British singer, songwriter, producer and prog pioneer Tim Bowness has shared his stunning new single ‘Idiots At Large’. The third single to be released from his forthcoming album Powder Dry (out 13thSeptember on Kscope), ‘Idiots At Large’ presents an intriguing combination of delicate atmospherics and dynamic explosions to tell the story of someone drifting away from their previously safe home life and mainstream views.
Mixed by Bowness’s partner in no-man, Steven Wilson, the new single is accompanied by a vibrant, atmospheric visualiser created by Matt Vickerstaff.
Check it here:
Tim Bowness says, ‘The song is partly about eco-apocalypse and partly about someone becoming detached from their family and friends as a result of their increasingly strong beliefs (beliefs reinforced by digging deeper down the internet rabbit hole). This isn’t a commentary on the rights or wrongs of anything, it’s an observation about how idealism can alter the course of a life.’
Featuring 16 pieces over its restless 40-minute duration, Tim Bowness’s eighth studio album Powder Dry represents a new beginning on a new label.
A collection of acute contrasts, the album is a vibrantly accessible and wildly experimental genre-blurring assault, embracing Industrial Rock, Electro Pop, singer-songwriter directness, haunted carnival soundscapes and more.
Entirely produced, performed and written by Bowness (a first), Powder Dry was mixed (in stereo and Surround Sound) by Bowness’s partner in no-man (and The Album Years podcast), Steven Wilson, who also acted as Bowness’s sounding board during the mixing process.
Human Impact, the New York-based outfit founded by Chris Spencer (Unsane) and Jim Coleman (Cop Shoot Cop), who recently announced their sophomore album, Gone Dark (Oct. 4, Ipecac Recordings), have released a second single from the upcoming album. The video for ‘Hold On’ is out now, and you can watch it here:
Spencer discusses the concept behind the song: “’Hold On’ is an expression of resistance in the face of a system that’s using convenience and expediency to pry its way into a position of control.”
The accompanying video carries on a visual aesthetic that the band has used since their inception, including their recently released track and video for “Destroy to Rebuild” – an apocalyptic landscape with oversaturated colors and a not-so-subtle commentary on the current state of the world. Spencer and Coleman will venture further into the mix of music and art by performing an ambient noise set on Aug. 15 at Berlin’s Silent Green as part of Beth B’s Now Wave/Glowing exhibition.
The Human Impact arsenal is more formidable than ever thanks to the addition of two more noise-rock veterans: bassist Eric Cooper (Made Out of Babies, Bad Powers) and drummer Jon Syverson (Daughters). Spencer had spent the 2020 COVID lockdown working on a cabin in the East Texas woods and would travel into Austin for informal jam sessions with the pair in the Cooper’s garage. Friendly blasts through vintage Unsane songs ultimately resulted in the rhythm section being fully absorbed into Human Impact.
"Jon and Coop bring incredible musicianship," Spencer adds. "I feel incredibly lucky to be in a band with Jon. We’ve really clicked from the minute we started playing together. Cooper is awesome, and one of my best friends forever. We have a communication that I won’t have with just anybody. I can’t wait to fucking play this live."
Ulrich Troyer’s output this year has taken an interesting turn. While he’s often favoured comparatively short-form releases (NOK 2020, released in 2020, surprisingly enough, featured six tracks originally released on a 3” CD twenty years earlier, bolstered by additional material to render a full-length album, while other albums in his catalogue contain only four tracks, or more very short ones). But ‘Autostrada del Brennero’ represents this third seven-inch release of the year after four years of silence. However, while ‘Moments’, which we covered here in March was a standalone release, ‘Autostrada del Brennero’ is a companion to ‘Echoes’, released in May, and both are prefatory pieces to the forthcoming album, Transit Tribe, slated for release later this year.
As with Echoes, Troyer has brought on board guest to feature here, with reggae luminary Diggory Kenrick contributing his signature flute to the lead track, and Taka Noda bringing melodica to flipside ‘Brennerautobahn’.
Continuing his pursuit of some deep dubby vibes, as formed the basis of Dolomite Dub, and the Songs for William trilogy, ‘Autostrada del Brennero’ is four and a half minutes of spacious, echo-drenched rimshots which crack out from shuffling drums and cut through spectacularly swampy bass. It’s got groove, but it’s low, slow, and mellow, with Kenrick’s flute adding an almost trippy folk aspect, which is a perfect counterpoint to the fizzling space-rock synth details which burst like laser-beam Catherine wheels.
Either my ears are deceiving me, or ‘Brennerautobahn’, which has exactly the same running time, is the same track but with the flute substituted with the melodica, and as such, this release follows the format of the previous two, where an alternative version occupies the B-side.
This was, of course, common practice on old reggae releases, whereby the B-side would contain a dub version – often simply as a ‘version’ – of the A-side. Here, there’s a certain irony in maintaining this tradition when the A-side is already essentially a dub version, and one doubts this irony will be lost on the artist.
Both cuts are solid – sparse yet dense, confident experiments in bass frequencies and massive echo and reverb it’s difficult to resist the urge to nod along to, slow, heavy-headed, mellow to the max. Good vibes, for sure.
For Malcolm Pardon, there’s beauty in our universal, inescapable demise. Like the romantic notion of the orchestra on board the Titanic playing their repertoire as the ship went down, on his second solo album Pardon looks past the bleak or macabre to observe death as a multi-layered, lifelong acquaintance.
“It’s not meant to be threatening or horrific in any way,” says Pardon of The Abyss. “There’s this constant dialogue we have with ourselves about how we’re going to die at some point. It’s like a constant companion, so you might as well get to know it, and befriend it.”
As one half of Roll The Dice, Pardon worked alongside fellow Stockholm resident Peder Mannerfelt on brooding fusions of electronica and classical composition. By contrast, his 2021 solo debut Hello Death saw him take a much more stripped-down approach, placing the emphasis on plaintive piano composition with only the subtlest of sonic treatments in the space around the notes. Without intentionally setting out to record a conceptual follow up, as he developed the sketches which would become The Abyss, Pardon found himself contemplating unknown futures and the artists’ quest into unexplored territory.
“For me, on a musical level The Abyss represents exploring your own capabilities,” he says, “Starting from an empty canvas, then slowly finding the way forward by connecting the right notes. It’s almost a subconscious experience. I sit down by the piano, and if I’m lucky I find something that takes me down the vortex.”
The lilting romanticism of ‘Enter The Void’ serves as a perfect distillation of Pardon’s approach, balancing a delicate piano refrain with a low, rumbling blast of noise before being carried aloft by swooning strings that echo down a distant hall. There’s beauty and hope shot through with foreboding in the particular treatment of each sound, the harmonic interplay between the musical elements and the gentle rise and fall of the arrangement.
US-based occult doom rock trio Hail Darkness are set to enchant listeners with their debut full-length album, Death Divine, scheduled to be released on August 15th via their own label, Vatican Records. Ahead of the album release, the band is now thrilled to premiere the video for their haunting new track ‘With Horns of the Beast’, which you can watch here:
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The band had this to say about the video: “‘With Horns Of A Beast’ is the first video from our debut album Death Divine, the video clip portrays the psychedelic trip of a persecuted woman hunted by masked wild animal humans lost in the depths of the forest and is inspired by ‘70s horror, Mansonic clans and exploitation movies. Death Divine was recorded over a period of more or less four years during different recording sessions, it compiles and captures our vintage lo-fi occult doom rock with pinches of ‘60s psychedelia and exotica creating our own musical time-warp trip”.
Comprised of ten songs, Death Divine sees Hail Darkness incorporating elements of occult 70’s rock, psychedelia, doom and folk to take listeners on a magical and dark cosmic journey, while the lyrics talk about occult themes inspired by old occult movies and some personal experiences.
Hail Darkness was founded by bassist Joshua in Phoenix, where the first songs were recorded and produced around mid-2020, alongside Jez on guitar and vocals and Emmet on drums. The trio later relocated to Jez’s home in South Carolina, setting up a home studio for an extensive three-year recording session that resulted in four hours of material. Their initial goal was to recreate the vintage sound of their idols—T-Rex, Jefferson Airplane, Pentagram, Shocking Blue, Focus, Jes Franco soundtracks, Black Sabbath, Lucifer Rising, Mountain, and Captain Beyond—while blending the sounds of modern favorites like Cathedral and Electric Wizard.
In the studio, Hail Darkness is accompanied by a host of friend multi-instrumentalists, known as the Hail Darkness Coven, who contribute various instruments to craft the expansive and psychedelic sound that defines the band.
This may be Lanna’s debut single, but she’s by no means new to the industry, and has featured a couple of times here at Aural Aggravation with her band Miss Kill, who have garnered some thumbs up for their feisty grungy / alt rock sound.
Initially, I felt a sense of disappointment, assuming – erroneously, as it turns out – that the duo had parting and would never fulfil the early promise and future potential. It came as a relief to discover that Miss Kill are thriving, and have an album out soon, but in the meantime, Alanna is launching a parallel solo career. It’s a twofer!
But what’s interesting about Lanna’s debut single is that while her bio indicates a continuation of Miss Kill’s energetic flight, their emotive grunge stylings, again referencing inspiration from ‘Alternative, Garage and Pop artists like The Kooks, Hole, Cherry Glazerr, Chris Isaak, Placebo & Pearl Jam’, this feels like quite a departure. The premise is that, ‘rather than whine about breakups and having your heart broken’, ‘Forever’ ‘is all about the amazing feeling you get when you’ve found your special one.’
But for a song that’s so much about an effervescent emotional state, it’s remarkably subdued, with a soft, delicate piano, introspective vocal and backed-off drums with a hushed rimshot keeping slow and steady time. It may be a million miles wide of the mark, but this debut sounds for all the world like Lanna is pining for the thing she’s lost, a sad celebration for the loss of a special one as she finds herself bereft and alone.
That doesn’t mean that ‘Forever’ isn’t true to those principles of grunge and alternative rock, but probably feels more like a mid-album slowie than a lead single, and is more Chris Isaak than Pearl Jam or Hole. Still, it’s a well-realised song with an emotional weight that’s conveyed with sincerity, and leaves many doors open for future releases.
HAUJOBB reveal the new video single ‘Opposition’, which is featuring guest vocals by the outstanding Emese Árvai-Illés from the Hungarian pop noire duo BLACK NAIL CABARET. The track is taken from the Electro-Industrial act’s forthcoming new album The Machine in the Ghost. The German duo’s tenth full-length has been slated for release on September 20, 2024.
HAUJOBB comment: “Adding guest vocals towards the end of the song was basically the idea of a Saturday afternoon”, programmer Dejan Samardzic explains on behalf of the duo. “Emese is such a reliable artist, she delivered her impressive vocals within 24 hours. Maybe she sensed the urgency this had for me. I could hardly wait to add that new element to the arrangement as it brought a strong organic feel to it.”
Emese Árvai-Illés adds: “Dejan had some wordless singing in mind, like the side vocals of the Eurythmics’ classic ‘Sweet Dreams’, and he asked me to just improvise”, the Hungarian singer reveals. “I recorded a couple of takes and did some random Adlibs at the end. That gave me somewhat of a Massive Attack ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ feel, but in a more industrial way.”
Today, the trio are pleased to confirm details of their new album BERRIES.
Due for release on 18th October via the Xtra Mile Recordings label, the album is preceded by its lead single ‘Watching Wax’, which is available to hear – and watch – now:
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With its scrawled-out staccato guitar licks, spidery basslines, and venomous lyrical stings, first cut ‘Watching Wax’ signals a deadly return from London trio.
Dripping with a febrile intensity and packed with scattergun hooks to match, ‘Watching Wax’ finds BERRIES reflecting on the restlessness of anxiety and the constant cloud it can cast over our day-to-day. As the band state:
“‘Watching Wax’ is about escaping your worries for the day and attempting to give your mind a rest. The lyrics touch on fears for our future selves, looming anxieties that you can’t suppress and the desire to have a perfect day without your daily stormy thoughts.”
The first indicator of how the follow-up to their acclaimed debut, How We Function is shaping up, the single finds BERRIES honing their art for the unpredictable and growing in confidence. And as its eponymous title, ‘BERRIES’, may already make clear, this is a band determined to make a statement with their second full-length outing. While the band have never shied away from brutally honest admissions or difficult subject matters like struggles with mental health, ‘BERRIES’ finds them weaponising them into a set of fearlessly assertive tracks that seize strength from darkness. As BERRIES explain:
“This album is about battling intrusive thoughts and finding contentment in your day, however big or small those moments are. It’s a journey to finding your own space and being comfortable in it. We haven’t held back with this album – it’s raw, honest, and a true reflection of BERRIES.”
Teaming up with production legend Adrian Bushby (Foo Fighters, Muse, Everything Everything), who took on mixing duties for the record, listeners will almost certainly feel that turbo-boost coursing through the veins of BERRIES 2.0.
While veering between Riot Grrrl-esque discordance and thunderous grunge-rock anthems ripe for the big rooms, ‘BERRIES’ also finds a band spreading their wings with sonic explorations into shapeshifting math-rock (as on opener ‘Barricades’), epic post-rock nods (on closer ‘Crumpled Clothes’), through shades of Power-Pop (as on the infectious ‘Narrow Tracks’), and even tender, unadorned acoustica (as on ‘Balance’). Reflecting of making ‘BERRIES’, the band add:
“We really pushed ourselves creatively and out of our comfort zone, especially with the acoustic track and working with mixing engineer Adrian Bushby. We’re super proud of what we’ve written and created.”
Following a spate of recent shows road-testing new material in support of punk/rock legends the likes of The Subways, Skinny Lister, Feeder, and Sleeper, plus Newcastle noiseniks The Pale White, BERRIES are now ready to take their latest work out on the road for a series of headline dates of their own.
With 8 dates planned for October and November, following the release of ‘BERRIES’, catch the band performing new material and more at these fixtures as follows:
Industrial metal band, DERISION CULT has announced the release of their new single & video, ‘Warning Signs’. The video made its premiere at Glitch Mode Recordings immersive cyberpunk showcase, Tech Noir on July 20th, 2024.
‘Warning Signs’ is an industrial metal fast paced romp that features heavy and almost spoken word vocals thrash metal guitars, pounding cyber beats and the skittering guitar pyrotechnics of former David Bowie guitarist, Reeves Gabrels.
Lyrically, ‘Warning Signs’ delves into our turbulent cultural climate, serving as a stark reminder of the warnings surrounding us. The gripping chorus line, “Is it getting real enough yet?” draws inspiration from a harrowing true story shared by frontman Dave McAnally’s brother, a Naval EOD officer. During a raid, a Hollywood director, witnessing the aftermath of a firefight, was shaken to his core. As a Navy SEAL carried the body of a Taliban member past the director, he chillingly remarked, “Oh, is it getting real enough yet?” This powerful moment underscores the song’s message about the peril of ignoring warnings until they become undeniable.
‘Warning Signs’ showcases appearances from Glitch Mode stalwarts and contributors including Jim Marcus, David Kultgen, Justin Broadrick, Chris Harris, Pete Berwick Don’t miss out on experiencing the raw energy and thought-provoking intensity of ‘Warning Signs’.
The visually-captivating video for ‘Warning Signs’ was created by Vancouver-based, Empire Animae – the creative minds behind DERISION CULT’s video for ‘Deaf Blood’
“We had so much fun with the ‘Deaf Blood’ video we couldn’t wait to work with Empire Animae again," DERISION CULT founder, Dave McAnally says. "This time around we wanted to do a whole different setting and just go crazy with influences from ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,’ Martini Ranch and do things with animation that wouldn’t be possible in a live action video.”
Magic Wands is a dream pop duo originally formed in Nashville by guitarists / vocalists Chris and Dexy Valentine. Now based in Los Angeles, the group is known for its shimmering and dreamy sound, which incorporates elements of shoegaze, post-punk and goth.
Characterised by heavily-textured guitars, synth drones and ethereal vocals, these elements in combination produce music with an otherworldly atmosphere that has been widely praised for its euphoric quality, especially evident in live performances.
Dedicated to creating music that is both imaginative and emotionally engaging, Magic Wands have issued five studio albums to date, the most recent of which is Switch (2023). Its songs were also remixed by guest artists and released as Switched later in the year.
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