absolutely loving this - one of the best EPs I've ever listened to

Shoegaze

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

Oh Well, Okay

from the full-length <i>Hideout from the Feeders</i>, out November 12 from <a href="http://aloemusic.org/">Aloe Music</a>. 

ILLLS - Coma

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

Produced & Mastered by Rory Attwell at Lightship 95
Artwork by Rowan J Stevens

Cold Spell

Fall

Silhouette compiles all 3 releases from Rhode Island's 90s Shoegaze band, Blueshift Signal and is now available digitally for the first time!

Download Here: https://www.omnianmusicgroup.com/products/silhouette

Silhouette

Blueshift Signal - Halo

Written and produced by Laura Wagner and Michael Tenzer
Drums arranged by Michael Tenzer

Bass/Vocals - Laura Wagner
Guitar - Michael Tenzer

Art by Christian Russo (https://www.instagram.com/c.c.russo/)

Crawler

Bed Head

Bed Head (Single Mix)

Still Life is the first single from Blush Response's debut album, 'Hearts Grow Dull'.

'Hearts Grow Dull' coming April 2018.

Still Life

Eden

New demo track by philly indie-pop-nugaze artist Tom Lugo aka Panophonic

Searching for home in the stars at night
No one can see me sending signals toward the lights
Then you came into my life

With you,
Our skies are always blue
The world is in full view
Nothing that we can’t do

Will spend a lifetime looking into your eyes
Making wishes to stop the hands of time
Don’t ever want to let this die

With you,
Our skies are always blue
The world is in full view
Nothing that we can’t do

Panophonic- Nothing That We Can’t Do

Peel Dream Magazine is the musical vehicle for NYC's Joe Stevens, who launched the band in 2018 with the critically acclaimed album "Modern Meta Physic." With it Stevens created a mysterious, liminal tribute to the hazy end of ‘90s dream-pop – a masterful mix of first-class songwriting precision and train-window sonic impressionism that duly found its place on numerous "Best of 2018" lists.

After 18 months of writing and live shows with a shifting cast of band members, Peel Dream are back with "Agitprop Alterna," an album that pushes the group's dreamy, motorik-heavy sound to a deeply melodic and beautifully discordant place. The album pays homage to a strain of mod-ish U.K. pop that spans early My Bloody Valentine and Talulah Gosh, up through early Stereolab, Belle & Sebastian, and even Broadcast. It's also indebted to stateside pop bands that were cut from a similar cloth -- Rocketship, Lilys, Yo La Tengo, and even "Nevermind"-era Nirvana.

Where the creation of "Modern Meta Physic" was a solitary pursuit, "Agitprop Alterna" found Stevens channeling the collaborative spirit of the band's ever-rotating live incarnation in the studio. The album is ultimately defined by the tension of difference: between itself and its predecessor; intertwined male-female vocals; the music's languid dreaminess and concrete sonic immediacy.

Deeply rooted in the Brechtian ideas of art as a tool to spur action, "Agitprop Alterna" deepens the connection between the existential and the interpretive first explored on "Modern Meta Physic," giving the listener space to find their own meaning in shimmering guitars, fuzzed-out synths, and buzzing organ drones. It is a rejection of manipulation in all its forms and a buzzsaw against complacency – soft-focus pop whose clear-cut message is that you get to decide the message. It's a rare trick to agitate without being obvious: perhaps that makes "Agitprop Alterna" the most Peel Dream Magazine-like statement yet.

Agitprop Alterna

Agitprop Altern

Peel Dream Magazine - Pill

Paul - Vocals/Guitar 
Dave - Guitar 
Billy - Bass/Guitar 
Adam - Drums 

Recorded, Mixed and Mastered @ The Bottling Plant Studio by Iain MacDuff

The Cherry Wave - Drown

The Cherry Wave

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AlexLee

slowburned

Heat Waves (TX)

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