Cliché har ikke eksisteret forgæves. Jeg er vild med det

neatly gloved

Excessive Days

Vats - Hari Kari

'Folder' is the self-titled track taken from Lød's debut EP, out on June 30th. Limited to 300 copies on vinyl, 75 of which are on cream vinyl and only available through the Tough Love store. 

Pre-order - http://smarturl.it/FolderEP

Biography
The four original members of Lød formed after graduating school in Copenhagen, inspired by the post-punk that was prominent in the fervent, close-knit music community of the city. The first version of Lød was very much birthed in this same shadow: loud and heavy.

With time and addition of a fifth member, their sound began to rely less on distortion, foregoing aggression for a greater focus on melody and rhythm. Bands like LCD Soundsystem & Kraftwerk provided further inspiration and it became an ambition for Lød to create music that - while never taking the easy route - could make people dance. With their debut EP, released via London-based label Tough Love, they have very much achieved this. They're a dance band, in the same way one might consider NEU a dance band.

The recording of Folder began in October 2016 with engineer Julius Pedersen, who helped the band shape tracks that had taken more than six months to write. The result is a 24-minute, four song debut EP sung in Danish. You might consider it uncompromising were the songs not so accessible.

And despite their length, these are 'songs', with defined melodies and structure. Looping and monolithic, early commentators in their home country have noted a “trance-punk” aspect to their sound. Such nomenclature can be tedious, but it's not a million miles from the truth. Bringing to mind the likes of Preoccupations in their similarly propulsive take on post-punk, Lød add a further glacial edge indebted to both early industrial and no wave.

Lød are:

Vocals: Søren Gade
Drums: Mads Uldum
Bass: Sebastian Kjær
Synt: Anders Andersen
Guitar: Erik Thøgersen

Folder (MP3)

Lød - Folder

Ashtray Navigations - Greatest Imaginary Hits (vhf#148 LP+4CD)

Ashtray Navigations - Greatest Imaginary Hits - D1 (Rob) - 04 - There Is A Ditch And There Is A Pit

lauraliesin.bandcamp.com/album/tara-clerkin-trio

Order

Tara Clerkin Trio - Hellenica

Taken from the album, Agitprop Alterna, out on April 3rd via Tough Love and Slumberland. Pre-order here - https://smarturl.it/agitpropalterna

Agitprop Alterna - master MP3s

Peel Dream Magazine - Emotional Devotion Creator

Taken from the record, Look Alive, out 1st May 2020 via Tough Love. Pre-order here - https://smarturl.it/StroppiesLookAlive

New EP - master (MP3)

The Stroppies - Holes in Everything

Taken from the album, Agitprop Alterna, out on April 3rd via Tough Love and Slumberland. Pre-order here - smarturl.it/agitpropalterna

Peel Dream Magazine - It's My Body

Taken from the Day By Day 12", out 8th May. Pre-order here - https://smarturl.it/DayByDay12 

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"Day by Day was actually written a few years ago but has taken on an eerie relevance in light of current events. As the title suggests, the song explores living in the present moment as a way of overcoming difficulties and growing stronger. Written during a dark time in our lives the song is about the struggle of carrying on, taking each day at a time in hope that things will eventually get better"

Co-produced by Doves’ guitarist, Jez Williams, Day By Day picks up where debut Night Drive left off, fragile, and amorphous, driven by a Kevin Shields-esque drone and underpinned by Katie Drew’s beautiful and delicate vocal.

The double A-side single, Day By Day / Katy Song will be released on 12” vinyl on May 8th and is limited to 150 copies.

White Flowers - Day By Day (Extended Edit)

The Reds, Pinks & Purples - I Should Have Helped You

Taken from You Might Be Happy Someday, released 2nd October. Pre-order the LP here - https://smarturl.it/redpinksandpurples
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Deep amidst San Francisco’s Richmond neighborhood misty air and washed-out pastel blocks, Glenn Donaldson has been diligently creating minor masterpieces with rudimentary home technology for some time now. With The Reds, Pinks & Purples, Donaldson has finally created a vivid reflection of this dreary scene. You Might be Happy Someday is an oblique strand of SF outer-avenue cloud cover that stretches across the Atlantic to the grey docks of Bristol as captured in Sarah Records’ fetishized insert photos.

Despite the deceptively congenial presentation, Happy is often a heavy record. After a litany of Donaldson’s past iterations (from experimental abstraction to post-punk and pop), The Reds, Pinks & Purples is Glenn D’s most personal project. Balanced awkwardly atop almost ironically upbeat jangles and rhythms Mitch Easter might have captured on his reel-to-reel are prime cuts of bummer pop. Almost every track is written in second person, creating a feeling of overheard private inner conversations-on-repeat: soft-lob criticisms, supportive friend advice and embarrassing confessions, You Might be Happy Someday is a smeared window into the (kindly) cynical thoughts of a romantic misanthrope.

Like the work of other U.S. depresso-pop purveyors East River Pipe, The Reds, Pinks & Purples’ mini-album is the kind of record that is both unsettling and comforting. When you’re four drinks deep and you’ve worn your Smiths records out, You Might Be Happy Someday is on deck to have wine spilled on it while you dance alone in the kitchen.

You Might Be Happy Someday is released on Tough Love on 2nd October. Fittingly, the record will be pressed on to 'pastel pink' colour vinyl, with a limited run of 300 copies.

The Reds, Pinks and Purples - Last Summer In A Rented Room

Taken from You Might Be Happy Someday, released 2nd October. Pre-order the LP here - smarturl.it/redpinksandpurples
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Ahead of the release of their Tough Love debut in October, Glenn Donaldson's prolific Reds, Pinks and Purples project have released the second track from the record, the poignantly titled 'Your Parents Were Wrong About You'. Lyrically, it's a perfect riposte to the challenges of a n unrelenting year, captured best in the line, "take good care of your friends, they won't always be there". As you read this, Donaldson's city of San Francisco is coated in a thick layer of smoke from nearby wildfires, and these words feel as appropriate as ever.

Reflecting on the track, Donaldson provides a little insight into its inspiration, a moving portrait of a dark situation. 
 
"I once had a girlfriend whose mother took me out to dinner basically to warn me that her daughter was a bad person. The tragedy of that has stuck with me all these years. This song is dedicated to anyone with toxic or undermining parents. They were wrong about you."

The Reds, Pinks and Purples - Your Parents Were Wrong About You

Taken from the Within A Dream EP, released 15th January 2020. Pre-order the limited edition 12" here - https://smarturl.it/WithinADream

Further info
Following the release of two 12"s in the past year, White Flowers return with the Within A Dream EP,  a recently recorded four song collection to be released on 15th January 2021. Alongside digital formats, it will be pressed to 12" transparent vinyl in an edition of 300.  

The four tracks on the EP came together earlier this year during various periods of enforced isolation, and somewhat inevitably reflect the conditions of their provenance, exploring themes of dissociation, multiple selves, and the role of the individual in an increasingly strange and fragmented world. Co-produced with Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Portishead), Within A Dream combines home and studio recordings in ways that display the duo’s growing ability to switch between grand sonic gestures and subtle sonic abstractions.

Alongside the three originals which explore the outer edges of post-punk, dreampop and shoegaze in increasingly alien ways, is a beguiling cover of Mama Cass’ ‘Didn’t Want to Have to Do It’. As with their version of Red House Painters' 'Katy Song' from their previous 12”, it's provides another example of how defined White Flowers' aesthetic has become, as they’re effortlessly able to shape the music of others to their own vision. Indeed, as with all their videos and records to date, the artwork for the single is again created entirely by the band, another example of their intentions to create a defined White Flowers universe distinctly their own.

Within A Dream EP (master - MP3)

White Flowers - Within a Dream

Lød - Folder

Tough Love

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