Alternative

Expanded reissue of original 1987 debut LP - Available on CD for the first time in deluxe edition, including full debut LP, along with bsides, rarities and unreleased demos - Includes liner notes and original photos of the band from the era of recording Originating from Wellington, New Zealand and arriving in the U.K. at the back end of the 80s, The Wild Poppies and their "Warm Wall of Sound" resided somewhere between the jangle pop of other indie scene favorites such as The Rain Parade and The Church and the proto-shoegaze of Loop, Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine. Basing themselves in Oxford, and touring with well-known contemporaries such as Ride and Swervedriver (their housemates), The Wild Poppies forged a name for themselves and enjoyed a "1001 night" season as a touring favorite, before dissolving in the face of the impending U.K. rave culture. After that, as guitarist Nick Taylor states, "Nobody ever saw The Wild Poppies... Very few at least, and I suspect that those few that did can actually remember it now. I certainly can't, and I was IN the Wild Poppies." This collection compiles their long out-of-print "Heroine" LP, the "Stare at the Sun" 7", the "Out of Time" EP as well as demos for many latter-day tracks (both released and unreleased). Record Label: Manufactured/Sc Style: Indie Rock

Laura Stevenson is finally learning not to worry. After more than a year of national and worldwide touring following the release of her critically acclaimed album Wheel, both headlining, and alongside such varied acts as Against Me!, The Go-Go's, Kevin Devine, Tim Kasher of Cursive, and The Gaslight Anthem, the songwriter made the move from her between-tour home base of Brooklyn, to upstate New York's Hudson River Valley. There, she rented a nineteenth-century Victorian, a former brothel in a cement-mining town-turned hippie-enclave, and converted the attic into a makeshift studio. It was in this space that she and her band went to work arranging and demoing the eleven songs she had written that would make up Cocksure, Stevenson's fourth album. The record features musicians Mike Campbell, Alex Billig and Peter Naddeo, who in various incarnations have performed with her for over seven years, as well as newcomer Samantha Niss, a long-time Hudson Valley resident and the veritable go-to drummer of the region. Where 2013's Wheel was full of lingering uncertainty, harkening to Stevenson's folk and country leanings, Cocksure is a straightforward, to the point, emboldened rock and roll album. Although some existential dread still peaks through the cracks, Stevenson treats themes as heavy-hearted as sudden and tragic death, self-imposed exile in small windowless rooms, and that back-of-your-mind anxiety that the road you're on may not be the right one, as their own signs of life; a life that is brightly colored by those realities. Record Label: Don Giovanni Style: Indie Rock

"Zeng" is the new album of the Hungarian band Perihelion. A stellar mix of post rock and metal elements, resulting in an overall abstract imagery translated into music to set you off on a vivid spiritual and cosmic journey, completely sung in Hungarian, for fans of Thy Catafalque and Alcest... Artwork by Costin Chioreanu (Mayhem, Sigh, Vulture Industries...) Record Label: Apathia Records Style: Rock / Metal

MY DISCO have always employed space as an instrument. Space between notes; space between instruments; even space between albums, as the Australian trio prepare to release Severe, their first full-length record in nearly five years. More than just a title, Severe pushes MY DISCO's subtle, intensely focused, minimalist sound to its most terrifying extreme. It is bleak, occasionally uncomfortable, and unpredictably profound. Recorded, mixed, and produced in Melbourne by acclaimed film composer and producer, Cornel Wilczek. Engineered entirely in a digital domain, the recording process for Severe was a huge change for MY DISCO, who had previously worked with renowned analog tape guru, Steve Albini. The change in process allowed the band the freedom to explore enhanced audio effects, including programmed sine wave drones and heavily effected rhythms and vocals. Severe is an album of aggravated tonal darkness and long breaths of disturbing silence, punctuated by pounding stabs and heavy, hypnotic rhythms. It is a minimalist approach to maximum sound, and by far the band's darkest, heaviest, and most consistent album of MY DISCO's burgeoning career. For Fans of THIS HEAT, PAN SONIC, SUNN O))), BOREDOMS, SHELLAC Record Label: Temporary Residence Style: Indie Rock

Mixing a lively folk troubadour style with a sunny voice that would befit that of Donovan, along with a sly, subversive humor that surely influenced the likes of Belle & Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch, "Circus Maximus" opens boldly and doesn't let up. The playfully unconventional collection of songs delivers punchy doses of folk balladry and Judeo-Christian imagery that would rival the religious themes and prolific tendencies of Current 93's David Tibet in theme, if not tone. And Currie's beautifully assured guitar work calls to mind the intricate and intimate folk players who preceded him, such as Bert Jansch and Nick Drake. This expanded 2xLP gatefold edition of Momus' long out-of-print debut LP also includes a selection of three EPs from the same period: "The Beast With Three Backs" EP, the "Murderers, The Hope of Women" EP, as well as the "Jacky" EP, in which Momus proudly wore the influence of Jacques Brel on his sleeve. Cumulatively, second hand copies of these releases sell for over $100, but are collected here for the first time ever, at a fraction of that cost. Available again in this expanded edition and on CD for the first time since 1991, "Circus Maximus" sounds as fresh and intelligent today as it did in its debut. Record Label: Manufactured/Sc Style: Indie Rock

In 2013, the Canadian duo Majical Cloudz released the austere, stunning Impersonator, the album that got them out of DIY spaces and into arenas, opening for Lorde on tour. They’ve been working on a follow-up album for a while, and they just confirmed on Twitter that it will be called Are You Alone? and it’ll be out this fall on Matador. In a recent Pitchfork profile, singer Devon Welsh claims that he wrote much of the album while visiting friends in Detroit over the winter, and it seems likely to have a fuller sound; Owen Pallett added drums, viola, and piano. But the duo seems conscious of keeping it sonic continuity, too. Pallett says, “I didn’t want to add anything superfluous.” And Welsh adds that, though the band experimented with different equipment, they didn’t end up using much of it: “After all the crazy shit we could get our hands on, we came back to the cheapo organ we’ve been using since day one.” Record Label: Matador/Beggars Group Style: Alternative Rock

“I was thinking about the concept of difficulty. Whether in life or in nature - of conflict, of being troubled. The idea of friction. Also in geology, an asperity is some part of a faultline that doesn’t move which can create an earthquake, which is quite an evocative concept.” Asperities is the fourth solo album by acclaimed Canadian cellist Julia Kent. As the title suggests, this is a record born of conflict: internal, personal and global. Universal themes. The build of pressure and the threat of violent release. Modern guilt. Modern fears. Kent draws from a rich well of emotion, the pieces deceptively rendered, each feeling like a miniature dramatic epic in its own right – sculpted and self-contained. Her work on recent film scores is very much in evidence. While cinematic in scope, there is nothing as trite as a Hollywood ending here. There is tension and darkness, the edges cracked and frayed. “A lot of the melodic material is based on semitones,” Julia elaborates. “So in the music there is an inherent sense of dissonance; that things are too close for comfort. More generally, it seems like a particularly dark time in the world right now, and I think that definitely had an influence too.” The album was recorded, produced and mixed in its entirety by Julia in her New York studio. This method of working lends the record a sense of isolation that carries a powerful resonance in our modern over-connected world. “I really like the autonomy of working alone,” she says. “I feel that I can transmit something emotionally that I might not be able to if there were someone else involved.” Utilising looped cello, electronics and found sounds, Kent creates a world where the technological and the organic merge in perfect symbiosis, the layers of sound peeling back to reveal a beating, bloody human heart at its centre. “I did quite a lot of processing of the cello sound and used different electronic textures,” she explains of her technique. “I was trying to get away from the acoustic cello sound and find one that was more textural and more expressive of the material.” Throughout the plaintive strains of opener ‘Hellebore’, the prowling grace of ‘The Leopard’, the elegant restraint of ‘Heavy Eyes’ and the immersive closer ‘Tramontana’, Kent’s cello evokes romance and loss, a yearning for simplicity. This is the soundtrack to the transitory nature of life and the inevitability of death. Vancouver-born and New York-based, Julia Kent rose to prominence with Rasputina and Antony & The Johnsons. Her extensive résumé includes recent work with Swans, Aidan Baker, Rachel Grimes, Rutger Zuydervelt, Barbara Morgenstern, Library Tapes and Khan of Finland. Kent has also composed extensively for film, theatre and dance. Her cinematic work includes the documentaries The Boxing Girls of Kabul and Rwanda, L’Impossible Pardon, American feature A Short History of Decay, short films Doppio Urlo, and the award-winning Oasis. Her music also was used in Paolo Sorrentino’s 2011 film This Must Be The Place. As a solo artist she has toured extensively in Europe and North America and performed at festivals including Primavera Sound, Reeperbahn, Unsound, and Meltdown. Record Label: Leaf Style: Independent

The Undisputed Kings of Garage Rock! Reissue of their classic singles compilation on 3 LPs with new gatefold sleeve! A retrospective compilation of singles released on a multitude of different labels throughout the 90's. Featured tracks are "We Hate The Fuckin' NME", "My Dear Watson" & "Every Bit Of Me". A fitting tribute to one of the greatest bands ever. Thee Headcoats were mainly Billy Childish (Git/Vox) Bruce Brand (Drums) and Johnny Johnson (bass), they formed in 1989 after Billy's previous band Thee Mighty Caesars gave up the ghost. By 1992 they had already released something like 6 albums and 15 singles one of which was catalogue number Damgood1, a split single with Thee Headcoatees. Lots more releases followed including the great "In Tweed We Trust!" album. Thee Headcoats carried on touring and releasing records in every corner of the world until mid 2000 when they called it a day. Record Label: Damaged Goods Style: Garage Rock

Record Label: Seayou Records Style: Alternative

Record Label: Epitaph Europe Style: Punk

From the pen of DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com has heard of dubstep. DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com is sickened by the organic, human nature of the album version of "Forces From Above" and of the Poison Season feel in general, when the words are so often about mechanized abuse at a societal level. It makes no sense. However, DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com understands malaise and being lost in the simple maze (a couple of squiggly lines) of one's dreary thoughts. DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com knows for a fact that "Forces From Above" is about CAMPS, like internment camps and concentration camps. DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com heard this from Bejar himself, muttered once or twice, in his bunk. DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.commixes are not interested in release; they are exercises in tension that go nowhere, much like a life. DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com dabbles in queer theory. DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com mixes on an iPhone; too bad. DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com says, "Destroyer's sadness is no match for mine. Mine cannot be contained. It never has been able to be." Extemporaneous night is something DJ johnedwardscollins@gmail.com is working on. DJ johnedwardscollins@gmail.com mourns the undanceability of his mixes, but it won't always be this way. DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com does not believe techno music to be a suitable medium for songwriters. DJ johnedwardcollins@gmail.com created this mix as a response to the challenge of making an unmasterable WAV file. Record Label: Dead Oceans Style: Indie Rock

Record Label: Thrill Jockey Style: Independent

Son Little’s new album is, in its purest form, American music. The artist formerly known as Aaron Livingston knows his nation and its sounds well. He was born to a preacher and a teacher in Los Angeles, where he learned how to listen and how to play before moving east to New York and New Jersey. He dropped in and out of schools and scenes in Manhattan then Philadelphia, and there he collaborated with acts like The Roots and RJD2. He first planted his flag as Son Little with last year’s highly praised EP, Things I Forgot, a small collection of big songs that showcased his ability to hop across genres as well as he does state lines. And so it only makes sense that the pastiche and reach of his music is all over the map, literally. And he can hear a map in his music. In it, he can recognize the places he’s lived, traveled, and played to, places explored and discovered. “I hear places in the songs without trying to evoke them while writing. I can trace where a lot of my music came from, as my life and my family touch so many different places. I can hear Lake Charles, Louisiana in my voice, the way I say some of the words; I hear New York in my lyrics. Detroit is a place I haven’t spent a ton of time in, but if I explore the music of Detroit, I can hear myself in there, too.” The songs on Son Little follow suit. They teem with small moments creating a bigger picture, a pointillist art piece made from junkyards and viewed from space. Pulling inspiration from the color wheel diaspora of American music, Son Little draws from a deep well, using different buckets to visit and revisit, finding flourishes to add to the core of his songs. There, at the end of “Doctor’s In,” is a roving banjo; there, at the start of “Go Blue Blood Red,” is a keyboard riff culled from a kid’s Blue Man Group keyboard; there, in “Carbon,” is an electric Howlin’ Wolf stomp and start. For Son Little, studio time is a joy, where every good idea leads to four more. Record Label: Anti Style: Soul

Saintseneca’s powerful new album Such Things is the band’s most cohesive, catchy and accessible output, and a work that solidifies the group’s singer and songwriter Zac Little’s status as one of modern indie music’s most thoughtful and talented artists. The record arrives October 9th via Anti-. The first single, “Sleeper Hold” is a pulsating and infectious rock song that utilizes elements of punk, folk and straight up rock and roll, all centered around a soaring and beautifully anthemic chorus. Such Things is the anticipated follow up to Saintseneca’s acclaimed album Dark Arc, which Stereogum celebrated writing, “Dark Arc shines in all the ways Saintseneca always has — gorgeous harmonies, rampant strumming, glimpses of both humanity’s fragility and power — but it also finds the band branching out into fuller arrangements and wilder instrumentation. (Wilder, even, than the plastic trash can they used to beat on.) It’s what an underground folk band stepping into the spotlight should sound like.” Moving away from the cinematic, linear quality of Dark Arc, Little sought even higher ground for the new songs, and to incorporate the synapses and charges of his fellow members. “I was pushing myself with Such Things to try to explore the pop motif further, to try to use and bend that formula of having a groove, a beat, locking in and using that as scaffolding to build a song,” he says. “And even though it oftentimes might seem like this singular vision, at the core my creative strategy for the band is one that inherently involves other people. I think the best work I’ll make involves working that way.” Those disparate pieces and parts have come together, like so many molecules, to form a solid rock object called Such Things. You can hold it in your hands and hear it in your head, this culmination of tiny, beautiful moments and fluctuations of energy and information, compressed and etched into an LP sleeve and eternity and all tied up in a rock and roll record. “It’s definitely a new way of songs manifesting, and it feels like a step forward,” Little says. “I’m gonna push myself and try this thing I’ve wanted to try. I think it’s the best thing we’ve done so far, but then again I won’t write a song that I don’t think isn’t the best thing I’ve done. When I finish it I have to feel like it’s the best thing I’ve made. And if I don’t feel that way, it’s like, why bother? Record Label: Anti Style: Alternative Rock

Record Label: Darktunes Music Group Style: Pop

Here they are, six new tracks by HALMA from Hamburg, Germany.The soundtracks for the inner life in outer space'.They insist on sound, moving around single notes as if they were granite furniture and the rattle drums tidly sweep the ground of the sediment. Alas, images are arranged from within, that's modernlandscape music, but not necessarily out of this world. Of course, the 90ies Chicago Post-Rock à la Tortoise and The For Carnation must be named as an influence but you can also hear the Slow-Core from bands like Early Day Miners. And the interaction of drumas and bass couldn't and wouldn't negate references to Can and Talk Talk.On their sixth album, which was recorded in the traditional Studio Nord in Bremen with Gregor Hennig, the band shows that they master their art to redefine time. Halma know the dark silence in the forest - just before the birds wake up ... Record Label: Kapitän Platte Style: Indie Rock

CHANT's signature tribal driven sound immersed within a modern take on classic industrial - full of punk rock DIY venom, calling out ironic hypocrisies & playing off of every generation's obsession of the end. Add an extra dose of grinding guitar blasts, haunting noise loops and a mixing assault from the ultra heavy beat creator Sascha Konietzko (KMFDM), CHANT's Bradley Bills returns with his most dynamic record to date. Brave New Apocalypse screams the heartbreaking truth that nothing lasts forever, but contends that something new always rises. Record Label: WTII Records/MVD Style: Industrial

Artist: Gary Numan Label: Beggars Banquet/Beggars Group (Indigo)

Artist: Motorpsycho Label: Stickman