that rocks

Taken from the album "Stars Are Our Home."
Out now on Slumberland Records (US) and Sonic Cathedral (UK)

Order the digital download from iTunes: http://smarturl.it/bhb-itunes
Order the LP/CD: http://smarturl.it/bhb-album

more info: http://www.blackheartedbrother.com
Black Hearted Brother Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Hearted-Brother/210615915729479

It was Alfred Bester, if I recall correctly, who called 'the stars my destination', in his brilliant novel of the same name from 1956. Long considered a libertarian science fiction classic, it's also notable for featuring one of the very first accounts of synaesthesia in English-language fiction. This might be drawing a particularly long bow, but the title of Black Hearted Brother's debut, "Stars Are Our Home", immediately brought Bester's book to mind – and there's definitely something of the synaesthesic experience about this album, overflowing with enraptured, glowing textures, flaring white light like magnesium, in consort with brilliant red-blue waves of psychedelia.

Of course, the first thing that might crane your head towards "Stars Are Our Home" is the group's membership: Neil Halstead, the éminence grise behind Slowdive and Mojave 3; Mark Van Hoen, an original member of Seefeel, subsequently working solo and as Locust; and Nick Holton, the main mover behind Holton's Opulent Oog, and member of Coley Park, who have released albums on Halstead's Shady Lane label. They had previously converged on Halstead's 2001 solo album, "Sleeping On Roads," though Van Hoen also co-produced Mojave 3's "Out Of Tune" (1998), "Excuses For Travelers" (2000) and "Spoon & Rafter" (2003), while Holton took up production duties for Halstead's "Palindrome Hunches" (2012). Van Hoen and Halstead go back much further still, to 1992, when they were in Seefeel and Slowdive respectively: 'Mark taught Neil much that was electronic and ambient music.'

You could hear that education bearing fruit with Slowdive's late-period masterpiece, 1995's "Pygmalion." In some ways, "Stars Are Our Home" echoes that album's experimental process, if not the outcome, as Black Hearted Brother are a very different, distinctive beast, often indulging in what Halstead, self-deprecatingly, describes as 'a lot of very long and indulgent space rawk.' And indeed, that space-rock drive is writ loud and clear on the album's opening title track, an instrumental bliss-out that navigates through ocean-tides of FX-drenched guitar. But there's a lot more to it: 'The idea was to just make a record that was in some ways "unedited",' Halstead continues. 'To not worry about a particular sound or style, but to just go with the flow. We all make quite focused records individually so, as Mark says, it's our "guilty pleasures" album.' That seems about right, except with "Stars Are Our Home," the outcome is no guilt, all pleasure.

'Neil and Nick had, I think, started a few months before they asked me to join the party,' Van Hoen recalls. 'I think they had a few songs on the go, and needed an extra hand to add a few funny noises and generally add to the chaos – or maybe bring some order to the chaos.' Van Hoen has picked up on the dialectical nature of "Stars Are Our Home" here, its "order" and its "chaos": it's a rich, compelling album full of unexpected twists and turns, at times overloading the sensorium with so much material you're drenched in noise, but it'll just as quickly flip back on itself and drift through a glazed-eye, agrarian moment of acoustic melancholy (see the start of "Time In The Machine", which, as if to prove my point, takes less than a minute to build into a clangorous, droning monster).

So, there's a whole lot going on in these grooves, and plenty of it's unexpected, or from unexpected sources. The trio plays fast and loose with what listeners might consider their pre-ordained 'roles'. 'Primarily the songs themselves were started either by Nick or Neil individually,' Van Hoen explains, 'but then edited, developed and generally messed around with and rendered almost unlistenable by either myself or the others. The roles were not always clear cut. Sometimes Nick would be playing keyboards and synths, and myself guitars.' Lyrics on the record feel like another texture, another layer: sometimes they're invocatory chants, sometimes Halstead's and Holton's voices are ghosted by electronic manipulation, as on "Oh Crust". Often there's more going on than at first glance, and an index of the album's lyrical concerns runs to 'romance, sci-fi, places to go on holiday, real UFO abduction, the duality in the meaning of words, lament for the loss of psychedelic freedoms by the masses…'

"Stars Are Our Home" is brave and beautiful, mysterious and resonant. Its experimental edges never forget the importance of the pop moment; the best way to bring people around to your way of hearing is to seduce their ears, and there's seduction plenty here, pure pop like "Take Heart", the Other Green World of "I'm Back", the closing driftwork that is "Look Out Here They Come". A real head-wrecker of an album. And what does the future hold? The trio speaks as one: 'Black Hearted Brother will grow and mature into something very sophisticated in the coming years. A kind of comedic-space-rock-dancehall outfit to define a zeitgeist for the 22nd century, if you like.' Ha, yeah – amen, brothers!

Black Hearted Brother - (I Don't Mean To) Wonder

"Blurred Lines"
originally by Robin Thicke feat. T.I. & Pharell Williams

vocals by Miko Manguba  
guitars by Miko Manguba


Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mikomanguba
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mikomanguba
YouTube: www.youtube.com/mikomangubamusic

--------------------------------------------
DOWNLOAD LINK:
(maximum downloads reached, thanks guys!)

http://www.mediafire.com/folder/zqwmhloddrm2h/SoundCloud_covers
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"Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke feat. T.I. & Pharrell Williams - Miko Manguba cover

From the forthcoming debut album 'Lowtide' - 
Out Friday 18th July 2014 through Lost & Lonesome 

http://lowtidemelbourne.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lowtide/153003311393665
http://www.lostandlonesome.com.au/

Blue Movie

Dead Air

taken from Dog Park's debut album "Festina Lente"

Festina Lente

Dog Park - Lalala

The Reverberation Appreciation Society is proud to announce the release of the fifth studio album from Ringo Deathstarr, entitled Pure Mood, out December 11 on vinyl and CD formats, and November 20 digitally. The album is being release by Club AC30 the UK and EU, and Vinyl Junkie in Japan and Asia.

Preoder links:
RVRB : http://levitation-austin.com/store/
AC30 : http://store.clubac30.com/
VINYL JUNKIE: http://vinyl-junkie.com/

The band eagerly anticipate the release of their next album; rightly so - pensive and pounding, ‘Pure Mood’ oozes all things dank, dark and dreamy. The 12 track LP, to be released in November, presents a vivid and searing collection of songs.

The aptly named opening track 'Dream Again' is sung by bassist Alex Gehring, whose delicate voice echoes eerily over the spectral, otherworldly chords that pluck underneath. 'Heavy Metal Suicide' & ‘Stare At The Sun’ contain the same cathartic droning that has been previously celebrated by genre forefathers, My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. Tracks like 'Never' and 'Boys In Heat' plunge the band and listener alike deep into the uncharted sonic depths of unadulterated, decadent sound. Elliott Frazer's vocals accentuate the eruption of noise behind his anthemic lyrics, dipping in and out of brief moments of clarity before bursting back into the manic grit of songs like 'Big Bopper' and 'Frisbee'. There's a daring clash of fury and fragility throughout 'Pure Mood' that demonstrates Ringo Deathstarr are not just reliving a scene, they're re-inventing it with their shattering use of chaotic guitars and haunting voices.

Ringo Deathstarr - Stare At The Sun

Fall Away

Mixed and produced by John Loring from Fleeting Joys 
written by David Freel from Swell.
VINYL / CD / DIGITAL 
requiempouruntwister.bandcamp.com/album/season-of-mist

Follow us www.facebook.com/deadhorseone/

Forget About Jesus

beko_233 national screen service - hotels of the new wave

National Screen Service -  Claudia (Spring)

Julian Casablancas, Pharrel & Santigold - My Drive Thru

New single taken from forthcoming album 'Southern Mind'.
Album release date: Friday 16th February 2018
via Rice Is Nice & Opposite Number

Southern Mind

Elizabeth Tower

Purple Heart Parade - The Room

Sinister performed by Pinemoon - the first single from Pinemoons debut album.

Sinister

Remix of Ill Fit by Post War Years
Single out now via Itunes http://bit.ly/T89HVX
Or on 10” vinyl http://bit.ly/VlzewL

Ill Fit (Post War Years Remix)

Slumberland began operations in 1989, inspired by such musical happenings as C-86, early Creation, Sarah, Postcard, and the UK post-punk indie label scene. Since then we've covered a lot of territory, from punk to lofi noise to shoegaze and of course pop, releasing records from bands like The Aislers Set, Boyracer, Stereolab, Rocketship, Lorelei, The Ropers, The Saturday People and Black Tambourine.

By the mid 2000s we were starting to see a resurgence of interest in guitar pop and the start of the ongoing vinyl revival: the perfect environment for Slumberland! We launched into our latest phase of activity with as string of classic releases from The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Crystal Stilts, Frankie Rose, Veronica Falls, Allo Darlin', Joanna Gruesome and so many more.

2018 is our twenty-ninth year we are still going strong, ploughing our own furrow and bringing you unique, genre-defining (and genre-defying!) releases from bands like Smokescreens, Tony Molina, Papercuts, Business of Dreams, Peel Dream Magazine, D.A. Stern, The Spook School, Frankie Rose, Young Guv, Terry Malts and many, many more. As always, we operate entirely outside of the echo chamber of trends, fashion and phoney hipness. Slumberland bands are independent in the best way possible -- making music devoid of bullshit and true to their own voices, regardless of current popular taste.

Black Hearted Brother - (I Don't Mean To) Wonder

Slumberland Records

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