The UV Race

(Melbourne, AUS // AARGHT, Future Folklore Records)

Describing their music as « avant-tard » and « idiot savant punk rock, » the UV Race are an Australian outfit whose music combines the structural trappings of garage punk with a purposefully off-kilter attack that fits somewhere between deliberate primitivism and art-damaged provocation. Formed in Melbourne in 2007, the UV Race features guitarist Alistair Montfort, singer Marcus Rechsteiner, Alex Glazov on keyboards, Georgia Rose on sax and harmonica, Moses Williams on bass, and drummer Dan Stewart. The group played its first show in July 2007 and released a demo on cassette later that same year, with the UV Race displaying a lasting affinity for the lo-fi analog format. After a handful of cassette-only releases, the UV Race moved up to vinyl in mid-2008 with their first 7″, « Lego Man, » issued by the Aussie indie label Aarght Records. Aarght also put out the band’s next release, a split-live cassette with Eddy Current Suppression Ring; Mikey Young of ECSR was an early booster of UV Race and has produced most of their recordings. A second 7″, « Malaria, » was issued by American indie imprint SS Records in July 2009, and the group’s first full-length album appeared later the same year on Aarght; originally distributed only on cassette, it was later reissued on CD and LP. In 2010, UV Race toured the United States for the first time (the itinerary included a stop at that year’s Gonerfest in Memphis, Tennessee), and another 7″, « I Hate You, » appeared on the Fashionable Idiots label in the fall. In early 2011, yet another 7″, « Acid Trip, » hit the racks via Sweet Rot Records, and noted American garage punk label In the Red Records released UV Race‘s second album, Homo, in late March the same year. Their next project was filming and recording the soundtrack for a film, Autonomy and Deliberation. It was released in November of 2012, roughly the same time as their next studio album, Racism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIQJNDGtF3E 

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The Make-Up

(Washington D.C, USA // Drag City, Dischord Records)

THE MAKE UP is the Washington, DC group that re-defined underground music in the middle and late 1990s with their peculiar and incendiary blend of gospel, garage and yeh-yeh music. 

Known for their dynamic and interactive live presence at hundreds of shows across 5 continents, the group also recorded 7 LPs, 14 singles and EPs and and collaborated on films, videos, pamphlets, and happenings. They toured extensively as a headliner and with groups such as Royal Trux, Sonic Youth,, Fugazi, Dub Narcotic Sound System, Lung Leg, Harry Pussy, and many others. 

The group has been called “dazzling … best dressed … martial … terrifying.” Their shows were known to feature communication, sermonizing, crowd participation, and dancing virtually unknown in the staid world of indie and garage rock. Their style was perfect, with matching Mao style jackets, with new versions designed for each tour. 

The group was widely copied as well and precipitated and inspired a wave of “garage” imitators in the 21st century who often had commercial success but lacked the spark, character, nuance of the Make Up. 

Occasionally, when the moon is bright and the wolfsbane blooms, the group has come out of hiding for rare and exciting personal appearances since disbanding in 2001. 

They are making one of their rare returns now for a short time only, available for very special events. 

Featuring Ian Svenonius on vocals, James Canty on guitar, Michelle Mae on bass guitar and Mark Cisneros on drums, and performing classics such as “they Live By Night”, “I am Pentagon”, Walking on the Dune” , “Here Comes the Judge,” “Every Baby Cries the Same,” etc, the Make-Up is as extraordinary as ever. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ohDSjgd-Y&feature=emb_title 

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Wireheads

(MELBOURNE, AUS // TENTH COURT RECORDS)

Brigid Dawson

(Los Angeles, USA // Castle Face Records)

Announcing the debut LP from Brigid Dawson & The Mothers Network – “Ballet of Apes”. Tip-top of our osmosis list is the first quiver of tunes from Brigid Dawson and her newly minted Mothers Network: wise warnings dyed in dark hues, knotted and hard-won torch songs from the edge of a turbulent sea, bittersweet balladry spun in defense against evils familiar and unknown.

Lovely though it may seem from a distance, the striation of loss quicksilvered throughout provides weighty balance to her contralto lilt. Those familiar with her harmonic counterpoint from her time in Thee Oh Sees or in OCS know she can belt as well as lullaby but there’s a fresh and smolderingly heavy swing in her step on display here that we mightily dig.

“Ballet of Apes” tapestries together sessions that read like a who’s who from outside our own castle walls – in Australia with Mikey Young (Total Control/Eddy Current Suppression Ring), in San Francisco with Mike Donovan (ex Sic Alps), Shayde Sartin (ex Fresh & Onlys/lifetime ringer) and Mike Shoun (ex Oh Sees/Peacers), and in Brooklyn with instrumental heavy-weights Sunwatchers – and the results are spellbinding. At the focal point of this maelstrom, our lady, as if illumed by candlelight, intones, pleads, consoles – white magic perhaps but it carries with it the anodized tang of blood. This is thrillingly potent stuff and it’s out on Castle Face May 22 .

Matt from Castle Face Records.

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Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band

(Austin, USA // Castle Face Records)

The wizard’s gaze cast over a distant landscape bits of ash and motes of incinerated earth float in the air the smell of ozone and fried metal sting the villager’s noses. But hope’s bell rings eternal! A flower of beauty is standing up in the sole ray of sun the clouds are withering away, retreating back to dark cloaks behind crusted-over frost-fractal windows. Darkness cannot usurp the crown light is king and will eliminate the darkness, chase it, out of the unfathomable corners and brush away the webs of evil…remnant factions will always remain but they will be hunted with pure magical riffage. These are the peaks and valleys of the mighty Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band, conceptual in feel and flow a lovely lilting ride and then, up through the floor boards, a warrior incants into the frothing night a huge band, heavy and tumultuous like a war machine rumbling thru the ash clearing the way for folks to continue their idyll. Dreamy and lucid keys, strings, drum corps, slippery guitar and buff bass, ripe flutes and breezy vocals. For fans of Embryo, the Mothers, Pink Floyd, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Moody Blues, the Stark Reality, and Placebo. They’re from Austin, Texas but you’d swear it’s from 1972 Europa-Mothership. Like their vodka it surpasses expectations and fucking crushes.

– John Dwyer, Oh Sees

If the Silvan elves of Mirkwood had a house band, Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band would hold residence. Too cerebral for trolls and perhaps too dynamic for hobbits, the Nightmare Band is what you’d stumble upon around a fire deep in the forest, with a dozen or so of its creatures and elves equipped with everything from organs, bells, and flutes to electric guitars and synthesizers.

Like any conceptually ambitious creative project, the inception and launch of Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band is one built on tenacity, timing, and kismet. Finding almost ten people in Austin, TX who want to be part of a large-scale prog-rock/jazz fusion project evoking the spirit of Middle Earth? Easy. Finding those same talented people who simultaneously have the time it takes to do it justice? Not so much. 

It’s the fortunate cohesion of these resources and the group’s enrapturing live performances that led to the overwhelmingly anticipated and well-received release of their debut LP Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band’s Nightmare Forever, out on John Dwyer’s Castle Records. Honing a sound nostalgic for several eras among several realms, the group features Nolan Potter himself on flute, vocals, and guitar; William Grover on guitar; Max Prudhomme on Bass; Reno Feldkamp on piano and organ; Doran Rawlinson on drums; Everett Bergstedt on percussion; and Charles Anderson on violin. 

– Taylor Wallace, KUTX 

LISTEN & SHARE : Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band – “Elf Curse”

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– The Austin Chronicle “From labyrinthine compositions to galvanizing live performances, Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band never falls short of epic.”

– The 405 “Making use of an eclectic assembly of instruments — double drumsets, flutes, strings, keys and ripping guitars — Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band makes for a wild listen.”