Pre-order 'The Leather Lemon' here - https://p.e.wharfcatrecords.com/leather-lemon

About The Leather Lemon by P.E.

P.E. 's sophomore album, The Leather Lemon (Wharf Cat Records, out March 25, 2022), ushers in a new era for the New York band. A wild ride through chewy bubblegum pop, sweeping synthetic orchestrations, and mutant club beats, the album slides ever closer to the fully-realized pop sensibility only winked at with their debut album Person (2020) and subsequent releases. 

Digging into mystery, romance, and sex appeal with The Leather Lemon, the group — composed of members of Pill (Mexican Summer) and Eaters (Dull Tools) — centers its sound within a Bermuda Triangle of dance music, electronic composition, and experimental rock. Members Jonathan Schenke, Bob Jones, and Jonny Campolo play  within pop parameters, building upon free-form collaboration to create a fluorescent groove machine that harnesses the energy of their frenetic live shows. Singer Veronica Torres explores her softer side, expanding her vocal repertoire from spoken word and jagged growls to cherubic and sensuous psalms. Sax virtuoso Benjamin Jaffe’s chiseled experimental tone is heard in an extended solo of true romance in “Tears in the Rain,” a somber surrealist duet penned by Torres and Andrew Savage, singer/guitarist of Parquet Courts. 

Recorded primarily at Schenke’s Studio Windows in Brooklyn, NY, The Leather Lemon was cultivated from a fertile creative period between spring 2020 and summer 2021, which also yielded 2021’s acclaimed The Reason For My Love EP. Pitchfork writes: 
	
	The quintet refines their impulses on their 2020 debut Person and transforms them into a body-moving EP. The jittery electronics are still there, but the drum cuts feel sharper and lighter, bringing a sense of structure to what could easily be shapeless. Vocalist Veronica Torres abandons spoken-word and leans fully into singing about poetry, beauty, and the contours of the body. Her lovely vocal stretches fill up the space once occupied by industrial bass drops. Sensuality suits them well.

The Leather Lemon is a reckoning record for the times; an album of psychedelic resurfacing, real-time response to world events, and soft, sympathetic magic. This is a collection of songs shaped by five individuals who embrace music-making as a way to center themselves in times of uncertainty; it’s resilience and imagination given shape. The Leather Lemon is a true sweet-and-sour listening experience, an album as bright and clear as it is fractured and fun. Get turned UP and ON with the electrifying new lemon drop from P.E.! 

P.E. is: Jonny Campolo (piano, synths, bass, percussion, voice), Benjamin Jaffe (saxophone, synths, voice), Bob Jones (beats, samples, synths, bass, voice), Jonathan Schenke (synths, beats, bass, percussion, voice), Veronica Torres (voice, lyrics). 

Produced, Edited, Mixed and Mastered by Jonathan Schenke at Studio Windows. Additional production by Bob Jones at Zo City Studios. Written in-person and in-quarantine by P.E. between Studio Windows (NY), Zo City Studios (NY), and Gray House MPLS (MN) 2020-2021.

BUY LP

P.E. - Tears In The Rain (from the album 'The Leather Lemon' out now!)

"Proud Home" is from the album 'Lily We Need to Talk Now' which will be out on 10/29. You can pre-order/pre-save the album here - https://lilykonigsberg.wharfcatrecords.com/LWNTTN

Lily Konigsberg wrote “Sweat Forever,” one of the singles from her forthcoming full-length album, Lily We Need to Talk Now, in the heat of a moment when her life felt upside down and a longtime relationship was ending. “I’m still here / Is that what you wanted?” she sings, with light and clarity that belies the true sadness of that sticky refrain. The song is propelled by the feathery strum of a 12-string guitar (one gifted to her while she was working at the Gym, a Brooklyn mutual-aid hub), her playful vocal asides, and crisp, detail-oriented production by Nate Amos (Water From Your Eyes, My Idea).

Lily We Need to Talk Now is a record Konigsberg has been slowly chipping away at since 2016, revising and re-recording the songs over the years. The eleven-track collection is her first proper full-length, following her anthology of EPs and unreleased tracks, The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now, released in 2021 by Wharf Cat Records. The new record is catchy the whole way through, like much of the poppy and plainspoken indie rock output that’s made her a fixture of the NYC underground in recent years. Her voice twists and turns and dashes around her clever wordplay in new ways here; there are hints of power pop, pop punk, and downtempo introspection, all dotted with easter eggs of winking humor. She’s joined by many of her longtime collaborators: Andrea Schavelli, with whom she released the 2017 split Good Time Now; Matt Norman, with whom she has collaborated in the avant-pop duo Lily and Horn Horse for years; Paco Cathcart, of the Cradle, who produced her 2020 EP It’s Just Like All the Clouds; and Nina Ryser, with whom she plays in the acclaimed art-punk trio Palberta. But it’s her collaboration with Amos that makes the most notable new additions.

True to its title (taken from a text message sent to Konigsberg by Amos), this collection of songs is like a check-in with herself. On “That’s the Way I Like It,” with backing vocals from Cathcart, Konigsberg reflects on the feeling of struggling with a loved one. “You can get all evil about it—like a brat, like a baby,” she says. On “Proud Home,” she sings one of the record's boldest earworm hooks (“You’ve got a lot of fucking things to be proud of!”) and tries to comfort a friend who has a crush on her mom. “I really cracked myself up with the lyrics,” she says. “It’s kind of a ‘Stacy’s Mom’ riff. I decided it’s a dedication to Adam Schlesinger [of Fountains of Wayne].” But Konigsberg's lyrics aren't happy all of the time. “There’s a lot of sadness or strangeness in them,” she says. “This album is clearly about breaking up with somebody that I love. But, in all of my music, there’s humor. I don’t take myself too seriously.”

LP / CD / Stream

Lily Konigsberg - Proud Home (from the album 'Lily We Need to Talk Now' out 10/29)

About 'Love on My Mind'

If the start of the breakthrough for Bambara was the radically reimagined sound of 2018’s Shadow On Everything (dubbed by NPR a “western gothic opus”), then the moment it truly arrived was on the cinematically riotous noir-punk of 2020’s Stray. In the UK, buoyed by the enthusiasm of 6Music DJ Steve Lamacq (who called the band, “one of his favourite discoveries of the year”), the band rose sharply, immediately selling out shows across the country. Meanwhile, back in their native US, KEXP’s John Richards echoed the same sentiment. Things were set. In fact, tickets had just gone on sale for their biggest show to date, a 1500 cap headliner at London’s Electric Ballroom.

Then…well, then same as for everyone. Shutdown, lockdown, hibernation, nothing. It was a hammer blow. But rather than rue their misfortune, the band desperately tried to turn it into a positive, immediately moving to try to make more, and – they were determined - better, music. The result is the career-high 'Love On My Mind' – a six song mini-album, mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer - that condenses all the energy and darkness that has made Bambara so compelling but rearranges them into something defiantly new.

Not that getting there was easy. With the band’s core (twin brothers Reid and Blaze Bateh, the singer and drummer, and childhood friend William Brookshire, bass) scattered across the US, they remotely pieced together an EP but as soon as it was finished, they scrapped it. In their words, it felt “dishonest”. They were striving for something new and they hadn’t hit the mark. They realized they needed to change approach so at that point they decided to reconvene in New York. Finally, things started to take shape.

By now, they had a better idea of where they wanted to head. They knew they wanted to include a couple of duets and enlisted the vocals of Bria Salmena (Orville Peck/Frigs) and Drew Citron (Public Practice). They also wanted to expand their sound palette so turned to Jason Disu and Jeff Tobias (Sunwatchers) to add trombone and saxophone respectively. They recorded again, utilizing all these new elements, sampling their recordings as they went along, in the process manipulating the sounds across the mini album. The final result is something astonishing.

Opening track, “Slither in the Rain,” all hissing high-hat and spectral synthlines, is a true statement of intent. It’s minimal and atmospheric, foregrounding Bateh’s raw vocals as he introduces one of 'Love On My Mind’s main characters, years after the events of the album are over, a lonely man who throws bottles at airplanes and dances a two-step in the pattern of a figure-8. While Bateh has always been adept at character sketches, here we are introduced to a newfound vulnerability that runs true through the entire album and causes the songs to hit on a more human level. It’s a change he readily acknowledges.

“The lyrics for Love on My Mind are a little more personal,” he admits, “and definitely more vulnerable and human. There’s more of a focus on realism. I think part of that was because I’d become zoned in on photography during lockdown. Being in NYC without being able to actually experience it made me search for representations of the way it feels to be running around in the city. And I found that in photographs. Mainly, Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin. This also influenced the decision to make one of the characters in the story a photographer, presenting pieces of the story through her snapshots.”

Bambara - Mythic Love (from the 'Love on My Mind' mini album out on 2/25)

Lyric Video for "High School Gym" - https://youtu.be/tey5Q8ud16E
Stream “High School Gym" Everywhere Here - https://dougiepoole.wharfcatrecords.com/high-school-gym
Bandcamp “High School Gym” - https://dougiepoole.bandcamp.com/track/high-school-gym

About “High School Gym” from Dougie Poole:
"When somebody that you love dies, they might visit you in your dreams. They can ask you things or tell you things. The conversations continue, and feel perfectly real. Little gifts your brain can give itself. I've asked around and I think it's a somewhat common thing when you lose someone, and so I wanted to write "High School Gym" about a dream I have sometimes. Everybody I know who is dead gathered together in my high school gym, a place that disappeared a long time ago."

Video & Streaming

Dougie Poole  - High School Gym

Pre-Order 'The Rainbow Wheel of Death' here - https://dougiepoole.wharfcatrecords.com/the-rainbow-wheel-of-death

About 'The Rainbow Wheel of Death' Album

A country songwriter from Brooklyn's indie underground, Dougie Poole blurs the lines between genre and generation on his third solo album, 'The Rainbow Wheel of Death.' Rooted in sharp songwriting, Poole's golden baritone, and the organic sounds of a live-in-the-studio band, it's a classic-sounding record for the modern world, stocked with songs that make room for everything from old-school synthesizers to contemporary storytelling. 

'The Rainbow Wheel of Death's title nods to the colorful pinwheel that appears onscreen whenever a computer's application stalls. For Poole — who found himself working as a freelance computer programmer once the pandemic brought his touring schedule to a temporary halt in 2020 — it's also a reference to the holding pattern that's left much of society feeling stuck, unable to move ahead in an uncertain world. That feeling was pervasive when he began writing these nine songs, finishing the first handful of tracks in his New York City bedroom and wrapping up the songwriting process in the recording studio itself, this time surrounded by a band of collaborators and instrumentalists. 

Once hailed as the "patron saint of millennial malaise" for his sardonic wit and topical, tongue-in-cheek songwriting, Poole broadens his reach here. He fine-tunes his genre-bending approach to country music, too, with 'The Rainbow Wheel of Death' reaching far beyond the genre's boundaries for new sounds and unexpected textures. "High School Gym" builds a bridge between 2020s lo-fi textures and 1980s pop vibes, while "Must Be In Here Somewhere" — whose narrator sits at a lap top, searching through "every server burning in North Carolina" for a digital souvenir of a long-lost relationship — mixes modern concerns with classic country instrumentation. If records like 2017's Wideass Highway and 2020's breakthrough release 'The Freelancer's Blues' told stories about uninspired Millennials languishing in dead-end jobs and no-good relationships, then The Rainbow Wheel of Death focuses on more universal issues like mortality, love, and the passing of the time.

With 'The Rainbow Wheel of Death,' Dougie Poole breathes new life into country music, retaining the acclaimed elements of his previous work — drum machines, acoustic guitars, synthesizers, and his deep-set voice — while pushing toward something warm, organic, and prismatic.

Dougie Poole - Beth David Cemetery (From the album 'The Rainbow Wheel of Death' out 2/24)

From the Mascot LP by Bichkraft!  Order your LP or CD at www.wharfcatrecords.com!

Order on Apple Music here - h t t p s : / / i t u n e s . a p p l e . c o m / u s / a l b u m / m a s c o t / i d 9 8 3 1 7 6 0 0 5 

Release Date:  4/21/2015
Personnel:  Dima Novichenko, Jenia Bichowski, Serzh Kupriychuk, Jenia Machina

RIYL:  The Jesus and Mary Chain, early Velvet Underground, Big Black, Sonic Youth

From Kiev to Kansas City, 20-somethings the world over tend to traffic in the same sort of distractions from modern life: clothes, sneakers, cars, love. Mascot, the debut LP from Ukranian guitar and drum machine noise makers, Bichcraft, holds these things for what they are: fleeting diversions from the bleak realities of modern times and an increasingly uncertain political landscape. That the band composed, wrote and recorded Mascot’s eight songs in its hometown of Kiev only adds to their authority on the matter.  As Dima Novichenko sings in the album opener ‘Didn’t Know,’ “There are erased numbers on your road… We better cover our heads.”  
This is heavy, paranoid music in the shape of frenetic jams like “A4,” in which waves of dual-guitar noise accompany a digitized howl, chanting from deep inside the mix. Often, guitar interludes emerge quickly and take a song in a new direction as they do in "Might Night Dicks."  On this track Novichenko and Bichowski display an extensive post-punk guitar vocabulary. They are as fluent in Psychocandy as they are early SY.  After hearing the record’s interwoven guitar lines, it should come as no surprise that the two originally met up to play garage jazz before Serzh Kupriychuk and Jenia Machina joined to handle bass and drum machines, respectively.   
For its brutality and chaos, Mascot has some undeniably pretty moments: the lilting guitar refrain that kicks off “Bushes,” for example, or the often poetic imagery in Novichenko and Bichowski’s lyrics about the natural world, love and decay. Still, these nods to beauty always lead back to fractured songs about suburban scenes where mankind’s disregard for nature is just a warning of greater dangers looming on the edge of town. 

Bichkraft - Didn't Know

Catacomb (24 Bit Master)

Parquet Courts cover Pretty Girls by Joey Pizza Slice (Son of Salami) on the split 7" currently up for pre-order at www.wharfcatrecords.com.

Words:

Wharf Cat Records is excited to announce this split release by two of our very favorite artists, Parquet Courts and Joey Pizza Slice.  Each one has long admired the other's catalog through various incarnations and releases.  Now they get a chance to cover one another’s songs.  On the A Side Joey Pizza Slice (AKA Son of Salami) gives tribute to the angular guitar churn of the Parquet Courts' 'Picture of Health,' filling the vocals with helium and letting them loose like balloons into a hazy summer sky.  On the flip the Parquet Courts turn Joey's synth pop masterpiece, 'Pretty Girls,' into the perfect  summer jam that will get you stoked about cloudy days and being ignored all the time - it's just a matter of perspective after all!  This is a balanced and involving 7" comprised of 2 tracks sure to help keep you cool well into the dog days.  

Parquet Courts - Pretty Girls is a Motherfucker (Joey Pizza Slice)

Running Water is the B-Side from the Heavenly Creatures b/w Running Water 7" by Estonia's Holy Motors.  Order your 7" here - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/dzksicdaeoohfrguxlmrwuwxcc6sei

Order on Apple Music here - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/heavenly-creatures/id1037599231?i=1037599234

“Songs dreaming up cowboys on trans-stellar soul-searching and romance caught in a breeze.”

HOLY MOTORS is a Tallinn, Estonia based dark twang & reverb band from a nonexistent movie. It bows to engines and echos and film-directors. Cinematic suspension is often more than not what drives the band towards a melody and meaning. In it´s time, HOLY MOTORS has supported Sic Alps, Dirty Fences and Mystery Train. The latter a movie by Jim Jarmusch.

The Heavenly Creatures 7” was recorded by motorcyclists and old men in old studios. No mystery. No smoke and mirrors. No idea of what had happened. Compositions that eventually got recorded were songs dreaming up cowboys on trans-stellar soul-searching and romance caught in a breeze.

Holy Motors - Running Water

'Achy Breaky Heart' is from the Nick van Woert record record Waco.  Order yours here - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/nick-van-woert-waco

WACO
In 1993 the FBI inadvertently created an evacuation soundtrack during the 51 day standoff in Waco, Texas with David Koresh and the Branch Dividians. The FBI blasted these songs and noises in an attempt to torture and evacuate the inhabitants of the compound. This record is a selection of these songs, curated by Nick van Woert and recreated by the musicians listed below as they saw fit. 
WACO was produced by Nick van Woert to accompany his exhibition, “Just Dropped In to See What Condition My Condition Was In” at Moran Bonderoff Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.  This limited edition LP was engineered by Mike Kutchman and recorded to 2” tape at Kutch 1 Studios in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  Featuring artists as diverse as Ben Greenberg (Uniform, The Men) and Logan Takahashi (Teengirl Fantasy), WACO is a thrilling maniacal ride and sure to become a collector’s item.  
TRACK LIST:

A SIDE
Reveille (Wake Up Waco) - Spencer Murphy, Austin Williamson, Jack Gulielmetti, Isaiah Barr
Speak Softly - Brian McPeck, Emilliano Ortiz, Ludwig Persick, Matthew McAuley
WACO - Logan Takahashi
These Ropes Are Made For Hanging - Samoa, Julia Jade Duffy, Langdon Graves, Aaron Bondaroff
Left Right Left - Sandy Parker
WACkO - Logan Takahashi

B SIDE
Achy Breaky Heart - Ben Greenberg, ZZ Ramirez, Elias Ronnenfelt
No More Mister Nice Guy - Ben Greenberg, ZZ Ramirez
WAkO - Logan Takahashi
Let It Snow - Jeff Zagers, Tara Walters
Let It Snow (Last Call) - Donald Cumming, Mike Kutchman, Nick van Woert

Ben Greenberg, ZZ Ramirez, Elias Bender Rønnenfelt - Achy Breaky Heart (from the WACO LP)

'Voices' is the B-Side of the Perfect H 7" available here - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/pre-order-posse-perfect-h-7

Order from Apple Music here - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/perfect-h-voices-single/id1074031375

Seattle 3 piece, Posse follow up their 2014 album, Soft Opening with this limited edition 7” featuring jacket artwork by Sam Falls.  The two tracks on the Perfect H 7” are constructed with intricately layered guitars, propulsive drumming and Paul Wittmann-Todd and Sacha Maxim’s hushed vocals.  These two eerily beautiful dreamscapes are sure to demand repeated spins, and satiate the Posse fan looking for some new tracks from their favorite pacific northwestern minimalists.
Words from Posse - "You're on the phone: the person on the other end is talking. You hear a voice, you hear voices: from behind you, around you. Reminiscent of people, places, things, stuff you cared about, stuff you never gave a shit about. Listening now, barely audible over the noise coming through the receiver, you feel connections you can't quite articulate: the colors of time, gradients, cycles, trees, boundaries, nothingness.  What's that? Someone is trying to get your attention. On the receiver, the other end of the line: sounds like you? Maybe? They're trying to get you to stop talking. They're saying they hear voices. You want to hang up, but the phone is not a phone. The phone is a switch. You throw the switch, the lights go out, and you're left in the darkness, alone."

Edition of 300 records. Additional artists participating in this 7” series are Mick Barr and Carson Cox.
PAST PRESS – 
Pitchfork Rising Piece - http://pitchfork.com/artists/32128-posse/
Posse Play Pitchfork Soft Opening in Seattle - http://pitchfork.com/news/55981-metz-and-posse-to-play-pitchfork-nightcap-in-seattle/
Pitchfork Review of Soft Opening LP - http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19132-posse-soft-opening


Posse - Voices

'Ines de Castro' is the first single from David Vassalotti's Broken Rope LP on on 2/12/2016.  Order your copy here - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/david-vassalotti-broken-rope-lp

Order from Apple Music here - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/broken-rope/id1074173803

As modern life spirals further into chaos and confusion, David Vassalotti’s newest album Broken Rope, a follow-up to his revered out-of-print 2011 LP Book of Ghosts, presents itself as a soundtrack for the tumult
.
Vassalotti, a Florida-based songwriter and performer for critically acclaimed 4AD signees Merchandise (amongst numerous other projects), has used this record as an opportunity to delve further into his own diverse world of personal interests. Broken Rope is a passion project, with Vassalotti handling all of the writing, performing, recording, production, and art design.

From lo-fi guitar pop sounds (a la Flying Nun staples like The Clean and The Verlaines), to elements harsh industrial noise and musique concrete, Vassalotti weaves together a wide array of musical influences with a steady hand. Similarly, the album’s lyrics draw from literary references as far- reaching as Portuguese history, Russian folklore, and Spanish poetry.

Ambitious as it may be to cover so much ground, there is a rational flow and unity that ties the record together. In the chaotic globalism of the 21st century Broken Rope may not be the compass that helps us find our orientation, but it can still serve as a mirror to help shape our concept of where we fit into the fray. This is an adventurous album for uncertain times.

PITCHFORK: D. Vassalotti "Swallow My Pride"
“Tampa's Merchandise have a decade of artful hardcore and experimental pop under their belts-- but the devastating solo output of guitarist Dave Vassalotti is their best kept secret”

David Vassalotti - Ines De Castro

'Monk' is from the Love is Hard LP out on 5/6.  Pre-order your LP here - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/wgvvpson3q3y0ui51vqaygwzy2hsgy

Pre-order on Apple Music here - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/love-is-hard/id1076919555

Although this Brooklyn trio is probably too goddamn youthful to care what the hell I'm talking about, there's a consistent vibe to their debut album that puts me in mind of great Cleveland bands of the last century -- from The Mirrors to Friction to Death of Samantha and onward. Something about the way Dan Wise's guitar mixes with both his singing, and that of Cory Feierman's, reminds me of naught but a Lake Erie fish fry. And the rhythm section, with Cory on bass and Will Schmiechen on drums, bears down on these twinned howls in a way that makes it possible to catch whiffs of the Dead Boys at their sharpest.

Perhaps this geographical anomaly results from the fact that Honey's line-up contains two veterans of the Wisconsin Dells water park scene and a native New Yorker, creating a mutant hybrid Ohioan in the process. But that is just theory.
The reality is that these guys are punching a lot straighter and harder than they did with previous units they've been in, and the results are a loud and royal blast. You still get a soupçon of sophisto texture deep in the interior of some of the tunes' architecture, but the main trajectory of the material has a brutalist immediacy. There are even parts where Coryʼs voice conjures up a bellow recalling the long- gone Wolf King of Lodi. But all the tunes hit your head like a fox terrier shot from a bazooka.

This is a great, hard-edged slice of rock noise that blazes with a light far more forthright than I'd dared expect. How very fucking cool is that? --Byron Coley

Honey - Monk

'Expansion Pact' is the first single from Gun Outfit's Two Way Player EP out on 2/12/2016.  Order Two Way Player here - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/pre-order-gun-outfit-two-way-player

Order from Apple Music here - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/two-way-player-ep/id1074175667

After nearly a decade and a steady flow of full lengths, EPs, and tapes, Gun Outfit can be safely identified as underground stalwarts and an institution of sorts, embodying the promise of lives lived for art. Outlasting simplistic “sounds like” comparisons, Gun Outfit have arrived at a sound that is awash in western light and as deep and expansive as their beloved Pacific Ocean.

On the heels of their justly lauded LP Dream All Over, Gun Outfit deliver Two Way Player, an EP of enigmatic and spacious guitar music that stands alongside the bandʼs boldest and strongest work thus far. Abstracted legends of the American West, fortunes gained and lost, tragic songs of life rendered in deep focus – all portrayed through mysterious and dense compositions that recall the lonely expanses and warm intimacies of the films of Bruce Baillie and Gunvor Nelson. Compulsory listening for any fan of American Music, Two Way Player is a brief, beautiful dispatch from the countryʼs most consistent band, a record equally suited for stoned sunny mornings and lonely full moon nights. Two Way Player was recorded in New York in June 2015 and features an alternate lineup including David Harris (Milk Music) on bass, Joe Denardo (Growing/Ornament) on guitar and Will Lawrence on electric piano in addition to the core group of Daniel Swire, Carrie Keith and Dylan Sharp. Recorded at Kutch 1 Studios, Brooklyn. 

Pitchfork review of Dream All Over - http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20980-dream-all-over/

Gun Outfit - Expansion Pact

PRE-ORDER Psychometry LP and CD here - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/pre-order-votaries-psychometry
PRE-ORDER on BandCamp here - https://wharfcatrecords.bandcamp.com/
PRE-ORDER on Itunes here - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychometry/id1158093253https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychometry/id1158093253

After releasing two critically acclaimed albums that evaded the trappings of contemporary psychedelia, Jackson Scott’s heavily drone-rock and shoegaze influenced new outfit, Votaries, reasserts that an unabashed indifference to musical trends continues to suit his songwriting.

Undulating guitars and lyrics that wantonly explore themes of eradication, annihilation, temptation, rage, and paradise recall Spaceman 3’s drug-tinged insouciance, while ethereally layered vocal harmonies pay homage to the singular production achievements of pioneers like My Bloody Valentine.

The resulting sound is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. Songs like the rhythmically propelled “Delusion” and punchy, bass-driven “Rainbow Death Revisited” explore territories not yet charted by any of the greats and show that Psychometry, transcendent as it may be, is merely a hint of what is to come as Scott devoutly continues to push his musical boundaries.

~ Limited edition of 500 records ~

NPR: Review – Jackson Scott Sunshine Redux
The Asheville-via-Pittsburgh native hasn't yet learned how to hold back, and here's hoping he never does…Sunshine Redux rips a mental seam that will be difficult to mend, as its loose, bright essence spills out across the ages
PITCHFORK: Review – Jackson Scott Melbourne
[7.7 out of 10] This promising debut album from the young North Carolina-based singer/songwriter mixes the lysergic creepiness of Syd Barrett with more straight-forward and hooky guitar jams indebted to indie rock
PITCHFORK: Rising – “Jackson Scott”
This young Syd Barrett acolyte makes cassette-hiss pop from the comfort of his Asheville, North Carolina, home

BUY VINYL & CD

Votaries - Succumb

ORDER LP - www.wharfcatrecords.com
ORDER ON BANDCAMP - https://wharfcatrecords.bandcamp.com/album/pre-order-misogyny-stone
PRE-ORDER ON APPLE MUSIC - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/misogyny-stone-ep/id1201906424

A drone whines in the distance; Horoscope jettisons a new 5-track LP titled Misogyny Stone. It has prescient timing: here we sit at the abyss of masculine power. Originally from Miami Florida but living in New York for over a decade, Rene J Nunez-Cabrera produces raw sonic compositions indebted to the visceral experience of performance. The new LP, his second for Wharf Cat Records, expands his palette of sound and exhibits the artist’s range in 5 succinct opi: from paranoid, buzzing headscapes, to meditative, industrial drumming. Washes and other gestures of contemporary noise abound, but the ultimate descriptor for Nunez’ penchant is mood. The title track contains Nunez’ version of a deep club jam, intertwining light and dark, low and high, with Kathryn Undorfer’s spoken word sitting right in the middle, sonically spotlighted. “Narcissist Vague” has a religious breadth despite its relatively short existence; while “Azebache Necklace Bought to Protect My Daughter” is a snare-pegged story of delivering a totem; “New Piece (for Christian Mirande)” starts with an organ’s lament, creepily. Nunez’ distorted, layered vocals then build into a desperate chorus of screams. Horoscope’s sound is embedded in the struggles of personhood. Through modular manipulations and his acute utility of pedals and tapes loops, Nunez’ de- and reconstructs the dynamics of gender relations: look into the misogyny stone; it is opaque and bleak.

Horoscope - Misogyny Stone (from the Misogyny Stone LP)

ORDER CD/LP - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/pre-order-wall-untitled-lp
ORDER ON BANDCAMP - https://wharfcatrecords.bandcamp.com/album/pre-order-untitled

If you saw WALL play in NYC or at SXSW (they were No. 2 on Time Out Austin’s top picks for SXSW 2016) you will recognize some of the tracks on their new LP, Untitled. "Everything In Between" was often a set opener, albeit in an instrumental form. Here we find the definitive full band arrangement, which shows a group capable of generating wave after wave of engaging post-punk. First single "High Ratings" advances the strengths of WALL's self-titled EP with it's look at modern anxiety stemming from social media addiction: "We're all guilty," as singer Sam York howls. Their rocking cover of Half Japanese's classic "Charmed Life" is probably the closest track in tone to "Cuban Cigars," the pop moment on the WALL EP. True to the original, it features perfectly skronky sax from Pill’s Ben Jaffe. "River Mansion" displays Vince McClelland's extensive post-punk guitar vocabulary with squalls, shrieks and plinks over the band's elegant Kroutrock groove with York and Skadden's cooing vocals occasionally synching with a slippery guitar riff. Fans of Skadden's former group, Finally Punk will appreciate "Save Me" – a tale of desperation with Skadden sharing lead vocal duties along with York. These are just a few examples of songs from this diverse and intense LP, showing us a band stretching out sonically and stylistically at their peak and right before their untimely demise. 

So there you have it -- a testament to a band that formed in an instant, burned brightly and left us with two great records. Did you see WALL at Palisades, The Silent Barn, Alphaville, Union Pool, and all the rest of them? Let this LP remind you or take you there for the first time. Mixed by Mike Kutchman at Kutch 1 Studios and mastered by Josh Bonati.

PRESS
Stereogum Premieres "High Ratings" - a jamboree of demoniac guitar lines and seductively hostile vocals
PAST PRESS
Stereogum Premieres “Fit The Part” - ripping apart at the seams and bursting through with unnerving vitality
Pitchfork Review of WALL EP - In tricks like these, WALL wriggle out from the under the weight of history

BUY LP/CD

WALL - River Mansion (from the Untitled LP)

ORDER LP - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/pre-order-coca-leaf-deep-marble-sunrise
ORDER ON BANDCAMP - https://wharfcatrecords.bandcamp.com/album/pre-order-deep-marble-sunrise
ORDER ON APPLE MUSIC - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/deep-marble-sunrise/id1224766296

Coca Leaf was a collaborative birthed in the hot Florida swamp years ago. It was mistakenly tossed into the garbage heap, left to simmer and rot, and has finally been scooped up with wings outspread, emerging anew from the shitfire into a reincarnated binge in the Big City. Deep Marble Sunrise was sculpted from a series of brain-fried sessions in NYC taking place over some hot summer days at Figure 8 Studios.
The manic ramping-up and the inevitable come-down intertwine here. The party and the empty vaccuum that follows. For this LP, the group is comprised of multi-instrumentalists ZZ Ramirez (Destruction Unit, Ukiah Drag, etc), David Vassalotti & Carson Cox (Merchandise, etc), and Ben Greenberg (Uniform, etc). The cuts follow their impulses freely, coming up with a strange combination of hard funk, jazz, noise, no-wave, free improvisation, and dub.
For fans of Dad’s Brown on Brown, the great Neon Blud or any of the band members’ other groups, this is sure to be a summer favorite and soundtrack to all-night parties everywhere.

Premiere of "Riding Ice" on CLRVYNT
...a dancefloor-ready, post-punk-style stomper that recalls the no-wave punk-funk of Bush Tetras, A Certain Ratio, James Chance and others.

Coca Leaf - New Soft Dawn (from the Deep Marble Sunrise LP)

ORDER LP/VINYL - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/pre-order-profligate-somewhere-else
ORDER ON BANDCAMP - https://wharfcatrecords.bandcamp.com/album/somewhere-else
ORDER ON APPLE MUSIC - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/somewhere-else/1298760552

Profligate's first full length since 2014, Somewhere Else deftly balances seeming opposites – chaos and composition, melody and noise, programmed and live instrumentation, all with a distinctly human touch. Mastered by Carl Saff.

About Profligate
Noah Anthony’s music ranges from heavily rhythmic electronics to tightly composed songs. In 2013 Profligate released the Videotape 12" (Not Not Fun) and full length Come Follow Me (More). The Red Rope EP (DKA) and full length Finding the Floor (Not Not Fun) followed in 2014. Profligate has toured the U.S. and Europe receiving acclaim for recordings and visceral live performances. Over the Summer of 2016 Profligate began operating as a duo featuring L.A. poet/musician Elaine Kahn on additional vocals and instrumentation. The Somewhere Else LP features tracks they worked on together as well as solo work from Anthony.

Profligate - Black Plate

ORDER LP/CD - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/holy-motors-slow-sundown-pre-order-lpcd
ORDER LP/CD/DIGITAL ON BANDCAMP - https://wharfcatrecords.bandcamp.com/album/slow-sundown
ORDER ON APPLE MUSIC - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/slow-sundown/1304230978

2017’s equal parts somnambulant and sultry Sleeprydr 7” was aptly described as “psychedelic rock that hits like a dream despite undoubtedly seeking to soundtrack nightmares” (-Stereogum). Thankfully, Slow Sundown, Holy Motors’ debut full length release, finds the Estonian dreamcatchers utilizing a similar sonic palette ranging from dark psychedelic pop to shoegaze-inflected western music. But while Sleeprydr, much like 2015’s Heavenly Creatures 7”, provided only a fleeting glimpse into the dreamscape that their music evokes, Slow Sundown’s eight tracks offer a more immersive experience for those brave enough to take the ride. While the guitar lines from lonely cowboy ballads like “Honeymooning” could easily serve as the central themes for unwritten Morriccone scores, dystopian anthems like the rhythmically propelled “Signs” break new ground for the band and demonstrate that Holy Motors are not bound by their influences. Thematically the album is comprised primarily of sad love songs centered around the idea of motion – the motion of a satellite orbiting a planet, the motion of a passenger riding shotgun in a car – as it relates to stellar-scale and existential isolation. Produced by Merchandise’s Carson Cox and recorded at Brooklyn’s Kutch1 Studios when the band was visiting the US on tourist visas, Slow Sundown is a beautiful alien artifact that definitively delivers on everything we have been promised by Holy Motors’ work to date.

About Holy Motors

Hailing from Estonia, Holy Motors is a five-piece twang and reverb band featuring three guitarists. They are cowboys at heart who come off as shoegazers by their presence and dreamcatchers in their music. In their time, Holy Motors have played alongside bands such as Kaleidoscope, Craft Spells, Sic Alps, Dirty Fences, and Rips. They will appear at South by Southwest in 2018 and are currently organizing a series of US tour dates centered around the festival.

STEREOGUM
Hits like a dream despite undoubtedly seeking to soundtrack nightmares
THE FADER
HOLY MOTORS makes shoegaze that sounds like the old west
ADHOC
Alluring in their delivery, entrapping in their substance

Holy Motors - Honeymooning

PRE-ORDER - http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/holy-motors-slow-sundown-pre-order-lpcd
PRE-ORDER ON BANDCAMP - https://wharfcatrecords.bandcamp.com/album/slow-sundown
PRE-ORDER ON APPLE MUSIC - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/slow-sundown/1304230978

2017’s equal parts somnambulant and sultry Sleeprydr 7” was aptly described as “psychedelic rock that hits like a dream despite undoubtedly seeking to soundtrack nightmares” (-Stereogum). Thankfully, Slow Sundown, Holy Motors’ debut full length release, finds the Estonian dreamcatchers utilizing a similar sonic palette ranging from dark psychedelic pop to shoegaze-inflected western music. But while Sleeprydr, much like 2015’s Heavenly Creatures 7”, provided only a fleeting glimpse into the dreamscape that their music evokes, Slow Sundown’s eight tracks offer a more immersive experience for those brave enough to take the ride. While the guitar lines from lonely cowboy ballads like “Honeymooning” could easily serve as the central themes for unwritten Morriccone scores, dystopian anthems like the rhythmically propelled “Signs” break new ground for the band and demonstrate that Holy Motors are not bound by their influences. Thematically the album is comprised primarily of sad love songs centered around the idea of motion – the motion of a satellite orbiting a planet, the motion of a passenger riding shotgun in a car – as it relates to stellar-scale and existential isolation. Produced by Merchandise’s Carson Cox and recorded at Brooklyn’s Kutch1 Studios when the band was visiting the US on tourist visas, Slow Sundown is a beautiful alien artifact that definitively delivers on everything we have been promised by Holy Motors’ work to date.

About Holy Motors

Hailing from Estonia, Holy Motors is a five-piece twang and reverb band featuring three guitarists. They are cowboys at heart who come off as shoegazers by their presence and dreamcatchers in their music. In their time, Holy Motors have played alongside bands such as Kaleidoscope, Craft Spells, Sic Alps, Dirty Fences, and Rips. They will appear at South by Southwest in 2018 and are currently organizing a series of US tour dates centered around the festival.

STEREOGUM
Hits like a dream despite undoubtedly seeking to soundtrack nightmares
THE FADER
HOLY MOTORS makes shoegaze that sounds like the old west
ADHOC
Alluring in their delivery, entrapping in their substance

Holy Motors - Valley

Holy Motors - Signs

Holy Motors - I Will Try

ORDER 'SHADOW ON EVERYTHING' OUT ON WHARF CAT RECORDS ON 4/6
http://wharfcatrecords.com/store/bambara-shadow-on-everything-pre-order

Night’s changing 
Spiders seem to levitate in headlight 
While deer hide dumb in the bushes 
And three snakes hang from the branches of a small tree 
In front of her house where he’s climbing out of her room 

José looks back through the window 
She’s tangled up in the sheets and she’s smiling sweet 
Talking softly in her sleep 
He hops down to the driveway 
Stumbles to his car parked down the street 
And he turns the key 

The church looms on the horizon 
Like the dried up husk of some ancient bug 
Legs scratching at the rising sun 
Inside he gathers his things 
‘Round the scattered bodies of his passed out friends 
In a drunken spin 

Jimmy yawns and says, “Hey what’s goin on?” 
“Shadows just seem darker these days.” Says José 
“Anyway, I’m gonna catch a train.” 

José waits by the tracks 
Sunrise puts a squint in his eyes 
And it seems like there’s 
So many little creatures scurrying around that he can’t see 
The train comes and he starts running 
He jumps for it and he slips 

She wakes up and she sees his gone 
Just like she expected 
But she hoped she’d be wrong 
Thought this morning 
She could try it on top 
“Never get old where you were young.” 
He said while she was nodding off 
He’s kind of strange she thinks 
Yeah but so is love 
The kids in the church start to stir, 
As light pours in through the holes in the walls, 
Wondering if José is gone 
“No one ever really leaves.” 
Jimmy says through a cloud of smoke 
“Where would he go anyway?” 
The sun is up and the birds are pecking 
Pecking at something lying in the dirt

Bambara - José Tries To Leave - From the "Shadow On Everything" LP

This track is from the Record Store Day version of the ACLU Benefit Compilation and comes on a flexi disc! You can find this comp at fine record stores everywhere!

BUY ON BANDCAMP

Public Practice - Foundation (Demo) - from the RSD version of our ACLU 2XLP plus flexi-disc)

Guitar Dream is out on 1/25 in LP/CD/Special Edition LP tormats!
PRE-ORDER LP/CD/SPECIAL EDITION HERE - https://www.wharfcatrecords.com/store/david-vassalotti-guitar-dream
PRE-ORDER ON BANDCAMP HERE - https://davidvassalotti.bandcamp.com/album/guitar-dream
PRE-ORDER ON APPLE MUSIC HERE - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/guitar-dream/1439107076

About 'Guitar Dream'
It's 2018. Guitar music is as good as dead, exiled into irrelevance after decades of debasement. David Vassalotti (known for his work with a slew of Florida-based projects, most notably as co-founder of 4AD recording artists Merchandise) has crawled out from under his rock to record and release a record called Guitar Dream. Out of moroseness? Hope? Sarcasm? Are guitars’ death and life but a dream?

A quasi-breakup album voiced through a protean pastiche of dejected characters, this new record sees David Vassalotti at his most up-front and confessional. Vassalotti's guitar and songwriting work in Merchandise is much more apparent on this album compared to his last record, 2015's omni-genre and collage-heavy Broken Rope. On Guitar Dream, he channels some of Merchandise's melancholic post-punk balladry, but this record maintains a decidedly bleaker and more literary tone. Vassalotti is known and respected for his guitar playing, but his abilities as a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist are finally given opportunity to clearly shine, thanks to the production and engineering talents of co-conspirator and Merchandise frontman Carson Cox, in whose Silver Spring basement Guitar Dream was tracked. 

Fractured glam, keyboard trumpets and, yes, the occasional guitar solo prop up Vassalotti's fragile voice throughout the album's 10 tracks. Blankets of reverb and delay ghostify these maudlin pop nuggets. This is music best experienced alone, whether that be sitting on your unkempt bedsheets in the midnight hour or headphoned in the anonymous flow of the dreaded morning commute. In the tradition of other ambitious loners, fans of Leonard Cohen, Tim Buckley, Cass McCombs and Franco Battiato will find much to love here.

David Vassalotti - The Light (From the "Guitar Dream" LP out 1/25)

About Phantom Rhythm

Guitar-and-bass duo Gong Gong Gong charges out from Beijing’s underground scene with a distinct vision and uncompromising sense of purpose. The group unites musical cultures, drawing on inspirations as wide-ranging as Bo Diddley, Cantonese opera, West African desert blues, drone, and electronic music. 

Gong Gong Gong eschews traditional rock percussion, but on their debut LP, Phantom Rhythm 幽靈節奏, the locomotive chug of Tom Ng’s guitar combines with Joshua Frank’s thumping, harmonics-laden bass lines to conjure an aura of ghostly snare hits and timpani overtones. Over Frank’s enigmatic melodies, Ng sings in Cantonese, piecing together abstract tales of absurdity, doubt, desire, and lust. Synchronized to the point of near-telepathy, the band use their minimalistic tools and idiosyncratic playing style to challenge the notions of rock n’ roll and strip the form down to its bare essentials: rhythm, melody, and grit.

About Gong Gong Gong
 
Formed in 2015, the band’s earliest shows were in Beijing underpass tunnels and DIY spaces. Ng and Frank are both outsiders who call the city their home: Ng, who was born in Hong Kong, defiantly sings in his native tongue, while Frank, originally from Montreal, has lived in Beijing on and off since childhood. (He is the English translator of Ng’s lyrics, adding another layer to the duo’s close collaboration). The duo is set to follow up the release of the Siren 7" with the release of the Phantom Rhythm album in the Fall of 2019.

Produced & Mixed by Jonny Schenke. Recorded at Seaside Lounge and Mixed at Studio Windows. Mastered by Carl Saff.

Gong Gong Gong 工工工 - Notes Underground 地下日記 (From the 'Phantom Rhythm' LP out 10/4)

One thing you won’t be able to avoid on Bambara’s Stray is death. It’s everywhere and inescapable, abstract and personified  – perhaps the key to the whole record. Death, however, won’t be the first thing that strikes you about the group’s fourth – and greatest – album to date. That instead will be its pulverising soundscape; by turns, vast, atmospheric, cool, broiling and at times – on stand out tracks like “Sing Me To The Street” and “Serafina” – simply overwhelming
 
Bambara – twin brothers Reid and Blaze Bateh, singer/guitarist and drummer respectively, and bassist William Brookshire – have been evolving their midnight-black noise into something more subtle and expansive ever since the release of their 2013 debut Dreamviolence. That process greatly accelerated on 2018’s Shadow On Everything, their first on New York’s Wharf Cat Records and  a huge stride forward for the band both lyrically and sonically. 
 
The album was rapturously received by the press, listeners and their peers. NPR called it a “mesmerising...western, gothic opus,” Bandcamp called the "horror-house rampage" "one of the year's most gripping listens," and Alexis Marshall of Daughters named it his “favorite record of 2018.”  Shadow also garnered much acclaim on the other side of the Atlantic. Influential British 6Music DJ Steve Lamacq, dubbed them the best band of 2019’s SXSW, and Joe Talbot of the UK band IDLES said, "The best thing I heard last year was easily Bambara and their album Shadow On Everything."  The question was, though, how to follow it?
 
To start, the band did what they always do: they locked themselves in their windowless Brooklyn basement to write. Decisions were made early on to try and experiment with new instrumentation and song structures, even if the resulting compositions would force the band to adapt their storied live set, known for its tenacity and technical prowess. Throughout the songwriting process, the band pulled from their deep well of creative references, drawing on the likes of Leonard Cohen, Ennio Morricone, Sade, classic French noir L’Ascenseur Pour L’Echafraud, as well as Southern Gothic stalwarts Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews.
 
Once the building blocks were set in place, they met with producer Drew Vandenberg, who mixed Shadow On Everything, in Athens, GA to record the foundation of Stray. After recruiting friends Adam Markiewicz (The Dreebs) on violin, Sean Smith (Klavenauts) on trumpet and a crucial blend of backing vocals by Drew Citron (Public Practice) and Anina Ivry-Block (Palberta), Bambara convened in a remote cabin in rural Georgia, where Reid laid down his vocals.
 
The finished product represents both the band's most experimental and accessible work to date. The addition of Citron and Ivory-Block’s vocals create a hauntingly beautiful contrast to Bateh’s commanding  baritone on tracks like “Sing Me to the Street”, “Death Croons” and “Stay Cruel," while the Dick Dale inspired guitar riffs on “Serafina” and "Heat Lightning" and the call-and-response choruses throughout the album showcase Bambara’s ability to write songs that immediately demand repeat listens.
 
While the music itself is evocative and propulsive, a fever dream all of its own, the lyrical content pushes the record even further into its own darkly thrilling realm. If the songs on Shadow On Everything were like chapters in a novel, then this time they’re short stories. Short stories connected by death and its effect on the characters in contact with it. “Death is what you make it” runs a lyric in “Sweat,” a line which may very well be the thread  that ties  these stories together.

Bambara - Serafina (from the 'Stray' album out 2/14)

About The Freelancer's Blues

The Freelancer’s Blues, the second full-length LP from Brooklyn’s country crooner Dougie Poole, captures its cur-rent moment like nothing else. Poole updates the story-telling backbone of country music for an audience that is young, urban, romantically alienated and financially pre-carious, using the same threads spun by Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson before him to write his own anthems for a new generation of country music fans. With his debut album Wideass Highway Dougie Poole established himself as forerunner in a class of musicians who grew up in a post-genre ecosystem equally as likely to be influenced by Ariel Pink and Animal Collective as Dolly Parton and Dwight Yoakam. On The Freelancer’s Blues, Dougie graduates from drum machine and synthesizer bedroom country to a full band with honky-tonk harmonies, wailing pedal steel, and carefully constructed arrangements. Produced by Jonathan Schenke (PC Worship, Gong Gong Gong, Public Practice) The Free-lancer’s Blues does the seemingly impossible of staying true to Poole’s heritage in the DIY scenes of New York and Providence, while simultaneously certifying him as a country music bonafide.

About Dougie Poole

Dougie Poole is a musician and songwriter living in Brooklyn, New York. Coming of age in Providence, he dabbled in heavier and more exprimental music before maturing into a country auteur. He writes earnestly about his experience (life in the big city, heartbreak in the digital age) and approaches country as an experimental music form, as well as a tradition. He has shared tours nationally with Jerry Paper, Still Corners and Bong Wish, and in 2019 guested on the Drugdealer album Raw Honey.

Dougie Poole - Vaping On The Job (From 'The Freelancer's Blues' album out 6/12)

Public Practice is reanimating the spirit of late ‘70s New York with their intoxicating  brand of no wave-tinged dark disco. The band came in hot with their punchy balance of punk, funk, and pop on the critically acclaimed Distance is a Mirror EP in 2018, paving the way for their highly anticipated freshman record. Now, after a year of intimate and experimental songwriting in their home studio, they have fleshed out the energetic, playfully oblique sound captured on their debut full-length Gentle Grip. 

Together, the foursome creates bold, slinky rhythms and groove-filled hooks that get under your skin and into your dancing shoes. The musicians’ unique chemistry and approach to songwriting is part of what makes their world so intriguing. Magnetic singer and lyricist Sam York and guitarist and principal sonic architect Vince McClelland, who were creative music partners for years prior to Public Practice’s formation, come to the table with an anarchic perspective that aims to eradicate creative barriers by challenging the very idea of what a song can be. Paradoxically, Drew Citron, on bass/vocals/synth, and drummer/producer Scott Rosenthal are uncannily adept at working within the framework of classic pop structures. But instead of clashing, these contrasting styles challenge and complement one another, resulting in an album full of spiraling tensions and unexpected turns.

Inspired by influential New York bands like Liquid Liquid and ESG, the foursome has a natural inclination toward music that sounds rough-hewn. “We were thinking about classic New York dance albums, and the thing that stuck out is that many sounded like they were recorded in less-than-ideal situations,” McClelland says. “There was always something about them that felt somewhat home-cooked.” McClelland has spent the past few years constructing a home studio with carefully chosen and occasionally hand-made equipment in an effort to recreate that “cobbled together” sound. As three quarters of Public Practice are engineers as well as instrumentalists, their collection of gear, combined with the recording rig McClelland built, allowed the band to record Gentle Grip largely at their own hybrid practice space/studio in Brooklyn. “Having a space and setup that is unique, you're always going to have more of a signature sound,” McClelland explains. They spent the better part of 2019 playing with sounds, riffing on McClelland’s demos, and recording a number of songs live to tape. Although a handful of sessions occurred in traditional recording studios, the band’s autonomy and ability to record themselves imbues their music with a sense of freedom and gives it a distinct character — a home-cooked sound that is purely Public Practice.

Public Practice - Compromised (From the 'Gentle Grip' album out 5/15)

"Endless Night" is from the album 'Horse' out 10/16

About 'Horse' by Holy Motors

Holy Motors' new LP 'Horse,' which is due out on Wharf Cat on October 16th, finds the band acknowledging the Americana and rockabilly strands of their musical DNA without sacrificing any of the otherworldly mystique that keeps them from neatly conforming to the shoegaze and dreampop labels often applied to their music.  

From the album’s opening moments, songs like “Country Church,” with its major key and classic rhythm and blues guitarline, and “Midnight Cowboy,” which sounds like a lost Buddy Holly 45 played at 33 rpm, make it clear that Horse — even if it may not accomplish the impossible task of demystifying this band of ex-Soviet cowboys — will at least show you that there’s more to them than the near-impenetrable darkness of their work to date may suggest. Although tracks like “Trouble” and “Endless Night” gravitate toward the ethereal production and existential subject matter of prior releases, repeat listens reveal complex compositions and an empathy that is central to this eight-song album.  

As a whole, Horse stands as a warmer, more human counterpoint to 2018’s celestial Slow Sundown, and showcases Holy Motors as a hypnotic force that draws listeners in and leaves them wanting more. This effect, paired with their ability to write lyrics and music that resonate with a deeply relatable feeling of isolation, has resulted in an album built to connect with people from devoted shoegaze and western psychedelia fanatics to dreamer cowboys, driving through wide open country roads under the stars.

BUY LP / CD

Holy Motors - Endless Night (From the album 'Horse' out 10/16)

Gong Gong Gong, Bambara, Holy Motors, Public Practice, Lily Konigsberg, Bush Tetras, Profligate, Palberta, Urochromes, Macula Dog, David Vassalotti, The Sediment Club, Horoscope+

We are in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Wharf Cat Records

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks