So far, 2025 must hold the record for the most albums released in such a short space of time. There been so much, and it’s one of the reasons our latest AQ edition has been the most difficult to curate, hence the slight delay. (Well, that and the fact that the red half of Merseyside has been an open-ended party for the past five weeks – more on that here.)
These factors have made it feel like a steeper hill to climb over these past three months, but looking back, it’s probably always been this steep as Sun 13 approaches its fifth year in operation. As the site grows, so do the submissions we receive, and while it’s been said many times, our lack of resources make it impossible to respond to everything we receive without it severely impacting on how we present the site each week.
And speaking of which, for the material we are able to pay the required attention to, the last couple of months have brimmed with gold dust. The month of May in particular, one of the finest in this decade so far, in my opinion.
It saw Grails’ quest to expose the darkest frontiers imageable. It saw Water Damage reaffirm their position as one of the most important experimental acts on earth. And remaining in the sphere of 12XU, it saw Chris Brokaw and The Gotobeds release some of their finest works over careers that should be celebrated far more than they are. And lastly, it saw the past being dragged back into the present with the return of Chicago titans, Pelican. In the months ahead, there will undoubtedly be more to add to the highlight reel.
For now, though, the below releases have been the hardest to shift from the turntable platter. As always, we hope you find something new to wrap your ears around.
AAA Gripper: We Invented Work for the Common Good
Wrong Speed Records
From the first note of Lower Demon – the opening song from AAA Gripper’s debut LP, We Invented Work for the Common Good, they dispense the kind of song that those who have spent years despising Blur might actually like!
Hardly surprising considering the personnel involved here, which includes Wrong Speed Records overlord Joe Thompson (also Hey Colossus, but you already know that), Thomas House (Sweet Williams, you already know that, too), drummer Lee Richardson and vocalist M Edward Cole, who spins yarns about away days and various other absurdities that form this new world monstrosity.
Shaping the kind of metallic alt-rock that has been the superglue of the U.K. underground as we know it, with We Invented Work for the Common Good, AAA Gripper give us something that confirms that it’ll still be held together for years to come. Here’s hoping this release is the first of many.
Jeffrey Alexander + Heavy Lidders: Synchronous Orbit
Cardinal Fuzz
Beginning his odyssey alongside The Heavy Lidders in 2019, Philadelphia’s Jeffrey Alexander arrives just in time for summer with his latest LP, Synchronous Orbit.
While the title may suggest the kind of psychedelic constellations that reach all the way to the nerve endings, Alexander composes the kind of sunny, open field psychedelia that washes all your worries away.
Synchronous Orbit is the kind of warm psych that’s like a comfort blanket, making you feel at ease both in your own skin and with everything else around you. Listening to this is like having the sun kiss your face. – Hayley Burton
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
A-Sun Amissa: We Are Not Our Dread
Gizeh Records
Finishing in our Top 50 Albums of 2024 with their exceptional Ruins Era LP, the Richard Knox-led A-Sun Amissa return with We Are Not Our Dread.
It’s A-Sun Amissa in more of a contemplative mood, and as the storm clouds grow darker, there’s beauty that flickers through – the beginning of All the Sky Was Empty, a beautiful piano-led section before a sea of drones in what is one of the most emotionally charged moments within the band’s canon.
We Are Not Our Dread is the perfect follow-up to Ruins Era – perhaps a companion, but as both titles suggest, while there’s contrast, together there’s a seamlessness that continues A-Sun Amissa quest as one of the most underrated forces in the country.
Aidan Baker: & You Still Fall In
Gizeh Records
Following his recent solo tour alongside Sulk Rooms and aforementioned Gizeh Records labelmates, A-Sun Amissa, Aidan Baker dials it down on his latest solo LP, & You Still Fall In.
Channelling the same slowcore energy as his excellent 2022 release, You Are All At Once, & You Still Fall In is a carefully sculptured record that is like an echo from another world. A hushed suite of meandering guitar loops and gentle drum machine beats, Baker produces a new kind of ambient music built on the foundation of guitar.
It’s a realm that Baker explores to great effect, and there looks to be more of it via his forthcoming debut with new band, Tavare (more on that in the coming weeks). For now though, & You Still Fall In is another worthy winner from the Nadja leader.
Barker: Stochastic Drift
Smalltown Supersound
Berlin-based DJ and producer, Sam Barker barely misses a trick, and on his latest album, Stochastic Drift, he has created a portal that leads to purity.
In what is a rainbow collation of sound and ideas, Stochastic Drift is like sample-size Barker. A glittering gateway that possesses all the finest elements of why so many are drawn to his music in the first place.
With beautiful shimmers and urgent rushes of noise, alongside Skee Mask, Barker is arguably the most trusted voice in modern day electronica. On Stochastic Drift, not only does he capture the cadence of his local Berlin surroundings, but he also unlocks parts of the mind with something that is the quintessential endorphin rush.
Dorothy Bird: Whispering Paper
Self-released
Dorothy Bird is the alias of Berlin-born, Liverpool-based artist, Julia Fiebelkorn, who returns with her sophomore album, Whispering Paper.
Recorded at Liverpool’s Crosstown Studios and produced by Bird alongside frequent collaborator, Jon Lawton, Whispering Paper unfurls like a gentle fog. Subtle inflections of electronica, simmering underneath Bird’s mostly piano-led songs, which form into something liminal, occupying something between dream and reality (not too far away from Jenny Hval’s latest release, Iris Silver Mist if truth be told).
With a host of guest appearances that give these songs extra weight (the bluesy brawn of Meotoriotes being the pick of them), Whispering Paper comes on strong the deeper one travels into the world of Dorothy Bird. – Hayley Burton
CLAMM: Serious Acts
Meat Machine
Following on from last year’s Disembodiment EP, the Melbourne punk assault unit return with their third record this decade with Serious Acts.
Capital letters included, CLAMM are from the school of fellow Melbournites CIVIC (who incidentally released their latest album Chrome Dipped, last Friday, too). Brawny punk spawned from youth immersed in Radio Birdman and The Saints records, and on Serious Acts (mixed by Seth Manchester and mastered by Melbourne lynchpin Mikey Young), CLAMM rip and tear in what is their most aggressive and immediate record yet.
“It’s hard to breathe… You feel washed up,” laments Jack Summers on Problem Is, which feels like one of the most succinct indictments of life in this new world. And with sounds that equally capture the urgency of these times, on Serious Acts CLAMM do the business once again.
Destroyer: Dan’s Boogie
Bella Union
Dan Bejar really can do no wrong, and over a career that has seen the singer chameleonise himself whilst blurring the lines from generation to generation, on Dan’s Boogie, the Canadian juggernaut seems to just let it all hang out.
It’s Bejar in karaoke mode. The lounge singer extraordinaire, Dan’s Boogie akin to a Best of Destroyer where Bejar is completely unmoored from any direct style which has seen the singer shape shift over the past decade. There’s serenade and scorn, humour and hubris, and everything in between.
Said to be the “supporting character in his own fantasies”, while the songcraft remains at the usual high-watermark level, as the title suggest on closing track Travel Light, Bejar does just that. To the point where he hasn’t sounded so carefree as he does here.
Dez Dare: CHERYL! Your Love Shines Down Like A Supernova’s Death
God Unknown Records
Brighton-based antipodean, Dez Dare, makes it two albums in as many years with CHERYL! Your Love Shines Down Like A Supernova’s Death.
Following last year’s A Billion Goats, with a title that sounds more like something in the Fiona Apple canon, on CHERYL! Your Love Shines Down Like A Supernova’s Death, Dare returns with a batch of the skinny garage-rock anthems tailored for consumption after a night out on the ale.
Led by the excellent lead single Brutalised Robotics (featuring God Unknown label mate, Laura Loriga) the Wire echoes continue here, and as Colin Newman continues toiling away on his new project Immersion, there are far worse alternatives than Dez Dare’s latest off-kilter adventures – Hayley Burton
Faun Fables: Counterclockwise
Drag City
Spanning over a 27-year reign, Dawn McCarthy and Nils Frykdahl return as Faun Fables for their first album since 2016’s Born of the Sun with Counterclockwise.
In what is the biggest gap in releases since their inception, Counterclockwise sees Faun Fables revels in time, or, indeed, lack thereof. With appearances from their daughters Edda, Ura and Gurdrin, as well contributions from Norwegian guitarist Arild Hammerø, there’s something elusively charming about these songs. Faun Fables, letting their art breathe, unconcerned with everything outside of their realm.
With an AM radio warmth, these songs slowly seep into the pores in what is the essence of folk and psychedelia produced in the richest ways imaginable. Many have tried orchestrating albums like Counterclockwise, but few have reached the core like Faun Fables do – something that is homely and exquisitely crafted.
Rebecca Foon & Aliayta Foon-Dancoes: Reverie
Constellation Records
Esmerine’s Rebecca Foon returns with new music, this time alongside her sister, Aliayta Foon-Dancoes for their debut full-length collaboration, Reverie.
Through the Esmerine lens and via her solo works, Rebecca has masterfully woven emotive dread-inspired soundscapes through classical chamber composition, and alongside Aliayta, on Reverie the sisters explore the darker frontiers of minimalism via cello, violin and piano – the latter of which they both play.
Produced by The Besnard Lake’s Jace Lasek, with deep resonance and sombre undertones, Reverie radiates with reality in what is a soundtrack for these times. The duo, capturing the frightening weight and uncertainty of what the future may look like.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
KLAMP: TOTAAL TECHNIEK
Human Worth
Haarlem, Netherlands-based, KLAMP, make a celebrated return with their latest LP, TOTAAL TECHNIEK. And it may just be their most accomplished.
With Jason Stoll (Sex Swing / Mugstar / JAAW), Lee Vincent (Pulled Apart by Horses) and Greg Wynne (Manatees) now joined by Adam Devonshire (IDLES), Matthew Parker (Tall Ships), Rachael Morrison and Wayne Adams (Petbrick / Big Lad, JAAW) TOTAAL TECHNIEK sees KLAMP stamp their mark with the kind of atmospheric proto-rock that ploughs through the same soils as XTRMNTR-era Primal Scream. It isn’t immediate but there are those euphoric moments through these songs that haven’t been there in previous releases.
It makes for gruelling listen, as Stoll and Adams take the greyscale, sci-fi psychedelia of JAAW and pull it to new orbits, landing in the world of KLAMP, and with TOTAAL TECHNIEK, the band has unleashed a winner.
Ben McElroy: Elkwort
LAAPS
Nottingham’s Ben McElroy has spent a journey scouring the more experimental frontiers of folk; his sonic meanderings, evoking deep spiritual resonance.
On his latest, Elkwort, the experimentalist drafts in friends and U.K. underground mainstays, Elinor Rowlands, Debbie Armour and Nick Jonah Davis for a series of wandering rustic compositions that reach for the old world.
And McElroy finds it, of course, but in trying to piece it together McElroy creates something beautifully fractured, with drones dripping into the fissure, landing in a similar space to where acts like Haress have been doing magical things. And on Elkwort, McElroy provides some of his own.
Mclusky: The World is Still Here and So Are We
Ipecac Recordings
Their first album in over 20 years, I mean… what more do you want to know about The World is Still Here and So Are We other than it’s Mclusky being, well… Mclusky!?
Melvins: Thunderball
Ipecac Recordings
Returning with their 1983 incarnation, Buzz Osborne and original Melvins drummer, Mike Dillard, unleash Thunderball.
Of course, it’s as you’d expect – irrespective of who and who doesn’t play in the Melvins, they bring the kind of shredding riffa-rolo that makes the mind spiral out of the control, and led by the excellent Victory of Pyramids, it’s yet another release firmly entrenched in the win column.
With no let-up in sight, as funny as it sounds, for those of the younger generation looking to start somewhere in the Melvins oeuvre, they could actually do a lot worse than starting with Thunderball – an album that, in its own way – has all you need to make sense of the band’s story.
Open Head: What Is Success
Wharf Cat Records
Kingston, New York four-piece, Open Head (Jared Ashdown – vocals /guitar; Brandon Minervini – guitar, vocals; Jon McCarthy – bass, and Dan Schwartz – drums), are exponents of noise that makes you feel alive.
Like post-punk blood brothers FACS, Open Head’s latest release, What Is Success, is filled with metallic plinking, hooping bass lines and fractured percussion that forms swarming constellations of noise that reaches every corner of the mind.
With shards of no-wave dotted throughout this bruising encounter, Open Head look you straight in the eye with menacing force. What Is Success is hypnotic. What Is Success is abrasive. What Is Success is simply something you need in your life.
Preoccupations: Ill at Ease
Born Losers Records
Following the excellent 2022 release, Arrangements, Calgarian post-punk mainstays, Preoccupations, know their strengths and on their fifth LP, Ill at Ease, they play to them as well as they ever have.
On Ill at Ease, Matt Flegel, Mike Wallace, Scott Munro and Daniel Christiansen create something that is part dead-eyed, part dynamic. Guitars, like a flashing blade glinting through moon light and underpinned by thrumming bass lines, Preoccupations lean into the ’80s in something that falls between the sound worlds of The Chameleons and the Psychedelic Furs.
Ill at Ease sits comfortably within the band’s canon, and alongside the likes of FACS, Activity and the above-noted Open Head, Preoccupations remain one of the few post-punk acts in the world that are worth getting out of bed for.
Tamara Qaddoumi: The Murmur
Listen Records / Young & Cold Records
Following the EPs, Dust Bathing (2018), Soft Glitch (2021), and Sorry Signal (2024), Lebanon’s Tamara Qaddoumi returns with her debut full-length, The Murmur.
Qaddoumi is inspired by the darker frontiers of pop music, and on The Murmur she covers great ground across these terrains, with a bourgeoning set of songs that oscillate between dark and light tones. In all its sparseness, with droning instrumentation and elusive melodies, Qaddoumi conjures up brooding, cinematic atmospheres.
Lebanon has been a the centre of some wonderful releases this year, led by Postcards’ Ripe, and with The Murmur, Tamara Qaddoumi has delivered something equally beguiling. An album that grows stronger with each listen.
The Royal Arctic Institute: The Royal Arctic Institute
Centripetal Force
The Royal Arctic Institute has spent their reign making the kind of instrumental soundscapes that are likened to sliding into a warm bath.
The current line-up is folk royalty in itself, including drummer Lyle Hysen (Das Damen, Arthur Lee), guitarists John Leon (Roky Erickson, Summer Wardrobe, Abra Moore) and Chris Robertson (Elk City, James Mastro), and bassist David Motamed (Das Damen, Two Dollar Guitar, Arthur Lee, Townes Van Zandt), and on their latest self-titled LP (the group’s fourth), they orchestrate compositions that turn lonely days into hopeful ones.
Blending post-rock into the kind of ambient country serenades that have been mastered by SUSS over the past several years, The Royal Arctic Institute release their most accomplished works here. Lifers making music for lifers, The Royal Arctic Institute is an album that just lines up, intersecting ideas of experimental composition in beautifully subtle ways.
SAVAK: SQUAWK!
Ernest Jenning Record Co. / Peculiar Works Music
Celebrating their tenth year of activity, New York veterans SAVAK make it a short turn around with their follow up last year’s Flavors of Paradise in the equally great SQUAWK!
While Flavors of Paradise saw SAVAK at their immediate best, SQUAWK! sees Sohrab Habibion, Michael Jaworski and Matt Schulz dispensing something more cerebral, spinning the kind of tales that sit somewhere between those of Craig Finn and Parquet Courts.
It’s a nice, subtle pivot from the band, who continue to show new tricks as the years role on, and with SQUAWK! it holds the power to grow even stronger the more time spent in its company.
Score: Original Copy
Cruel Nature Records
Once again, Chris Tate returns to the fold with his latest batch of delights under the Score moniker.
Original Copy. is Score like you’ve never heard before: Tate, not just flirting with the dance floor, but taking centre stage on it, with a range of funk-laden bursts of sound that have the disco ball working overtime.
Original Copy is about as immersive as one could get from the confines of the underground. Score, completely in surround sound mode with instrumental compositions that spark the senses and open up the portal that leads to hope. And in a time where there doesn’t feel like much of it, with Original Copy, Tate may have just provided the timely soundtrack.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Shit and Shine: MANNHEIM HBF
12XU
Only Shit and Shine could pay homage to Germany’s techno scene by actually creating something that eclipses much of it.
As the title to Mr Shine’s latest record suggests, MANNHEIM HBF throws you into the maelstrom of club land with the kind of dopamine rush techno that plants you firmly at the scene of the crime. In your head, of course, for this experience in home comforts is just as good as bumping into sweaty bodies on the dancefloor; the energy, running through your veins like flashes of lightning.
Shit and Shine exists to bend the mind, and while the Texan stalwart does that here, he does it by picking apart the core idea of psychedelia, and by guiding us through the seam of techno, the results are damn fine indeed.
Silvermoon: Rituals
Self-released
For those looking for something a little easier to digest than the afore-mentioned Shit and Shine, Liverpool’s Silvermoon might just be your meal ticket.
Led by Merseyside vet Jon Copley, on their latest release Rituals, Silvermoon sprinkle the Lee Mathers fairy-dust up and down Smithdown Rd, adding some ’80s retro vibes into the mix to rather nice effect.
Liverpool isn’t adverse to spawning acts like Silvermoon and albums like Rituals, and while few bands of this ilk get to travel beyond the “L” postcode as such, for those who get it, get it. Silvermoon’s Rituals is one of those records. – Hayley Burton
Surgeon: Shell~Wave
Tresor Records
If Barker evokes the idea of Berlin techno, then Surgeon takes the genre to its most perilous frontiers, and it doesn’t change on Anthony Child’s latest LP, Shell~Wave.
The Birmingham producer is all about the flash and bang. Screaming skull techno colliding with mangled polyrhythms, emitting high-octane psychedelia that hits so hard and fast, it feels like your heart is about to heart explodes through your chest.
Bristling with a flick-knife energy likened to a panic attack, somehow – as strange as it sounds – Child manages to combine this with something subtlety hypnotic, making Shell~Wave as wickedly potent as Surgeon has ever been.
Tlooth: Tlooth
Strange Mono Records
Reading, PA four-piece, Tlooth, are the latest to join the Strange Mono family, and in many ways, their debut self-titled LP is the thread that stiches together the label’s eclectic patchwork, combining the off-kilter and more conventional aesthetics of the acts featured.
With spring in full effect, Tlooth is a lovely company. The band, purveyors of beautifully crafted, layered sonics that wash over you (which reaches a crescendo on the excellent closing cut, Listen), and at eight songs at under 30 minutes, it’s the kind of sugar rush we all need.
Shoegaze, alt-rock, whichever you want to call it, Tlooth have delivered a series of songs that speak to your past, present, and maybe even the future.
KAPUT Interview: “We tend to treat each song like a painting”
William Tyler: Time Indefinite
Psychic Hotline
It’s hard to fathom that the music of William Tyler has been present for over a third of my lifetime. I’m sure many others can attest to something similar, and while the experimental guitarist has at times failed to capture the heights of his earlier works such as Behold the Spirit (2010) and Impossible Truth (2013), Time Indefinite sees Tyler on a whole new creative plane.
Time Indefinite sees the Nashville experimentalist tearing down his template for something that is borderless. The static AM radio and field recordings snaking through the record and while the likes of Cabin Six and Star of Hope are compositions designed for churches, Anima Hotel (despite its title) and Electric Lake capture the emotional force of the Tyler’s earlier days.
So exiled from Tyler’s previous works, Time Indefinite is something that beautifully lingers. Time really is indefinite in its case, and if you give it the attention it deserves, you will bask in the same glory Tyler has produced.
Karen Vogt: Haunted Woodland Volume Five
Wayside & Woodland Recordings
In the latest Haunted Woodland series via the label best known as home to epic45, Parisian-based Australian experimentalist, Karen Vogt, shines a light into new corners with Haunted Woodland Volume Five.
Following Vogt’s excellent Longform Editions release alongside Jolanda Moletta earlier this year (Suspended Between Worlds), the vocalist returns with something beautifully skeletal. With an emotional weight that grows heavier with each listen, Vogt’s ghostly voice and sparse guitars echo to every inch of the room.
Accompanied on two tracks by vocalists/ lyricist, Hamish Mackintosh, the pair combine for a set of songs that are like lullabies, combining the most exciting elements of dream-pop and slowcore.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Previous AQs:
AQ #17
AQ #16
AQ #15
AQ #14
AQ #13
AQ #12
AQ #11
AQ #10
AQ #9
AQ #8
AQ #7
AQ #6
AQ #5
AQ #4
AQ #3
AQ #2
AQ #1
12 replies on “Albums Quarterly #18”
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[…] resonates the calmness and warm through much of his works. (Something that would see the likes of Faun Fables explore in the years to come.) The second part sees Gubler orchestrate the kind of nomadic […]
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[…] While metal-gaze pioneers Nadja have always been the ultimate reference point for Aidan Baker, the Berlin-based artist has never been one to occupy a single space for too long. This decade alone has seen his canon widen with several slowcore-inspired releases (the latest, & You Still Fall In). […]