Фирма Dead Océans

For all the dark tones pulsing through GAUNTLET HAIR's new album "Stills", there is also a guileless affection for the goth industrialists and post-punks who blazed a shadowy path through the 80s and 90s. Recorded during Portland, Oregon's grey winter days in producer Jacob Portrait's (UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA) appropriately named studio The Cave "Stills" is a modern salute to Trent Reznor and his cohort's arena-ready post-apocalyptica. The album follows the once-Denver-based band's 2011self-titled debut for Dead Oceans and singles spread across labels like Forest Family and Mexican Summer. After moving back to their hometown of Chicago last year, drummer Craig Nice and singer/guitarist Andy R. looked to their teenage selves for inspiration. "I started listening again to the stuff I would have in my discman in the back of my mom's car," says Nice. "White Zombie, Marilyn Manson - the production on those records is so amazing. Nothing sounds like that anymore." Mining childhood nostalgia for inspiration has proved effective. Stills cuts like "Human Nature," "GID" and "Waste Your Art" have the signifiers of industrial and minimal-wave a la British contemporaries The Durutti Column & Joy Division, but all the fluidity and momentum of INXS & Depeche Mode's 80s pop. Here are the dirty, fuzzed out guitars. Here is the guttural groan on "Bad Apple." Here is Seattle grunge's nasal sneer on "Heave." Here are your tinny synths. Here is your stomping back beat. Here is your horror, and your joy. Style: Independent

Artist: Gauntlet Hair Label: Dead Oceans

QRP 200g audiophile limited pressing. While it's true I did endure a terrible break-up at the beginning of writing this record, this is not a break up record. "Dagger Beach" is a put-me-the-fuck-back-together record. The break up came in late 2011, after endless months of "White Wilderness" touring. I returned home to an empty house, and, as that's pretty unbearable when you're not quite right in the head, I decided to set out walking. I hiked the Lost Coast (36 miles of off-the-grid splendor in Southern Humboldt County), I hiked the entire 150-mile trail system of Pt. Reyes, I hiked for days, deep, deep in the woods, usually alone. As I walked and walked, listening to records on repeat, I started obsessing about music again. As the experience changed me, it changed the record. "Dagger Beach" is looser, weirder, and more free because of it. - J. Vanderslice CD, Album

Artist: John Vanderslice Label: Dead Oceans (Cargo Records)

Martin McNulty Crane V comes from a long line of exceptional Martins. There's an orphan who became attorney general of Texas and fought the KKK, a lieutenant who fought in WWI, an airline pilot who raised his family in Iran, and a scientist. Our Martin Crane, who now records as BRAZOS, is on track to become a leading musical light, with a burning creative mind and a searching soul. Brooklyn-based BRAZOS gained recognition in 2009 with Crane's self-released debut album, "Phosphorescent Blues". The album was hewn around "The Observer", the 1969 Adrienne Rich poem Crane put to music. From the bouncy, free-formed vocal phrasing of that adaptation grew a style that combined raw energy and dance rhythms with the subtle intricacies of jazz and folk. On BRAZOS' new album, "Saltwater", Crane's acoustic guitar, Spencer Zahn's warm bass lines, and Ian Chang's frenetic, melodic drumming were all recorded live. Over several months, Crane added and refined layers of pianos, synths, guitars and production embellishment. The multi-talented Sandro Perri mixed the final arrangements into a quixotic melange that is both understated and startlingly honest. Like a stunning spring morning, "Saltwater" is buoyant, expansive pop, with an astonishingly sure hand of craftsmanship. Gestated in an atmosphere of listening to "transcendent groove music" (Pharaoh Sanders, Can, Harmonia, Fela Kuti, among others) Crane brings a light and lilting poise and unique perspective, mixed with the emotional urgency of The Walkmen, a James Mercer timbre, and a wry, unencumbered sense of being, a la Deerhunter or Cass McCombs. Opening track "Always On" begins mid-synth swirl blast, plunging the listener into a dervish of melody and a frenetic beat. "Charm" jumps down a notch to a loping, staccato groove and seeing-stars joie-devivre. By track three "How the RanksWasWon," the cascades of melodic joy have been translated into a tale about the voyage of a ghost ship and its descendants. The title track "Saltwater," inspired by Melville's Moby Dick, holds its tempo, just barely reined in, with spirals of guitar, swells of organ and explosions of percussion threatening to erupt, while Crane's salty caramel vocal is warm and emphatic. This is our Martin Crane - the restless, yearning, young musical adventurer - balancing raging power, with a lovely articulation of deep feelings. He has no tattoos. Style: Independent

Artist: Brazos Label: Dead Oceans (Cargo Records)

"The album started with visions of large monumental sounds inspired by Heizer and Turrell; American works on a grand scale, monuments, dirty hands and an epic American masculinity. Dust, Stone, Sky, Earth. These broad, bold strokes would come to pass but Record Label: Dead Oceans Style: Rock

The album started with visions of large monumental sounds inspired by Heizer and Turrell; American works on a grand scale, monuments, dirty hands and an epic American masculinity. Dust, Stone, Sky, Earth. These broad, bold strokes would come to pass but n Style: Rock

On the heels of three well-received singles comes "Ride Your Heart", the bombastic debut album by LA band BLEACHED. Sisters Jennifer and Jessie Clavin match their ability to blend a mix of freewheeling '77 punk with vintage sunny Southern California melodic rock and roll; creating blindingly bright hooks and dark heartfelt lyrics about love, loss, and the crazy fun moments in between. That's the goal: the sugary and sour, repurposed by two aggressively harmonic musicians and songwriters. Their first single "Next Stop" epitomizes this movement - fun, raw, adventurous and free. Tossing you out onto the dance floor, hair mussed from make-outs, cigarette still dangling from your fingertips. Raised up deep in the San Fernando Valley, their suburban isolation nurtured the girls creativity, as they started making their own music at a young age. Sneaking into punk shows over the hill in Hollywood, they grew up to become teenaged underground staples at all-ages Downtown DIY venue, The Smell. "Me and Jen were punk kids who weren't taught how to play instruments," says Jessie. We taught ourselves how to play, out in the garage." Eventually signing to Kill Rock Stars and Post Present Medium, their allgirl punk band MIKA MIKO drew international acclaim, landing slots on tours with No Age, Black Lips, and The Gossip. BLEACHED originally formed when the Clavin sisters resolved to continue working with each other upon the break up of MIKA MIKO. Plans were postponed when the sisters joined other bands. Jennifer relocated to New York and toured extensively. With Jennifer away, Jessie began to play with various bands in LA. But in the fleeting moments they found together back home, the songs that became BLEACHED's early 7" singles came together. Since Jennifer moved back to her hometown, BLEACHED now serves as both girls' chief creative outlet. "I was going crazy being in someone else's band," remarked Jennifer. "Me and Jessie are so proud and happy to be able to focus on our own music, together." As a whole, the twelve tracks on "Ride Your Heart" reveal the many facets of BLEACHED's music in a delicious vortex of playful harmonies, tangled guitars, and golden noise. Each song brings a new element, while also imbibing the classic moods of bands as varied and iconic in nature as RAMONES and THE CARS to THE ROLLING STONES and FLEETWOOD MAC. From the syncopated backbeat and two-part chorus of "Dead In Your Head", the rolling riffs and sparkling melodies of "Searching Through The Past" and the pulsating energy and urgency of "Dreaming Without You" and "Outta My Mind", BLEACHED take you on a sweepin' emotional roller coaster that churns and burns. "Ride Your Heart" is a thrilling, beating, glorious wall of sound strong enough to withstand its own impact. Style: Independent

Artist: Bleached Label: Dead Oceans

Style: Independent

Artist: Phosphorescent Label: Dead Oceans

"Welcome to the sound of Winston Yellen and Night Beds, who in one stunning ten-track debut album ,Country Sleep, have shown that there is plenty of life left in the world of American music if you have the voice, the songs and the gift to touch hearts and Style: Independent

Artist: Night Beds Label: Dead Oceans

Back with a second album of thoughtful new themes, Sun Airway's Soft Fall takes us to an ethereal layer between worlds. The sonically inspiring sub-strata of Soft Fall began in songwriter/producer Jon Barthmus' house in Philadelphia. Classical foundations were chopped, dissected, and sewn back together by a string quartet in one recording studio, with live instruments overdubbed in another, then re-edited and assembled back at home by Barthmus. David Wrench (Caribou, Bat for Lashes, Bear in Heaven) took it all to new heights with some masterful mixing. On Soft Fall, Sun Airway's pop songs move out of the bedroom and into cathedrals. The songs are hyper-saturated, bright and colorful, spilling from the speakers. They're glistening, based on rich acoustic instruments and layered in synthetic sounds carried along on Barthmus' perfect hooks. Soft Fall is a place where swirling orchestras play, cupped in the palms of your hands. It's a place where everything belongs where it doesn't; As Barthmus sings, it's "out of time, but still in tune." Listen closely, and you can make out the memories left traced in the rocks; shady shapes of electronic / pop pioneers past and present. Touches of ELO and New Order brush up against hints of modern sounds like M83 and Radio Dept., carried by the subtle breeze of Bjork's Homogenic. In a landscape of collapsed beats, humming of the life that springs up from underneath, ,Soft Fall" takes you on frosty morning walks through the woods where twinges of psychedelic light escape through the spaces between the leaves. It's Versailles in audio form: grand and beautiful, ornate and complex, surreal and classic all at once Style: Independent

TOUR-SPECIAL: STRICTLY LIMITITED HANDSIGNED VERSION of his current album! Style: Pop

Back with a second album of thoughtful new themes, Sun Airway's Soft Fall takes us to an ethereal layer between worlds. The sonically inspiring sub-strata of Soft Fall began in songwriter/producer Jo Style: Independent

Gorgeous gatefold double LP version comes with download of the album. An underground legend with devoted fans such as Jeff Tweedy and Nick Cave, Bill Fay's new album is his first proper studio album since 1971. "Life is People" features a duet with Jeff Tweedy, a backing band of Mike Deighton (Oasis, Paul Weller, Mother Earth), Tim Weller (Goldfrapp), Mikey Rowe (High Flying Birds, Stevie Nicks), and a moving rendition of Wilco's classic "Jesus Etc." Bill Fay is one of English music's best kept secrets. At the dawn of the 1970s, he was a one-man song factory, with a piano that spilled liquid gold and a voice every bit the equal of Ray Davies, John Lennon, early Bowie, or Procol Harum's Gary Brooker. He made two solo albums but his contract wasn't renewed, which left his LPs and his reputation to become cult items. But he never stopped writing, the music kept on coming. Now, in his late sixties, he has produced "Life Is People", a brand new studio album that shows his profoundly humanist vision is as strong as it ever was. His debut on the underground Decca Nova label, "Bill Fay" (1970), included spacious big band jazz arrangements by Mike Gibbs, but it was the follow-up, "Time Of The Last Persecution" (1971), that cemented his reputation - a harrowing, philosophical and painfully honest diagnosis of an unhealthy society and a messed-up planet, that featured the cream of London's fieriest jazz session players such as guitarist Ray Russell. Unable to make ends meet as a musician, Fay wandered through a succession of jobs for years, writing songs privately. Both solo albums were re-issued in 1998, and when the likes of Jeff Tweedy began singing his praises in the early 2000s, Bill began to come back into view and Wilco even convinced the shy singer to join them onstage in London in 2007. A few CDs of Bill's early demos and home recordings have since emerged, but "Life Is People" is his first properly crafted studio albumsince 1971.He was motivated by American producer Joshua Henry, who grew up listening to his dad's Bill Fay albums on vinyl. Spooling through Bill's home demos, Joshua discovered an incredible trove of material. Matt Deighton (Oasis, Paul Weller, Mother Earth) assembled a cast of backup musicians to bring out the songs' full potential. These include Deighton on guitar, Tim Weller (who's played drums for everyone from Will Young to Noel Gallagher and Goldfrapp), and keyboardist Mikey Rowe (High Flying Birds, Stevie Nicks, etc). In addition, Bill is reunited on several tracks with Ray Russell and drummer Alan Rushton, who played on "Time Of The Last Persecution". And it's a stunning return to form. Ranging from intimate to cosmic, epic but never grandiose, Bill's deeply committed music reminds you of important, eternal truths, and the lessons to be drawn from the natural world, when the materiality and greed threaten to engulf everything. It's time to recognise one of the great English voices. After nearly 50 years, Bill Fay has finally delivered his masterpiece: as rapturous and soul-stirring as any music you'll hear this year Style: Singer/Songwriter

It snowed, yesterday. It snowed just a little bit. A few snowflakes fell and wafted around the city like songbirds, finally landing on our shoulders. (We grinned at them.) In the earliest days of winter there's nothing scary about snow. The cold's like a Style: Independent

Luniculaire. It sounds French, but it is in fact a word invented by WHITE HINTERLAND, taking parts of French words 'lunaire' (lunar) and 'funiculaire' (funicular, as in railway) to form the title of their second release. This EP is a highly ambitious reco Style: Independent