Teeth Of The Sea 'Wraith' and The Utopia Strong debut reissues are available from today:
Thanks to the MANY requests we have decided to press some ltd edition reissues of Teeth of the Sea's last album WRAITH and The Utopia Strong's debut S/T album.
Teeth of the Sea's Wraith is available on Moss Green & Black Vinyl and The Utopia Strong's on Toxic Yellow & Black vinyl, order from any good record shop of your choice or copies available on Bandcamp:
And don' t forget the bands are playing shows together in November:
Nov 13 / Manchester / The Carlton Club Nov 14 / York / The Crescent Nov 15 / Barrow In Furness / Barrow Underground Music Society Nov 16 / Newcastle / The Cluny Nov 17 / Glasgow / Broadcast Nov 18 / Bristol / Strange Brew Nov 19 / Cambridge Mash Nov 20 / London / Lexington (MATINEE AND EVENING SHOW)
It is always an exciting time when new GNOD music lands, and we are ecstatic to share with you the video for 'Pink Champagne Blues' - the blistering first track to be revealed from the forthcoming album 'La Mort Du Sans' which is released on 5 November.
Head over to The Quietus now to watch an exclusive video made by the Baghead Crew:
There is a special numbered Dinked version that has a different diecut sleeve, Clear with Red/Blue splatter vinyl and poster featuring exclusive art by Helen McDonnell:
Also available to preorder via shops is a ltd version pressed on Blue vinyl
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If one overarching feeling has dominated the last two years on this orbiting rock, it’s uncertainty. A sense of an old order in ruins, and nothing lined up to replace it. With societal strife, psychic warfare and sheer boredom assaulting us from all fronts in this still-fresh decade, co-ordinates have been hard to place forging a path forward. Therefore, who better to turn to as a soundtrack for this tumultuous new era than Gnod - longtime chroniclers of discord.
“The Death Of Meaning” is the translated rendering of the new Gnod album’s title, and this also reflects its creation. As Paddy Shine of Gnod notes: “I think the title sums it up well because this album was coming together at a time when confusion was king for us all - still is. I think we can all relate to that. This record is a really strange beast because of the big change that happened between mixing and recording. I think the title really does sum up the vibe of ‘What the Fuck’? Maybe we should have called it that!”
Wielding the taut, stripped-down and bludgeoning sound that had evolved on 2017’s ‘Just Say No The Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine’ and 2018’s Chapel Perilous, Gnod initially recorded the tracks for ‘La Mort Du Sens’ with key soundman and collaborator Raikes Parade in ‘an old mill in Manchester’ around the Christmas period of 2019. “It’s the first album in a while where we kept it in-house and DIY, and we wanted it to be as ferocious as our live sets have become” says Paddy, “We banged it all down live - two drummers and a load of cabs in a room pushing each other forward”
Nonetheless, the arrival of the pandemic in early 2020 took the record on another course, adding to a turbulent and cathartic vitality that electrifies the likes of the caustic Melvins-in-hell assault of ‘Pink Champagne Blues’, the uncompromising percussive battering ram of the twelve-minute ‘Giro Day’ and the post-punk angularity of ‘The Whip And The Tongue’ with a fearsome elemental charge. “The world changed two months later so we were mixing this old world record in the new world and a lot of the vox got laid down during lockdown” reflects Paddy. “‘Pink Champagne Blues’ is a burst of total nihilist abandon and the lyrics wrote themselves in the midst of a dark wintry night of the soul”
Masters of an approach which manages to be both unmistakable and unpredictable. Gnod are now well established as prophets of the dispossessed. ‘La Mort Du Sens’ is no less than another relentlessly invigorating stop-off on their wild ride to who knows where. “It’s all about the energy” reckons Paddy. “We never really know what’s coming next. It just organically shifts around, and I think we are getting better at not analysing where it’s going and just going with the flow”
“Got No Obvious Destination, innit”
GNOD are hitting the UK with these confirmed live dates:
Oct 29-31 / Salford / Fat Out Fest Nov 11 / Preston / The Ferret Nov 12 / London / Studio 9294 Nov 13 / Margate / Elsewhere Nov 14 / Brighton / The Hope and Ruin Nov 15 / Bristol / The Lanes Nov 16 / Cardiff / The Moon Nov 17 / Leicester / The Soundhouse Nov 18 / Leeds / Mabgate Bleach Nov 19 / Glasgow / Nice & Sleazy Nov 20 / Newcastle / Brave Exhibitions Festival April 29 (2022) / London / Desert Festival
I often hear people decry what, for them, is the fact that there is “no good new music out there”. This is something that I am a little incredulous about because I don’t seem to be able to keep up with the excellent new sounds that are coming out all the time, both digitally and on various physical formats… including a surprising, but welcome, cassette revival. Included in that cassette revival, but also releasing albums on vinyl has been Daniel Foggin, aka Smote, who, until very recently, I’m sorry to say, I had not had a chance to listen to.
When I did finally hear his ‘Bodkin’ album (see below), which came out on The Weird Beard label, I was somewhat blown away by it… and couldn’t believe my luck when Foggin recently advertised a couple of copies he’d found down the back of his sofa… I was only too happy to snap one up. All this is a round about way of saying that I really wanted to get ahead of the curve on the next Smote release, which is why I’ve been very contentedly listening to the new one which is out on Rocket Recordings in early October 2021.
‘Drummon’ was originally a two-track (each of around fifteen minutes) digital release back in March 2021, but has now been augmented with two further numbers to make it into a full length vinyl release… and I have to say that you wouldn’t really notice if you didn’t know… and even then it’s arguable whether the joins can be seen...
We are really proud to reveal that we are releasing a remastered/resequenced LP version of 'One' – Nova Express's one and only album they released in 2001. This updated version, now called 'Twenty One' is released on ltd vinyl on 22 October – listen to the 14min + track called 'Nova Express' via Psychedelic Baby Magazine here:
Somewhere along the rich lineage of Swedish psychedelic music – the type forged in communes and smoky rooms alike on a kosmische continuum that spans over half a century, lies Nova Express – unheralded purveyors of timeless cyclical repetition and trance-inducing soundscapes. Torbjörn Abelli of national icons Träd, Gräs Och Stenar was even heard to remark in 2001 on the release of ‘One’ - their sole album - that “This album will mature and be perfect twenty years from now”
Somewhat serendipitously, two decades on, ‘Twenty One’ – the remastered and resequenced version of this maverick gem on Rocket Recordings - make it clear he wasn’t kidding. These free-flowing extrapolations take minimalist shapes and expand them into dizzying spirals of improvisatory abandon and heat-haze atmospherics. Redolent of the serene celestial shapes of Can’s ‘Future Days’ and the summer sunset climes of Cluster’s ‘Sowiesoso’ alike, tracks also blossom from mechanical
Casio rhythms into Terry Riley-esque bursts of beatific abandon (as on the fifteen minute long title track) not to mention Organic Music Society style exaltation. On the closing ‘Spektra’, a majestic drone-odyssey even takes flight that connects the interstellar dots between the classic earthy strains of International Harvester, the droogy bliss of Spacemen 3 and the devotional mind-melt of Catherine Christer Hennix.
Yet at all times, Nova Express essentially sound like no-one but themselves - an unassuming band (whose members have also reared their heads before and since in outfits like The Janitors, Klotmystik, Audionom and Josefin Öhrn & The Liberation) whose ability to alchemically transform simple ingredients into psychic monuments has only gained potency as the years have rolled by. Indeed, the buried audial treasure that is ‘Twenty One’ - like all truly transcendent music - exists beyond time and space alike.
GOAT – Fill my Mouth ("I got a hunger screaming inside") GOAT
Leg Puppy – Your Profile is Dope (Gnoomes remix) (More Gnoomes remix excellence) Gnoomes
Various – Strain Crack & Break: List Volume Two (Germany) (Another essential compilation – a real journey of tracks picked out from the legendary Nurse With Wound list) Various
The Oscillation – Untold Futures (New track from Demian and co) The Oscillation
Soft Machine – Soft Space (Soft Machine go disco...thanks Jimmy from Teeth of the Sea, it was a 'moment'!) Soft Machine
Roxane Métayer – Éclipse des ocelles (Walk into a record shop and an album they are playing pricks up your ears, 30 mins later you leave with that said album under the arm....thanks World of Echo) Roxane Métayer
If you saw them at the recent Raw Power Festival you know what a powerful live band Sex Swing are...if you didn't , well you are in luck – as the band have a short UK tour in December including a recently announced show at London's Moth Club, tickets on sale here:
Dec 01 / Leicester / The Soundhouse Dec 02 / Manchester / Yes Dec 03 / Bristol / Crofters Rights Dec 04 / Cardiff / Clwb Ifor Bach (w/ Part Chimp) Dec 5 / London / Moth Club + April 29 (2022) / London / Desert Festival
