thanks to the producers of these tracks.

Intrusion - Montego Bay
STL - Calculating Systems
G.R.I.T - TTX-E2
Model 500 - Starlight (Echospace Unrelease)
Deepchord & Mike Huckaby - All it Takes ( Mike Huckaby Synth Remix)
Soultek - Metro Park
Robert Hood - Torque One
Deepchord - Vantage Isle (DC II Mix)
Octal Industries Unn #1
Deepchord vantage Isle (Space Echodub)
CV313 - Infinit-1 (STL)

portals mix

Here is the debut, self-titled album from a.s.o., singer/songwriter Alia Seror-O’Neill, and producer Lewie Day. ‘a.s.o.’ is a thematic consolidation of the previous two singles and an impressive artistic progression. Day and Seror-O’Neill show they’ve mastered the format of the radio-friendly pop song and found how to subvert it completely. Across eleven songs, they have built a rich and compelling body of work.

We know where we are now, emotionally complex, trip-hop torch songs for club freaks. But the palette has broadened to encompass ethereal dream pop à la Cocteau Twins, slow-burning AOR-soul, and dubwise stylings. As a result, ‘a.s.o.’ is a satisfyingly coherent listen but never a musical monoculture. Variously there are nods toward Julee Cruise, Fleetwood Mac, and the uneasy listening of Portishead. It’s an album that wears its influences lightly, is never weighed down by them, and always sure of its own identity.

It’s anchored by Alia’s unique voice. Her words speak of restraint and release, taking us from the elegiac to the euphoric. This elegantly crafted, perfect pop music sounds like it has had enough of your shit. And Day’s music is the perfect foil; deep, slightly menacing, restrained, and powerful. The album has a cinematic texture, as with David Lynch; the seemingly familiar becomes uncanny and strange the closer we look. a.s.o. take our emotions for a joyride before leaving us floating in space.

‘a.s.o.’ is a journey; by its end, we all are changed.

Written and recorded by Alia Seror-O’Neill and Lewie Day at Quintagon Studios, Berlin and Palmerston Studios, Naarm/Melbourne in 2020-2023.
Mixed by Lewie Day except for Track 9 “Understand” mixed by Thomas McAlister
Mastered by Mikey Young
Artwork by Dylan Batelic
Words by Piers Harrison

2023 Low Lying Records
Cat. No. LLRLP001 – All rights reserved
www.itsaso.bandcamp.com

01 - Go On

String of Hearts

HA (Cover)

Which side are you on? Keir, Nadia and Jem consider the ebb and flow of political commitment with ideas and music from Jodi Dean, Gramsci, John Coltrane and the Raincoats. 

Is cultural production the same as political action? What’s the difference between an ally and a comrade? And why do some communists end up as right-wing turncoats?

Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching "ACFM".
Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

ACFM Trip 48: Political Commitment

The AFCM gang gather for a midwinter reading of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Download a version online and follow along as Nadia, Keir and Jem reassess of one of the most influential political tracts ever written.

Help us build people-powered media – support us from as little as £1 a month: https://novara.media/support

ACFM Microdose: The Communist Manifesto

The concept of debt is as slippery as it is powerful. In this Trip episode, Keir, Nadia and Jem explain why debt is more like a belief than a calculation, and wonder how to imagine a society without it. 

From credit cards to dowries, they discuss the reality and fantasy of debt, with ideas from David Graeber and Deleuze and music from Crass and Gwen Guthrie.

Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching "ACFM".

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

ACFM Trip 49: Debt

It’s been five long years since the decisive defeat of Corbynism at the ballot box.

How, if at all, should the left reconstitute itself? Should everyone join the Greens? Or do we just need Mick Lynch to start a new party?

In this episode, Richard Hames is joined by Rachel Godfrey Wood, Joe Todd, and Oliver Eagleton to thrash it all out and arrive at the One True Answer.

We’re keen to hear from you on this topic! Lets us know your comments, criticisms and key strategic insights at fm@novaramedia.com

Novara FM: Time for a New Left Party? w/ Oliver Eagleton, Rachel Godfrey Wood and Joe Todd

Swimming Pool

The gang convene for a milestone 50th Trip episode all about acid – as a drug, a music genre, a political concept, a mental tool and a thought corrosive. Nadia, Keir and Jem look back on six years of the podcast to decide if ‘acid’ is still a useful way of thinking about leftwing politics.

With music from Tricky, Pink Floyd and Phuture, they discuss anticapitalism, Acid Corbynism, Rimbaud, acid rock, Terence McKenna, mind-body dualism and plain old LSD.

Follow our Spotify playlist of all the music discussed on ACFM and subscribe to the ACFM mailing list to get weirder and leftier.

Music: Jimi Hendrix – ‘Purple Haze’ / Thatcher on Acid – ‘Sitting’ / Pink Floyd – ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ / Boredoms – ‘Acid Police’ / Phuture – ‘Acid Tracks’ / D Mob – ‘We Call It Acid’ / Funk, Inc. – ‘The Better Half’ / Tricky – ‘Overcome’

Books: Mark Fisher – K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings / Mark Fisher – Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures / Jay Stevens – Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream

ACFM Trip 50: Fifty Shades of Acid

Quinn Slobodian returns to PTO to talk about his new book 'Hayek's Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right'. Whilst politicians and thinkers of the new right are typically characterised as fierce opponents of neoliberalism, Quinn explains how the emergence of the populist right developed through a split within the neoliberal movement itself. We talked about the intellectual development of the new right, why their neoliberal heritage is often ignored, and how their racism and obsession with borders - though often seen as merely irrational and atavistic - contains its own form of economic rationality.

ACFM Trip 49: Debt

Novara Media

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