[engl] RAYMONDE HOWARD likes it short. With this record called le Lit, she did a soundtrack to the movie of the same name. Expect some infectious and « I just can’t get em outta my head » songs in her traditional trademark aka choruses and lalala’s that won’t be easy to forget. Raymonde is as sharp and cute as Rowland. She knows how to play guitar as well. Looping voices and riffs, that’s her thing. Creating 90 seconds masterpieces after masterpieces. The shorter, the more efficient. She’s got the sense of pop. Writing catchy choruses that stick to your brain forever. A real talent. Yes, she’s amazing and I don’t need to write a stupid biography or explain why. Just listen to her goddamn songs.

[engl] We are so excited to finally, officially announce the brand new LP from Washington, DC’s The Rememberables! Breathe, their second full-length, will be available everywhere Friday, October 8th, and is being released in conjunction with our friends Head2Wall Records in the USA. Descended from the ‘90s wave of guitar-driven power pop bands that owed as much to Van Halen as to Big Star, The Rememberables have crafted a hook-laden, fuzzed out masterpiece. Deftly produced by the legendary Kurt Ballou to perfectly capture every subtle nuance of their deep and sophisticated approach to the genre, this is not a record to miss. The Rememberables formed in 2013 in Washington DC and solidified their lineup one year later with the addition of Chris Moore on drums (Coke Bust, Repulsion, etc). After releasing their self-titled debut EP in 2015, the quartet coupled that with new songs to create the 2017 self-titled LP. The seven track effort, which saw release via Adagio830, was engineered by Kevin Bernsten (Triac, Eyeflys) at Developing Nations Studio in Baltimore, MD and mastered by Brad Boatright (From Ashes Rise) at Audiosiege Engineering in Portland, OR. The band released a pair of digital tracks in late 2019 as the B-Side You EP before heading into the studio in 2019 to record Breathe.

[engl] The Rememberables (members of Coke Bust, Walk the Plank, etc.), from Washington D.C., deliver a modern blend of grunge, power pop and fuzzy 90s alternative, reminiscent of Superchunk, Weezer, & Dinosaur Jr., on their infectious debut album. Seven blistering tracks serve as a perfect accompaniment for your summer drive -- windows down, hair blowing, engine roaring fast down endless highways. In other words - loud, refreshing and catchy as hell.

[engl] Influenced in equal measure by both sides of the street and the top and bottom of the charts, Richard Papiercuts’ “IF” sets a new standard for ambitious pop music on a shoestring budget. Meticulously recorded throughout New York City over the course of a turbulent year, Papiercuts & co. traffic in shades of light and dark. Like a master of ceremonies at an underground cabaret, Papiercuts -- a mystery man of uncertain origin and pedigree -- is an expert guide to the many quandaries of a modern metropolitan existence. “IF” is unafraid to explore a complex inner life rife with anxiety and doubt, yet reveling in the sensual pleasures only the contemporary cityscape can provide. “IF” is the ultimate marriage of subversive, underground sensibilities and classic songwriting craftsmanship silhouetted on a larger-than-life canvas. This music encompasses an ordinary life played out in widescreen. We are all our own celluloid heroes, Papiercuts seems to be telling us. Embrace your starring role, be your biggest fan. “How It Really Begins” opens the album as an interruption -- the band in mid-rock-out -- a throbbing pulse peppered with sudden starts and stops, used here not as demonstrations of musical prowess, but as building blocks of tension. Papiercuts’ deep voice walks a thin line between utter sincerity and gentle mocking -- here used to excellent effect as the band engages in a sort of stately post-punk, all jagged propulsion and knowing winks. “How It Really Begins” is a suitably thrilling beginning to the masterful new album by enigmatic troubadour Richard Papiercuts. “Bull and Cup Relax” is a slowly twisting trip through latter-day psychpop, an update on Tears For Fears’ update on The Beatles. Future smash “Peanut Butter Is Back” features an instant hook that could be chanted by cheerleaders or groups of school children. Viral YouTube videos are waiting in the wings for this one.... Dousing cocaine dreams in cascades of champagne, “The Sorrow Of Faith” is a late-night lament that summons decadent images of 1980s excess -- an attempt to maintain an unsustainable harem, and no amount of silk pillows will cushion the inevitable fall. Bryan Ferry is on the phone right now, asking his manager why nobody has brought him a song this good in years. “The Sorrow OF Faith” works perfectly as both reflecting pool and enticing come-on -- it is the hand that reaches out from the darkness to clasp your own. “Twelve Days” is a beautiful pop-psych gem that gleams like The Byrds covering The Velvet Underground. The song tries to hide its darkness from you, but it is unmistakably present in the gently roiling verses. “They Tried To Change Me” taps back into Richard Papiercuts’ aggressive side, utilizing sheets of guitars and a pounded piano to air its complaints. “Now I’ve Found You” leans hard into its romantic overtures, but allows them to include family into its lovefest. “Tired Of Playing The Drums” is some kind of funhouse mirror take on a Dire Straits or Don Henley ‘80s chestnut. It shouldn’t work, but it does, and how. The smoldering Papercuts of “Personality” is the smoothest talker at the bar, and you can’t resist his charms; the music swooning and swelling along with you. After such an eventful journey, “Manhattanville” is the perfect endpoint, its deadpan coda telling us that “Life is only so long.” Richard Papiercuts is adult music made by adult adults. “IF” is an album that harkens back to the old world of Brecht and Weill, Bowie and Cale -- and is surely one of 2015’s boldest musical statements.

[engl] When we last checked in with urban troubadour Richard Papiercuts, he was leading his band through the ambitious pop of IF, his debut for Ever/Never. A major statement from an unknown artist, IF was ripping with drama and daring listeners into a twilight world rife with lust, life, and the many contradictions contained within such four-letter words. Now three years wiser, Papiercuts has shed some of the mystery to confront the camera dead-on. Twisting the Night is a glossier production, timeless while conjuring the flickering pop-surrealism of ‘80s music videos and the grandiose maximalism of Peter Gabriel, INXS, and Tears for Fears, but on a 20 hour studio time limit. Over the course of TTN's four songs, Papiercuts and his crack band sculpt stately tableaus that hew toward the dark side of pop while avoiding cliches and sentimentality. 'There’s no correction, no distortion / in the way your voice cuts through the air': So begin the lyrics to opening cut 'A Place to Stay,' which serves as a re-introduction to Papiercuts’s sound-world, this time around avoiding obfuscation and willing to meet the listener halfway. 'Starless Summer Night', an epic, seven-minute centerpiece, is described by Papiercuts as a 'lucid nightmare' in the tradition of the Elevators and Tom Verlaine, but where apocalyptic dread mingles with the everyday anxieties of fatherhood. This is big pop music for big hearts and minds. But the hit on Twisting the Night is 'The Riddle,' a shimmering anthem that whorls about like a mirage, seducing the listener as it takes its time to get into its zone. 'World and Not World' closes out the EP with hints of Madchester poking through the rhythm ’n’ wooze. 'Turn it off,' Papiercuts pleads. But we’ve got a better idea: flip the record over and start the journey again.

[engl] Formed by Brazilians Gustavo Riviera and Paulo Kishimoto from the band Forgotten Boys and American Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth, Riviera Gaz presents their debut album “Connection” on CD, LP and K7, released Hearts Bleed Blue (HBB). The band, as drummer Steve describes it, is “international and multiracial” and for that reason, “Connection” took three sessions to take shape. In the first one, Ubu, Take it, Crowboy were recorded and also appear on their 2016's EP. As two other recording sessions took place when the trio were on tour. “For the process to be legal, the direct mix will be done very well, without any fuss. John represented this very well. We will work more and more in gear, but the result of the record is very coherent”, says vocalist and guitarist Gustavo. The album, full of cultural references, has the title and the track Cowboy inspired in the film “The Connection” (1961) by Shirley Clarke, based on the play by Jack Gelber. Pere Ubury, text by Alfred Jar King Ubury. The cover of “Connection” features a work by the plastic artist Hudinilson Jr. (1957 - 2013). However, as musical influences that pass through The Kinks, T.Rex, Velvet Underground, Ramones, Beatles and Rolling Stones, also appear on Riviera Gaz's debut album. If I Had One track that talks about hopelessness, according to Gustavo, it was designed to sound like the Ramones, but then it was transformed. “It was the last song written for the record, it's fresh and reveals the energy that the band is”, he says. "Bleeding", with influences from The Kinks and The Stooges, was composed in the studio during recording. “I had the base, we discussed a few things, took stock and recorded. This song for me is the final scene of a movie, set in the last moments of life, a little confused, death coming”, reveals Gustavo.

[engl] Limited to 250 copies.

[engl] Like the millennial squishing of dumb rock into diamonds that eventually adorn dames' fingers, it's the geezers—intimate with dreams crushed by the hard knox of indifference—who're truly capable of squeezing out acerbic pop gems that burn hot. They know. SCUPPER's MIKE JANSON licked gold encrusted sushi bowls with the darlings of alt rock supremacy during his time with LYNNFIELD PIONEERS. They issued two weirdly great long players on Matador in the mid '90s, only to have their ruins smote upon the mountainside of pop culture refuse. No less an aficionado of such things as Aging Baldini at Fuckin' Record Reviews hailed Janson as "the Goffin/King of basement power bomp." Janson's since fleshed out his new blood vision with bassist ANDREW SHUMWAY (defected from the Jersey City suburban basement Lizzy/Priest smoke out collective A?SS, where he traded u?mlauty riffs with The Mad Scene’s Brian Turner and former Crucifucks drummer Steve Shelley) and drummer RICHARD AMARI, who brings a level of combustible professionalism with which indie rockers are too often unfamiliar. Together, they're as sharp and tight as a giant burning orb stuffed inside the velvet balcony at Radio City. Based on the youthful energy bouncing off all corners of “Everything,” Scupper haven’t lost a step in the downtime. Both “Everything” and its flip, “Drown Me Out,” nail the kind of surging, harmony-laden melodic punk that Superchunk used to specialize in. But Scupper’s newest single is no mere nostalgia trip—these songs are flesh and blood and standing right in front of you.

[engl] On Affective Design, his second opus on Kythibong, Seal of Quality cooks an other chiptunes recipe. Like the last time, he plays with keyboards, guitar, gameboy and voice. But for this new album, he adds a poppy twist that allows that sort of energetic quietness specific to the long distance runner. Drink an orange juice, press play, and go.

[engl] Baton Rouge, LA, has produced a trio of musicians that seem to have come to the 2010's via the 1990's, and they call themselves Secret Smoker. This debut LP has the sonic, political, and emotional hallmarks of bands like Hoover, 400 Years, Amber Inn, Wolves, and Sleepytime Trio, while maintaining a discernible identity of its own. Featuring former members of We Are The Living, and active participants of the Hungry Ghost Collective, these guys are intent upon driving home passionate "emo" the way you knew it before the shopping malls got a hold of it. If you like your music with movement and meaning, dig in!

[engl] Seine is an ever-changing project by Croatian singer-songwriter Ivan S?c?apec. It currently operates from Zagreb as a power duo with Dimitrij Petrovic? on drums. Following the breakup of their former band Vlasta Popic? in 2015, they focused on Seine and actively toured the Balkans and Europe, earning a reputation for their dazzling and heartfelt performances. Their debut ‘Sno Sna’ (Moonlee Records, Vox Project), one of the best regional debuts of the year, was released in 2017. Seine's 2nd album '22' brings forth an amorphous genre-bending sound, combining elements of noise and alternative rock, trip hop and no wave with sporadic cabaret undertones. The pair continues its exploration of the intriguing, ill-lighted and downtempo moods that have defined their debut while putting a new emphasis on dissonance and atonality. '22' showcases intricate arrangements and muscular instrumentation, its seven hook-laden tracks slowly drifting through melancholy waters. The electrified acoustic guitar and drum set are still the backbone, but they have expanded their sonic palette with piercing electronic textures, classical instruments samples and driving polyrhythms. The resulting leftfield grooves engage the listener in a noisy introspective dance. Seine’s music still gravitates around Ivan's easily recognizable soul-searching androgynous voice. His is a timbre of a man with puffy eyes, a sombre heart and turbulent spirit. In his dark and waggish verses, he wryly explores the triangle between money, war and transcendence from a beyond-good-and-evil standpoint. The days of love songs are dead, long live money poetics!

[engl] Seine's debut album ‘Sno sna’ is a showcase of dreamy acoustic strumming, psychedelic bass lines and minimalistic though hearty drum patterns interwoven into a tale of love and longing. Half a minute into the record, you're immediately transfixed by Ivan SCapec's idiosyncratic vocal timbre with a quaint feminine character in the vein of Cigarettes After Sex. The pathos of his delivery also reminds us of the emo mavericks Sunny Day Real Estate. But the gist of Seine’s musical expression lies in the prominent acoustic guitar. While songs like 'Privatno tijelo' (Private Body), the pseudo nursery rhyme 'Bubamara' (Ladybug) and centrepiece ‘Ljubav’ (Love) might recall the work of Sufjan Stevens, and while the track ‘Janko’ is an obvious nod to Serbo-Croatian folk songs, most of the tracks possess a more introspective, oftentimes melancholic mid-nineties character not far from the likes of Smashing Pumpkins. 'Sno Sna' may be listened to as a punk’s tale in the disguise of a folk record, or vice versa, a heartfelt folk album gone punk.

[engl] The Shifters are from Melbourne. After releasing two stunning Full Lengths (one on Future Folklore, one on Trouble in Mind) and a few 7" on Digital Regress, Captured Tracks, a split LP with Parsnip and more ... This DLP collects a 25 songs of odds and ends, home recordings and more. All previously unreleased and those tunes show the wide range of Shifters greatness. Reminiscent of the Mekons, pastoral pop of ‘80s by Australian DIY legends like the PARTICLES and the CANNANES meeting VELVET UNDERGROUND-addled hazed anthems. "The SHIFTERS’ stark, repetitive minimalism and shambolic charms always owed more than a little bit to the FALL in their early years, and revisiting the material from the cassette now after Mark E. Smith’s passing only reinforces the psychic connection between the lackadaisical post-punk twang in “Captain Hindsight” and the cracked melodies of something like the FALL’s “Your Heart Out” from the Dragnet era." (maximum rock n roll) Releases were put on hold during 2020 due to covid so it was decided to put out a pay as you feel digital only compilation of odds + some ends, then release it on Bandcamp. Not long after we were approached by Insolito Records from Berlin asking if we were interested in releasing it as a boxed double LP. We thank them very much for giving us this opportunity. The Open Vault comprises unreleased studio recordings, early demos, live 4 track recordings, live iPhone and solo home demos tunes from The Shifters. All recorded between 2016 and 2020. Studio songs marked * were all part of an unreleased second album called Pyramid Scheme. Little gold studios consisted of a mud brick and hay igloo of sorts with a control room attached that was inside an old lingerie factory in Brunswick. Most of the album has now been released via singles, compilations etc. Home recordings marked - are demos and ideas put down onto Garageband with an old macbook. The only microphone used was the inbuilt one on the laptop. The drum ‘kit’ used is a miniature Spongebob Square Pants childrens set that MJ happily bought from a garage sale in Coburg for $25. These demos were not being made under the impression that they would ever be heard outside of the band themselves and more thought of as rough sketches for the band to manipulate and re record (as 3 of these ones were for various releases)? After sitting on hard drives for some time they started sounding more interesting.

[engl] For fans of late 80s Sonic Youth and early 90s Dishord and maybe Unwound, Polvo, Pavement.. Warm fuzzy layers of feedback and beautiful melodies all over the LP.