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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Time Pieces "Boundary Problems"

LP - $14.00
STREET DATE: 4/26/24
CAT#: MOM078
LABEL: Mind Over Matter

Time Pieces is made up of former members of Band of Horses, Minus the Bear & Six Parts Seven...and if you listen closely, you may hear tiny reminders of each of them throughout Boundary Problems. Allen Karpinski, Chris Early, Ian LeSage, Erin Tate and Tucker Handler got together to create this beautifully layered, largely instrumental album that weaves threads of shoegaze, post-rock, and late-90s Midwest indie into something of their own throughout the course of their debut full length.

If you close your eyes and allow the music to transport you, you will find yourself smack dab in the middle of a dreary, Midwestern winter. It's half-melted outside, too cold to leave your jacket at home but too warm to truly necessitate one. You've got your headphones on as you walk to your destination despite the blustery wind. You've got a lot on your mind, but you're keeping yourself busy with errands and this is the soundtrack to being alone...even if you're not lonely.

Sure, this is definitely a supergroup of indie artists, but they have forged a terrific path that somehow resembles each of their respective bands while also finding a sound that is entirely unique and their own.

TRACK LISTING:
01. Extra Strata
02. Boundary Problems
03. New Bruise/Black and Blue
04. Separation Song
05. Radiometric Dating
06. 90's Guitar Music

MARKETING POINTS:

• Features former members of Band of Horses, Minus the Bear & Six Parts Seven

FOR FANS OF:
Band of Horses, Minus The Bear, Anathallo, Mice Parade

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Various Artists "Don't Fall In Love With Yourself"

VHS - $18.75
STREET DATE: 4/26/24
CAT#: 31GLUNCHMEAT
LABEL: Three One G

Don't Fall in Love With Yourself is a documentary that explores the life of enigmatic musician and artist, Justin Pearson. From childhood tragedy and his roots in the San Diego punk scene, to his appearance on Jerry Springer and rise to cult celebrity status. An in-depth look at a career made out of blood, sweat and spit.

Much of the B-roll has been sourced from dozens of VHS & Mini-DV tapes recorded over the past three decades. Controversial and never-before-seen footage of one of the most interesting and unique musical movements is recent memory.

The film's interviews include Justin Pearson, Dave Lombardo, Eric Paul, Gabe Serbian, Bobby Bray, Travis Ryan, Jeremy Bolm, Jon Syverson, Molly Neuman & Becky DiGiglio and more.

TRACK LISTING:
01. The Perils of Believing in Round Squares - The Locust
02. Stop Flushing the Toilet
03. Red, White, and You - Struggle
04. It's a (Half) Pipe Dream
05. Intro to Photography - Swing Kids
06. The Ironic Assholism of Hardy Jenns
07. Radiation Blue - The Crimson Curse
08. I Hope You Don't Get the Joke
09. Psycho 75 - The Crimson Curse
10. Something to Guac About
11. The Half Eaten Sausage Would Like to See You in His Office - The Locust
12. The Hill of Fool's Gold
13. Warsaw - Swing Kids
14. AOTKPTA - The Locust
15. No Poetry Needed
16. Elephant in the Doom
17. Mature Science - Retox
18.. Myddel Fyngir
19. Old Age Lasts Too Long - Justin Pearson/ Gabe Serbian
20. Mind Meld
21. ZZ Stop
22. Rasquache
23. Come Bogeyman - Planet B

MARKETING POINTS:

• Features interviews include Justin Pearson, Dave Lombardo, Eric Paul, Gabe Serbian, Bobby Bray, Travis Ryan, Jeremy Bolm, Jon Syverson, Molly Neuman & Becky DiGiglio and more!

FOR FANS OF:
The Locust, Swing Kids, Retox, Planet B

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Full Of Hell "Coagulated Bliss"

LP - $17.25 / CD - $8.00
LP UPC: 197190876840
CD UPC: 198391183157
STREET DATE: 4/26/24
CAT#: CLCR130
LABEL: Closed Casket Activities

Full of Hell burst forth with incredible force from the small, dagger-shaped city of Ocean City, Maryland, 15 years ago. Over five full-lengths, five collaborative full-lengths, and countless splits, EPs, singles, and noise compilations, they've evolved at extraordinary speed, their music becoming more complicated and technical without ever slowing down or losing its soul. Everything on a Full of Hell album feels like a blur: smears of guitar, harsh noise shaken like gravel in a bag, singer Dylan Walker's snarl and bite carrying him into outer space or into the core of the earth. They're coiled, interlocking, impossible to penetrate, and they move with alarming speed.

They have now reached terminal velocity. Having created their own context, they're now able to walk around within it, to survey its terrain, to visit far corners and see who's nearby. Coagulated Bliss sounds like Full of Hell, but it's nothing like any Full of Hell record that's come before it. These songs are trimmer, less freighted with anxiety, more interested in opening up than speeding away. Its bile is sometimes funneled into traditional song structures. It never shies away from the extreme harsh noise, unrelenting spirit, and pitch-black sadness of previous Full of Hell records; if anything, the leanness of these songs makes them feel even heavier. Nevertheless, there are tracks here you might find yourself whistling hours after listening. It's an extraordinary and unexpected evolution in sound for a band who made their name on rapid metamorphosis, and it's the logical endpoint of everything Full of Hell has covered so far. "I wanted to try to take every aspect of what we've done from previous releases and integrate it into this one," guitarist Spencer Hazard says.

Coagulated Bliss was written and recorded shortly after the band completed When No Birds Sang, their collaborative album with Nothing. Working with the Philadelphia shoegazers gave Full of Hell new insight into the emotional and artistic power of classic pop songwriting, and to the importance of following a song where it wants to go. "That was a good experience of learning how to find what actually services a song," Hazard says. "Even with Roots of Earth Are Consuming My Home, even when we've had an extreme grindcore influence, I still wanted it to be catchy." Walker also cites the band's work with The Body for helping him to "recognize that there was value in pop music." Accordingly, Coagulated Bliss features some of Full of Hell's strongest songwriting: Gone is the frenetic flailing of Garden of Burning Apparitions and Weeping Choir; in its stead is a richer, thicker sound, one that's considerably less ornamented--and somehow heavier than ever.

These songs feel huge, totemic, groundshaking. In "Gelding of Men," the entire band hammers away at one chord, stomping it into the ground at mid-tempo, blasts of horns helping to push.The numbskull stomp of "Doors to Mental Agony" sets up a circle pit, blasts it apart with a grindcore chorus, then slides away on a slanted riff. In the title track, they bounce back and forth on a thick groove, punctuated with occasional cowbells and scratched up by Walker's scream, barrel into a pummeling chorus, then jump back out onto the dance floor.

While the focus on songwriting already makes Coagulated Bliss the most grounded album in Full of Hell's catalog, it's also the first Full of Hell record that tries in earnest to reflect the world around it--not in some broad, monotony-of-evil way, but the everyday horrors of life in small town America. Three of the four members of the band were raised in Ocean City. Hazard and Bland still live there, while Walker is located in central Pennsylvania and bassist Samuel DiGristine relocated to Philadelphia. "The American dream is small towns," Hazard says. "But anyone that's grown up in a small town realizes it's just as fucked up in a small town as it is in a big city--if not more, because it's more condensed."

Walker's lyrics have always framed their suffering with what he calls "fantastical, metaphorical shit," but on Coagulated Bliss his writing is clear and direct. The album's title is meant partly to reflect the idea of the over-pursuit of happiness leading to misery--whether in addiction, greed, or anything else. "Your happiness is just out of reach and you don't know why," he says. "Too much of this bliss, you think you've found your endpoint, but it's really just this small, tiny, little thing that's going to ruin your fucking life. And that could be anything." Much of the album is rooted in the band's own experiences. "A hundred dead ends, a thousand dead friends," Walker screams on "Doors to Mental Agony." "I hear their howling, I hear them weeping." There are corpses slicked with morning dew, "false balms for deep wounds," numb failures, thieves in the night and killers in the dark. There are many trackmarks; there are many dirty needles.

The album's viciousness and Walker's clear reading of the world around him might scan as misanthropy--"humanity to blame," he concludes after running through the ways the earth is "riddled with sores" in "Gasping Dust"--but it comes from a place of disappointment that's driven by a deep love for people and life and the world. "There's not a lot of anger, to be honest," he says. "I've never felt anger when we're playing, ever. It feels like electricity that's built up in my body that has to get out. But I feel more profoundly sorrowful than I ever do anger."

The world may be in a constant state of bitter flux, but Full of Hell have never sounded more at home in it."We've shed any kind of 'do we belong in this space, what do people expect of us,'" Walker says. "The joy is in the pursuit." The loosening of their grip on the direction of their music has made it feel paradoxically closer to the bone. "People tend to burrow themselves so deeply into things they love," Walker says. "It's too much of a good thing, and it almost cheapens it." By paring back their sound, Full of Hell aren't just finding a new way forward: They're proving that a little bit less of a good thing can add up to so much more.

Coagulated Bliss was recorded at Developing Nations in Baltimore by Kevin Bernstein, mixed by Taylor Young at The Pit Recording Studio in Van Nuys California and mastered by Nick Townsend of Infrasonic Sound in Los Angeles California. Full of Hell is Spencer Hazard (guitar/electronics), David Bland (drums/vocals), Samuel DiGristine (bass/sax/vocals), and Dylan Walker (vocals/electronics/lyrics), with new guitarist Gabriel Solomon joining following the album's completion. Coagulated Bliss is out April 26 via Closed Casket Activities.

TRACK LISTING:
01. Half Life Changelings
02. Doors to Mental Agony
03. Transmuting Chemical Burns
04. Fractured Bonds to Mecca
05. Coagulated Bliss
06. Bleeding Horizon
07. Vomiting Glass
08. Schizoid Rupture
09. Vacuous Dose
10. Gasping Dust
11. Gelding of Men
12. Malformed Ligature

MARKETING POINTS:

• On tour with Dying Fetus this Spring
• Recorded by Kevin Bernstein, mixed by Taylor Young, and mastered by Nick Townsend

FOR FANS OF:
Converge, Melvins, Napalm Death, Sonic Youth

AGONISTA "Grey And Dry"

LP - $17.90
STREET DATE: 4/26/24
CAT#: AL-044
LABEL: Armageddon Label

Agonista is a band made up of longtime friends, featuring current and ex-members of Bumbklaat, DFMK, Run For Your Fucking Life, Spanakorzo, Sweep The Leg Johnny, Swing Kids, Some Girls and many others. Their five song EP "Embusteros" was released in 2018, now they are ready to finally to unleash "Grey And Dry" for people to hear.

TRACK LISTING:
01. Larvas
02. Grey And Dry
03. Abuse/Diffuse
04. Eyes Of Despair
05. Bazofia
06. MMXXIII
07. Medication
08. In Haste
09. Muertos
10. Wrecked Inside
11. MMXLIII

MARKETING POINTS:

• Debut Full Length
• Recorded and mixed by Patrick Alexander at Cacho Estudio in Tijuana (Habak, Violencia, Abyssal)
• Mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege (Converge, Dropdead, Tragedy)

FOR FANS OF:
Tragedy, Wolfbrigade, Discharge, Skitsystem, Bumbklaatt

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