Post punk veterans, The Intelligence, return with their first release since their 2019 album, Un-Psychedellic in Peavey City. New track, Celebration Ratio, comes out as a seven-inch flexi disc on Leisure World Tapes.

Celebration Ratio is sharp lyrically and rough instrumentally, and finds the band once again toying with the no wave eccentricity and the lo-fi charm for which they've been known, channeling in part the artfulness of Bush Tetras and the peculiarity of Half Japanese.

Legends according to genre specialists, undervalued by the rest, The Intelligence have been active since 1999 when they were founded by Lars Finberg (A Frames, Thee Oh Sees), and have nine studio albums, together with a plethora of EPs and collaborative releases under their belt.

The Joy Formidable unveil new single, Back To Nothing, the second one ahead of their next album, Into The Blue, which will be released on August 20th, 2021 through Enci Records in North America, Full Time Hobby in Europe and Soundly Distro in the rest of world.

"Back To Nothing takes a stance on self-compassion, realizing your worth and your boundaries and deciding not to give your love to an undeserving other," comments lead singer and guitarist Ritzy Bryan.

Following on from the coming album's title track, The Joy Formidable once again showcase that their virtuosity at psychedelic bent indie rock and shoegaze is put to excellent use. The rest of the impending full length is expected to have a similarly colorful and airy feel, based on its concept. The band describe: "It’s about opening your eyes to beauty and love again. Making it to the other side. Whilst not conceived as a metaphor for the times we all live in now, it certainly turned out that way."

The Joy Formidable are Rhiannon 'Ritzy' Bryan and Rhydian Dafydd who grew up together in North Wales and formed the band in 2011, and were shortly joined by drummer Mr. Matt Thomas.

Comprised of prolific musicians Mike Borchardt (guitar, backing vocals) also of Nihiloceros and Treads, Stephanie Gunther (bass, vocals) from Desert Sharks, and Carlo Minchillo (drums, guitar, keyboard) drummer of The Planes, Glass Slipper, and creator of the Brooklyn Drum Collective, fresh band Murder Tag arrive with their horror aesthetics worn on their sleeves by good reason.

The idea for the conception of Murder Tag began after hours of working for a horror film in Brooklyn as actors and assistants, and from then on the band evolved into a genuine act of gothic rock properties, keen on strong melodies and centered on a cinematic feel. Carlo Minchillo started writing the deviant songs which would comprise the soundtrack of the film produced and put together by artist Jen Meller, and Murder Tag commenced to a bold start.

New single, Full Moon, presents the menacing tone which characterizes the trio's sound, emerging electrifying and mesmeric at the same time, as the inventive instrumentals lay down the foundation for an eerie mood, and the vibrant vocals round out the band's vision for a certain, ominous type of darkness. 

Generally slanting toward a gothic rock and post punk sound, Murder Tag's introduction appears imaginative, and concurrently not very far from the traditional horror rock principles.

Band photo by Jen Meller

 
Cover art by Murder Tag

 

Murder Tag Facebook | Instagram




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Between psychedelic space rock and stoner rock heaviness, German trio, YAGOW, come forth with intricate subject matters and an accordingly expansive sound which compares to both the immensity of The Black Angels or Wooden Shjips and the grit of Kyuss. The band's splendid new track, Bloom, is part of their sophomore album, The Mess, which arrives on June 18th, 2021 through Crazysane Records.

Guitarist and vocalist, Jan Werner, lets us in on both the new song's intent, and the artistic visual which comes with it: "The song deals with a dream-like state of mind with seemingly incoherent text modules in an interdimensional place as can be found in the red room scene from Twin Peaks. The situation can be best described with the words of the original itself: 'Generally speaking earthly laws of physics did not necessarily apply within the red room as its arrangement could change from moment to moment making navigation or escape extremely difficult'. 

"Based on this the video was created by Keine Zeit Medien using video synthesizers. The video shows flowers that wither but played backwards. The audio signal triggers the playback speed which means that the sound makes the flowers bloom again! In addition another parameter determines the distortion/glitching of the images. To top it off everything is in a video feedback loop in which the images become increasingly liquid-like to the point of their dissolution. So now you know right?"

Not even a year after the project's inception, Hamburg's DARK has met with a rather great amount of success among the world of darkwave and beyond. Following the NIGHTMARE mini LP, the NIGHTMARE full length is also on the way, composed of the artist's first eight tracks. The album arrives via Young & Cold Records on November 15th, 2021.

The seventh and currently latest offering of DARK's dark vision is another musically blunt piece which this time comes through a darkly romantic filter, and a new video steeped in gothic aesthetics.

DARK comments: “It’s a dark romantic song about the memories of two lovers of a forbidden love. It’s different than my previous compositions, so it should touch the hearts of the children of the night in a different way. It’s an honour to have Shelly d’Inferno starring in the video, and the female singer Nicole Willerton adding her touching talent to this track.”

Pre-orders of the NIGHTMARE album have already started through the artist's Bandcamp.

Photo by Dan Thomas Photography

Veteran and all around underappreciated shoegazers, Whimsical, go strong into their second burst after their 2015 reformation, and prepare for their fourth full length expected through their new home label, Shelflife Records, in early 2022.

Gravity is a buoyant shoegaze piece which comes attacjed to an alluring jangle pop and power pop feel. It's the A-side of an impending seven-inch releasing on June 4th also via Shelflife Records. 

More than twenty years after their initial appearance, Krissy Vanderwoude and Neil Burkdoll seem more than adequate for coming up with quality dreampop of lavish and shimmering attributes, drawing inspiration from nature, and following a brighter path which connects to their underlying wistfulness pretty well. 

Whimsical have previously released music through Saint Marie Records and Seraph Records, and after a ten-year break are continuing to venture resolutely into the future of shoegaze.

Malmö indie dreampop duo, Wy, return with their third album, Marriage, which is out through their new home label, Rama Lama Records. Like its title suggests, the new album bases its concept on the relationship of Ebba and Michel Gustafsson Ågren who have been together for a very long time, and created their new work two years into their marriage.

After the rawer, more wistful direction of their 2017 debut Okay, and the slightly more polished indie pop of their sophomore full length Softie, Wy progress by talking glimpses at their past, trying a direct approach to their songwriting through more elaborate and tighter collaboration, and enhancing the levels of intimacy and sentimentality which were already prominent factors of what they do.

“I have always written the lyrics,” says Ebba. “But this time they feel like our lyrics, and not just my diary set to our music. We've talked a lot with each other about what we want to say. About who we are and where we can find our place in the world. The title has been in place since we started, and that was because a lot of the songs revolved around our relationship since we got married. Not so much the relationship between us, but more about the internal conflicts that appear when you’re in a long-term, safe relationship, where you’re really sure about each other, but you’re not sure about yourself.”

Marriage quickly evolved from an EP idea into a fully extensive and abundant project which the duo shaped into a third album, all done with the band being without the support of a label while creating. 

“We didn’t have a contract or a set plan,” Ebba explains, “so we just went where the music wanted to go, and would decide what we were gonna do with it when it was done. It felt exciting and freeing. I think we did a lot of things we wouldn’t have done if we were continuing to show the process to people like we did before. There was a point where the vibe of the album suddenly changed, and became what it is now, and it’s quite different to what it was when we started writing it.”

Without promoting it with many singles in advance, Wy released their third album as genuinely and gracefully as they put it together, and the result stands as elegant as their acclaimed previous work, and like a major turning point for the duo.

Rama Lama Records · Wy - Shiba Inu

Dark rockers VAZUM don't need much time between new works. The band have been on a very focused path since their beginnings, and for the last couple of records they have seemed to flesh out their sound and realize their aesthetical path in full, as Vampyre Villa and Rated V, both from last year, have been stellar examples of their act.

Multi-instrumentalist, Zach Pliska, and vocalist/bassist, Emily Sturm, will be releasing their new album, V+, this Summer, and they have just introduced it with single and video, Haunted House, once showing their proneness toward vintage horror film stylings and their grip at a very gritty and very heavy admixture of doom, post punk, gothic rock and shoegaze, like a connection between Type O Negative and Hammer Horror.

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At a point when synthwave started to become a bit prosaic, repeating itself, passing into staleness, some of the genre's finest saw emergency exits in other art forms. Perturbator turned clearly toward darkwave and metal, Carpenter Brut ventured into film scoring, Gunship and The Midnight incorporated contemporary dance pop elements into their productions, while on the other hand many mainstream and commercial pop artists have exploited synthwave's stylings and aesthetics to elevate what they do into something much cooler, in a way being another factor in the genre's downturn. At the same time there will always be an incalculable amount of hopeful copyists who try their hand at the the style, ranging from ultra lo-fi productions to super polished, still, those above par turn out to be very few.

Code Elektro is an indispensable act for the genre purists, not only because of Martin Ahm's deep understanding of the genre's history, its roots and its present, but because of that fundamental musical ability to come up with compulsive and meaningful composition. 

Code Elektro's panacea to synthwave's routineness came through their potency as a live act, with their traditional apparatus in full effect. On their first live record Code Elektro is shifted into a full rock band, presenting dynamics akin to those of the stage act of John Carpenter, Goblin or the current great, Confrontational. Live at Radar Station sees the band earning a place among those names who give more substance to the music and come with an entirely artistic intention, instead of indulging in the extravagant visuals and the ultra fun part of what has made synthwave popular.

The ten tracks which comprise Live at Radar Station have been previously heard in CE's albums, Triads, Never Mind the Solar Wind, Wolf and Superstrings, and they all have taken new life and character by going through passages of prog rock, darkwave, industrial, cyberpunk, new age and film music, while at the same time they preserve the outrun/synthwave basis which still positions the band in the company of the genre's leading and propitious figures.

Right before the pandemic's heavy strike, the album was recorded at a venue in February 2020 in Aarhus, Denmark, in a full house and with the crowd supplying the additional energy, boosting the band's accurate and dedicated performance. The album plays out as a buzzing live record, as an engaging soundtrack, and as an exquisite set of tracks which can stand soundly on their own. Although it's very rare for the magic of a live show to be recreated with total accuracy on record, this one seems to be a great documentation of what CE have to offer, and that, however it is identified, it goes beyond synthwave's boundaries.

 

Code Elektro Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram




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Vocalist Sharon Shy and musician Henry 'Toppy' Frost formerly of The Ropes are R. Missing, an ambiguous dark synthpop act based in New York which has just released a new single through the revered Sugarcane Recordings, home to such greats as David Lynch, John Foxx, Clint Mansell, Hot Chip, Hercules & Love Affiar and Gazelle Twin among others.

Crimeless is an atmospheric, lush synthpop piece akin the glimmering melancholy of Chromatics, and the brooding, pulsating drive of the earlier TR/ST. The song comes paired to a set of compelling remixes, two by Icelandic electropop veterans, GusGus, and one by the London duo, The KVB, all of which provided different spins on the track, showcasing the original's magnificence through each remixer's genuine perspective.

Notably, GusGus have their forthcoming album, Mobile Home, on the way, expected in summer 2021, and The KVB are also expected to release a new album soon, while their own Nicholas Wood has just put out a new LP on Fuzz Club Records under his Saccades moniker.

Crimeless and its remixes arrive with some incredible visuals created by Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib.