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CD
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UTR 163CD
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$13.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/17/2024
Empires into Sand is the first album of new material from Normil Hawaiians in 40 years. The group first refined their sound during the early '80s, hitting on a pastoral experimentalism that drew on ambient drone, motorik impulse and post-punk pep. Empires into Sand came together in the familiar manner of their original three albums, with improvisation and nuance informing the blueprint of the tracks. It was with the official release of this last record Return of the Ranters (originally recorded in 1984/85, but then unconsciously shelved) in 2015 by Upset The Rhythm that led to the group reconnecting with the intention of playing music together again. The quaint weirdness of folk song, the humanity of communal practice and the group's ecological mindedness have all found a place in Normil Hawaiians' current sound world. Normil Hawaiians took their time to develop these threads at their own pace, allowing songs to mutate and settle over months. Simon Marchant deftly produced and recorded the album whilst also performing in the band, this marked the first time the band had total control of their own sound. Empires into Sand incorporates samples from old rehearsals and live music into the new finished pieces, this is in continuum with their previous records. Snippets of sound from the static of short-wave radio and satellite transmissions also embellish the work. In fact, the whole album is stitched together with interludes, creating an acutely immersive 45 minutes. The album's title is derived from a poem by band member Mark Tyler, who sadly passed away during the recording process and the transience of life is felt heavily throughout. Noel best coins the group's wish for the album: "We wanted to create an album that acknowledges our history and also reflects who we are today. We remained true to ourselves and we wanted to make something beautiful without removing the edges." Empires into Sand certainly does that, it's an echo from the past, an echo from the future. Featuring Rodney Relax.
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UTR 163LP
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$26.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/17/2024
LP version. Empires into Sand is the first album of new material from Normil Hawaiians in 40 years. The group first refined their sound during the early '80s, hitting on a pastoral experimentalism that drew on ambient drone, motorik impulse and post-punk pep. Empires into Sand came together in the familiar manner of their original three albums, with improvisation and nuance informing the blueprint of the tracks. It was with the official release of this last record Return of the Ranters (originally recorded in 1984/85, but then unconsciously shelved) in 2015 by Upset The Rhythm that led to the group reconnecting with the intention of playing music together again. The quaint weirdness of folk song, the humanity of communal practice and the group's ecological mindedness have all found a place in Normil Hawaiians' current sound world. Normil Hawaiians took their time to develop these threads at their own pace, allowing songs to mutate and settle over months. Simon Marchant deftly produced and recorded the album whilst also performing in the band, this marked the first time the band had total control of their own sound. Empires into Sand incorporates samples from old rehearsals and live music into the new finished pieces, this is in continuum with their previous records. Snippets of sound from the static of short-wave radio and satellite transmissions also embellish the work. In fact, the whole album is stitched together with interludes, creating an acutely immersive 45 minutes. The album's title is derived from a poem by band member Mark Tyler, who sadly passed away during the recording process and the transience of life is felt heavily throughout. Noel best coins the group's wish for the album: "We wanted to create an album that acknowledges our history and also reflects who we are today. We remained true to ourselves and we wanted to make something beautiful without removing the edges." Empires into Sand certainly does that, it's an echo from the past, an echo from the future. Featuring Rodney Relax.
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UTR 162LP
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$20.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/10/2024
Recorded across three sessions over the last three years, Behold is a testament to Parsnip at their most creative, catchy and collaborative. This album showcases the multi-talents of all four members, with spirited performances adding dazzle to the thirteen tracks. Paris Richens lets the bass playfully roam. Carolyn Hawkins tumbles feeling into the drum rumble. Stella Rennex's guitar soars alongside her saxophone work, whilst a sprightly keyboard is tenderly attended by Rebecca Liston. Everyone sings amidst this lush canopy. Patience, environmental cues and internal signals are integral for a garden to flourish. The same can be said of the conditions necessary for Behold to emerge. It is an album gleeful in reassessment, changed priorities and anticipation. The roots are deeply anchored to mystery, drinking up a hidden wonderment that lies within. "The Babble" sounds like Ray Davies playing Wordle for enlightenment. In fact, most of these songs are pointing the way towards growth and understanding. "Turn to Love" is mesmeric and timeless, thoroughly serene and perfectly judged. Parsnip write songs as a form of communion with the intangible in our increasingly delusory world, but there is always a gentle reminder; don't take anything too seriously. On Behold, Parsnip explore both the inner and outer realms of consciousness with quick wits and some seriously quality jangle and jolt. "The Light" is a whip smart workout, sprouting naturally from the propulsive nature of their debut album When the Tree Bears Fruit (2019). "Placeholder" is also devastatingly honest and channels The Field Mice as it buries itself like an arrow into your heart. Anti Fade Records and Upset The Rhythm present Parsnip's first album in five years, Behold.
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UTR 160LP
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The Pheromoans are tenants of an unruly domain. Over the last 18 years the group have evolved from garage rock primitivists to auteurs of their own curious sound; a frothy brew of loose electronics, refractory rock and humdrum musing. Their songs are mutable, capricious, unreliable narrations, often withholding as much as they reveal. Russell Walker's understated vocal has always been the band's unifying focus, it is wry, unsparing and willfully honest. Walker's lyrics are an observational tour de force, sometimes droll, yet often tipping over into unlikely pathos. With previous releases on Upset The Rhythm, Convulsive, and Alter, The Pheromoans return with lucky album number 13, entitled Wyrd Psearch. It was recorded in Lewes throughout 2023. This was undertaken by founding member James Tranmer, his keen instinct for how the band should sound shaping many of the creative decisions. Joined by new guitarist Henry Holmes, the five-piece doubled down on a decidedly breezy, melodic approach. Scott Reeve's drumming is ever brisk, whilst Daniel Bolger explores AOR peripheries on keyboard and bass. Walker claims that the album's title is an expression of his frustration at the ubiquity of people claiming things are eerie or weird/wyrd in the present cultural milieu. The artwork for the record is designed as an actual word search too, a knowing nod to how everyone grapples for meaning amongst the absurdity of each day. The overriding impression given by Wyrd Psearch is of a band renewed with ideas. There's no trouble finding the right words, they're hitting their mark, keeping up with the commentary. Wyrd Psearch is a document of The Pheromoans mastering their unquiet moment. Limited 180g black vinyl. 500 copies worldwide.
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UTR 158LP
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Melbourne/Naarm synth-punk five-piece Screensaver return with Decent Shapes, their second album. Decent Shapes is loaded with bubbling tension, a low grade but growing fever, a rising rage. The frustration is so tangible you can taste it. Detachment and dissociation become survivalist coping mechanisms. Thematically, screensaver's latest offering finds them exploring existence on an ever-growing trash heap where we're desperate for the new, the nice and the shiny. A world where materialism reigns supreme and corporate niceties litter the public dialogue but behind closed doors the sentiment is warlike, total domination is the only answer to the bottom line. All of which is underpinned by the band's sonic sense of urgency and a commitment to creating a sound that taps into the mood and spirit of post-punk whilst also allowing space for new wave elements and electronic experiments to shine through. Decent Shapes was recorded and mixed by Julian Cue, who was also the recording engineer for Expressions of Interest. Defined by a kinetic energy, dynamic range and brooding atmosphere, the ten-track release comprises some tracks that were mainstays within the band's live shows -- featuring in their US tour set-list -- alongside others which were written later in the recording process. During the creation of Decent Shapes, the band also experimented with swapping instruments, allowing for different playing styles and song-writing approaches. Screensaver was formed in 2016 as a trans-Pacific project between Krystal Maynard (Bad Vision/ex Polo) and Christopher Stephenson (Spray Paint/Exek). Their debut album Expressions of Interest received support from the likes of Brooklyn Vegan, Beats Per Minute, DIY and Post-Trash.
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UTR 159LP
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Brontez Purnell has been making music since the '90s. The Southern-raised, Oakland-based American musician and writer has centered his queerness and Blackness in projects Gravy Train!!! and Younger Lovers as well as in his award-winning books 100 Boyfriends and Since I Laid My Burden Down. He is also a dancer, film maker and choreographer. Hot on the heels of recent 7" singles for Sub Pop, PPM, and his first solo electronic record No Jack Swing (Dark Entries/Papi Juice), Brontez returns in DIY-punk band formation for a new album entitled Confirmed Bachelor on Upset The Rhythm. These twelve songs presented are of the no-time-wasted variety. Fuzzed-out pop songs, hotly delivered from the heart, often sassy, sometimes sappy, always snappy! Brontez's band includes the multifaceted talents of Vice Cooler (who also produced and mixed the album), Sean Teves (of Younger Lovers) on drums, Kevin Preston (Prima Donna, Green Day) on guitar, Aaron Minton (Prima Donna) on piano and saxophone, and Laena Myers-Ionita on violin. The album was recorded in Los Angeles at The VCR earlier this year. Crystal clear vinyl.
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LP
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UTR 151BLUE-LP
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LP version. Blue vinyl. Me Lost Me, led by Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent, announces a new album, RPG, via Upset The Rhythm. RPG (recorded in Blank Studios with Sam Grant of Pigs x7) is Me Lost Me's fourth outing as a collective. Having transitioned from an ambitious solo project in 2017, Jayne now regularly collaborates with acclaimed North-East jazz musicians Faye MacCalman and John Pope. Me Lost Me delights in experimenting with songwriting and storytelling, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully weave together disparate genres, drawing influence from folk, art pop, noise, ambient and improvised music. Jayne Dent presents RPG as an homage to worldbuilding and the story as an artform, calling back to oral traditions around a campfire, bringing folk music into the present day as she does so. A central thesis of this album is the joy of creation, something which is paid homage to in the album's final track, "Science And Art." Crucially on RPG, Dent expands her songwriting and looks towards the unreal locations of worldbuilding in video games for inspiration. RPG upends the concept of the eternal return -- we may be in the midst of inevitable repetition, but we tell stories whilst awaiting the passage of time. LP version also available on pink vinyl (UTR 151PINK-LP).
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LP
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UTR 151PINK-LP
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LP version. Pink vinyl. Me Lost Me, led by Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent, announces a new album, RPG, via Upset The Rhythm. RPG (recorded in Blank Studios with Sam Grant of Pigs x7) is Me Lost Me's fourth outing as a collective. Having transitioned from an ambitious solo project in 2017, Jayne now regularly collaborates with acclaimed North-East jazz musicians Faye MacCalman and John Pope. Me Lost Me delights in experimenting with songwriting and storytelling, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully weave together disparate genres, drawing influence from folk, art pop, noise, ambient and improvised music. Jayne Dent presents RPG as an homage to worldbuilding and the story as an artform, calling back to oral traditions around a campfire, bringing folk music into the present day as she does so. A central thesis of this album is the joy of creation, something which is paid homage to in the album's final track, "Science And Art." Crucially on RPG, Dent expands her songwriting and looks towards the unreal locations of worldbuilding in video games for inspiration. RPG upends the concept of the eternal return -- we may be in the midst of inevitable repetition, but we tell stories whilst awaiting the passage of time. LP version also available on blue vinyl (UTR 151BLUE-LP).
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CD
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UTR 151CD
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Me Lost Me, led by Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent, announces a new album, RPG, via Upset The Rhythm. RPG (recorded in Blank Studios with Sam Grant of Pigs x7) is Me Lost Me's fourth outing as a collective. Having transitioned from an ambitious solo project in 2017, Jayne now regularly collaborates with acclaimed North-East jazz musicians Faye MacCalman and John Pope. Me Lost Me delights in experimenting with songwriting and storytelling, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully weave together disparate genres, drawing influence from folk, art pop, noise, ambient and improvised music. Jayne Dent presents RPG as an homage to worldbuilding and the story as an artform, calling back to oral traditions around a campfire, bringing folk music into the present day as she does so. A central thesis of this album is the joy of creation, something which is paid homage to in the album's final track, "Science And Art." Crucially on RPG, Dent expands her songwriting and looks towards the unreal locations of worldbuilding in video games for inspiration. RPG upends the concept of the eternal return -- we may be in the midst of inevitable repetition, but we tell stories whilst awaiting the passage of time. LP versions available on blue (UTR 151BLUE-LP) and pink vinyl (UTR 151PINK-LP).
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7"
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UTR 157EP
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Water Machine is an office romance between Hando Morice (they/them), Flore de Hoog (she/her), Jimmy Gage (he/him) and Goda Ilgauskaitė (she/her). An unassuming supergroup formed out of Glasgow institutions including Goth GF, Passion Pusher, Brenda, and Soursob, their sound careens between punk, country and alt-rock underpinned by the unique quality they call "Raw Liquid Power." Following last year's self-titled demo tape on Gold Mold Records, and fresh off of shows with the likes of Holiday Ghosts, The Cool Greenhouse and The Orielles, as well as a rollicking Viagra Boys afterparty, the four-piece will release their highly-anticipated first studio effort Raw Liquid Power on Upset The Rhythm on August 4th. The EP opens with a menacing, modulating synth melody. Gage's guitar enters with a mighty bend before breaking into the chugging rhythm of "Water Machine Pt. 2." "Stilettos" marches on indignantly with a spiky riff punctuated by Ilgauskaitė's cowbells. Staccato talk-singing tells a playful tale of stray cats following you home, but belies a darker subtext as the breakdown gives way to paranoid duelling guitars evoking The Fire Engines. The anti-anthem "At the Drive In" skewers joyless DIY crowds, reminiscent of much-missed Glasgow punks Breakfast Muff. Water Machine's irrepressible sincerity can't help but shine through in the final moments though, as jibes about "late night trade potential" give way to plaintive vocal harmonies. Morice tears public transport a new one on closer "Bussy," a First Bus diss track bemoaning precarious employment amidst crumbling infrastructure. "That's why I'm not on time!" they roar over de Hoog's frantic, pounding bass, bringing the record to a skidding, screeching halt.
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2LP
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UTR 096R-LP
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Finally back on vinyl, this time a limited pressing on 180 gram white vinyl. More Wealth Than Money by Normil Hawaiians quickly sold out upon Upset The Rhythm's release in 2017. More Wealth Than Money proved a vastly ambitious debut album, sprawling across four sides of vinyl in a way that still feels truly expansive, brave, cinematic even. From the plaintive pastoralism of "British Warm" to the transcendental vistas of "Other Ways Of Knowing", the album constantly surprises with its ringing trails of guitar, motorik pulse, and synth rambles. From the striving incursion of "Sally IV" to the softly spoken disbelief of "Yellow Rain" the album is nothing short of a waking dream. Guy Smith's vocal floats through the album in a haunting manner, at times heartfelt at others overcome. He's on a quest to his own celestial city and you can stay for the whole journey if you only listen. Described by the press upon its release in 1982 as an "absolutely mesmerizing double album travelling through progressive rock, via industrial folk to freaky art-punk whilst sounding delightfully coherent" and "a huge slab of mind-blowing dark psychedelia" the album was critically acknowledged for its peculiarly British kosmische. However, for an album so indebted to the fertile soil from which it sprang, it's curious that More Wealth Than Money never came out officially in the UK. The band's label Illuminated were temporarily blacklisted by their distributor because of unpaid debts and so the album was only available from the band at concerts within the UK. The bulk of the record's sales went to mainland Europe on export. Includes booklet full of anecdotes and photos from all band members. Includes download card with bonus material not included on double-LP vinyl; edition of 500. "A killer slice of freeform raging post-punk" --The Quietus.
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CD
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UTR 154CD
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What's Terry been up to? Five years on from their last album, I'm Terry (UTR 111CD/LP/Y-LP, 2018), the Australian post-punk quartet proudly present their new record, Call Me Terry. Terry is made up of pairs Amy Hill and Al Montfort, and Xanthe Waite and Zephyr Pavey who started playing together for the fun of it in 2016. Seven years, four albums and three EPs later, Terry is ready to pick up the phone again. Over the past few years Terry have kept themselves busy -- but not only with Terry things. On top of numerous releases with alternating side projects (Constant Mongrel, The UV Race, Primo!, Sleeper & Snake, Chateau, Rocky, etc.) members of Terry have moved interstate, undertaken studies, had children and started new fields of work. Terry began sharing the demos for Call Me Terry online with each other in 2020 before getting together in 2021 at their trusty rehearsal space to record the beds. Overdubs were completed at Terry's homes over the following year. Lyrically, in true Terry fashion, the record wastes no time in scrutinizing Australia's corrupt, colonial history. Musically, Call Me Terry still has the classic Terry sound; the four vocals singing as one gang, sharp guitars and quirky, burbling synths, the rolling bass and drums, all amidst their clever, dancey pop songs. Since day dot it's been hard to reference a band that really sounds like Terry, which is always amazing.
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UTR 128R-LP
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Less of Everything was released in 2020 on Upset The Rhythm and sold out quickly. Limited repress on sun yellow vinyl sees the album finally available on vinyl again. Es is Maria Cecilia Tedemalm (vocals), Katy Cotterell (bass), Tamsin M. Leach (drums), and Flora Watters (keyboards). Their 2016 debut EP, Object Relations, released on influential London punk label La Vida Es Un Mus, was described as "mutant synth-punk for our dystopian present" (Jes Skolnik, Bandcamp, Pitchfork). The band has since become a vital presence in London's underground DIY music scene, as well as having toured the UK with the Thurston Moore Group in 2017. After a period with members split between Glasgow and London, Es recorded Less of Everything with Lindsay Corstorphine (Sauna Youth, Primitive Parts) in Tottenham in 2019. As in Object Relations, the dynamic between Cotterell's bass and Watters's keyboard is at the heart of Less of Everything's sound: intertwining sub-zero melodies, gothic anarcho-punk influences (think Kukl, Malaria, X-Mal Deutschland) and some kind of entirely unlocatable aquatic component. When combined with Murray Leach's precise drumming, the outcome is original and immediately recognizable. Es are a group who know how to leave space, how to strive for minimalism without sacrificing aggression or dynamism. This dynamic provides the perfect backdrop for Tedemalm's relentless, pointed vocal style. While comparable "cold" sounding groups might affect an impersonal, safer mode of lyrical or vocal detachment, Tedemalm's strategy is to "push the lyrics as far as I can thematically until they become absurd -- overly dramatic ... while still being sincere in the feeling they're trying to invoke. I try to apply as much emotion as I can." The result is something intense but nuanced, confrontational but complex.
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7"
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UTR 153EP
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If Es's debut album for Upset the Rhythm explored the "tension between intent and interpretation", the London group's 2023 EP, Fantasy, constructs a coda for resistance against the distorted gaze. A four-track contact-high anxiety amid fact and facsimile, the new release attempts to define a sound that still resonates in an increasingly confused public theatre, where cerebral dreams manifest in corrupt fascination. Echoing the legendary Pylon or the later, disco-inspired releases from PIL, tracks like "Emergency" and "Unreal" blend the band's established disjunctive style of gothic restlessness with brighter, poppy, and danceable tones. These stylistically unwind in transition with the increasingly claustrophobic pieces like "Too Late" and "Swallowed Whole", syncopating a parallel design of the frantic and the fashionable. Paired with a lyrical intricacy which emits a desire to break the fetish of false representation, "Fantasy" is a reminder that worthy punk records, like any manifesto of neurotic suspicion, balance testimonial, speculative-fiction, and social critique. Indebted to the past but pointed sharply to the future, Es deconstruct our modern wreckage of personhood and self-deceit, granting a sense of solidarity inside alienation. Inside Fantasy you can visualize your own estrangement, and it is only when this mirror fades that we find the tools to fight back. 180 gram, curacao color vinyl.
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UTR 154S-LP
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LP version. Red. 180 gram vinyl; edition of 500. What's Terry been up to? Five years on from their last album, I'm Terry (UTR 111CD/LP/Y-LP, 2018), the Australian post-punk quartet proudly present their new record, Call Me Terry. Terry is made up of pairs Amy Hill and Al Montfort, and Xanthe Waite and Zephyr Pavey who started playing together for the fun of it in 2016. Seven years, four albums and three EPs later, Terry is ready to pick up the phone again. Over the past few years Terry have kept themselves busy -- but not only with Terry things. On top of numerous releases with alternating side projects (Constant Mongrel, The UV Race, Primo!, Sleeper & Snake, Chateau, Rocky, etc.) members of Terry have moved interstate, undertaken studies, had children and started new fields of work. Terry began sharing the demos for Call Me Terry online with each other in 2020 before getting together in 2021 at their trusty rehearsal space to record the beds. Overdubs were completed at Terry's homes over the following year. Lyrically, in true Terry fashion, the record wastes no time in scrutinizing Australia's corrupt, colonial history. Musically, Call Me Terry still has the classic Terry sound; the four vocals singing as one gang, sharp guitars and quirky, burbling synths, the rolling bass and drums, all amidst their clever, dancey pop songs. Since day dot it's been hard to reference a band that really sounds like Terry, which is always amazing.
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LP
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UTR 154LP
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LP version. 180 gram vinyl; edition of 500. What's Terry been up to? Five years on from their last album, I'm Terry (UTR 111CD/LP/Y-LP, 2018), the Australian post-punk quartet proudly present their new record, Call Me Terry. Terry is made up of pairs Amy Hill and Al Montfort, and Xanthe Waite and Zephyr Pavey who started playing together for the fun of it in 2016. Seven years, four albums and three EPs later, Terry is ready to pick up the phone again. Over the past few years Terry have kept themselves busy -- but not only with Terry things. On top of numerous releases with alternating side projects (Constant Mongrel, The UV Race, Primo!, Sleeper & Snake, Chateau, Rocky, etc.) members of Terry have moved interstate, undertaken studies, had children and started new fields of work. Terry began sharing the demos for Call Me Terry online with each other in 2020 before getting together in 2021 at their trusty rehearsal space to record the beds. Overdubs were completed at Terry's homes over the following year. Lyrically, in true Terry fashion, the record wastes no time in scrutinizing Australia's corrupt, colonial history. Musically, Call Me Terry still has the classic Terry sound; the four vocals singing as one gang, sharp guitars and quirky, burbling synths, the rolling bass and drums, all amidst their clever, dancey pop songs. Since day dot it's been hard to reference a band that really sounds like Terry, which is always amazing.
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LP
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UTR 150LP
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Historically Fucked is a four-way entanglement made to create short, eruptive songs and then set about obliterating them from the inside, like improvising a barrel to encase themselves in and then proceeding to lick their way out of it. It is about playing and laughing at playing, and it is about not doing either of those things sometimes. Sometimes it is to do with talking, howling or grunting, and sometimes it is to do with hitting and rubbing. Historically Fucked contains four people, who each share the same duties, and whose names in sequence are Otto Willberg, David Birchall, Greta Buitkuté, and Alecs Pierce. They are from Manchester and often other places. Guitar, bass, drums, and voices keenly jostle amid the group's frenzy of spontaneous rock throttles. Some of these rampant exercises in avant are collected on The Mule Peasants' Revolt of 12,067, the band's new album, released by Upset The Rhythm. This is the group's first release since 2018's mantlepiece staple Aliven Wool (Heavy Petting). This is Rock and/or Roll as fertilizer, uncivilized and free, as if one were to imagine what the Plastic Ono Band would've hit upon if they had read Riddley Walker (1980), the sound of an entire timeline of expression put back together back-to-front, misshapen and irradiated. The Mule Peasants' Revolt of 12,067 is not mere sedentary rock but blasted basalt, frog worshipping cave-funk, harmolodic hullabaloo-wop, a musical game of "badger in the bag". It is the sound of sacks crammed full of aggregate, a chimerical mind-meld, a seductive din that is to a hound dog in blue suede shoes what a raking of the dorsal fin with a fat marrow pinecone is to a pelican in the midst of being fired from the academy. The Mule Peasants' Revolt of 12,067 by Historically Fucked was recorded by Rory Salter, mixed by Otto Willberg, and mastered by Mikey Young. Artwork painted by John Cobweaver. "They say these days that History is Fucked. Nothing ever dies but continues to rule the earth as an undead tyrant that cannot accept its own decomposition, look earwardly upon the dance of the proudly dead and decrepit!" --Vymethoxy Redspiders, Leeds 2022
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UTR 149LP
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Shake Chain have been busy demolishing audiences and expectations for the best part of three years. Vocalist Kate Mahony sets that standard by starting each live performance by crawling from the back of the room through a disbelieving crowd's legs in a shiny yellow raincoat. The resulting questions that frantically arise of "what's going on?", "am I hallucinating?", and "is this part of the show?" are hallmarks of how Shake Chain approach making their unruly, lyric-bespattered rock music. The four-piece from London are completed by Robert Syres (guitar, synth), Chris Hopkins (bass, synth), and Joe Fergey (drums), all artists hailing from Goldsmiths College, Nottingham Trent and Wimbledon, University of the Arts. A mutual love of thought-provoking performance art and a yearning for disruption have helped Shake Chain lock into their wayward sound. Twitchy guitar lines jolt and jerk, synths burble noisily and tack-sharp drums pin things down for Kate's reeling vocal to vault and slur. Kate's singing has drawn comparisons with Yoko Ono, Su Tissue, and even a seance with its unique embrace of flights of atonal fancy, head-first repetition and ecstatic frenzy. Opinion-dividing arguably, but singular in making Shake Chain dauntingly brilliant. Shake Chain's self-titled debut album was recorded in the New Forest's Chuckalumba Studios early in 2022. The tranquil setting only slightly skewed by the intense extratropical cyclone occurring outside. When asked to sum up the album the group collectively settled on it sounding like "crying in a Catholic sex dungeon with Eastenders on", perhaps only half tongue in cheek given the soapy dramatics of opening track "Stace". "RU" is a stompy triumph of ad lib monotony, heavy and wonky, its vocal slowly unwinding into residual sense. Shake Chain's songs are populated with cowboys, cherry-pickers, content-addicts, private investments, a careless driver called Mike, architects and by much lamentation at the state of our confusing existences. This last point underlined in luminous marker pen with slow-building vortex "Highly Conceptual" and whispered closer "Duck". "Copy Me" races along with radiant headbangs of dynamic abandon, one part tumble, two parts pummel, "hold your breath til something changes" commands Kate whilst everything of course is in hammering flux. "Second Home" is similarly coruscating yet buoyant, whilst "Arthur" feels like it could tear inside in two amid sobbing wails and the twining of its disparate parts. Throughout all the unhinged freakouts, found sounds and blasting rhythms though is Kate's questioning, resilient presence, anchoring everything. Shake Chain are cathartic and absurd, humorous and deadly serious yet always inspired.
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UTR 147CD
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Geelong, Melbourne's favorite sons Vintage Crop return with their much-anticipated fourth album, Kibitzer. Running with the ball that 2020's Serve To Serve Again (UTR 131B-LP/LP) punted forward, this album marks another energetic break towards the goal for Vintage Crop. Kibitzer sees the band define their field of play, more melodic at times, still bruising, forever droll. These ten tracks of "snappy as elastic" Australian punk are packed with tensile riffage, hefty beats and witty refrains of everyman curiosity. Kibitzer was written in quick response to their critically lauded Serve To Serve Again album. Harsh guitars, a brutish rhythm section and a knack for always having the right words at hand are still abundant, but this time Vintage Crop's songs expand upon their forceful nature with greater harmonic arrangement. Kibitzer delves into themes of identity, resilience and acceptance; some of the more upbeat notions that the band have dealt with to date. "Casting Calls" opens the record, slamming through the speakers with gusto and setting the tone for the following 30 minutes. Accepting your limitations and taking pride in your work are key themes on Kibitzer. In fact ideas around learning, growing and being able to take things in your stride are strongly felt through their entire body of work. These themes hit home with the album's title too, with Cherry feeling that 'Kibitzer' is an apt way to describe a lot of the band's focus. Musically the band have expanded their palette on this album; exploring a world of rhythmic harmony and a newfound vocal melodicism. There's also greater lyrical elaboration and considered song structures at play. "The Duke" is a mob of rollicking chants and heavy hitting, catchy to the core. "The Bloody War" is a more sanguine reflection of tumbling drums, struck chords and shrill keyboard warble. "Hold The Line" turns the wry amusement of dealing with cold callers into a fidgety anthem of knowing frustration. Whilst "Switched Of" even welcomes the introduction of horns (courtesy of Heidi Peel) to the group's repertoire, ushering in an unexpected serenity into their tough sound. Mixed and mastered by Mikey Young.
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UTR 147LP
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LP version. Geelong, Melbourne's favorite sons Vintage Crop return with their much-anticipated fourth album, Kibitzer. Running with the ball that 2020's Serve To Serve Again (UTR 131B-LP/LP) punted forward, this album marks another energetic break towards the goal for Vintage Crop. Kibitzer sees the band define their field of play, more melodic at times, still bruising, forever droll. These ten tracks of "snappy as elastic" Australian punk are packed with tensile riffage, hefty beats and witty refrains of everyman curiosity. Kibitzer was written in quick response to their critically lauded Serve To Serve Again album. Harsh guitars, a brutish rhythm section and a knack for always having the right words at hand are still abundant, but this time Vintage Crop's songs expand upon their forceful nature with greater harmonic arrangement. Kibitzer delves into themes of identity, resilience and acceptance; some of the more upbeat notions that the band have dealt with to date. "Casting Calls" opens the record, slamming through the speakers with gusto and setting the tone for the following 30 minutes. Accepting your limitations and taking pride in your work are key themes on Kibitzer. In fact ideas around learning, growing and being able to take things in your stride are strongly felt through their entire body of work. These themes hit home with the album's title too, with Cherry feeling that 'Kibitzer' is an apt way to describe a lot of the band's focus. Musically the band have expanded their palette on this album; exploring a world of rhythmic harmony and a newfound vocal melodicism. There's also greater lyrical elaboration and considered song structures at play. "The Duke" is a mob of rollicking chants and heavy hitting, catchy to the core. "The Bloody War" is a more sanguine reflection of tumbling drums, struck chords and shrill keyboard warble. "Hold The Line" turns the wry amusement of dealing with cold callers into a fidgety anthem of knowing frustration. Whilst "Switched Of" even welcomes the introduction of horns (courtesy of Heidi Peel) to the group's repertoire, ushering in an unexpected serenity into their tough sound. Mixed and mastered by Mikey Young.
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UTR 147S-LP
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LP version. Sky blue vinyl. Geelong, Melbourne's favorite sons Vintage Crop return with their much-anticipated fourth album, Kibitzer. Running with the ball that 2020's Serve To Serve Again (UTR 131B-LP/LP) punted forward, this album marks another energetic break towards the goal for Vintage Crop. Kibitzer sees the band define their field of play, more melodic at times, still bruising, forever droll. These ten tracks of "snappy as elastic" Australian punk are packed with tensile riffage, hefty beats and witty refrains of everyman curiosity. Kibitzer was written in quick response to their critically lauded Serve To Serve Again album. Harsh guitars, a brutish rhythm section and a knack for always having the right words at hand are still abundant, but this time Vintage Crop's songs expand upon their forceful nature with greater harmonic arrangement. Kibitzer delves into themes of identity, resilience and acceptance; some of the more upbeat notions that the band have dealt with to date. "Casting Calls" opens the record, slamming through the speakers with gusto and setting the tone for the following 30 minutes. Accepting your limitations and taking pride in your work are key themes on Kibitzer. In fact ideas around learning, growing and being able to take things in your stride are strongly felt through their entire body of work. These themes hit home with the album's title too, with Cherry feeling that 'Kibitzer' is an apt way to describe a lot of the band's focus. Musically the band have expanded their palette on this album; exploring a world of rhythmic harmony and a newfound vocal melodicism. There's also greater lyrical elaboration and considered song structures at play. "The Duke" is a mob of rollicking chants and heavy hitting, catchy to the core. "The Bloody War" is a more sanguine reflection of tumbling drums, struck chords and shrill keyboard warble. "Hold The Line" turns the wry amusement of dealing with cold callers into a fidgety anthem of knowing frustration. Whilst "Switched Of" even welcomes the introduction of horns (courtesy of Heidi Peel) to the group's repertoire, ushering in an unexpected serenity into their tough sound. Mixed and mastered by Mikey Young.
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UTR 130LP
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LP version. 180 gram vinyl; gatefold sleeve with booklet; includes download card with eight bonus tracks included on CD version. Dark World collects together choice material from Normil Hawaiians' formative early years of 1979-1981. Tagging along with the band from their peppy post-punk origins (so brilliantly debuted on "The Beat Goes On") into the looser, dubbier territories that laid the foundations for the group's landmark album More Wealth Than Money. Dark World gathers the group's energetic 7" singles on Dining Out and Illuminated Records, their metamorphic Gala Failed EP (Red Rhino) and a lively last-minute Peel session from 1980, alongside outtakes, rarities, and demos. During this feverish time, founding member Guy Smith was motivated to make music that reveled in always trying out different things. Normil Hawaiians was a very fluid ensemble at this point, Guy often accompanied by Kev Armstrong and Jim Lusted encouraged saxophones, violins, synths, pianos and a select pack of female backing singers to take their post-punk sound into wilder directions. One of the earliest line-ups of Normil Hawaiians featured a 15-year-old Janet Armstrong on vocals alongside Guy, "Ventilation" best showcases her deadpan digressions. Janet went on to sing alongside David Bowie a few years later on his breathtaking mid-80s gem "Absolute Beginners". By this point Kev Armstrong was also guesting for Bowie on guitar duties too. Another guest to join the ranks of Normil Hawaiians during this fertile time of cross-pollination was Bertie Marshall (aka Berlin of the proto-punk Bromley Contingent). "Sang Sang" is a good example of how he was inspired to deliver his poetic treatises over the band's atmospheric, floating improvisations. Bertie's impressionistic influence helped the group uncouple further from rock tropes, as they became restless and more rhythmically-focused. "Still Obedient" fidgets, soars and careens across the dancefloor. By the end of this transformative two years Normil Hawaiians had spun an exceptional chrysalis around themselves. The dark world surrounding wouldn't win out, they'd eaten-up the music and grown continuously, wrote and recorded rapidly, covered Zappa and even David Lynch and could feel the light beginning to shine through. Dark World is a snapshot of a band in flux, finding their feet, stretching their limbs. Normil Hawaiians cover an awful amount of ground in such a short time-frame on this record and these tracks document all the glittering debris from their magpie's nest. Emergent, hopeful and resistant in sound and ethic.
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7"
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UTR 148EP
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"Clean Current" nods its head to likes of Snapper and '80s Flying Nun bands whilst "Repeats" owes its origins more to the progenitors of goth-rock. Naarm/Melbourne four-piece Screensaver is back with a double A-side 7" single just six-months after delivering their ten-track debut album Expressions Of Interest (UTR 141LP, 2021) on Upset the Rhythm (UK) and Heavy Machinery (AU) to positive international response. The album has also been a regular feature on Henry Rollin's KCRW Santa Monica radio show. The band return with two distinctly different tracks that extend upon the blend of post-punk, new wave, and synth-punk on their debut. Side A, "Clean Current" is a burst of high-energy: nervy guitars and groovy bass underpinned with krautrock drums and cosmic synth noise, overlayed with delay heavy vocals. "Repeats" is the flipside of the coin, a moody post-punk stomper, led by gritty sawtooth synth, chorus-soaked guitar, textural percussion, and soaring vocals. Lyrically, "Clean Current" spits out retorts aimed at the engulfing nature of anxiety whilst "Repeats" critiques the repetition of modern life, languishing human existence. Limited edition fluoro yellow vinyl.
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UTR 139LP
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Robert Sotelo is a mercurial melodist building a resplendent world of pristine DIY pop from the ground up. The Glasgow-based artist's songs are meticulously crafted, patchworked together with eclectic arrangements and ardent vocal performances. Each of his albums to date has been accompanied by a growth-spurt, 2017's debut Cusp (UTR 098LP) was packed with miniature psych overtures, whilst 2018's Botanical was more keyboard-minded and playful with a near-absurdist palette of sound. Infinite Sprawling (UTR 122LP) came out towards the end of 2019 and surprised with songs pulled together like a wakeful stretch, brisk with a lightness of touch. This was neatly followed by Leap & Bounce melding a sparse synth-pop minimalism to an emotional undertow. Robert Sotelo's vivid new album Celebrant was intended to be and still is to some extent a joyous wedding album (Sotelo is recently married), but in his own words "the pandemic and the death of my aunt Carmen intersected with the original concept so the album is darker than intended in places." More cinematic and measured than prior albums, Sotelo expounds that "it is purposefully a bigger sounding attempt at my keyboard songs and I felt more ambitious about it in general." That's certainly reflected in these twelve sophisticated loops of song, all curiously affecting and catchy, sprinkled with Sotelo's offbeat musings and keenly accurate observations. Guitars are rarely employed on this record with Sotelo recruiting Iain Mccall, Ross Blake, Celia Morgan and David Maxwell to contribute brass, woodwind, spoken word and acoustic drums respectively. All of these additions blend well with the album's synthetic core, softening and subtly shaping its pop-first nature into something more nuanced, vulnerable and human. Celebrant is a plucky synth-centric collection of unbridled songs at times surefooted at others threatened by disconnect, skillfully steered by Sotelo with typical classy touch. 180 gram vinyl.
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UTR 144LP
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Nicfit are a four-piece punk band from Nagoya, Japan. Comprising Hiromi on vocals, Charley on guitar, KenKen on bass, and Kuwayama on drums the group are by turns melodic and menacing. Nicfit are a nervous itch, incessant and impossible to predict. They flip between head-down tumbles of hardcore bounce and freaked feedback clamber with glee, sounding as casual as a slap in the face. Formed in 2009 after Charley relocated from San Diego to explore the Japanese punk underbelly, Nicfit bonded through a mutual appreciation of Essential Logic, Magazine, Black Flag, and Wire. They quickly recorded a demo and started opening for groups like DMBQ, Thee Oh Sees, Total Control, and Wimps. To date the band have released a debut 7" EP, a split cassette with Pinprick Punishment and most recently shared a 7" with their comrades M.A.Z.E. too. Now they've gathered a spiky new batch of hyperactive songs together into their enthralling debut LP entitled Fuse, which is released by Upset The Rhythm. Fuse is a flexing treat of a debut album, packed with browbeaten stomp, taut breakouts, guitars that sound more akin to warning sirens and an astute railing vocal delivery. Fuse was recorded, mixed and mastered at the Geru Studio in Toyota City with the help of Shigeru Matsui at the board. These ten original blasts of song, and one cover of the Urinals ("Ack, Ack, Ack") are as pummel-some as they are keen to race against the clock. Total life-affirming trample, with pointed metallic moments and glammy undercurrents that forever soar out of the sprawl.
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