1 April 2025
Band: THE SLOW READERS CLUB
Who: Outfit that evolved in 2003 from a group
named Omerta. They released their self-titled
debut album in 2011.
Album: OUT OF A DREAM.
Their 7th one.
Press info: A kaleidoscopic collection of 10 songs spanning dark but danceable guitar pop, euphoric electro and low-fi introspective ballads. Lyrics explore themes of self-identity and the notion of truth in a bewildering world where our lives are lived increasingly online. A collection of abstract visions that question reality, celebrate love and long for connection.
Louder Than War said: “Seven albums in, ten years on from the release of their slow-burn breakthrough second album Cavalcade, five years on from their top ten debut The Joy Of The Return being cut off just as the band were about to embark on a huge tour on the crest of a wave, you’d forgive The Slow Readers Club for having jacked it all in and returned to their day jobs. Out Of A Dream though is the sound of a band that still has something to say, their steadfast belief in their music and their voice still shining through like the brightest beacon.”
TUTV: Guitar-synth pop at its vitalizing best. 10 zippy first-class tunes that perk up
your daily rat race frame of mind and have a boosting impact on your restless psyche.
5-star songwriting quality is what you get and what you hear for 38 minutes. Mighty orchestrations, gripping vocals. Not one dull moment. This is a fulfilling album you’ll
go back to frequently in the coming months.
SINGLE
Masterly pop splendour
ALBUM
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Instagram – Linktree
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Band: THROWING MUSES
Who: Legendary indie group from Rhode Island founded in 1981, in by two musically marvelous stepsisters, Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly who later co-formed The Breeders with Kim Deal but soon afterward she started her own group Belly.
Press info: Moonlight Concessions goes back to basics, a return for Throwing Muses to their esoteric off-kilter best courtesy of Kristin’s pin-sharp sketches and their suitably abrasive musical arrangements. The album follows their acclaimed Sun Racket from 2020, a heady set filled with tough and tender tales spiked with surreal imagery.
The Guardian (English newspaper): “For their 11th album in a nearly 40-year career,
the alt-rockers switch focus to acoustic guitars and cello – but their tumultuous tales are still charged with elemental power. Hersh remains a force of nature: ungovernable, volcanic, drawing on her own near-death experiences, trauma and inextinguishable survival instinct.”
TUTV: No automatic pilot, no copy/paste for Kristin Hersh. This spellbinding/bewitching record with its amplified acoustic orchestrations, generates emotive electricity, that turns your mind and ears into an otherwordly trance. Her energy, intensity and urgency is just remarkable, as is her singular heart-and-soul voice. Glorious performances, glorious album.
SINGLE
ALBUM
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UK/EURO TOUR
Instagram – All Albums
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Artist: BOB MOULD
Who: Former Hüsker Dü frontman.
New Album: HERE WE GO CRAZY
His 15th solo one.
Mould about the album: “On the surface, this is a group of straightforward
guitar pop songs. I’m refining my primary sound and style through simplicity,
brevity, and clarity. Under the hood, there’s a number of contrasting themes:
Control and chaos, hypervigilance and helplessness, uncertainly and
unconditional love.”
Rolling Stone says: “It’s the sense of constant growth and accrued wisdom in these songs — the honest ambivalence mixed with desire mixed with dread mixed with hope — that makes them sink in.”
TUTV: At 64 an angry young man‘s fire is still burning in Mould‘s heart and soul.
Inflamingly passionate discharges dominate this hellacious record. Sometimes
too predictable in melodiousness and resonance.
Maybe therefore one of the rare slower ones, the instantly impactful title track,
Lost Or Stolen, When Your Heart Is Broken and Fur Mink Augurs are stand out pieces,
but overall, it’s quite clear that Mould and his hungry guitar aren’t done yet, far from.
SINGLE:
ALBUM
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TOUR
Instagram – Website
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Artist: WILLIAM CARLOS WHITTEN
Who: The nom de guerre of St. Louis-based singer/songwriter Bill Whitten,
who played in a couple of bands before going his own way. He’s also a writer
and the author of a collection of short fiction called Brutes. WCW resides in
St. Louis.
Album: TELEPATHS
A collaborative one with a drop dead cool mysterious (nothing to find about her
on the Internet) vocalist, named Diana Crush. Whitten met Diana in a Laundromat.
She sat next to the cash register, beneath a sign that read: $2.25 per wash.
They started talking and Crash told Whitten: “I’ve always wanted to sing.
When I’m singing I can feel myself expanding beyond the limits of my body.”
According to a press statement TELEPATHS came to be recorded
after that chat, half in a theurgic trance, half in a caffeinated
frenzy.
TUTV: Only one spin and my ears were hooked. Telepaths is stuffed with a series
of bone-chilling psych grooves that grab your aural attention from the get-go, that transport you to a hallucinatory zone, and leaves you behind after 34 minutes,
puzzled and impressed.
Diana Crash‘s drop-dead cool storytelling tonality, bringing Berlin-based songstress
Anika to mind, has a transfixing impact and fits the spiraling six-string soundscapes
like a glove. Sonically minimalist legends Suicide and renowned French psych duo The Limiñanas come to mind. You’ll also find several weird song title son this stupendous
record.
SINGLE
STREAM/BUY ALBUM
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Album artwork
Band: VUNDABAR
Who: Indie act from Boston who forged their sound in mythical underground
venues in the early 2010s. Musically, they meld post-punk, math-rock, surf-guitar,
jangle-pop and grunge scuzz into sharp, compact songs.
Album: Surgery And Pleasure
Their 6th one.
Paste Magazine says: “Hearing the loose, uneven ends of these 11 songs might raise suspicions that Vundabar were a pre-COVID anomaly, but the album still boasts not only
their oft-brilliant, angular guitar playing and odd, unpredictable vocal showings, but slow
signs of reinvention… This album doesn’t illustrate a band in disarray; they point towards
a renewal you can’t capture all of in just one pass.” Full review here.
TUTV: On two occasions (I Need You / Why Is It So Hard To Say Goodbye?) these Boston gunslingers take it easy, but they’re at their stupendous best when they turn up the amps and let the beat and the heat do the talking. Nine rock-solid sucker-punches stand tall and lift this record to a ripping riff-insane level. Surgery And Pleasure is a high-voltage triumph.
KEY SINGLE
STREAM/BUY ALBUM
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UK/EU TOUR
