 – Manhattan, NY @ Berlin

* w/ Vox Rea
+ w/ Tallies

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Mandy, Indiana release first single, “Pinking Shears,” from their debut full-length album.

Mandy, Indiana “excel at making an impression” (FADER). Today, the Manchester-bred quartet announce their debut album, i’ve seen a way, out May 19th on Fire Talk Records. Recorded in caves, crypts and shopping malls, i’ve seen a way is everything at once: an exquisitely rendered debut, expertly twisting genre to channel the chaos of everyday life. Mandy, Indiana draw on a broad sonic palette of experimental noise and industrial electronics, with frontwoman Valentine Caulfield’s lyrics of fury and fairytales completing the band’s soundworld.

Lead single “Pinking Shears” is all rude swagger and rhythms that strut on metal legs, with Caulfield expressing (in her native French) frustration at the state of the world. She runs through the myriad of inequalities, everyday aggressions, and grievances that plague our existence in late stage capitalism.

Mandy, Indiana thrive in the unexpected, and their live sets have become a vehicle to explore the boundaries of tension and release. The accompanying “Pinking Shears” video, recorded in Manchester, captures their thrilling live performance. The band will make their long-awaited US live debut at SXSW.

Watch Mandy, Indiana’s “Pinking Shears” Video

Mandy, Indiana’s music is made from their place within the world, having formed out of the fertile Manchester scene and arriving fully-realized. The group initially came to fruition after Caulfield and guitarist/producer Scott Fair met sharing a bill with their former projects. Joined by Simon Catling (synth) and Alex Macdougall (drums), Mandy, Indiana have generated a sound that is once chaotic and precisely tuned. The “Berghain-ready” (them) early single “Injury Detail” was released to a wealth of critical praise from the likes of FADER (deeming the track a “Song You Need”), Stereogum (previously naming Mandy one of 2021’s “Best New Bands”) and Pitchfork, who hailed: “Mandy, Indiana have mastered the sound of mechanized violence.”

Their first recordings emerged around 2019, with a smattering of early singles released not long after, culminating in 2021’s acclaimed “…” EP, released via Fire Talk, which saw the band draw early cosigns including a Daniel Avery remix and support slots from Squid and Gilla Band. The latter’s Daniel Fox mixed several of the tracks on i’ve seen a way, alongside Robin Stewart of Giant Swan. Produced by the band’s own Fair, the album was mastered by indie stalwart Heba Kadry.

Unlikely off-site recording locations with novel acoustics were crucial to achieving i’ve seen a way’s unique sound, from recording screaming vocals in a Bristol mall to live drums in a West Country cave — the latter’s session cut short by literal spelunkers. Other sessions happened in Gothic crypts, where Mandy, Indiana’s physical bass frequencies and experiments with volume competed with underground roadworks in upsetting a yoga class above. i’ve seen a way is a manifesto for these moments of openness and disruption.

i’ve seen a way manipulates chance recording operations into percussive geometries, one where gnarled guitars sit in thickets of distortion and vocals spin knots of lyrical repetitions. Fair explains, “We wanted to alter textures, create clashes, and craft those moments when what you’re expecting to happen never comes.”

Pre-order i’ve seen a way

i’ve seen a way Tracklist
1. Love Theme (4K VHS)
2. Drag [Crashed]
3. Pinking Shears
4. Injury Detail
5. Mosaick
6. The Driving Rain (18)
7. 2 Stripe
8. Iron Maiden
9. Peach Fuzz
10. (ノ>ω<)ノ :。・:*:・゚’★,。・:*:♪・゚’☆ (Crystal Aura Redux)
11. Sensitivity Training

Mandy, Indiana Tour Dates
Wed. Mar. 1 – Manchester, UK @ Soup
Wed. Mar. 15 – Sun. Mar. 19 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
Mon. May 22 – Utrecht, NL @ Freaky Dancing
Fri. June 16 – Mannheim, DE @ Maifeld Derby
Sat. July 8 – Trencin, SK @ Pohoda
Sat. July 22 – Standon, UK @ Standon Calling
Sat. Aug. 5 – Katowice, PL @ OFF
Fri. Oct. 27 – Manchester, UK @ The White Hotel *
Sat. Oct. 28 – Glasgow, UK @ Hug & Print *
Sun. Oct. 29 – Newcastle, UK @ Zerox *
Wed. Nov. 1 – Bristol, UK @ Dareshack *
Thu. Nov. 2 – Brighton, UK @ Green Door Store *
Fri. Nov. 3 – London, UK @ Corsica Studios *
Sat. Nov. 4 – Nottingham, UK @ Bodega *

* = Headline Show

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Tanukichan tells us to “Take Care” on her new single.

Tanukichan‘s sophomore LP GIZMO is due out March 3rd via Company Records. A project led by Hannah van Loon, in collaboration with the Grammy-nominated chillwave pioneer Chaz Bear of Toro y Moi, their album is the follow up to their debut LP, Sundays, arelease that saw an enthusiastic response when it was released in 2018, earning praise from outlets like Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, FADER, Stereogum, Loud & Quiet and The AV Club.

The album’s lead single “Don’t Give Up“ was greeted with excitement upon its release, earning best of the week nods from outlets like MTV and Pitchfork, and the follow up “Thin Air” that featured Aramis Johnson of the Tacoma, Washington band Enumclaw, earned similar acclaim when it was released alongside a Stereogum feature about the new LP.

Today, Tanukichan is sharing a final single from the LP, a track called “Take Care”.

LISTEN to Tanukichan’s “Take Care” HERE

“I wrote ‘Take Care’ when I was feeling especially depressed,” explains Van Loon. “I felt so down and bummed out that I started cutting people out of my life. I felt like whenever I had interactions with others I was such a drag that I would bring down the mood. I had nothing I wanted to talk about so I just cut off from people. It was painful to feel isolated and I craved companionship or friendship even more, but I knew that someday I would come out of it, and hopefully we would be friends again.“

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Spotlights get “Algorithmic” ahead of the release of their new album due April 28, 2023.

Spotlights, the hypnotic trio featuring married couple Mario and Sarah Quintero with Chris Enriquez, release their new album, Alchemy For The Dead, on April 28 via Ipecac Recordings.

The album, written and recorded following the band’s move to Pittsburgh, finds the trio once again balancing the tightrope of light and dark, toying with sonic texture, and as Invisible Oranges described Spotlights’ unique “magic” that’s “flickering with unnamable emotionality.” Mario Quintero shares the band’s mindset while writing and recording Alchemy For The Dead: “Our focus when making this record was to not repeat ourselves. I think we achieved our goal. Though we’re proud of all our releases, making just another ‘Spotlights’ album wasn’t an option. Pushing our own boundaries while creating something cathartic, yet strangely suffocating, with new sounds and textures as well as more personal and self-reflective themes, this album feels like a new fork in the path for us. Hopefully the listeners will follow.”

A preview of the nine-song collection arrives today with the release of the Oleg Rooz- created video for “Algorithmic” (https://youtu.be/19TqHZBUOgY). “For me, the song has a religious theme to it,” Mario adds. “It touches on the story of resurrection and afterlife in this one narrative, while wondering, does any of it really matter?” That narrative, one of death, the resistance and acceptance to one of life’s most secretive aspects, is a lyrical theme throughout Alchemy For The Dead.

Album pre-orders, which include two 2LP vinyl variants: a standard black version and a limited-edition gold edition available exclusively via Ipecac.com and on the band’s upcoming Alchemy For The Dead tour, can be found here: https://spotlights.lnk.to/AFTD. Vinyl is slated for an Aug. 4 release.

Alchemy For The Dead tour:

April 26 Pittsburgh, PA Club Café

April 27 Grand Rapids, MI Pyramid Scheme

April 28 Chicago, IL Subterranean Downstairs

April 29 Tolono, IL Loose Cobra

April 30 St. Louis, MO Red Flag

May 1 Kansas City, MO Mini Bar

May 3 Denver, CO Hi Dive

May 4 Salt Lake City, UT Kilby Court

May 6 Sacramento, CA Club Colonial

May 7 San Francisco, CA Winters Tavern

May 11 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Palladium*

May 12 San Diego, CA Tower Bar

May 14 Las Vegas, NV House of Blues*

May 16 Denver, CO Mission Ballroom*

May 17 Salt Lake City, UT Union Event Center*

May 19 Seattle, WA Showbox*

May 20 Seattle, WA Showbox*

May 21 Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom*

May 23 Oakland, CA Fox Theater*

May 24 Oakland, CA Fox Theater*

May 27 Denton, TX Dan’s Silverleaf

May 28 Austin, TX Hotel Vegas

May 30 Tulsa, OK Whittier Bar

May 31 Shreveport, LA Bear’s

June 1 Little Rock, AR Mutants Fest

June 2 Nashville, TN Drkmttr

June 3 Atlanta, GA The Earl

June 4 Gainesville, FL The Backyard

June 9 Miami, FL Gramp’s

June 10 Tampa, FL The Orpheum

June 11 Orlando, FL TBA

June 13 Columbia, SC TBA

June 14 Charlotte, NC Snug Harbor

June 15 Asheville, NC The Odd

June 16 Knoxville, TN The Pilot Light

June 17 Louisville, KY Kaiju Bar

June 18 Columbus, OH Big Room Bar

June 21 Harrisonburg, VA The Golden Pony

June 22 Baltimore, MD Metro Gallery

June 23 Philadelphia, PA Ortlieb’s

June 24 Brooklyn, NY Saint Vitus

*-Ipecac Geek Show performances

Birdhands open on dates between April 27 to May 1. Rile open from May 3 to May 6. Dates between May 11 and 24 are the Ipecac Geek Show with labelmates Mr. Bungle and the Melvins.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Monica at Speakeasy PR.]