This collection traverses a diverse sonic landscape, blending gritty, guitar-driven intensity with introspective, atmospheric textures. It moves fluidly between raw, high-energy performances and moments of contemplative, melodic stillness, creating a tapestry that feels both unrefined and carefully put together. By weaving together elements of post-punk, experimental folk, and hypnotic soundscapes, the playlist captures a compelling tension between urgency and reflection, resulting in an evocative and unpredictable listening experience.
As part of celebrations for his 50th year as a recording artist, Ed Kuepper has announced the new live album and shared the new live single also announced are reissues of Today Wonder (1990) & The Aints - Autocannibalism (1992). The live album was recorded at the National Theatre, Melbourne in 2023, on Ed’s first tour focusing on his solo material with a full band for over a decade, itis released on Double LP and single CD. A blistering, expansive performance featuring a terrific line up of musicians, including long time drummer Mark Dawson, bassist Peter Oxley (Sunnyboys), keyboardist Alister Spence, and brass arranger Eamon Dilworth, it showcases music from Ed’s 50-year career.
An unlikely band name and a most unlikely band. Fancy Weapon melds a cross-generational bunch of Melbourne music perennials and a recent transplant to form a brooding, ragged palette of art-rock: Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Mess Esque, Venom P Stinger, Bleak Squad) Joel Silbersher (GOD, Hoss, Tendrils) Claire Birchall (Smoked Salmon, Paper Planes) - Guy Maddison (Mudhoney, Lubricated Goat, Bloodloss) In a city of blessed with legendary life-long musicians, the Fancy Weapon folks have all remained deeply immersed. Although they aren’t kids, each member still plays in multiple bands; touring, recording - indeed Guy, having recently returned home to Aus after decades in Seattle, remains Mudhoney’s bass player - and continuing to forge paths of high creativity while adding to their varied catalogs. The songs for Fancy Weapon’s debut album were recorded in a single session at Finn Keane’s Head Gap Studios in Preston in late 2024, before the band had even played in public and a week before the studio tragically burned to the ground (after a neighbouring business was criminally torched). Fortunately, the sessions were saved, and Finn & the band were able to continue mixing and finishing the record at an alternative studio. If the combination of Fancy Weapon’s vast experience isn’t intriguing enough, the instant chemistry heard across this album should delight any and all fans of Australian underground rock. The shared lead and backing vocals from Claire and Joel are affecting while the interplay of Mick’s iconic guitar stabbing and weaving through Joel’s powerful and layered playing works to brilliant effect. Rhythmically Guy (bass) and Claire (drums) provide a pulsing backbone, sounding as if they’ve been playing together for years.
As a second preview of her upcoming album A Blooming Body ( July 17th via Hen House Studios) Cinder Well shared this track. “A hangover, a break-up, a migraine, a confessional,” says Amelia. “This song features the legendary Greg Cohen (Tom Waits, John Zorn) on bass, alongside my dear friend Phillip Rogers (Hayley Hendrickx) on drums. The music video concept came to me in a dream, and as I relayed it aloud in the morning, I figured it was weird enough to actually try. Thanks to Cheech for making the video come to life, and for running around Los Angeles carrying a box full of water with me.” Since 2015, Cinder Well has extracted dark, rich and tender compositions which nod to, but also stray from traditional musical languages. By comparison to the more diaristic tones of previous releases (2015’s self-titled EP, 2018’s The Unconscious Echo, 2020’s No Summer, 2023’s Cadence), A Blooming Body feels like glimpsing scattered vignettes of a whole world rather than a sequential narrative from beginning to end.
A second piece from his forthcoming album, The Rest Is My Ghost arriving on Room40 on 7th August. “One Line Sky” starts uneasy, towering and stuttering before bursting forth into an ecstatic wash of bass heavy, dense harmonics. About “One Line Sky”, Lawrence says, “I spent a good deal of time researching in mega-cities whilst making this record. ‘One Line Sky’ was a term passed to me by a friend in Hong Kong. It has numerous readings, many of which float around the experiences of being at the bottom on these long canyon of buildings. which form the one line sky. The sky then is a slither of something else we can see beyond the immediate towers of architecture. I like the sense of escapism that is promised in that view, that outside of these places we build and sometimes cage ourselves into, a whole other possible life exists.”
In a world increasingly shaped by disposable content, Chat Pile answers with something defiantly real and organic, a mentality that permeates Who Loves The Sun, their third full-length record. Since the band’s formation just over six years ago, the Oklahoma City-based quartet Chat Pile has grown from a scrappy passion project of four local film and music enthusiasts into one of the defining heavy acts to emerge from the 2020s underground. Ray B. (vocals), L. Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass), and Cap’n Ron (drums)’s crushing, crass, and cathartic take on noise rock resonates in this cracked reality. It captures a raw, undeniably human essence that’s increasingly fleeting in an age marked by ceaseless torrents of algorithmic slop, technological overreach, and the cold, crestfallen state of society. Nothing about Who Loves The Sun feels synthetic.
A new EP from the Eccles based troubadour. The release is dedicated to his brother Matthew who sadly died in October of 2025. This is independently released and hosted by Half Edge Records
Toronto-based singer, songwriter, and storyteller Elina Filice releases her joyful, life-affirming new single “Bury Me” today, a Canadiana-soaked punk-pop anthem that announces itself immediately as one of the most infectious and emotionally generous songs of her career. Co-produced by Filice and Kevin Brennan and released on her own Red Vine Records, the track is a love song built around a Molson Canadian t-shirt, a running joke, and the quietly astonishing realisation that you have built a life with someone you never want to give back. It is the kind of song that sneaks up on you, arriving as a laugh and staying as something much deeper and more lasting.
This four-piece hails from the New York City region, consisting of drummer Nick Crifo, guitarists Terrell Grannum (Reeking Aura, Buckshot Facelift, Squelching Flesh) and Patrick Hawkins (Asystole, Needlepusher, Kyrios, Aberrated), and vocalist/bassist Cory Peterson (37564 Recordings). The long-awaited follow-up to their 2020 Maggot Stomp-released Shrines To Absurdity debut, The Irredeemable Age shows Thætas both refining and intensifying the brutal death metal approach while deepening their explorations into the bizarre, the uncharted, and the avant-garde. The result is a dynamic mosaic of obsessively dark, organic, off-kilter, and kinetic death metal, devastating the listener with nine tracks in barely thirty minutes.
Chicago cosmic explorers Spiral Galaxy return with Spiral Galaxy II, an ecstatic, deep-space voyage of pulsating drift by flutist Sara Gossett and Plastic Cewave on guitar/keys/machines. Expanding on the terrain mapped out by their acclaimed 2020 debut, the duo push further into a world where flute, raagini, guitar, drone, and an old school drum machine merge into long-form galactic excursions that feel both meticulously crafted and gloriously untethered. SG II was aided by the guiding hand of Windy City weirdo-visionary Bobby Conn, who contributed textural treatments and overdubs, vintage percussive devices, and spoken-word passages that all deepen the album’s ritualistic atmosphere, placing Spiral Galaxy somewhere between kosmische music, astral folk, and grooving minimalism. The album also draws in a wider circle of collaborators, including Conn’s violinist/partner Julie Pomerleau (Monica BouBou) and musicians whose contributions grew organically from years of shared stages and sonic communion. Avant improvisers Drazek Fuscaldo (Mako Sica), alchemical folksters Jen Powers and Matt Rolin, synth-lord Jimmy Lacy (SiP), and motorik country deity Lawrence Peters all make guest appearances. These performers truly became part of the album’s collective spirit, adding new dimensions to Spiral Galaxy’s evolving sound.
The long-awaited reissue and remaster of ‘Rifferama’ the acclaimed debut album by Glasgow indie trailblazers Thrum on Fire Records. A celebration of one of the most revered cult records of the 1990s UK guitar scene. Originally released to critical acclaim, ‘Rifferama’ captured a moment when melody, distortion and emotional urgency collided to create something timeless. Now newly remastered from the original recordings, the album returns with enhanced depth and clarity, reaffirming its reputation as a lost classic of the era. Fronted by the unmistakable voice of Monica Queen (also known for her work with Belle and Sebastian and Snow Patrol), Thrum’s sound blended shimmering pop hooks with driving, fuzz-laden riffs. Alongside Johnny Smillie’s distinctive guitar work, the band forged a sonic identity that stood proudly alongside the era’s most influential alternative acts.
The defining feature of El Bienestar del Espíritu is its sense of movement. While Pirámides have long explored psychedelic and experimental territory, this new album places rhythm firmly at the centre of the experience. Bass and drums drive much of the record, creating hypnotic, trance-inducing foundations that pull the rest of the music into orbit over which voices and atmospheric textures gradually unfold. El Bienestar del Espíritu is the latest transmission from Monterrey (via Tucson) Pirámides. Pirámides have never been easy to categorize. Built around the songwriting of Patricio Coronado and shaped by a philosophy closer to musical collage than traditional rock orthodoxy, the band’s music draws equally from folk traditions, improvisation, drone and repetition-based minimalism. What makes El Bienestar del Espíritu so compelling is the way it balances opposing forces. The music is rhythmically heavy yet also airy, deeply rooted yet exploratory. Vocal melodies emerge with mystical lyrics from either walls of complex rhythms or from open vast soundscapes with no clear pulsation. Mexican and Latin American influences are woven into the fabric of the record without ever becoming a stylistic exercise. Everything serves the larger drift. This isn’t a record interested in quick conclusions. It moves deliberately, revealing itself through repetition, texture and groove. Most psychedelic records float. This one walks.
The new single version of “High In My Balloon” is the latest release by Los Angeles-based duo Thee Holy Brothers consisting of Marvin Etzioni (Lone Justice) and Willie Aron (The Third Mind featuring Dave Alvin.) Originally released as the title track of Thee Holy Brothers’ latest album, this alternate version of the song has been included as the “flip side” of their recent seven-inch vinyl, CD and digital single “Sweet Leaf.”
Illustrious bassist-producer Jah Wobble has joined forces with Liverpool ethno-psychedelic duo, and his sons, Tian Qiyi (Charlie and John T Wardle) to unleash a stunning new vision of The Beatles’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ – a fearless, reimagining that transforms this epic song into an intoxicating fusion of psychedelic textures, cinematic atmosphere and Chinese and Mongolian instrumentation. Bold, hypnotic and utterly immersive, the Wardes’ experiment breathes new life into a recording that helped redefine the possibilities of popular music. This is the first glimpse of ‘Mystic Liverpool: The Beatles’ Psychedelic Psongbook’, arriving August 14th via Cherry Red Records and 30 Hertz. This is a radical reawakening of The Beatles’ psychedelic legacy, with Jah Wobble and Tian Qiyi dismantling and rebuilding these iconic songs through a mesmerizing sound world where East meets West, ancient traditions meet modern experimentation, and Liverpool’s most mystical musical moments are reborn for a new generation. This album promises to be one of the most ambitious, imaginative and unexpected Beatles-inspired releases in years.
Released in 1984, Law of Nature stands as a defining work of the Australian post-punk era, showcasing the experimental, jazz-infused sound of Ed Kuepper’s band, the Laughing Clowns. Featuring a sophisticated lineup that included pianist Chris Abrahams and saxophonist Louise Elliot, the album captures a unique “heat-haze” atmosphere that blends jagged guitar work with soulful, sweeping brass arrangements. Its standout track, “Eternally Yours,” is particularly renowned for its emotive power and distinct instrumental interplay, cementing the band’s legacy as highly influential architects of a sophisticated, genre-defying sound that transcended the limitations of traditional rock. This is from the 2024 re-master of the album. Whilst perceived wisdom is that Stone Roses did not borrow this sound there are some significant similarities.
"The Disappearing Platelayer" serves as the atmospheric closing track to the 2009 album First Sighting, a project that captured an early, ambitious exploration of genre-blending by acclaimed multi-instrumentalist Martin Green. Created for the Celtic Connections "New Voices" series, the album showcases Green’s innovative fusion of accordion-led folk with elements of jazz-fusion, Zappa-esque experimentation, and orchestral textures. Featuring the surreal and distinctive vocals of Moff Skellington, the track encapsulates the project's spirit, reflecting Green's transition from traditional roots into the avant-garde, sound-sculpting territory that would eventually define his celebrated career as a composer and innovator.
Asturias, Spain-based power trios back with a new album via small Stone Recordings. The record features eight immersive and engaging tracks, merging heavy psychedelia and melodies born across decades from the 1970s on, speaking seamlessly in a way that is their own while still providing as much grunge shove as it does boogie vibes. Their third album with Small Stone, Eerie Meadows follows the fan-favorite Black Harvest (2021), which established the current lineup of Kike Sanchís (guitar, vocals), Juan Arias (bass), and Dani Bárcena (drums) as one of the most enjoyable live acts in the heavy rock scene. “With Eerie Meadows, we wanted to explore the duality between the heavy and the ethereal the mist, the ancient woods, and that feeling of finding home in the wild,” says the band. “Recording in a new studio was a challenge we set for ourselves to push our sound further; it’s a record about the cycles of life, the scars we carry, and the fire that burns even under the northern lights.”
The band say “If you’re wondering why Deep States has been remixed, it’s because it was made during the pandemic in a studio 150 kilometers from a city. The album had been recorded and was about halfway through mixing when the computer on which it was being finished shut itself down and died. This part of the album process happened during a lockdown (so the computer could not be repaired) and the lockdown happened about a week before the album deadline. The deadline was for manufacturing. And the deadline couldn’t be moved because it had been moved many times previously due to the pandemic. So the mixes on the original version of Deep States are not really finished. They’re just what they were when the computer blew up. This new version is stripped all the way back to what it is which is a bunch of songs recorded on and bounced between various tape machines, through ghetto blasters, some parts recorded on a bus, some in a schoolroom, some outdoors, through crunchy old samplers, with drum machines run through crapped out amps… just to see what happened. And this is what happened.”
RONE • HOME is a new installation inside Chadstone Shopping Centre, as part of the Light To Night festival, running from 11 June to 12 July. Rone has constructed an entire house and backyard from scratch, creating an evocative time capsule of suburban life. Nick Batterham has composed and recorded the soundtrack to this new installation, having made soundtracks to previous Rone projects including TIME at Flinders Street Station in 2022-23 and EMPIRE at Burnham Beeches in 2019.
Winnipeg “piano” duo (more on those quotation marks in a moment) Tönky Hönk is announcing their debut release, The ËP, is slated for July 24th release on Vancouver’s Redshift Records. The duo comprises Madeline Hildebrand and Everett Hopfner, both of whom have remarkable credentials (the two of them are past prize-winners of Canada’s Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, for starters). Hildebrand—an erstwhile student of the legendary Gilbert Kalish—has performed alongside important artists such as Philip Glass at Winnipeg New Music Festival, the Kronos Quartet at Mass MoCA, and with Yarn/Wire at the DiMenna Center in New York City, to name a few. Hopfner meanwhile, studied under Megumi Masaki and has performed in a vast array of contexts, including Italy’s Casalmaggiore Music, Frankfurt’s Senckenberg, and touring with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. The pair’s name and colourful imagery hint at a certain playfulness, but one spin of their debut indicates that this is more emblematic of a collective, childlike curiosity than a penchant for antics or humour per se. Encompassing pieces by singular American composers Adrian Knight, Phyllis Chen and fellow Winnipeg resident Julian Beutel, the ËP—whose duration is more akin to that of a vinyl LP—is evocative and wondrous, embracing the piano (which is also heard prepared), but also Fender Rhodes, toy piano, and more. The release is a quietly strong, concentrated statement that is just as likely to endear itself to listeners of ambient, the more introspective end experimental rock and other soft exploratory genres, as fans of modern composition.
Last month, Nick released an instrumental track titled “La Petite Mort” featuring the exhilaratingly expressive cello of maestro David Berlin and an equally emotive piano performance by Georgina Lewis. As the title suggests, the music describes the tension between intimacy and mortality, the coexistence of love and death, a transition between emotional states.
The opening track The Junta’s new self-released album is a statement of electronic intent.
to 28. tracks from releases featured on previous shows.
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