Harvestman "Triptych: Part Three"

LP - $15.95 / CD - $9.60
LP UPC: 657628448013
CD UPC: 657628448020
STREET DATE: 10/17/24
CAT#: NR132
LABEL: Neurot

At its heart, music has always been a questioning of inheritance – a dialogue with predecessors and forebears, the forging of one’s own perspective in relation to what has come before, and for some, a plunge into the boundless realms between. For Steve Von Till, that process has always taken on an added dimension to become the most sacred of tasks. Whether through the apocalyptic uprising of Neurosis, the sonic deconstructions of their sister project, Tribes of Neurot, the invocatory intimacy of his eponymous solo albums or his instrumental psychedelic reveries in the guise of Harvestman, that dialogue has never just been with musical influences, but with what underpins them: the primordial, elemental forces now banished to the peripheries of our contemporary consciousness, yet still broadcasting a signal for all who will listen.

Drawn to the megaliths, ruins and ancient sites mapped out along the British and European mainland’s geographical and psychic landscapes, the folklore and apocrypha forever resurfacing as portals from a rational world, Triptych is a meditation forged from traces and residues, and an hallucinatory recollection of artists who have tapped into that enduring otherworldliness embedded within us all. It’s a dream diary narrating a passage through Summer Isle where Flying Saucer Attack are wafting out of a window, a distant Fairport Convention are being remixed by dub master Adrian Sherwood, celestial scanners Tangerine Dream are trying to drown out Bert Jansch and Hawkwind are playing Steeleye Span covers, all prised out of time yet bound to its singularity.

Woven together from home studio recordings that span two decades, and with some notable guest appearances including; The Bug, Douglas Leal of Deafkids, Wayne Adams of Petbrick, Dave French of Yob and Sanford Parker, this final part of the Harvestman Triptych seeks once again for a lost world, with the voice of poet Ezra Pound extolling the virtues of "gather[ing] from the air a live tradition". Elsewhere, "Herne's Oak" provides seismic bass waves that physically halt the track in its steps - giant footfalls as Herne's antlers themselves are dragged along a corridor. Another curious and mysterious piece of British folklore brought to life by Harvestman.

If Triptych is a multi- and extra-sensory experience, it extends to the remarkable glyph-style artwork of Henry Hablak, a map of correspondences from a long-forgotten ancient and advanced civilization. As with Triptych itself, it’s an echo from another time, an act of binding, a guide to be endlessly reinterpreted, and a signpost to the sacred that might not indicate where to look, but how.

Cover art is by Henry Hablak, who also designed the art for Part One and Part Two.

Part Three will be coming on October 17th's Hunter Moon.

Part One was released on the Pink Moon on 23rd April and Part Two was released on 21st July's Buck Moon.

TRACK LISTING:
01. Clouds Are Relatives
02. Snow Spirits
03. Eye the Unconquered Flame
04. Clouds are Relatives (The Bug - 'Amtrak Dub Mix')
05. The Absolute Nature of Light
06. Herne’s Oak
07. Cumha Uisdean (Lament for Hugh)

MARKETING POINTS:

• Features Steve Von Till of Neurosis
• 5th Harvestman album
• Part three of a three-part series with each releasing on a full moon

FOR FANS OF:
Steve Von Till, Neurosis, Wovenhand, Converge

Harvestman "Triptych: Part Two"

LP - $15.95 / CD - $9.60
LP UPC: 657628444114
CD UPC: 657628444121
STREET DATE: 7/26/24
CAT#: NR131
LABEL: Neurot

At its heart, music has always been a questioning of inheritance -- a dialogue with predecessors and forebears, the forging of one's own perspective in relation to what has come before, and for some, a plunge into the boundless realms between. For Steve Von Till, that process has always taken on an added dimension to become the most sacred of tasks. Whether through the apocalyptic uprising of Neurosis, the sonic deconstructions of their sister project, Tribes of Neurot, the invocatory intimacy of his eponymous solo albums or his instrumental psychedelic reveries in the guise of Harvestman, that dialogue has never just been with musical influences, but with what underpins them: the primordial, elemental forces now banished to the peripheries of our contemporary consciousness, yet still broadcasting a signal for all who will listen.

Released periodically on three of 2024's full moons -- April 23rd's Pink Moon, July 21st's Buck Moon and October 17th's Hunter Moon -- the three-album cycle, "Triptych", is Harvestman's most ambitious undertaking yet. But it's also the distillation of a unique approach that finds a continuity amongst the fragmented, treating all its myriad musical sources and reference points not as building bricks, but as tuning forks for a collective ancestral resonance, residing in that liminal space between the fundamental and the imaginary, the intrinsic and the speculative.

Drawn to the megaliths, ruins and ancient sites mapped out along the British and European mainland's geographical and psychic landscapes, the folklore and apocrypha forever resurfacing as portals from a rational world, "Triptych" is a meditation forged from traces and residues, and an hallucinatory recollection of artists who have tapped into that enduring otherworldliness embedded within us all. It's a dream diary narrating a passage through Summer Isle where Flying Saucer Attack are wafting out of a window, a distant Fairport Convention are being remixed by dub master Adrian Sherwood, celestial scanners Tangerine Dream are trying to drown out Bert Jansch and Hawkwind are playing Steeleye Span covers, all prised out of time yet bound to its singularity.
Woven together from home studio recordings that span two decades, this latest outing as Harvestman finds parallels with nature's cycles not just in its release dates but in the repeated structure that binds each album, like an imprint refracted through three separate strata. As with April's "Part One" and the forthcoming "Part Three", "Part Two", starts on a collaboration with Om bassist and long-term friend of Steve's, Al Cisneros, with a dub take opening the B-Side. Here, the opening track, "The Hag Of Beara Vs The Poet"'s languid, tribal groove expands into a chromatic wash, like an endless drip of oil spreading out under a midsummer haze.

A filtering of the alpha-state travelogues of its predecessor, "Part Two" reaches even deeper into primal yet pristine states. It journeys from the undulating drone and slow-thawing wonder of "The Falconer", as if the Myst soundtrack were being broadcast from outer space, through "Damascus"'s perpetual-motion, dreamtime bazaar and "Vapour Phase"s seismograph frequencies measuring supernatural tremors to "The Unjust Incarceration"s distorted bagpipes, sounding a noise-frayed lament.

If "Triptych" is a multi- and extra-sensory experience, it extends to the remarkable glyph-style artwork of Henry Hablak, a map of correspondences from a long-forgotten ancient and advanced civilization. As with "Triptych" itself, it's an echo from another time, an act of binding, a guide to be endlessly reinterpreted, and a signpost to the sacred that might not indicate where to look, but how.

TRACK LISTING:
01. The Hag of Beara vs. the Poet
02. The Falconer
03. Damascus
04. The of Hag of Beara vs. the Poet (Forest Dub)
05. Vapour Phase
06. Galvanized and Torn Open
07. The Unjust Incarceration

MARKETING POINTS:

• Features Steve Von Till of Neurosis
• 5th Harvestman album
• Part two of a three-part series with each releasing on a full moon

FOR FANS OF:
Steve Von Till, Neurosis, Wovenhand, Converge

Ufomammut "Hidden"

LP - $15.95 / CD - $9.60
LP UPC: 795154145713
CD UPC: 795154145720
STREET DATE: 5/17/24
CAT#: NR129
LABEL: Neurot

Ufomammut formed in the late 90s by Poia (guitars, FXs) and Urlo (bass, vocals, FXs, synths), (rising from the ashes of past band Judy Corda), together with Vita (drums).
With Levre taking over on drums in 2021, the band has undergone a rebirth, culminating in the release of the album Fenice and the Crookhead EP.

Over the course of 25 years, the band has developed a unique sound that combines heavy, dynamic riff worship with a deep understanding of psychedelic tradition in music.
This has resulted in a cosmic, futuristic, and technicolor sound that fully immerses listeners.
The band has produced 10 records along with various other releases, such as compilations, EPs, and live albums.

Now, in 2024, as they celebrate their quarter-century milestone, the band is set to release their latest album, HIDDEN.

This album marks a shift in the band's musical composition, aiming for a more intense and heavy sound, and it's the third release featuring Levre as the band's new drummer.

The title, HIDDEN, reflects the concept of the presence of everything in our existence and the ability to bring to light what lies within us.

With HIDDEN, Ufomammut delves into a sonic journey that traverses vast expanses of space and time.

From the crushing heaviness to the hauntingly melodies, from the textured compositions to the otherworldly atmospheres, HIDDEN testify the neverending evolution of Ufomammut and their mastery of creating immersive sonic experiences: a fitting celebration of their 25 years of sonic exploration and experimentation.

TRACK LISTING:
01. Crookhead
02. Kismet
03. Spidher
04. Mausoleum
05. Leeched
06. Soulost

MARKETING POINTS:

• "Hidden" is the 10th album of Ufomammut
• EU tour starting in May
• Gatefold jacket with silver nugget vinyl, black paper inner sleeve and poly bag

FOR FANS OF:
Neurosis, Converge, Sleep, High On Fire, Amenra, Thou

Official Site | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Harvestman "Triptych: Part One"

LP - $15.95 / CD - $9.60
LP UPC: 657628443018
CD UPC: 657628443025
STREET DATE: 4/26/24
CAT#: NR130
LABEL: Neurot

Triptych: Part One was recorded and mixed at The Crow's Nest in North Idaho by Steve Von Till who creates the movements using guitars, bass, synths, percussion, stock tank, loops, filters, and more. The record features guest contributions from Dave French (Yob) who performs stock tank percussion on "Nocturnal Field Song" and provides frequency consultation for the album, bass from Al Cisneros (Sleep, OM) on "Psilosynth" and "Harvest Dub," and John Goff (Cascadia Bagpiper) who plays Northumbrian smallpipes on "Mare And Foal." The narration on "Give Your Heart To The Hawk" is delivered through the poetry of Robinson Jeffers. The album was mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, KK Null, Earth) and completed with artwork and layout by Henry Hablak.

At its heart, music has always been a questioning of inheritance -- a dialogue with predecessors and forebears, the forging of one's own perspective in relation to what has come before, and for some, a plunge into the boundless realms between. For Steve Von Till, that process has always taken on an added dimension to become the most sacred of tasks. Whether through the apocalyptic uprising of Neurosis, the sonic deconstructions of their sister project, Tribes of Neurot, the invocatory intimacy of his eponymous solo albums or his instrumental psychedelic reveries in the guise of Harvestman, that dialogue has never just been with musical influences, but with what underpins them: the primordial, elemental forces now banished to the peripheries of our contemporary consciousness, yet still broadcasting a signal for all who will listen.

Released periodically on three of 2024's full moons -- April 23rd's Pink Moon, July 21st's Buck Moon and October 17th's Hunter Moon -- the three-album cycle, "Triptych", is Harvestman's most ambitious undertaking yet. But it's also the distillation of a unique approach that finds a continuity amongst the fragmented, treating all its myriad musical sources and reference points not as building bricks, but as tuning forks for a collective ancestral resonance, residing in that liminal space between the fundamental and the imaginary, the intrinsic and the speculative.

Drawn to the megaliths, ruins and ancient sites mapped out along the British and European mainland's geographical and psychic landscapes, the folklore and apocrypha forever resurfacing as portals from a rational world, "Triptych" is a meditation forged from traces and residues, and an hallucinatory recollection of artists who have tapped into that enduring otherworldliness embedded within us all. It's a dream diary narrating a passage through Summer Isle where Flying Saucer Attack are wafting out of a window, a distant Fairport Convention are being remixed by dub master Adrian Sherwood, celestial scanners Tangerine Dream are trying to drown out Bert Jansch and Hawkwind are playing Steeleye Span covers, all prised out of time yet bound to its singularity.

Woven together from home studio recordings that span two decades, this fifth outing as Harvestman finds parallels with nature's cycles not just in its release dates but in the repeated structure that binds each album, like an imprint refracted though three separate strata. "Part One", as with the forthcoming Parts Two and Three, starts on a collaboration with Om bassist and long-term friend of Steve's, Al Cisneros, with a dub take opening the B-Side. Here, the opening track "Psilosynth" orbits a grandfather-clock mechanism passing through a nebula haze, all waved on by an acid-fried deity. From there on, "Part One" journeys through the elegiac "Give Your Heart To The Hawk", with the sampled poetry like a documentary retrieved from a long-lost world, Philip Glass wistfully attending a rescue beacon from the far corner of the universe on Coma, as well as percussion recordings performed by Steve and friend Dave French (drummer of Yob) on a rusted torn open stock tank outside Steve's barn, treated bagpipes and old reel-to-reel recordings, all reiterated across the next volumes in ever more out-there contexts.

If "Triptych" is a multi- and extra-sensory experience, it extends to the remarkable glyph-style artwork of Henry Hablak, a map of correspondences from a long-forgotten ancient and advanced civilization. As with "Triptych" itself, it's an echo from another time, an act of binding, a guide to be endlessly reinterpreted, and a signpost to the sacred that might not indicate where to look, but how.

TRACK LISTING:
01. Psilosynth
02. Give Your Heart to the Hawk
03. Coma
04. Psilosynth (Harvest Dub)
05. How to Purify Mercury
06. Nocturnal Field Song
07. Mare and Foal

MARKETING POINTS:

• Features Steve Von Till of Neurosis
• 5th Harvestman album
• Part one of a three-part series with each releasing on a full moon

FOR FANS OF:
Steve Von Till, Neurosis, Wovenhand, Converge

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Ex Everything "Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart"

LP - $15.95 / CD - $9.60
CD UPC: 795154141227
STREET DATE: 11/10/23
CAT#: NR127
LABEL: Neurot Recordings

LP - $15.95 / CD - $9.60
CD UPC: 795154141227
STREET DATE: 11/10/23
CAT#: NR127
LABEL: Neurot Recordings

Our world has been gradually falling apart. This may seem like a bleak point of view, but the collapse we’re all witnessing inspired post-mathcore outfit Ex Everything as they created their eruptive debut Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart.

“Everything around us–politically, socially, environmentally–seems to be stretching and breaking,” says guitarist Jon Howell. “Our record sits in that terrifying place where you’ve been watching it happen.”

The Bay Area quartet boasts current and former members of Kowloon Walled City, Early Graves, Mercy Ties, Blowupnihilist, Less Art and others, but listeners shouldn’t mistake this for a short-term project or side band. This is a priority, every member focused and committed, and it only takes a few minutes with the album to understand how serious they are.

“This band is completely its own thing,” says Howell. “It addresses the part of us that wants to write fast, chaotic, knotty, messy, pissed off music.”

Started initially in 2018 between Howell and bassist Ben Thorne, drummer Dan Sneddon joined in 2019, solidifying the core of the band. After going through the usual growing pains, spiked with a global pandemic, they recruited vocalist Andre Sanabria who understood what the band needed and delivered it with a fierce dedication. Cut to the band heading into Sharkbite Studios with Scott Evans–whose engineering credits include Yautja, Town Portal and Ghoul–and the band was finally able to hear what they’d accomplished.

Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart is a near-perfect fusion of Dischord-influenced math rock and noisecore, a nuanced rage that refuses to accommodate the passive listener. Howell’s percussive, angular playing is as impressive as it is baffling, with malformed chords and abstract melodies that still burrow effortlessly into your brain.

Sneddon’s drumming is a stampede of frenetic time signatures, deceptively understated patterns and anthemic bashing, while Thorne’s bass roils underneath like a ship’s hull scraping the ocean floor.

The band’s true skill, though, lies in how their instruments interlock, the structuring of movements that grow songs from rotted dirges to triumphant war cries, rhythmic tension building until a riff explodes it into something unexpected and completely satisfying.

Sanabria screams like he’s trying to tear the songs apart, though he manages to find moments of almost zen-like contemplation. It’s a deft and mesmerizing performance, aided by his deeply thoughtful lyrics about, as Howell says, the steady dismembering of the things that bind us.

“I don’t know what we can do, except try and channel this terror into the music; add to the conversation by showing its face and saying how it makes us feel.”

First in the practice space, then at the studio, Ex Everything is now ready for Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart to be showcased at full volume on stage. “We want these songs to move people the way they move us,” Howell says. “Because this band is nothing without that.”

TRACK LISTING:

1. The Reduction of Human Life to an Economic Unit
2. Exiting the Vampire Castle
3. Detonation in the Public Sphere
4. A Sermon in Praise of Corruption
5. Slow Cancellation of the Future
6. Feral City
7. The Last Global Slaughter
8. Plunder, Cultivate, Fabricate

MARKETING POINTS:

• Features members of Kowloon Walled City, Early Graves, Mercy Ties, Blowupnihilist & Less Art

FOR FANS OF:
Kowloon Walled City, Converge, Neurosis

False Fed “Let Them Eat Fake”

LP - $15.30 / CD - $10.70
LP UPC: 795154137015
CD UPC: 795154139828
STREET DATE: 10/13/23
CAT#: NR124
LABEL: Neurot Recordings

From the dark roots of Amebix, Discharge and Nausea. A new twisted branch of thorns shoots from the alternate family tree.

In 2019 BC (Before Covid) Discharge frontman Jeff Janiak reached out to longtime friend and musician JP Parsons to assist on a new project. The pair wrote and recorded various ideas before reaching out to Amebix guitarist Stig.C.Miller who joined them in the midst of the global pandemic. The trio utilized this new creative climate of physical restriction and went on to set the foundations for their first album, via file sharing home recordings, which would be arranged and produced by Stig. It was several months later when he would call upon Nausea, Ministry and former Amebix drummer Roy Mayorga to complete the line up. Roy went onto record drums, mix and produce the band's debut album 'LET THEM EAT FAKE'.

In these unprecedented times of global restriction, fear and the everlasting lack of faith in the hierarchy 'False Fed' has cultivated a heavy sound that is drenched in melody, aggression and shrouded in darkness. It is not bound by genre, yet still offers subtle hints to the creators lineage.

False Fed are:
Jeff (JJ) Janiak - Vocals
Stig.C.Miller - Guitar
JP Parsons - Bass Guitar
Roy Mayorga - Drums

TRACK LISTING:

1. Superficial
2. The Tyrant Dies
3. Echoes of Compromise
4. The Big Sleep
5. Dreadful Necessities
6. Mass Debate
7. The One Thing We Can Not Avoid

MARKETING POINTS:

• Features Jeff Janiak of Discharge on vocals

FOR FANS OF:
Discharge, Ministry, Amebix, Nause

Instagram | Facebook

GRAILS “BUrden Of Hope”

LP - $15.95
STREET DATE: 9/29/23
CAT#: NR029
LABEL: Neurot

GRAILS don't mince words. Awesomely communicative but entirely instrumental, this dynamic band's violin, guitars, piano, and drums collide with sober melodies and massive emotion. At alternate moments, Grails can sound vaguely classical, Eastern European, Irish, like the lost tapes of Pauline Oliveros, and, you know, rock. They're not really like anything else on the Neurot roster, but they've got something in common with all the Neurot bands: a commitment to intense music that forges new paths and, yeah, communicates in the most real way possible.

Grails have their fair share of ambient noise - shivery violins, a trickle of a high-hat, the amplified scrape of a guitar string - but their music is based on strong, narrative melodies that resonate in the heart. At times it sounds delicate, but they never cower; Grails ROAR, even when they're being quiet.

The Burden of Hope is the debut LP, following a pair of self-released, eponymous ep's in 2000 and 2002. The LP is the culmination of a year's worth of recordings, including a reinterpretation of Sun City Girls' classic "Space Prophet Dogon."

Grails are gathered in Portland, Oregon from Baltimore, Little Rock, Louisville, Chapel Hill, and Reno. As an ensemble, their respective backgrounds in hardcore, classical, folk, and rock blend seamlessly. Formed in late 2000 to execute live the bedroom recordings of guitarist Alex Hall, the once-tentatively-assembled group found unexpected success with both audiences and local press. Originally formed under the moniker Laurel Canyon, the name of the group was changed to Grails to coincide with the release of The Burden of Hope in October, 2003.

TRACK LISTING:

1. The Burden Of Hope
2. Lord I Hate Your Day
3. The Deed
4. In The Beginning
5. Invocation
6. Space Prophet Dogon
7. The March
8. Broken Ballad
9. White Flag
10. Canyon Hymn

MARKETING POINTS:

• 20th anniversary of the original release

FOR FANS OF:
Wovenhand, Dirty Three, Mogwai, Rachel's

Instagram | Facebook

Great Falls "Objects Without Pain"

CD - $10.70
CD UPC: 795154140121
STREET DATE: 9/15/23
CAT#: NR125
LABEL: Neurot Recordings

Read any article or comment thread about the Seattle noise-rock outfit GREAT FALLS and you're likely to see descriptors like cathartic, heavy, crushing, and unhinged. Maybe even psychotic. And sure, those are all apt: For over a decade, vocalist/guitarist Demian Johnston and bassist Shane Mehling (who also played together in the early-2000s noisecore band PLAYING ENEMY and the experimental duo HEMINGWAY) have honed their sludgy, overwhelmingly intense brand of heaviness, punctuated by delectably discordant riffs, terrifyingly low, thwacking bass lines, and mesmerizingly tight percussion. In the live setting, too, they're notorious for a stage presence that is so aggressively confrontational and menacing that Mehling once broke his own arm mid-set.

But the most striking aspect of GREAT FALLS, setting them apart from the murky sea of sludge metal and AmRep-inspired noise-rock bands, is their ability to paint a deeply, utterly human story through an all-out assault on the senses: an art the band has perfected on their fourth full-length album OBJECTS WITHOUTPAIN, out September 15 via NEUROT RECORDINGS. The album is not only their NEUROT debut, but also the first LP featuring drummer Nickolis Parks (GAYTHEIST, BASTARD FEAST), who joined the band prior to the release of their exhilarating, cacophonous 2023 EP,FUNNY WHAT SURVIVES.

OBJECTS WITHOUT PAIN takes us on a bleak, purgative journey through a separation--a snapshot of the turmoil and indecision that occurs after the initial realization of someone's misery, and before the ultimate decision to end a decades-long partnership. From the foreboding intro riffs of "DRAGGED HOME ALIVE" to the end of the 13-minute closer "THROWN AGAINST THE WAVES," its eight tracks explore the thoughts that come up when a person is staring down the barrel of blowing up their life: How did this happen? Is it too late for a new life? Will the kid be OK? What will make me happier: familiar torment or unknown freedom?

On "TRAP FEEDING," we see the main character indulging in "dreams of alone" by scrolling apartment listing sin secret. "Alone" is exciting in theory: He can be free to be himself in a new space, finding solace in records, comic books, and video games. But when faced with the reality of filling out forms and credit checks, "alone"shapeshifts into a terrifying concept signaling imminent heartache and unendurable loneliness. He finds himself paralyzed, unable to stomach the decision. "OLD WORDS WORN THIN" considers the logistics of how a move would play out, how they would divide their belongings, what memories each object would trigger. Who gets the records? Who gets the friends, for that matter? In a rare moment of comic relief amid the emotional turmoil and discordant riffs, Johnston screams, "I know I did not make the cut / but I can drive the truck. "The tale ends with the 13-minute existential pulverizer "THROWN AGAINST THE WAVES." While the other songs mostly explore the impending turmoil of a future separation, the closer looks back on the destruction after the split of two people who became "sad shelters" to one another rather than loving partners. In a particularly dramatic moment, there's a returns to the former home one last time: "I slide the key under the door / I don't want the weight," Johnston shrieks in anguish, anxiously underscored by Mehling's frenzie drumbling and Parks' intuitively precise pummeling. Suddenly, everything goes silent for a few seconds, allowing time to process before launching into an agonizing rollercoaster of palpable grief and release. The song brings the album to a close with an emotionally crushing barrage of riffs--giving a glimpse of what the trio is capable of in the live setting

TRACK LISTING:

1. Dragged Home Alive
2. Trap Feeding
3. Born As An Argument
4. Old Words Worn Thin
5. Spill Into The Aisle
6. Ceilings Inch Closer
7. The Starveling
8. Thrown Against The Waves

MARKETING POINTS:

• Features members of Playing Enemy

FOR FANS OF:
Converge, Neurosis, The Body, Thou, Heiress

Instagram

Janaka Stucky "Ascend Ascend: Live in Seattle with Lori Goldston"

2xLP - $21.25
LP UPC: 7795154137114
STREET DATE: 6/23/23
CAT#: NR126
LABEL: Neurot

Praised by Jimmy Page as “riveting,” Janaka Stucky’s book length poem, Ascend Ascend, published by Jack White’s Third Man Books in 2019, gets a mesmerizing treatment on this album by the same name, accompanied by experimental cellist Lori Goldston. Goldston, known for her work with a number of acts—including Nirvana, Cat Power, and Earth—provides otherworldly layers of distortion and natural reverb over Stucky’s dirge-like vocal performance.

Recorded at the All Pilgrims Church in Seattle while Stucky was on a 7-city tour produced by Atlas Obscura in 2019, the performance is served well by the room’s ambiance and was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Mell Dettmer—who has engineered albums for acts such as Earth, Sunn O))), Master Musicians of Bukkake, and Wolves in the Throne Room.

“I wrote Ascend Ascend over the course of 20 days—coming in and out of trance states while secluded in the tower of a 100-year-old church,” Stucky says. In the live performances, Stucky recited the book in its entirety from the confines of a magic circle—drawn with sigils and arcane seals on the floor—ringed with beeswax candles, incense, and live marigolds planted in an outer rim of soil.

“It was important that the performance of the work reflected the space from which it was produced—not just the physical space, but also the interior space,” Stucky says. “I wanted the shows to be initiatory—inviting the audience into my own altered state of consciousness, so the performance could become an invocation, a collective trance, flowering into this fourth dimension.”

Each performance was uniquely tailored to the unusual venues which are the hallmark of Atlas Obscura productions, and Stucky’s musical collaborators changed with each show as well.

“Lori and I had never met before the show, but exchanged several emails in the months leading up to the event,” says Stucky. “We didn’t even do much of a sound check, but Lori was cool and confident—and the performance was magical. With little to no prep, Lori and I tuned into each other and filled the resonant hall of All Pilgrims with the incantation you hear on this record.”

“The recording is very warm and processed in a way that really brings out the best of the room,” says Steve von Till of Neurot Recordings, who is releasing the album. “I have seen a million sound waves, and upon first looking at the waves of Janaka’s voice and Lori's cello I had to do a double take to make sure they weren't the same wave—or that there wasn't tons of bleed between the two—because they look eerily similar. They were so tuned in to each other!”

While on this tour, VICE magazine wrote that, “Janaka Stucky performs poetry readings like he's part fire-and-brimstone preacher, part doom-metal frontman.” Given the record’s aesthetic heritage and execution, which falls somewhere between ambient doom and psychedelic punk mysticism, the synergy with its release on Neurot Recordings feels like a perfect match.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Assiah, the Material World
2. Yetzirah, the World of Formation
3. Beri'ah, the World of Creation
4. Atziluth, the Archetypal World

MARKETING POINTS:

• Jimmy Page says, "Janaka Stucky is extraordinary, and his work riveting."
• Janaka Stucky was the first writer published by Jack White's Third Man Books
• The album was recorded live on a 7-city tour produced by Atlas Obscura in 2019
• Atlas Obscura is producing a 4-city tour in 2023 to celebrate the album's release
• The album features cello by Lori Goldston (Nirvana, Cat Power, Earth)

"Part prayer, part yowl, part spell, it’s grounded in the ancient and the occult." — The Boston Globe

“Janaka Stucky‘s haunting, intense readings are some of the most gripping examples of the form you’re likely to witness.” —Vol.1 Brooklyn

“Janaka Stucky performs poetry readings like he's part fire-and-brimstone preacher, part doom-metal frontman … For him, lighting incense, dropping acid, and creating some of the most ecstatic lines of verse you’ve ever read is just another day at the office.” —VICE

FOR FANS OF:
Swans / Michael Gira, SunnO))) , OM , Lingua Ignota, Stephen Jesse Bernstein

Official Site | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Deakfids + Petbrick "Deafbrick"

LP - $13.35
LP UPC: 767870661112
STREET DATE: 10/21/22
CAT#: NR115
LABEL: Neurot

As one traverses through new and intimidating terrain unfamiliar a short while ago, two collaborators have come together to unwittingly create a record curiously suited to an intimidating and unpredictable new era. Deafbrick, the collaboration between Säo Paulo’s sonic warriors Deafkids and London’s pulverising duo Petbrick is a vertiable force against adversity, and less a polite meeting of minds than a fiery collision whose impact and incandescence extend beyond the horizon.

The results run the gamut through a litany of uniformly invigorating audial landscaps—this is an arena where Deafkids’ appetite for lysergic punk-damaged tumult and Petbrick’s ventures into dystopian synth-driven soundscapes can happily engage in gladiatorial contest. From the unearthly percussive clangour of “Hyperkinetic Mass Disordert” to the DHR-addled chaos of the paint-stripping “Mega Ritual”, every second of Deafbrick is infused with malevolent charisma and iconoclastic élan.

Yet perhaps the ultimate destructive moment of this particular demolition derby comes via a thrillingly monomaniacal take on Discharge’s ‘Free Speech For The Dumb. Not that it necessarily met the approval of Discharge themselves, who make a cameo appearance on the song’s outro. “I asked them to record some quotes saying how much they hated our version” laughs Iggor. “One of them even said that Metallica did a better job. That really freaked me out!” Metallica, it’s fair to say objectively, do not do a better job.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Primeval I
2. Força Bruta
3. Sweat-Drenched Wreck
4. The Menace of the Dark Polar Night
5. Máquina Obssessivo-Compulsiva
6. O Antropoceno
7. Mega-ritual
8. Hyperkinetic Mass Disorder
9. Free Speech for the Dumb
10. Primeval II

FOR FANS OF:
petbrick, Deafkids, Converge, Sepultura, Neurosis, Godflesh

Petbrick "Liminal"

LP - $16.60
LP UPC: 733102724238
STREET DATE: 10/14/22
CAT#: NR121
LABEL: Neurot

In a world hurtling towards new frontiers of horror on a daily basis, there’s precious little time for pause. For the self-respecting artist, the only reasonable solution is psychic warfare. Such is the terrain of Petbrick on the titanic and transformative Liminal.

Here on their second album the duo of Wayne Adams (BigLad/Johnny Broke)and Iggor Cavalera (Sepultura/CavaleraConspiracy/Soulwax) lays waste to all or any constrictions in its path, Blending a vast sonic landscape with a relentless compunction to break the pain barrier, Liminal is a dizzying exercise in overdrive which can take in industrial abrasions, pulverising rhythmic drive, acid-damaged freakery, cinematic tension and balladic gravitas in disarmingly coherent fashion.
Other heads and personalities also came on board to add richness and intrigue to the onslaught -“I believe we got an amazing team of collaborators - from old school friends like Neurosis’ Steve Von Till and Converge’s Jacob Bannon to new school artists like Paula Rebbeledo from Raktaand New York doom rappers Lord Goat and Truck Jewelz” notes Iggor.

This is an album birthed in difficult times and expressly engaged with raging against the dying of the light. As Iggor puts it “Liminal is an insane mirror of what being isolated feels like -madness through noise experimentations” An alchemical vision fit to both elevate the spirit and destroy everything in its path,‘Liminal’ is the sound of Petbrick blasting their way through the boundaries of a fresh hell.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Primer
2. Arboria
3. Pigeon kick
4. Raijin
5. Lysergic Aura (Feat. Lord Goat & Truck Jewelz)
6. Damballa
7. Ayan
8. Grind You Dull (Feat. Jacob Bannon)
9. Chemical Returns
10. Distorted Peace (Feat. Paula Rebellato)
11. Reckoning (Feat. Steve Von Till)

MARKETING POINTS:

• Petbrick is Wayne Adams (BigLad/Johnny Broke)and Iggor Cavalera (Sepultura / Cavalera Conspiracy/Soulwax)
• Features guest appearance by Jacob Bannon, Steve Von Till, Paula Rebellato & more

FOR FANS OF:
Converge, Sepultura, Neurosis, Godflesh, Jacob Bannon, Steve Von Till

Instagram | Facebook

Tension Span "The Future Died Yesterday"

LP - $14.65
LP UPC: 733102725518
STREET DATE: 9/30/22
CAT#: NR123
LABEL: Neurot

Dystopian reality. Division and banality. We are what we tend to be, but are we what we intend to be?

In the eighties and early nineties, young punks gathered in Oakland, California’s abandoned urban spaces, shared punk houses, and small clubs to create community and raise their voices against the injustice and brutality that surrounded them. Complex images drawn on fliers were passed from hand to hand and posted on walls. Songs screamed out behind closed doors were captured on cassettes. The underground was a world of its own, a tightly knit cohort united by the need to transform rage into art, an emotional alchemy that was both earnest and reckless. A visual and sonic language emerged, and thirty years on, it still has the power to speak the truth.

Rungs on a ladder or Bars on a cage?
The only thing I feel that's real is rage.

The members of Tension Span spoke this language in their early bands: Noah in Christ On Parade and Neurosis, Geoff in Asunder and Mauz in Dystopia. These friends of several decades have created something new from the cloth that was woven in their youth. In a moment of complete isolation, separated by the global pandemic, Mauz and Geoff sent rough mixes of new songs to Noah and his mind began to reel with questions, transformed into lyrics.

Cracked Society, cracks your mind.
Am I invisible? Or are you Blind?

Living in a society of constant negative conditions, how do we navigate this journey? How do we walk through this world and hold on to our idealistic intentions, kindness, and empathy through constant states of stress and fear? How is our mental health and spiritual health impacted by angst, anger, anxiety, depression, and trauma. What is it all for, how is any of this meaningful?

Each of us a filament, each of a flame.
Each of us indifferent, each of us the same.

Drawing influence and inspiration from the dark punk and post punk of the late '70's and early 80's, the sensibility and DIY approach of the UK anarcho-punk movement and the energy and immediacy of the early-mid 90's Bay Area punk scene, Tension Span has created music reflecting the bleak reality of this time of socio-political collapse, increasing economic precarity, creeping authoritarianism, and viral biological and psychological pathogens that are decimating the lives of millions.

Ultimately, making meaning out of struggle is a profound act of hope. It is with this spirit and inspiration that Tension Span offers you a collection of twelve songs rooted in the past, caught in the present storm, and yearning toward a new day. The past is a story we experienced together, and the future remains unwritten.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Prologue
2. Cracked Society
3. The Future Died Yesterday
4. The Crate Song
5. Filaments
6. Ventilator
7. Covered in His Blood
8. Problem People
9. Trepidation
10. I Have To Smile
11. Human Scrapyard
12. I Can't Stop This Process
13. Didn't See It Coming

MARKETING POINTS:

• Features members of Noah in Christ On Parade and Neurosis, Geoff in Asunder and Mauz in Dystopia
• Vinyl features a screenprinted jacket, 3-panel foldover cover, printed on chipboard stock

FOR FANS OF:
Neurosis, Christ on Parade, Asunder, Dystopia, Kicker, New Model Army, TSOL, Subhumans, Conflict, Rudimentary Peni, Killing Joke

Neurosis "Given To The Rising"

2x12"LP - $17.25
2xLP UPC: 658457105016
STREET DATE: 7/29/22
CAT#: NR050
LABEL: Neurot

Given To The Rising is like being submerged in an isolation tank -- it's enveloping, subverting the senses with surreal visions we'd swear were our own, cleverly jarring and disorienting consciousness beyond any footing in reality. As any diehard Neurosis fan will tell you, there's a moment with every new record and live show at which the band will stop as if the world has frozen in position, then suddenly kick into the primordial wail that we've all come to recognize as the "Neurosis note" that forces the listener's head and shoulders to lurch and sway almost uncontrollably. Given To The Rising is Neurosis at its most captivating and hypnotic. Put simply, the album is some of the band's most raw and immediate material to date, but it is also more complexly orchestrated and richly thickened with psych-damaged overtones. Given To The Rising is more than a just a powerful collection of songs -- it's more like a religious experience. While personal epiphanies are repeatedly told by those who've been converted by Neurosis' sensory overloading live show as well as its recordings, there's a hypnotic quality to this album that takes hold from the opening guitar squall of the title track. Once again recording with revered engineer and longtime friend Steve Albini (as the band has for five previous albums,The Eye of Every Storm in 2004, A Sun That Never Sets in 2001, Sovereign in 2000 and Times of Grace in 1999), Given To The Rising bears the band's signature crushing heft and cathartic force. However, it also finds Neurosis delving into increasingly psychedelic effects and twisted, inventive song structures. Much of the dramatic lull of recent works is forgone in favor of full-on attack. While it's reflective of the band's signature aggressive pummeling, Given To The Rising is not just an exercise in Wagnerian thunder. Neurosis instead takes an exploration into psychoactive prog-rock and eviscerating symphonic thud that moves well beyond anything that might fit snugly within a particular genre. It's as though the band has taken cues from such psych-noise predecessors as Hawkwind, Faust, Skullflower and Chrome, merged those elements with the sickening frequency assault of Throbbing Gristle and then submerged them within Neurosis' saturated sonic strata. "We stand encircled by wing and fire" growls vocalist/guitarist Scott Kelly, opening the album and its title track, the band's heels already dug deep in the dirt, blasting forth in all directions at once. It's as though we join the battle already in progress, and by all means we have -- Neurosis has fought hard to maintain its sovereignty not just in the music business, but as a boundlessly creative entity consisting of Kelly, guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till, bassist/vocalist Dave Edwardson, drummer Jason Roeder and keyboardist Noah Landis. The band brought keyboards to heavy punk. It brought experimental noise to metal. It merged antique droning folk with Black Flag's desperation. All the while, forging onward toward new means to explore the infinite realms of catharsis and self-transformation, while myriad bands simply follow in its wake. The guitars grunt and groan like sinister beasts on "Fear and Sickness", propelled by Roeder's clever rhythmic shifts delivered by thunderous, rollicking tom beats that lunge into half-time thumping kick drum and snare blasts. "To The Wind" opens with a deceptively delicate, albeit forlorn melody unlike anything we've come to expect of the band, which is abruptly choked off at the 2-minute mark by one of the most brutally sudden shifts of mood and tempo. A slight, barely audible growl hints at the change to come, but when a wall of chiming bent-notes and drop-tuned sludge guitars, paired with a stomping beat erupt over the melody, it's truly monolithic in impact. Edwardson slings heavy low-end distortion over the top with howling bent notes adding powerful harmonic overtones. But, perhaps the highlight of the song comes during a brief respite, when Kelly lets out an astounding 29-second-long throat-curdling scream at the song's climax. Von Till's rasping whisper sounds downright haunting over the rhythmic churn and Landis' syrupy tones on "Hidden Faces" prove ample evidence to the band's latest evolutionary step. "Through eyes of the wheel I will see you coming," Von Till howls, the band erupting in consensus.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Given To The Rising
2. Fear And Sickness
3. To The Wind
4. At The End Of The Road
5. Shadow
6. Hidden Faces
7. Water Is Not Enough
8. Distill (Watching The Swarm)
9. Nine
10. Origin

MARKETING POINTS:

• Packaged in a gatefold jacket and includes download code

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Ufomammut "Fenice"

LP - $15.95 / CD - $9.60
LP UPC: 733102724511
CD UPC: 733102724528
STREET DATE: 5/6/22
CAT #: NR122
LABEL: Neurot

This May, Italian alchemists and power trio Ufomammut return with their ninth studio album, Fenice via Neurot Recordings. But not as we’ve heard them before, now “more intimate, more free.”

For over 20 years, the band has combined the heaviness and majesty of dynamic riff worship with a nuanced understanding of psychedelic tradition and history in music, creating a cosmic, futuristic, and technicolor sound destined for absolute immersion.

Fenice (meaning Phoenix in Italian) symbolically represents endless rebirth and the ability to start again after everything seems doomed. The album is the first recording with new drummer Levre, and truly marks a new chapter in Ufomammut history.

“I think we lost our spontaneity, album after album,” says Urlo. “We tried to make more complicated songs and albums, but I think at some point we just ended up repeating ourselves. With Fenice, we were ready to start from zero, we had no past anymore - so we just wanted to be reborn and rise from the ashes..”

While the band are well-known for their psychedelic travels into the far reaches of the cosmos, Fenice is a much more introspective listening experience. Fenice was conceived as a single concept track, divided in six facets of this inward-facing focus. Sonic experimentations abound in the exploration of this central theme; synths and experimental vocal effects are featured more prominently than ever before as the band push themselves ever further into the uncharted territory of their very identity.

The towering synths on the opening track ‘Duat’ evoke an almighty machine rising from the depths of primordial ooze. There’s a shift to a frenetic garage-psych pace before mellowing out into a more familiar doomy stomp. ‘Kepherer’ is a respite, albeit a slight one, returning to the pulsing rhythms of the album’s intro before plunging the listener into the menacing build and release of ‘Psychostasia’ next. Each oscillation of this extraordinary album feels inevitable - Ufomammut are after all, masters of their craft, and when it comes to creating enveloping sonic journeys into the unknown, it’s their uninhibited sense of exploration that breaches new sonic ground.

Fenice is the sound of a band whose very essence has been rejuvenated, and are welcoming the chance to create music in the way they know best; by unfolding carefully and attentively, by melding those extreme dynamics which render Fenice as a living and breathing creature - and by writing gargantuan riffs that herald their very rebirth.

TRACK LISTING:

1. DUAT
2. KHEPERER
3. PSYCHOSTASIA
4. METAMORPHOENIX
5. PYRAMIND
6. EMPYROS

MARKETING POINTS:

• European Tour May 26th - May 31st
• Festival appearances in June including Hellfest, Years Sound of Liberation & Desert Fox Festival

FOR FANS OF:
Neurosis, Sleep, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath

Instagram | Twitter

Amenra, Cave In, Marissa Nadler "Songs of Townes van Zandt Vol III"

LP - $14.65 / CD - $9.60
LP UPC: 733102724818
CD UPC: 733102724825
STREET DATE: 4/22/22
CAT #: NR120
LABEL: Neurot

My Proud Mountain is thrilled to announce Songs of Townes Van Zandt III, continuing the tradition of well-known artists in the heavy music and dark genres covering the songs of Townes Van Zandt. The LP features nine new and unique covers by Amenra, Cave In, and Marissa Nadler.

Opener “Quicksilver Dreams of Maria” paints Nadler as a pastoral daydream of mournful siren vocals, embodying the lovelorn and lustful side of Van Zandt some listeners tend to overlook. “I wanted to shine a light on some of Townes Van Zandt’s lesser known, but equally excellent songs from his vast body of work,” says Nadler. “His deeply romantic lyrical tendencies are intricately displayed on the three songs that I chose, as well as the pervasive loneliness and deep-seated sadness, always waiting right outside the door.”

Her covers of “Sad Cinderella” and “None But the Rain” capture the tender and weary surrender to hope in the face of turmoil, like a flower blooming on a gravestone. The melodic and rhythmic contributions of Milky Burgess help make the covers a hazy carnival of memories that may be real or imagined, depending on where your eyes are following the setting sun over the hillside. “I recorded the songs at my home studio, with an intimate close-mic approach, and tried to be as raw as I could with them. The feeling that Townes is singing right in your ear, standing right next to you, comforting you – that is what I love about so many of his recordings. His attack and delivery go straight to the heart.”

Amenra strip back their sludge metal sound to just vocals and acoustic guitar to pay tribute to the tortured soul at the center of Van Zandt’s work. “The sadness and despair in his songs are unparalleled,” says guitarist Lennart Bossu. Tackling “Kathleen”, “Flyin’ Shoes”, and the eerie “Black Crow Blues”, Amenra shine a light on the real pain that made Van Zandt’s lyrics all the more haunting. “We recorded the songs with Gilles Demolder, in his little studio, where he added keys and atmospheres to “Kathleen” and “Flyin’ Shoes,” continues Bossu. “After working a little bit on tempos and composition, we surrendered to the songs, and tried to get as close to Townes’ original intention as we could.” The result is the Texas desert by way of Belgium, a set of stark and emotionally raw ballads for long night drives to nowhere.

“We’re gonna play another cover here,” says Cave In’s Stephen Brodsky from the Roadburn Festival stage in April 2018, a slight Texas twang escaping his mouth in anticipation of what comes next. “We’re gonna do a Townes Van Zandt song.” He and fellow Cave In guitarist Adam McGrath then launch into “Nothin’”, turning Van Zandt’s withering and detached anthem of forced sobriety and solitude into a proclamation of goodwill and tender absolution to a friend in the afterlife – departed Cave In bassist Caleb Scofield. “Caleb was a big fan of Townes Van Zandt, so we did it in remembrance of our friend,” says Brodsky. “When we think of Townes, we also think of Caleb – that’s the heavy shit.”

Cave In’s full-band covers of “The Hole” and “At My Window’ find them at their most cavernous, slowing down their high-wire sound to a sidewinder crawl to navigate the claustrophobic darkness. “I heard what Marissa Nadler and Amenra did with their covers, and it convinced me to go back to the drawing board,” says Brodsky. “It was pretty obvious that traditional-sounding Cave In versions of Townes Van Zandt wouldn’t work in this context.”
At nearly 7-minutes long, their doomed-out cover of “The Hole” is as black as west Texas midnight. “Our version was recorded mostly remotely – it started with me just singing and playing keys at the same time. I’m not sure there’s any other Cave In recording out there without me playing guitar,” continues Brodsky.”

For their cover of “At My Window”, Brodsky says, “We actually recorded 3 or 4 different versions. We eventually turned down the volume and slowed the tempo, with everyone going a little further outside their comfort zones to achieve something that would blend well with the other contributions. The Swans vibe that we eventually settled on seems to have garnered the best result for this application.”

It's likely that today’s digital landscape of plug-and-play creative freedom would have benefited an artist as fiercely committed to independence as Townes Van Zandt. My Proud Mountain is delighted to use today’s technology to help artists create an LP of covers that showcase his sad, brilliant, and highly influential music that continues to touch people the world over to this day.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Quicksilver Daydreams of Maria - Marissa Nadler
2. Black Crow Blues - Amenra
3. Nothin' - Cave In
4. Kathleen - Amenra
5. The Hole - Cave In
6. Flyin' Shoes - Amenra
7. Sad Cinderella - Marissa Nadler
8. At My Window - Cave In
9. None But The Rain - Marissa Nadler

MARKETING POINTS:

• Long awaited Vol 3 of the series “Songs Of Townes Van Zandt” featuring cover songs from Townes Van Zandt
• 3 songs each of Amenra, Cave In & Marissa Nadler

FOR FANS OF:
Cave In, Marissa Nadler, Amenra, Converge, Neurosis, Steve Von Till, Townes Van Zandt