Quantum Leap is from John Maus' forthcoming album, We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves, out on June 28th in North America on Ribbon Music and June 27th in the UK / Europe on Upset the Rhythm.

Hear another track, Believer, from the album here: http://soundcloud.com/ribbonmusic/john-maus-believer

JOHN MAUS lives in his birthplace of Austin, Minnesota. Whilst working towards his PhD in Political Science, he also composes music that taps into melancholic fantasy and affirms that we are all truly alive. Questing synthesizers, tensely strung bass lines and chasing drum machines providing the perfect backdrop for John's deeply resonant reverb-drenched vocal. Born in the decade of synth pop and sharing his birthday with George Frideric Handel, John started making music when Nirvana posters went up on every teenager’s wall. It’s this curious conflux of influences that partially helps to describe John’s music. It’s a world where the Germs jam with Jerry Goldsmith, Cabaret Voltaire relocate to Eternia and Josquin des Prez writes a new score for RoboCop. The confrontation of punk, the fleeting poignancy of 80’s movie soundtracks, the insistent pulse of Moroder and the spirituality of Medieval and Baroque music all find salvation in John Maus.

We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves breaks new ground for Maus. The shirt pulling and air punching of his impassioned live performance is finally captured in all its frenzied appeal alongside a tender inner space that wasn’t as apparent on his previous albums. It’s a record where promise takes the lead for the first time, providing a counterpoint to John’s default existential calling.

Signup to stay informed of the latest John Maus news, including a chance to pre-order the new album on CD/limited-edition LP:
http://www.ribbonmusic.com/label/
http://www.upsettherhythm.co.uk/

John will be playing shows across the US this summer including co-headlining shows with LA's Puro Instinct.

05-13 Los Angeles, CA - The Echo
06-18 San Francisco, CA - Brick And Mortar Music Hall *
06-20 Portland, OR - Doug Fir *
06-21 Seattle, WA - Chop Suey *
06-24 Minneapolis, MN - 7th St Entry *
06-25 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle *
06-26 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick *
06-28 Brooklyn, NY - Glasslands *
06-29 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge *
06-30 Boston, MA - Great Scott *
07-02 Winooski, VT - Monkey House
07-03 Philadelphia, PA - Making Time @ Voyeur *
07-05 Washington, DC - Black Cat Backstage *
07-06 Atlanta, GA - The Earl *
07-07 Birmingham, AL - Bottletree Cafe *
07-08 New Orleans, LA - Wolf Den at Howlin Wolf *
07-09 Austin, TX - Mohawk Inside *
07-12 San Diego CA - Casbah *
07-13 Costa Mesa, CA - Detroit Bar *
07-15 Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex *

* w/ Puro Instinct

We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves

Quantum Leap

John Maus - Quantum Leap

John Maus - My Whole Worlds Coming Apart

John Maus - Keep Pushing On

Taken from forthcoming album 'We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves' released this June on Upset The Rhythm. 


John Maus - Head For The Country

nightschoolrecords.bigcartel.com/artist/m…-nilsson

A sweeping, cinematic, emotional change is in the air. Molly Nilsson’s sixth studio album Zenith begins with clear, wide eyes open to Earth as we would love it to be but seldom is. Recorded in her home of Berlin and whilst touring and, as ever, conceived, produced, written and recorded in solitude, Zenith is Nilsson’s big statement and consequently her most affecting work to date. It sees her reveling in big arrangements, sweeping synth strings, bigger choruses and emotions. Like the rest of us she looks within and to endless sunsets in wonder and puzzlement.

That Molly Nilsson is a DIY cult figure is beyond question; she has always written directly and with wit straight down the line between the universal and the personal. The difference with Zenith, and you can hear it in the opening chords of opener The Only Planet, is that her scope is now much wider and her heart heavier than ever before: over a post-ecstatic dusk, Nilsson serenades the globe in a loving embrace. Following on, 1995 is, arguably, one of Nilsson’s finest songs to date. It’s one of those songs to learn the lyrics to, to listen to on repeat, a reason to wear the grooves down to the bone, it’s why pop music can be one of the greatest art forms we have. It’s an example of how, on this album, Molly draws the listener closer to her heart than ever before. There’s simply no escape from the line “The plans that you made / when you still had the time / I’ve saved all the things that you left behind but by now I guess I’d consider them all mine /Windows 95, is only a metaphor for what I feel inside / Although I’m older now / there’s still an emptiness that’s never letting go somehow.” Show-stopper Mountain Time is the soundtrack to being on the run, from societal conventions, from normative ideas of happiness, from your surroundings. It’s the intoxicating call of the renegade. That’s not to say that Nilsson’s light touch has been forsaken for grandiose statements. Bunny Club begins as a demo-sketch before breaking into a fast-paced tale of doomed romance with big rave synths and Bus 194 (All There Is) sees Molly joyride through a city on a happy hardcore bus. But it’s tracks like Tomorrow and another contender for best-ever-Molly moment, Happyness that the true scale of what she’s accomplished reveals itself. We’re locked in a spiraling orbit, strings and bass whirling, gazing at the spinning planet below us as we contemplate both the ultimate freedom in loneliness and the glimmer of hope in the Other. Can we ever be truly with someone? Are we ever truly alone?

Over the 13 tracks here we get the impression that Nilsson may always be restless; like anyone else she has conflicting feelings of love and hate. It’s just not many other people can tell you exactly how you feel before you know it yourself.

MOLLY NILSSON: Mountain Time (from Zenith)

An experimental ambient-leaning electronic album drawing influence from vaporwave and slushwave, built around warm, immersive synth textures and intentionally slow BPMs. The melodies and soundscapes evoke a shifting palette of emotion and introspection. Vocals alternate between pitched-down and natural delivery, layered with heavy delay and reverb. Hooks feature intricate rhyme and assonance schemes, adding lyrical depth to the atmospheric production.


your c a l m eyes

John Maus 'No Title (Molly)' is available on a limited edition transparent orange Flexi Disc as part of Smugglers Way, Ribbon Music and Domino's first ever FlexiDisc Zine available exclusively on Record Store Day, April 21st.

Smugglers Way features unreleased songs by Dirty Projectors, Real Estate, Cass McCombs, Villagers and John Maus on FIVE individual, multi-colored Flexi Discs.

The 24pg zine is comprised of contributions by Domino & Ribbon artists including Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Laura Marling, Owen Pallett, Bjorn Copeland (Black Dice), Alex Bleeker (Real Estate), Andrea Estella (Twin Sister), Orange Juice, James Yorkston, Jon Hopkins, Ade Blackburn (Clinic), Jana Hunter (Lower Dens), Conor O'Brien (Villagers), King Creosote & Tom Fleming (Wild Beasts).

Smugglers Way is a limited, one of kind item, conceived and designed exclusively for Record Store Day. We couldn't be more proud of this and we hope you find Smugglers Way as exciting to read and listen to as it was for us to put together.

For more information visit: http://smugglersway.tumblr.com/

John Maus - No Title (Molly) (Smugglers Way FlexiZine)

'Bennington' is from John Maus' A Collection of Rarities and Previously Unreleased Material' out on CD, LP and digitally July 17th in North America and July 16th in the rest of the world. 

Find out more info on the release here: http://www.ribbonmusic.com/label/?p=313
Pre-order the Special Edition translucent pink vinyl limited to 500 copies here: http://bit.ly/mausraritieslp

TOUR DATES
07-12 New York, NY - Pier 84 * (River Rocks)
07-14 San Diego, CA - Casbah
07-21 Seattle, WA - Capitol Hill Block Party
08-09 Oslo, Norway  - Oya Festival
08-10 Gothenburg, Sweden - Way Out West Festival
08-14 London, UK - Scala
09-01 Los Angeles, CA - FYF Festival
09-03 San Francisco, CA - The Independent
09-06 Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge (MusicFest NW)

* w/ Dan Deacon

John Maus - Bennington (2007)

Solid Space - Tenth Planet (1982)

Belfast-based four-piece Girls Names are a singular proposition, both geographically and psychically removed from their contemporaries at home and abroad. Released in February 2013, their second album 'The New Life' is the sound of a band on the fringes striving to forge their own path, purposefully out of step - and time - with their surroundings. Weighed heavy with the grey landscapes of their hometown, 'The New Life' is isolation laid bare, shot through with an undeterred sense of purpose and individuality.

Having released a series of singles and EPs on various independent labels, Girls Names made their first significant impression on the wider world in 2011 with their debut album, 'Dead To Me,' earning plaudits from the likes of Pitchfork, NME and Loud & Quiet amongst a host of others. And yet, despite all the praise heaped on it, as soon as that record was released Girls Names were already moving into a different headspace. 

The band’s performance at this year Primavera festival provided them with their first real opportunity to showcase the songs that were to comprise 'The New Life.' The sunshine backdrop of the Spanish coastline offered a somewhat incongruous setting to the eerie dissonance of the new material, a kind of trial by fire metamorphosis rapturously received. Following a tour of Europe, the band returned home to record the album over a series of months. Having been produced by singer and songwriter, Cathal Cully, they’ve managed to capture that sense of otherness the performances at Primavera hinted at. The expansion to a four piece means the garage-clatter of the spritely pop songs of their debut have been replaced by a deeper, shadowy exercise in catharsis, driven by repetition, psychedelia and Dionysian crisis. And the record was born of a weighty concept too, as Cully explains: 

“'The New Life' is not an over night change for Girls Names - just over two years in fact. 'Dead to Me' literally was dead to us by the time it was committed to wax. But it's a learning curve. We started moving on as artists the moment we finished that recording session, maybe even before. Not to dwell on the past, 'The New Life' is what happens when you reset everything back to zero and start again, but try to perfect. It starts back at zero the minute the needle hits the groove but we're also starting back from zero once the needle lifts at the end of the record. Ad infinitum. 'The New Life' is what follows now.”

The album’s title track, and the first single to be taken from the album, is an ideal entry point. Just shy of 8 minutes long, it rotates around a hypnotic bass line, and in Cully’s evocation of renaissance, offers a perfect metaphor for the album as a whole. New single ‘Hypnotic Regression’ - available to stream today - reflects another side to the record. The reverb-heavy guitars and compelling melody are immediately memorable, but there are signs of experimentation, too; the white squall of the lead break; the uneasiness in the vocal echoes that furnish the verses. As such, 'The New Life,' stands as a brave statement; the mark of the band untying themselves from the past and easing forth into the unknown.

"The New Life" will be released on February 18th, 2013 on Tough Love (UK) and February 26th, 2013 on Slumberland Records (US).


Girls Names - Pittura Infamante

Released May 27th. Night School Records.
CD/LP/Digital.
Pre-Order: http://nightschoolrecords.bigcartel.com/product/lssn016-terror-bird-all-this-time-lp

“All This Time” is the 3rd full length LP from Terror Bird - aka Nikki Nevver - and is by far the most personal, emotionally affecting and musically developed. Recorded at home over a period of 5 months, the 10 songs on “All This Time” document a period of intense emotional upheaval, a period wherein Nevver underwent major shifts in her personal life, rediscovered the solo recording process (previous albums having used live drumming and studio production) and married a raw, personal music with a straight-to-tape aesthetic most in-tune with her early recording experiences. The difference this time is that Nevver’s unique voice - at turns operatic and fragile, untutored and wearing its heart on its sleeve - serves as the perfect conduit for the emotional turmoil in the songs.

Nevver’s voice has grown into a formidable instrument, a towering, unabashed vocal whose resonance curls around the synth and drum machine production, at times duetting with itself, at times scaling the vocal register to reach new dramatic heights. Brought up on the music of the 80s “studio” - The Smiths, Kate Bush, The Cure - Nevver’s music exists beyond modern zeitgeists or considerations, subverting “big production” music into a personal DIY aesthetic. It’s a pure songwriting that outgrows genre and thrives purely on the merits of direct communication between songwriter and listener. 

Each song on “All This Time” serves as a chapter in a narrative that is universal; from the self-doubt and loneliness of opener “The Wrong Way,” to the doomed bedroom romance of “Try To Break Me,” from the masochistic guilt of “Locket” to the near-anthemic “Lust & Violence.” Each song speaks directly, plainly, to the listener, dispensing as much as possible with the unnecessary augmentation of modern pop music; “All This Time” is simply the deeply romantic, part-doomed / part-hopeful songs of a singular, unique talent.

John Maus - Keep Pushing On

pollo asado