Spotlights have shared a video for the track ‘Mountains Are Forever’ taken from their latest album Love & Decay which is out now via Ipecac Recordings. The video arrives as the band commence their first headline tour across the US, having previously shared the stage Deftones, Melvins, Quicksand, Hum, Glassjaw, Pelican and Pallbearer – dates below.
The monolithic collaboration between industrial-noise post-everything bands Uniform and The Body continues with a second entry, Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back. Comprised of an amalgam of abrasive influence that spans Swans-y dirge and purge, Whitehouse’s clenched-jaw noise, middle-period Ministry’s penchant for metallic post-industrial everything, New Order’s nose for melodic emotionality, and Juicy J-inspired beats, Uniform and The Body’s approach delves deeper down the rabbit hole than before, igniting a sonic world of terror and bliss poised to grip the throats of fans yet again.
They’ve now shared the album’s lead track ‘Penance’, which Uniform’s Michael Berdan explains, “has to do with an ongoing attempt to hold oneself to a higher standard than you did yesterday. Human beings are bound to mess up as often as not, which can lead to either teachable experiences or nihilistic resign. I grew up surrounded by religious types who could act like monsters six days out of the week as long as they were willing to say ‘sorry’ to some priest and pray a rosary on the seventh. Continuing in malicious behaviour and demanding arbitrary absolution is a garbage way to live. However, if we take account of where we’ve done harm to others and ourselves and endeavour to learn and not repeat these actions, then maybe we can grow into empathetic and loving people.”
Listen to ‘Penance’ here:
AA
Uniform Live Dates:
06/07: Groningen, Netherlands – Vera
07/07: Leper, Belgium – Leper Fest
09/07: Malmo, Sweden – Plan B
10/07: Stockholm, Sweden – Hus 7
11/07: Anyksciai, Lithuania – Devilstone Festival
12/07: Kutná Hora, Czech Republic – Creepy Teepee Festival
13/07: St. Petersburg, Russia – Serdce Club $
14/07: Moscow, Russia – Pluton $
16/07: Bratislava, Slovakia – Protokultura
17/07: Kosice, Slovakia – Collosseum Club
18/07: Ostrava, Czech Republic – Colors Of Ostrava Festival
19/07: Berlin, Germany – Kantine Berghain
20/07: Den Haag, Netherlands – Grauzone Summer Festival
21/07: Bristol, UK – Crofters Rights +
22/07: Hull, UK – The Polar Bear +
23/07: Leeds, UK – Temple Of Boom +
24/07: Cardiff, UK – The Moon +
25/07: London, UK – Electrowerkz +
26/07: Paris, France – Espace B
27/07:Bamberg, Germany – Pizzini
28/07: Rokycany, Czech Republic – Fluff Fest
19/08: San Diego, CA – Casbah *
20/08: Phoenix, AZ – Valley Bar *
22/08: San Antonio, TX – Paper Tiger *
23/08: Austin, TX – Barracuda *
24/08: Denton, TX – Rubber Gloves *
25/08: Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall *
26/08: New Orleans, LA – Poor Boys
27/08: Birmingham, Alabama – The Firehouse
29/08: Tallahassee, FL – Wilbury
30/08: Tampa, FL – Orpheum *
31/08: Gainesville, FL – High Dive *
01/09: Atlanta, GA – Masquerade *
03/09: Nashville, TN – Exit/In*
04/09: Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel *
07/09: Washington, DC – Black Cat *
08/09: Jersey City, NJ – White Eagle Hall*
10/09: Brooklyn, NY – Elsewhere *
11/09: Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club *
12/09: Portland, ME – Port City Music Hall *
14/09: Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace *
15/09: Grand Rapids, MI – Pyramid Scheme*
17/09: Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall *
18/09: St. Louis, MO – Delmar Hall *
20/09: Denver, CO – Marquis Theater *
21/09: Salt Lake City, UT – Metro Music Hall*
23/09: Seattle, WA – Neumos *
24/09: Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge *
26/09: San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall *
27/09: San Jose, CA – The Ritz *
28/09: Camarillo, CA – Rock City *
29/09: Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex *
$ w/ Thou
+ w/ Bad Breeding
* w/ Boris
The Body Live Dates:
04/07: Roskilde, Denmark – Roskilde Festival #
05/07: Kassel, Germany – Goldgrube *
06/07: Leipzig, Germany – Conne Island *
08/07: Prague, Czech Republic – Modra Vopice *
09/07: Budapest, Hungary – Durer Kert *
10/07: Munich, Germany – Backstage !
11/07: Paris, France – Gibus #
12/07: London, United Kingdom – The Dome #
13/07: Dour, Belgium – Dour Festival #
15/07: Nijmegen, Netherlands – Valkhof Festival *
16/07: Berlin, Germany – Zukunft Am Ostkreuz *
17/07: Oberhausen, Germany – Drucklufthaus %
18/07: Crispendorf, Germany – Chaos Descends Festival
20/07: Birmingham, United Kingdom – Supersonic Festival
21/07: Sheffield, United Kingdom – Doomlines V 22/07: Glasgow, United Kingdom – Broadcast %
23/07: Manchester, United Kingdom – Soup Kitchen %
24/07: Bristol, United Kingdom – Rough Trade %
26/07: Moscow, Russia – Mutabor
27/07: St Petersburg, Russia – Opera
28/07: Rokycany, Czech Republic – Fluff Festival
29/07: Milan, Italy – Macao %
30/07/: Bologna, Italy – Freakout Club %
31/07: Linz, Austria – Kapu %
01/08: Kosice, Slovakia – Tabacka Kulturfabrik %
02/08: Katowice, Poland – OFF Festival
05/09: Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge
06/09: Denver, CO – Denver Hex at Lost Lake Lounge
Russian Circles have shared the blistering new track ‘Milano’ from the formidable trio’s latest album Blood Year incoming on 2nd August, followed closely by live dates in the UK and Ireland, with a full European tour still to be announced later in the year. With their latest album, Russian Circles forsake the sonic crossroads of divergent musical paths found on albums like Guidance and Memorial to offer up the most direct collection of songs in their discography.
Listen to ‘Milano’ here:
RUSSIAN CIRCLES IRELAND/UK DATES
AUG 08 Dublin, IRE @ Button Factory *
AUG 09 Galway IRE @ Roisin Dubh *
AUG 10 Belfast UK @ Limelight 2 *
AUG 12 Glasgow, UK @ G2 +
AUG 13 Manchester, UK @ Gorilla +
AUG 14 London, UK @ Earth +
AUG 16 Bristol, UK @ ArcTanGent Festival Support from
Following the announcement of IAMTHEMORNING’s new studio album The Bell, due for release on Kscope on 2nd August, the Russian duo, comprising of virtuoso classical pianist Gleb Kolyadin and charismatic vocalist Marjana Semkina have premiered the first single to be taken from the new opus ‘Ghost Of A Story’.
You can watch the video for ‘Ghost of a Story’ here:
Following the announcement of IAMTHEMORNING’s new studio album The Bell, due for release on Kscope on 2nd August, the Russian duo, comprising of virtuoso classical pianist Gleb Kolyadin and charismatic vocalist Marjana Semkina have premiered the first single to be taken from the new opus “Ghost Of A Story”.
Marjana explains more on how “Ghost Of A Story” fits into the album’s song cycle “’Ghost of a Story’ starts the second part of the song cycle that is The Bell, and we decided to launch it with a brighter note to have a bigger contrast with all what comes after. It’s a song about awakening, reinterpreting and questioning yourself and the world and looking for deeper meanings. It’s a song about how pain dims with time – about the fact that in the end, every tragedy that we suffer through is just a drop in the ocean of suffering of men – that we survive anyway. "Nothing feels real, these scars won’t heal – Nothing’s worth tears, it was alright from very start"
The live studio clip was filmed by the band’s long-time collaborator Eggor Kree at Lendok studios in St Petersburg.
The duo’s dedication to writing forward-thinking and thought-provoking music sees them create a new album of impressive depth and playability. A modern blend of rock, classical and folk, The Bell makes use of 19th Century song cycles – a style established by Schubert – that cohesively tells 10 individual stories. Vocalist Marjana Semkina explains in more detail “The Bell is divided into two parts but each song is a story in its own right, all of them are fuelled by human cruelty and pain caused by it. Cruelty is the central theme of the album – together with all the different ways we respond to it and cope with it. This album is multi-layered and is, in many ways, a journey inwards, taking us inside of a mind of a person suffering from abuse or neglect or open hostility of the society or a specific person.
“Aesthetically, the album is based on themes taken from Victorian England’s art and culture, but more in a way of turning our attention to the fact that at its core, humankind isn’t making much progress in terms of emotional maturity.”
The Bell was recorded in March 2019 across Russia, the UK and Canada in several studios: Mosfilm in Moscow; Lendoc and Red Wave in St Petersburg; Noatune in London; The Studio at Sunbeams, Penrith; and Union Sound Company in Toronto. With engineering and mastering handled by Vlad Avy.
The album features the track “Blue Sea” which featured in demo form on the band’s studio film Ocean Sounds.
The album’s beautiful cover artwork was created by the band’s favoured collaborator Constantine Nagishkin. Marjana explains the imagery “on the cover is a safety coffin bell – it’s a 19th century idea born from people’s obsessive fear of being buried alive, having been provoked by a lot of press attention to supposed cases of premature burials across the country. and the fact that Edgar Allan Poe frightened many readers by vividly describing the premature burial phenomenon in his short stories.
“One of the inventions to escape such a terrifying ordeal was a so called “safety coffin” that existed in many different configurations, including the one that had a bell attached to the gravestone with a thread that was attached to it and went all the way underground into the coffin so that the when the poor soul awoke and on realizing he’s been buried alive, could ring to let the people outside know what has happened.
“Although the idea is a bit morbid I feel there is hope in the artwork too – no matter how low you are or desperate you think your situation is, you can still call for help, but more than that you have to call for help if you need it”.
In recent years, French atmospheric rockers Klone have built their name on making music that’s as deeply introspective as it is sonically powerful. Le Grand Voyage, the band’s first release for UK post-progressive specialists Kscope on 20th September, is an album brimming with that sense of searching and self-discovery, its 10 tracks living up to its name in unabashed no-stone-unturned existential exploration.
“Our music allows the listener to travel and ask, ‘What is the spirit? What is the matter?’ and those kinds of questions,” says guitarist Guillaume Bernard. “The title refers to the wandering of the mind. It all came our singer [Yann Ligner] who came up with something in English like ‘The Great Journey’. We all liked the meaning but weren’t sure how it sounded. Eventually we realised it would be easy enough for people to translate and understand in our native tongue.”
Much of the inspiration on forthcoming singles ‘Breach’, ‘Keystone’, and ‘Hidden Passenger’ came from pondering the great philosophies of life, those eternal unanswered questions like who we are, where we are going and, ultimately, what happens next. It was the uncertainty and confusion surrounding mortality, the notion that something or nothing awaits us, which felt like an unlimited creative playground for the French art-rockers.
Chelsea Wolfe has always been a conduit for a powerful energy, and while she has demonstrated a capacity to channel that sombre beauty into a variety of forms, her gift as a songwriter is never more apparent than when she strips her songs down to a few key elements. As a result, her solemn majesty and ominous elegance are more potent than ever on her forthcoming album, Birth of Violence to be released on Sargent House September 13th.
Today she’s unveiled the album’s opener and lead single, ‘The Mother Road’, a harrowing ode to Route 66 that immediately addresses Wolfe’s metaphoric white line fever. It defines the nature of the record-the impact of countless miles and perpetual exhaustion-and the desire to find the road back home, back to one’s roots.
Listen to ‘The Mother Road’ here:
AA
Chelsea Wolfe Acoustic Tour:
31/08: Pasadena, CA – Pasadena Daydream Festival * (Non Acoustic Set)
18/10: San Diego, CA – Observatory North Park
19/10: Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
21/10: Salt Lake City, UT – Metro Music Hall
22/10: Estes Park, CO – Stanley Hotel
24/10: Chicago, IL – Metro
25/10: Detroit, MI – Senate Theater
26/10: Toronto, ONT – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
27/10: Montreal, QC – Le National
29/10: Boston, MA – Royale
31/10: Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
01/11: New York, NY – Brooklyn Steel
03/11: Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
04/11: Charlotte, NC – McGlohon Theater
05/11: Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
06/11: Nashville, TN – Mercy Lounge
08/11: Dallas, TX – Texas Theatre
09/11: Austin, TX – Levitation
11/10: Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
12/11: Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
13/11: Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
15/11: Los Angeles, CA – The Palace Theatre
16/11: San Francisco, CA – Regency Ballroom
18/11: Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
20/11: Seattle, WA – The Showbox
21/11: Vancouver, BC – Vogue Theatre
* All dates with special guest Ioanna Gika except 31/08
The industrial techno-rock duo Cubanate have just issued a video for ‘Kolossus’, the title song from their brand new EP. The spectacular, frenetic clip is directed by E Gabriel Edvy of Blackswitch Labs, who previously made a video for a track from front man Marc Heal’s 2016 solo album The Hum.
The EP marks Cubanate’s first new music in over two decades and contains five new songs plus remixes of the title track by Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One) and DROWND. Released on 7th June, it was previewed at live shows in London (co-headlined with Pig) and Leipzig (Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival) in early June.
Canadian composer Scott Morgan’s 12th long-player as Loscil takes its title from an influential series of early 20th century photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, abstracting clouds into miasmic, painterly canvases of smoke and shadowplay. It’s a deeply fitting analog for Morgan’s own musical process across the past two decades, fraying forms and tones into widescreen mirages of opaque texture and negative space. The name Equivalents referred to Stieglitz’s notion of the photographs as being equivalent to his “philosophical or emotional states of mind;” the same could be said of these eight weighty, shivering chiaroscuros of sound. Each piece unfolds and evolves enigmatically, adrift in low oxygen atmospheres, shifting dramatically from pockets of density to dissipated streaks of moonlit vapour.
The entirety of the record was created specifically for the album with the exception of ‘Equivalent 7,; which began as a dance score for frequent collaborator Vanessa Goodman. The album version of this track was reworked with Vancouver musician Amir Abbey aka Secret Pyramid.
Ahead of the release of new album Of The Sun in September, Polish alternative rock act Trupa Trupa offer up a slice of dreamy yet motorik post-punk in the form of anti-fascist song ‘Remainder’, as well as announcing a handful of tour dates.
“It pretends to be nice,” says singer Grzegorz Kwiatkowski of the album, “But really, it’s not nice. These are contemplative songs about extremes. Sometimes, I call it vital pessimism. We cherish our freedom but the place where we are from is also a grim reminder of the evil that people are capable of. We cannot forget it. We cannot justify it. We must remember and not be indifferent.”
Tour dates announced so far:
24.09 – HAGUE (NL) – PAARD 25.09 – PARIS (FR) – POINT ÉPHÉMÈRE 27.09 – LONDON (UK) – CORSICA STUDIO 8.10 – NEW YORK (USA) – UNION POOL 9.10 – WASHINGTON DC (USA) – PIE SHOP
Joni Void is sharing a new video for the song ‘Non-Dit’ – created, performed, and shot by Jean Cousin (aka Joni Void) alongside frequent collaborator Sonya Stefan, the video draws inspiration from Joni Void’s riveting live show while highlighting Stefan’s beautifully gauzy, dream-like visual aesthetic. In the artists’ own words:
“The visual worlds of video artist Sonya Stefan and Joni Void collide for Mise En Abyme, as her experimental 16mm films meet the glass-effected projections from JV’s live performances, combined here to form a multi-layered “screen in a screen in a screen” music video for ‘Non-Dit’. Naomie de Lorimier (aka N NAO) prepares bouquets in a trance-like state, and performs vocal loops, while Sonya & Joni smudge the digital video with light-works and shots of flowers from two 16mm projectors, with crystals, glass and water placed in front.”
Aural Aggravation 