Alice grew up on a mountainside in South Africa listening to her parent's records and indulging her love of theatre, arts and music at a local Waldorf school; a formative time that nurtured her independence and desire to experience music of all styles. This multi-faceted creative upbringing mixed with Alice's natural wanderlust and in 2010, 16-year-old Alice made her first journey to Europe during her summer break from school. Inspired by watching fire dancers in Paris, she began to perform likewise to get enough money to fund her travelling.

That summer Alice roamed between Paris and Amsterdam; experiencing the highs and lows of street performances' underbelly. This vagabond lifestyle was a creative inspiration and gave Alice an enduring taste for the immediacy of street crowds. After returning to South Africa to complete her studies, Alice's path led her back to Europe and she made her way to the German capital - Berlin. The freedom of the city was intoxicating and she immersed herself in the creative world there.

Alice began busking across Berlin with just her guitar, a small amplifier on a trolley and her mesmerising voice. Her natural talent and captivating delivery started to garner a cult street following with people coming to see her busk and buy her records. The uncompromising creative community of Berlin also helped Alice grow musically and she collaborated with acoustic, jazz and electronic musicians; including multi-instrumentalist Matteo who quickly became Alice's live performance companion. Soon Alice self-released her first body of work - the Momentum EP - her first collaborative effort recorded between Berlin and Cape Town with five different producers. Although by now interest was sparked with several major labels, Alice's desire to maintain the creative freedom she had fostered kept her focus on growing her digital community of loyal fans and imagining ever more interesting settings for her intimate live shows

Now having spent two years playing intimate gigs across Europe and South Africa, and supporting established like-minded artists like Rodriguez, April 2016 will see Alice releasing her first full length studio album. Orbit comprises nine jazz-influenced, eclectic tracks recorded between Cape Town and Berlin that encapsulate the freshness of her live style, vagabond spirit and showcase her distinctive, soprano voice. Produced by Matteo and Kyson, the album is a testament to Alice's collaborative way of writing and features musicians from South Africa and Europe lending their musical skills and different visual artists producing art works to match each track. The result is an intricately woven pattern of soul, blues and jazz: scattered with retro, beatnik melodies; soothing vocal harmonies and sleazy brass flourishes.

"I was a loose canon," the commanding front woman says. "I was losing serious control of my personal and creative life. I was falling apart, trying to escape. I felt like Bleached was the only thing I actually cared about."

The 10-song LP was born out of triple the amount of demos. Sometimes the three girls spent time writing at a remote house in Joshua Tree away from the seemingly destructive city (a first since bassist Micayla had never contributed to songwriting on previous releases.) Other times Jen and Jessie worked alone, just like when they were teenaged punk brats playing in their parent's San Fernando Valley garage imitating their heroes The Slits, Black Flag and Minor Threat.

In the studio, Chiccarelli and co-producer Carlos de la Garza (Paramore, YACHT) helped the band perfect their fervent songs into fearlessly big pop melodies. They drew inspiration from the iconic hits of everyone from Fleetwood Mac to Heart to Roy Ayers.

They focused on preproduction and challenged the songs. Jessie took her usual approach to guitar over-dubs and leads (her favorite duty in a recording session), "I just let let my fingers play and kind of surprise me," she smirks. Still remaining to keep the band's origin of cheeky, California-punk in the forefront, Welcome The Worms became a smarter, heavier, emotionally deeper Bleached.

"Before we even knew we were working together, I remember Joe saying, you can't lose these melodies, no matter how raw the music gets," Jen explains. She penned demos on an acoustic guitar and focused. "If I was happy [with the songs] in [their] rawest form, then I knew it would be even better after going through production."

"I've become a more confident musician," adds Jessie. "I wanted to be open-minded to this record and try new things we hadn't done before. I felt such a great amount of respect working with the people we did on this record, feeling really free to do what I wanted to do, and making it a Bleached world."

Welcome The Worms is an ambitious rock record with a new found pop refinement that somehow still feels like the Shangri-Las on speed, driven forward in a wind of pot and petals, a wall of guitars in the back seat. "Keep on Keepin' On" is a hypnotic opening anthem that spins like a kaleidoscope, while "Sleepwalking" and “Trying To Lose Myself Again” invoke the struggle of floating through life on autopilot. The drums are instinctual, while the bass bounces like a rubber ball over the lyrics on a karaoke screen. "Sour Candy" is a stand-out hit so effortless and catchy it sticks in your head for days. Synth is only brought in as a thickening agent, just like the harmonies. "Chemical Air" and "I'm All Over The Place (Mystic Mama)" toy with pop sensibilities, while "Desolate Town" shows Jen getting weird on the verses before a Cobain-like chorus.

Through out the record, Bleached paints a frivolous picture of Los Angeles: the life of eye-rolling caused by dating men in bands, dirty Sunset Boulevard and futile drunken nights in a starstruck hole that made everyone from Charles Manson to Darby Crash to Marilyn Monroe stare up at the Hollywood sign for direction. Although a typical theme of ruined romance floats through the album, the real power is in Jen figuring out herself through lyrics so straight, identifiable and honest. This was a first for the girl who safely hid behind a cheeky misdemeanor. She did a lot of messing up and even more digging into herself.

“Sometimes [writing this album] made me hate myself and sometimes it made me love myself,” she admits. “But being aware of how I felt is what I wanted.” It became clear that Jen had to embrace the good with the horrible and learn to overcome it all through music.

One evening, high on psychedelics and up all night, Jen and a friend passed a freaky couple at Echo Park Lake peddling homemade religious pamphlets. “One page was a bunch of cut and paste sentences with images. I’m always really intrigued by those crazy DIY religious books. It all was so perfect at that moment [because] it was about embracing the dark side of life instead of  pretending it isn’t there because it’s all beautiful and I wouldn’t give any of it up for anything.” Welcome The Worms was sprawled across the tripped out pamphlet. The phrase stuck.

"We don't want perfection because it's boring," she continues. "We want to make music that's as real as life."

- Mish Way

DIY MAGAZINE (UK) album review of CEMETERY HIGHRISE SLUM (4/5): “A fine encapsulation of their alluring, unsettling blend of melody and misanthropy. Disorienting and satisfying in equal measure”

CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND album review of CEMETERY HIGHRISE SLUM: “Cemetery Highrise Slum matches its dark title and then some, full of pain, angst and grime.”

THE KEY (WXPN/PHILADELPHIA) album review of CEMETERY HIGHRISE SLUM: “Creepoid frontman Sean Miller doesn’t sing about depressing bars, but he can make you think of everything else that’s dreary – and make it sound absolutely beautiful. Behind his fed-up, rebellious drawl, his bandmates craft vast, dramatic surges of distortion and feedback. It’s mean, it’s heartbreaking, it’s grunge, it’s shoegaze, it all spirals into blinding noise we listen to for pleasure. And never has pain tasted so sweet.”

The Los Angeles Times wrote of Deftones, “Hard rock thrives on conflict and chaos, and no band has found more beauty and soaring aggression within those ingredients than Deftones.”

Deftones have released seven albums to date and have sold over 10 million albums worldwide.

Deftones hit the road in the spring, starting with a March 5th headline performance on night two at Travis Barker’s Musink Festival — a three-day tattoo convention, car show, and concert in California, followed by appearances at this year’s SXSW music festival. May and June will find Deftones appearing at major festivals in the U.S. and Europe, including Carolina Rebellion, Rock on the Range, Rock AM Ring, Rock IM Park, and Download Festival, among others as well as a solo-headline show at Wembley Arena. Please see below for upcoming tour dates.

On his major label debut, Come and Get It, Reed proves to be the life of a soulful, sweaty party in which everyone eventually gets dragged onto the dance floor. As a performer, Reed approaches each song with nothing less than utter conviction; he’s as authentically gritty as he is ingratiatingly sexy. Reed incorporates the feel of classic R&B and soul into a largely self-penned, 12-song set, produced with Mike Elizondo, the bassist-turned-producer whose credits include, among others, Eminem, Pink, Gwen Stefani and Fiona Apple. Admirers have likened Reed to such luminaries as Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett; the Boston Herald called him “Boston’s answer to Sam Cooke.” But he’s not merely trying to recreate a sound; Reed is channeling his influences and inspirations into making something all his own.

“For me,” says Reed, “it’s all about writing pop songs. Soul music was the greatest pop music of the 20th century and its influence is so far-reaching. When I pick up a guitar to write a song, the influence of the music I love invariably comes out. For me, that music has been completely internalized. I’m not trying to put anything on; this is what comes out, this is what happens, I can’t sing or write any other way than I do.”

“I try to write from phrases that I think people will respond to,” Reed explains. “Turns of phrase are very important to me,” a point illustrated most potently on his song “Name Calling” (lyric: “You went from name calling to calling my name”). “I’m very inspired by Sam Cooke in that way and I learned a lot from country music too. To be able to create a mental picture for someone with just one line is very, very important. Sam Cooke talks about writing from conversation, personal stories, little turns of phrase that catch your ear and you can make a hook out of. That’s my songwriting m.o..”

Most of the material on Come And Get It, Reed says, “was written at home, when I was messing around on the acoustic guitar.” The title song began quickly when Reed’s guitarist Ryan Spraker, who co-wrote several numbers, dreamed up the title phrase, “If You Want The Love of A Man, Come and Get It.” But, says Reed, “That one actually took a little while because we wanted to get the sentiment across correctly without sounding cheesy.” As for the subject matter he favors – finding, seeking and holding onto love – Reed admits ”I like writing love songs because they are easy for people to relate to and mostly it’s what I tend to understand and those are the kind of sentiments I come up with. Some of my songs come from personal experience, some of them are changed, just ideas that come to me, as most songwriting works.”

The opening track “Young Girl” is a tribute to little-known Boston soul singer Frank Lynch, who died tragically just as his career looked like it would take off with the release of this song. That’s part of Reed’s m.o. too: going back to the source of his own inspiration, finding unsung veteran artists and bringing them along with him, however he can. This past summer Reed helped organize the Brooklyn Soul Festival, featuring under-recognized soul legends like Barbara Lynn, Roscoe Robinson, and Otis Clay, in the borough he now calls home.

While he was making Come and Get It, says Reed, “I was listening to a lot of late sixties, early seventies soul music from Chicago, in particular Mel and Tim and Tyrone Davis. It’s all very lavishly produced stuff, a lot of horns, a lot of strings, but it’s also really tough, the rhythm section is always really funky. I was going for that sort of vibe. That was the plan.”

Producer Elizondo came at R&B from a markedly different angle than Reed, having deep roots in hip hop as well as contemporary rock. Says Reed, “It was definitely a different thing for him and it was a different thing for me, to work with a strong-minded producer, but it didn’t take him long to earn my respect. When we were cutting the string section he’d have the score laid out on the board, following along. He’s say, ‘measure 76, second violin, that note is flat.’ That is very impressive. Mike’s got great ideas and he’s got great ears, and he’s a great bass player. I definitely have a pop sensibility, but he brought more of an understanding of modern music.”

Even as a youngster, Reed displayed unusually sophisticated – and good – taste, working his way through his dad’s formidable record collection from the moment he learned to work a turntable. Reed absorbed early rock and roll (Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, The Coasters) before moving on to the Country radio hits of the day. (The first record he bought was Travis Tritt and Marty Stuart’s single, “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’” – “I still think it’s really good,” Reed interjects.) Then he fell for Howlin’ Wolf and the blues. However, the defining moment in Reed’s youthful musical education came when his dad bought Atlantic’s Ray Charles boxed set on cassette: “That was my introduction into soul music, it really changed my life. During one summer vacation, when we were in the car, we listened to those three tapes over and over again.”

Along with passing on the record-collecting bug, his dad also gave him a harmonica, the first instrument Reed learned to play. In high school, he hung out in the band room with students as passionate about music as he was: “Most of them were way better musicians than me; I wasn’t very good at the time as a guitarist. I played tenor sax, too – but I wasn’t very good at that either.” But he harbored a gift as one powerhouse singer. At a Martin Luther King Day assembly, he performed “A Change Is Gonna Come.” As he recalls, “Everyone freaked out, I got a standing ovation.”

From there, his path to a professional career was built on movie script-worthy twists and surprises. His love of the music (and a series of amazing coincidences) brought him to Clarksdale, Mississippi. After having just graduated high school at the age of 18, Reed was frequenting juke joints and lounges and playing the blues five nights a week. He found mentors among the veteran players like Terry “Big T” Williams, Sam Carr, and Wesley “Junebug” Jefferson, and honed his skills as a fledgling performer in a fertile but unforgiving environment. When he wasn’t “on” during a gig, fellow musicians and onlookers told him in no uncertain terms that he’d have to leave the stage. But the baby-faced young man from Boston had guts to match his chops: “It was hard. I had never been away from home before. I learned a lot about growing up.”

He returned north with new skills, and a new nickname – Paperboy: “I used to wear this hat, my grandfather’s hat, a newsboy hat – it’s retired now. All the musicians in Clarksdale had a nickname. They gave me that one and it stuck with me.”

Reed did subsequently try college, getting accepted into the University of Chicago, but once again, he was drawn more to music than books, hosting a well-regarded Southern Soul show on the college radio station and exploring Chicago’s south-side for records and fried chicken. Given his fascination with the lesser known but seriously influential figures in R&B, he tracked down a former Chess Records artist named Mitty Collier (“I Had a Talk With My Man Last Night”), who’d given up soul-singing for the ministry. She not only befriended Reed but hired him to play keyboards and sing at her Sunday services, paying him a small stipend that he poured back into expanding his record collection.

He returned to Boston after the school year ended, determined to put together his own band. For a time he worked for a band mate’s florist mom, using her van to transport gear as well as to deliver floral arrangements. Reed put out two very well received albums while in Boston. His first – Sings Walkin' and Talkin' and Other Smash Hits! was independently released and the follow-up Roll With You was released by Boston’s Q Division Records. In the US, Rolling Stone named Reed a “Breaking Artist,” praising his “howling grooves and dirty down home R&B.” In the UK, Reed received a nomination at the 2009 MOJO Awards for Breakthrough Artist of the Year. The thunderous buzz eventually brought him to the attention of Capitol Records.

“People say you make your own luck,” Reed concludes. “I’ve definitely made it a point to seek some of these people out who’ve inspired me, but some of the things that have happened so far have just been amazing – and I have been unbelievably lucky that they’ve happened.”

After listening to Come and Get It, it’s clear that the rest of us are about to become the lucky ones.

For one thing, they only began as a band when their sonic experiments in improvising three-minute pop songs - verses and choruses, yes, melody and arrangements, no - exploded into something deeper and darker.

They’re as comfortable discussing Guy Debord and Arthur Schopenhauer as they are John Coltrane and Black Sabbath. Their Twitter feed thrums with hymns to Mei Leaf tea and conscientious vegan messaging alongside plugs for Notorious B.I.G. and tributes to legendary jazz-funk drummer Alphonse Mouzon.

Will Ritson (vocals, lyrics) is a visual artist, writer and poet and has his own book publishing company. Multi-instrumentalist Matt Ritson (keys) is a stellar photographer. Jonny Tams (bass) spent his teens fiddling with broken synths before going on to work with producers like Spike Stent and Stephen Street, as well as artists including Björk and Russell Haswell. Kai Akinde-Hummel (drums) is fluent in three languages, and his grandfather was part of Nigerian trumpeter Dr Victor Olaiya’s band, the same one Fela Kuti played with. Sash Lewis (synths) has patched modular synths with the likes of Four Tet, Caribou and Floating Points, and has, as they say, “a history…”

As Formation, they make a noise that is the single most explosive and joyously angry thing you’ll hear for a long time. So that’s numerous remarkable things already and we haven’t even mentioned Yes or the Wu-Tang Clan yet.

Brothers Will and Matt grew up in a South West London household where one parent loved Northern Soul, disco and funk while the other loved choral music, opera and Queen. For seven years, Will and Matt sang in church choirs four times a week – church being a venue they appreciated more for its acoustics than its message.

In his youth, Jonny worked in a record store in Wimbledon, recommending classic albums that would inspire the brothers. Later the three would work in a warehouse together, sucking down every great record they could squeeze onto the shared iPod, quietly brewing the first Formation EPs.

Meanwhile, Kai shared the brothers’ orchestral upbringing, playing with orchestras and jazz bands, sporadically working on projects with Matt, until he was drafted into the band while still living in Spain. Sash was sharing studio space with Jonny and joined the live set-up to “tune” the synths before a more serious involvement with the band was born.

A local scheme - the Merton Music Foundation - allowed the brothers to rent affordable instruments and so drums, clarinets and saxophones entered the house at an early age. Up in Camden, Kai was already playing in - and touring Europe with - orchestras and jazz bands.

“Playing in orchestras and in churches opened us up to so much more music,” Kai nods. “It was those places that taught us how to communicate.”

Others took a less conventional approach. Jonny, whose young mind was being blown by early music software, would record things falling over until he’d perfected the art. Meanwhile Sash would sit around in his mate Kieran Hebden’s bedroom, discovering samplers and drum loops as “pure magic” unfolded.

In their early teens, the boys soaked up Pink Floyd, Free, Yes and Jimi Hendrix. And it’s here we meet the very heart of Formation: on the left; groove, on the right, power; and in the centre, know-how. And while metal helped shaped them as teenagers, you’ll not hear that influence on Look at The Powerful People as the record doesn’t feature a single guitar. What you will hear is the bass as lead, percussion as lead, drums as lead, vocals as lead, the groove as lead – everything where it’s needed.

And now there’s an album - named after Gino Vanelli’s 1974 pop-soul masterpiece. Co-produced by the fast-rising Adele and The Strokes engineer Ben Baptie and genre-defining house producer and DJ Leon Vynehall, Look At The Powerful People shares the same redefining air that lit-up Andrew Weatherall’s work on Screamadelica. And while Look at The Powerful People might appear to be flashing its arse at Trump and May, it’s about flipping that drive around to create a gang with an inner power.

“People have a collective power,” Kai says. “We’ve always been on the fringes. We’re misfits, never a member of any scene. So we’ve built our own gang and if people want to join us they can.”

Take “Back Then,” a euphoric ball of heat and fire, bejewelled by Jonny’s production skills, bouncing on a thick Motown-like groove. It skirts time-wasting nostalgia but still thrills to the memories of being care-free enough to spend weeks building skate-ramps and stealing trolleys. “Buy and Sell” is sheer aggression, a fantastically nasty, jagged piece of commentary tackling consumerism and advertising.

“Drugs” pulses wildly, it’s not an anti-intoxicant song as such, more of a be-aware-of-what-you’re-doing song. Elsewhere, “A Friend” is a lunatic pop blast, like a psychedelic Killers stripped of their showbiz glitter and jacked up on cheap coffee and cigarettes.

If any song were to sum this brilliant group up it would be “On The Board”. It’s actually about chess, which puts it in a small group with “Your Move” by Yes and the Wu-Tang’s “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’”.

“Us, Yes and Wu-Tang,” smiles Will. “That’s the magic pyramid of Formation! The first five Yes albums and the first three Wu Tang albums - I could throw everything else away. It doesn’t get more ‘us’ than “On The Board”. I wanted to make a tune someone else might sample - and this might be the one…”

Formation are something else. Something real. Something you can trust. They bleed Stax and Curtis Mayfield, Pantera and Sly Stone, Gil Scott Heron and Vaughan Williams. They’re built on the bones of visionary musicians and the desire to connect that’s within us all. Look at The Powerful People is “a diverse record from diverse people for a diverse crowd,” Matt says, summing it up to perfection. 2017 just got a whole lot brighter.

'Y Dydd Olaf' has gained critical acclaim across the board, it also won both the Welsh Music Prize 2015 and Welsh Album of the Year at the National Eisteddfod in Meifod in 2015. Gwenno is a native Welsh and Cornish speaker and it’s this along with co-producing and co-hosting Welsh language show Cam O’r Tywyllwch (A Step Away From The Darkness) with Peski for Radio Cardiff and more recently, Resonance FM, that has led her to create music that translates her internationalist influences into layered, home-fi keyboard sounds wrapped in echoed vocals and musique concrète-inspired beats.

Dashing through northern pastures unsaddled and un-blinkered Jane's journey so-far, from teenage Liverpudlian shoe-gazer to conceptual-pop mistress, has seen her graze with pocket-punk, Synth-pop, acid folk, indie-schmindie, dark-ambient drones, Hollywood soundtracks and girl-group psych.

Raised on the enthusiasm and inspiration of Factory records founder Rob Gretton and counting Doves and Elbow as her early backing bands Jane’s desire to cultivate and promote Manchester's lesser-documented Female musicians lead to her long-running Bird records imprint (releasing the earliest recordings of Cate Le Bon, Beth Jeans Houghton and Maxine Peake) housed in the anti-office of Andy Votel’s Twisted Nerve label.

Having recorded 6 critically acclaimed self-penned solo albums Jane has also written and recorded with a wide range of multi-disciplined artists featuring pioneering ‘lost’ musicians (Wendy & Bonnie, Suzanne Ciani, Cybotron and Suzanne Christie) as well as non-conformists (Demdike Stare, Dave Tyack and The Focus Group) and high-profile friends and supporters (David Holmes, Damon Gough, Dave Brock).

Jane’s lesser known creative endeavours have seen her contribute sound-installation projects to labels via Manchester's Boomkat experimental imprint, various international theatrical institutes as a film re-composer, as a compiler for Finders Keepers records, and as an author of children’s books based on her visual collaborations with Klunkclick (Yo Gabba Gabba / Bobby Conn).

Meanwhile her presence as a live performer has been requested by the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Guy Garvey (Meltdown), Laetitia Sadier, Richard Hawley, Josephine Foster and Gruff Rhys and has flexed her knowledge in the DJ booth as a one-time member of Sean Rowley’s Guilty Pleasures DJ team. Jane’s music has appeared in fashion campaigns for Chanel and Chloe plus a wide-range of TV and Cinematic productions such as the soundtrack to ‘Kiss Of The Damned’ directed by John Cassevetes daughter Xan. Jane’s voice was also sampled by the band Coldplay, on the track ‘Another’s Arms’.

Jane’s last album ‘The Silver Globe’ was, in Jane’s own opinion, her most complete and realised commitment to vinyl to date and was released via her own Bird Records imprint in late 2014 garnering the instant accolade on Piccadilly Records Album Of The Year a notion shared with many music fans and blogs. Gilles Peterson gave the first single ‘Don't Take My Soul’ a Top Ten place in his best tracks of the year adding to the unanimous support of radio DJs like Jarvis Cocker, Marc Riley, Stuart Maconie, Lauren Laverne and Mary Anne Hobbs. Early DJ mix encouragement has also come from the likes of Andrew Weatherall and Beyond The Wizards Sleeve. Having debuted songs to a proud list of sold-out headline gigs, and as a key artist at last years Festival Number 6, beneath the rays of The Silver Globe anything is possible.

2017 will see the release of new music, yet to be announced, with a busy live schedule expected later in the year through 2018.

By the very uninhibited nature of her sound, the understated approach in which Låpsley introduced her music came by way of the simplest of discoveries; a handful of people engaging so closely with it they couldn’t help but pass it on, write about it or play it. When you can’t keep a secret it inevitably works its way beyond what you believe is possible as an artist out there on your own - cue up support from the likes of BBC Radio 1’s Annie Mac, Huw Stephens and Phil & Alice, mentions in the NME and online support from Gorilla vs Bear, Disco Naivete, Pigeons & Planes and DIY among many more.

Gaining a plethora of plaudits for her minimal yet striking electronic production, and achingly beautiful vocals, the music that she has made available online gives an intimate insight into the concentrated potential of this young artist and a promising indication of great things to come.

This seachangeis reflected on the EP’s stunning psych-folk-rock opener, a ballsy 18-minute track (yes eighteen minutes) that onjures desert visions of Crazy Horse guitar solos, David Crosby’s mustache, and all the good things about a journey through the past on mescaline. Matt actually grew up in Austin (and Dana Point, CA too) and the song is a slice of his life--an autobiography that isn’t even close to being finished-- an epic American saga that reflects his skill as a remarkable modern songwriter still on the rise. If Richard Linklater could write a song, this would be it.

"Matt’s voice and words have that Nashville outcast vibe to it,” says Jay Sweet, producer of the Newport Folk Festival and a longtime champion of Matt’s music. “He’s not California, he’s not Texas, he’s not Brooklyn—even though he’s lived in all of those places. He’s a transplant and a vagabond, which is why he embodies folk and rock music. For a singersongwriter,

he is truly refreshing."

Matt went solo for simple reasons-- to return to the style of rock he loves. And when he went solo he REALLY went solo. He plays every instrument on the record, except for two drum tracks and one guitar track. Delta Spirit undoubtedly will be back but he wanted to make a collection of music without the influence of his beloved brethren (it's only natural for a frontman to feel the need to let loose from time to time). You will hear his new material and you will hear Iggy Pop. Neil Young. Kurt Cobain. Gram Parsons. But ultimately, you're hearing Matthew Logan Vasquez. A man young at heart, who

loves the shit out of rock music... loves it so much that it's been his life's goal to make the masses reconnect with her spirit.

But he's become a father, and he's been through some shit. His dad was a bomb builder. Fact.

At the end of the day, Matt’s objective as a singer, a poet, a preacher, a believer in this beautiful bullshit we call “RocknRoll,” is to find some harmony through life’s confusion and to make you feel good about yourself. He'll be spreading his message via his wonderful songs starting in the fall of 2015. You better go put your dimes in his collectionbasket. Are there better things you can be doin with those dimes?

Behold the concept behind Preachers, the second full-length release from Austin's My Jerusalem. From the opening piano of the haunting title track, to the unexpected pummeling guitar and drums on closer “I Left My Conscience In You”, Preachers leads the listener on a cinematic journey through a reckless, jagged landscape of Raymond Carver-esque stories, fueled by Klein’s persuasive baritone, ominous guitars, dream-like keyboards and a deep rhythmic pulse.

Recorded in under three weeks by Spoon drummer Jim Eno (Heartless Bastards, Polica, Black Joe Lewis) at his Public Hi-Fi studio, Preachers is the first My Jerusalem album genuinely made by a band, not just performed by a group of musicians. Pushing aside hard drives and laptops to make way for analog tape machines and vintage keyboards, what Klein describes as the “Post-Modern Southern Gothic Soul” sounds of Preachers were born from organic, live performances Eno carefully captured and tweaked.

Preachers is the follow-up to 2010’s critically acclaimed debut, Gone For Good, an album that earned the band performances on BBC Radio 6 and Daytrotter, as well as notices from NPR's All Songs Considered, AOL/Spinner's Song of the Day, and the iTunes Weekly Rewind. Along with European festival appearances at the Frequency Festival, Musikfestwochen, and Rock Im Saal, the band toured and played shows with a eclectic set of bands including Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Har Mar Superstar, Avett Brothers, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and White Arrows.

Buoyed by the success of Gone For Good, Preachers showcases a band headed into the studio with a renewed focus and confidence. Preachers contains equal parts swagger (the swampy gospel of title track “Preachers”, the strutting intensity of “Born In The Belly”) and groove (the spooky beauty of “Shatter Together”, the crescendoing, feral drive of “Devoe”, the infectious crooner “Mono”); as much primal (“Death Valley”) as it is humane ("Chameleon").

“It’s a darker record,” says Klein, who, before forming My Jerusalem in 2010, made 3 records under his own name. “So much had changed since Gone For Good. We’d all kind of been through hell and back again in different ways, and this was the natural artistic result of all of that. But I think it’s a beautiful, comforting darkness. It’s real, but not selfish.”

“We finally have a shared collective vibe,” adds guitarist/keyboardist Jon Merz, “I believe it’s more representative of what our live shows sound like. This time around, Jeff would bring us song ideas and we would add our own perspectives to it.”

The five-piece, which also features multi-instrumentalist Michael St. Clair, drummer Grant Van Amburgh, and bassist Geena Spigarelli, also had the opportunity to road-test much of the new material before recording, during their extensive touring behind Gone For Good. It was a luxury they didn’t have the first time around.

"Working out the kinks live before recording them makes a big difference," reflects Klein, “They get a chance to breathe and grow before committing them to the world permanently. Because of that process, some songs, like 'Death Valley,' sound nothing like their early version. We’re excited to take them on the road and see how they evolve even further.”

Equal parts sweet, morbid, strange, and sincere, Preachers is an experience that could convert the most steadfast of non-believers.

In the case of PINS, swaths of the primary color wheel embedded in the group’s aesthetic, artwork, and presentation ring out almost as loudly as the pops of neon synths, loud guitars, and cheeky melodies in their music do. Not only does the palette distinguish the trio—Faith Vern, Lois MacDonald, and Kyoko Swan—from the rain-soaked soul of their native Manchester, UK, but it also unites them as a ​“girl gang​.”

Such vibrancy defines their third full-length album for their own Haus of Pins label, ​Hot Slick​.

“Since we’re girls who play music, our band has always had this ​‘girl gang’​ thing that follows us around,” exclaims Faith. “We do what we want though. It’s simple. We’ve learned how to present ourselves. Bold colors represent being strong. So, we’ve embraced those in the music, art, and aesthetic. Strength should be the main thing that comes to mind when you think of us.”

Since the release of ​Girls Like Us​ in 2013, PINS have exuded strength in their danceable alternative post-punk transmissions and earned the trust, endorsement, and creative blessings of rock royalty such as Iggy Pop and peers including Jamie Hince of The Kills. 2015’s ​Wild Nights​, which was recorded and produced at Rancho De La Luna with Dave Catching (Eagles of Death Metal), attracted acclaim from Harpers Bazaar​, ​Interview Magazine​, ​The Guardian​, and ​Stereogum​. They toured on both sides of the pond alongside everyone from Sleater-Kinney and Warpaint to Best Coast and The Subways. 2017 saw them unveil ​The Bad Thing​ EP preceded by the single “Aggrophobe” [feat. Iggy Pop]. ​i-D Magazine described it as ​“AMAZING​.​” ​Along the way, things slowly, but surely changed. PINS parted ways with the original rhythm section of bassist Anna Donigan and drummer Sophie Galpin. Paired down to a three-piece, Kyoko jumped from keys to bass. At the same time, they hunkered down and wrote and recorded ​Hot Slick​. Not to mention, Faith was pregnant throughout the entire process, even playing shows ​“up until eight months​.​”

“PINS has obviously changed, which is why there was a huge gap between releases,” the frontwoman goes on. “We got this room in Manchester where the three of us would rehearse, play, and hangout. We went back to square one and thought about how to portray everything going forward. It was an opportunity to refresh the image and sound. We built it up from scratch. As I was about to become a mom, I was also thinking about the world my daughter would live in. It was like a second chance.”

“After Anna and Sophia left, we looked at other sonic options,” Lois says. “We used more drum machines and synth production techniques to get the sound we wanted. As we were learning how to use these processes and equipment, our writing improved. It was different, because we were swapping out instruments, synths, and drum machines among the three of us. We weren’t assigned to the set roles of ​‘guitarist’ ​or ​‘keyboardist’​. If somebody had an idea, she just played it! That allowed us to be quite free. We got on the same page and really supported one another. It gave us energy and confidence in what we were doing as well as a fresh start.”

Kyoko remarks, “With less voices in the room, there was less pressure. The three of us were able to relax and be more natural.”

They expanded the soundscape, nodding to influences such as Soulwax, LCD Soundsystem, Suicide, and New Order. Additionally, they welcomed a rotating cast of collaborators. Rich Woodcraft oversaw the entire project as producer and engineer, while Jamie Hince and Dean Horner contributed additional

production and Nathan Saoudi of Fat White Family lent his talents on the keys. Faith personally handled all of the styling, photography, and creative direction for the artwork and rollout, emphasizing strident colors. The group also equally amplified every aspect of their signature sound, including the lyrics.

“Let’s be clear,” she grins. “A lot of the lyrics are a bit cocky and cheeky. It feels good to be unafraid though.”

Produced by Hince, the first single “Hot Slick” introduces the album with a glitchy drum march, wobbling synthesizers, and an ominous bass line. Cathartic howls crash into thick distortion as Faith repeats, ​“Get away, get away, I’ve got to get away”​ with robotic precision.

“It’s about escape,” she continues. “The whole thing is one big fantasy for us. It’s not real life. It’s about being a band, touring, and feeling alive.”

“The title ​‘Hot Slick’​ sounded sexy too,” laughs Kyoko. “It was something we came up with as a joke, but we all loved it.”

“Ghosting” sways back and forth between thudding bounce and heavenly harmonies punctuated by high register crooning. Primed to evoke fits on the dancefloor, it captures what Lois describes as ​“a big club vibe​.​” S​ peaking of dancing, the industrial bass groans and tambourine tingles of “Bad Habit” accompany a fan favorite dance move. “It always feels like I’m singing ​‘Bad Habit’​ right to the audience,” explains Faith. “It’s our most inclusive song.”

Meanwhile, a high-heeled skittering beat struts right through “Ponytail” towards a declaration, ​“Yes, I will be up all night, I whip my ponytail from side-to-side.” T​ he track centers around, ​“going out and having a good time with your friends without letting the party end.​ ​”

With its cheerleader-style chant and slippery synths, “Bad Girls Forever” doubles as a clarion call hung up on a sing-song-hook. “There are still some girls who are frightened at shows and don’t come out,” she adds. “They’re not confident enough to be on stage. It’s our job to make them feel like they should be. The song’s just for the girls.”

In the end, PINS fly their own flag higher than ever on ​Hot Slick​ and inspire in the process.

“It’s been over eight years, and so much has happened,” concludes Kyoko. “It’s about having a good

time as friends.”

“PINS is a projection of ourselves,” Faith leaves off. “There’s a little bit of fantasy. This is the world we built for ourselves. Maybe people will dance there with us.”

Raglans New EP Again and Again released on Fierce Panda Records was Recorded in Los Angeles with Jason Wade and Chris Murguia (Lifehouse) and mixed by Chris Sheldon (Foo Fighters, Biffy Clyro).

‘Who Knows’ and the other four tracks on ‘Again & Again’ present an ever-more expansive Raglans roar, retaining the ferocious fist-in-the-air glory of their self-titled top 5 debut album while adding pathos-laden power balladry with ‘War Torn’ and ‘Claire’.

It’s an emotional, energetic sound which reflects the life of a band who have been travelling the world, getting up and getting down - like their distant touring brethren Catfish & The Bottlemen and The Sherlocks Raglans are rugged road troopers, touring like there’s no tomorrow. Or at least no tomorrow without another service station pasty, another empty, echoing soundcheck and another sweetly sweat-soaked show to pile on through…

“All the songs on ‘Again & Again’ were written in the last two years so they are all informed by what’s been going on in my life and in the life of the band,” explains singer Stephen. “‘Who Knows’ is the perfect example of this: the lyric is about juggling two important relationships, one with a person and one with a group of fellas you travel around the world with in a van, and the uncertainly that comes with each and the pressure they put on each other. Then, being in Paris on tour and visiting the grave of Oscar Wilde gave me the perspective I needed to finish the song. The verses were the question, the chorus became the answer.”

The past? Well now let us tell you about the past. Two years ago they released their debut album, the succinctly-titled ‘Raglans’, which spawned the tracks ‘Natives’, ‘Before Tonight’ and ‘White Lightning’. Those tracks garnered radio support from Huw Stephens, Dermot O’Leary, Phil Taggart and Alice Levine, earned live supports with Haim, The Fray, The Strypes and Twin Atlantic as well as The Libertines in Hyde Park and generally saw the quartet having more fun than a meerkat on a mountain bike.

Inevitably a new generation would discover - and find inspiration from - the originators of that era. Enter Austin’s own RESIDUAL KID comprised of brothers Ben (16, bass) and Max Redman (14, drums) and Deven Ivy (16, guitar / vocals).

Despite their youth Residual Kid earned their place among the top bands in the vibrant Austin music scene being Austin Music Poll’s winner for “Best Under 18 band” 2013 /14 and 2014/15 and Second place “Best Punk Band” (2014/15). Residual Kid have performed at SXSW, CMJ, UMS Denver, Fun Fun Fun Fest as well as clubs and theaters as both a headliner and in support of bands such as OFF! Blonde Redhead, The Toadies, Manchester Orchestra, Diarrhea Planet, etc.

Residual Kid will travel to the UK and Europe in Summer 2015 to appear at several major festivals in support of their first single for SIRE Records - an EP is planned for 2016.

On October 30th, Sun Club’s debut full-length The Dongo Durango was let loose into the world by ATO Records. This new 9-song collection finds McCord and his bandmates joyously deconstructing the traditional pop song—then rebuilding it with off-kilter time signatures, gleefully unhinged vocals, and sunny hooks that sink deep into your already fevered brain.

The album also stands as the culmination of a long, bumpy, and funny history for these young Baltimore players. Starting almost 10 years ago, when they were barely teens, Shane, his brother Devin, and their next door neighbor Mikey Powers did as most young wannabe musicians do: dreamed of stardom before they had even played a note together. “All we did was have band meetings,” Shane remembers, laughing. “We’d be jumping on a trampoline and talking about the names of our first 20 albums and changing the name of the band every week.”

Eventually, the three cobbled together some actual instruments and started slowly learning how to play music by listening to their favorite White Stripes, The Beach Boys, and Devo tunes. What followed was a good five years of changing out band members, playing rough-and-tumble shows at parties, getting better as musicians, and learning how to write songs. “We used to play metal until [multi instrumentalist] Kory [Johnson] joined in 2010,” Shane says. “Then we became a grunge band that slowly shifted into writing pop songs.” The catalyst for this final step in their evolution was the inclusion of bassist Adam Shane, who jumped on board in 2012.

From that point on, Sun Club took off down the path that hundreds of bands have followed for the past 50+ years. The quintet toured endlessly, moving from basements to bars to bigger-venue opening gigs for the likes of Alvvays, Fidlar, and Fat White Family, and touring the U.K.

After self-releasing one well-received 7” and putting out an amazing EP, the group then started recording The Dongo Durango with their longtime collaborator and producer Steven Wright. Using an old warehouse space just outside of Baltimore as a makeshift studio, Wright set about recording the band live, all the better to capture the raw energy of their raucous performances. Just listen to the booming singalong of “Language Juice” and “Puppy Gumgum:” It’s like being in the room with the band, getting swept up in a youthful spirit that calls to mind Animal Collective’s pop freak-outs as filtered through Real Estate’s coastal bliss.

Sun Club plans to spend the better part of this year on the road to support the new album. After all, relentless touring, crisscrossing the country in a van named Booty, winning the hearts of new fans with every date, is what got the Baltimore band here in the first place. "Our beloved van Booty caught fire the day we announced the new album,” says Kory. “We have now got a new van which we will be naming Booty 2.0. It's symbolic of a new era to us; a new chapter for us as The Dongo Durango becomes public to the world.”

As you might expect from that description, the Bellingham, Washington-based prog-core three-piece covers a lot of terrain in each song — the five-minute “Shadow Deserts” interlaces yowling electronic effects with blistering Kurt Ballou-esque guitar moments and complex drumming syncopations. Singer/guitarist Josh Holland’s vocal range is akin to that of Halford — Holland takes it seamlessly from a lower register or whisper into controlled high-pitched screams that somehow serve the spastic onslaught perfectly.

Other numbers “The Wrecking Ball Unchained” and “Blood Maker” showcase the band’s propulsive blitz and include many compelling dynamic shifts and hazy atmospherics, whetting listeners’ appetites for a full-length effort. Blood Maker easily could be the best debut of 2014.

Wintersleep spent two years touring the world in support of their last album Welcome to the Night Sky, picking up a Juno Award back home in Canada for Best New Band and playing with the likes of White Lies, Editors and the Maccabees along the way. Unavoidable on UK radio, whether it was with storming live favourite, "Oblivion" or the festival- hit-in-waiting "Weighty Ghost". They did sessions for Zane Lowe at Radio 1, 6 Music, and XFM with platitudes heaped upon them from the likes of Mojo, Q, NME, Rock Sound, Clash, The Fly and The Word.

Lesser bands would have followed up this success with a simple re- write.. if it ain’t broke...instead, Wintersleep have chosen to make some of the most expansive, dynamic, dark and courageous rock music you'll hear this year.

There's a lot of time to kill when you play over 200 shows a year and Wintersleep have used it to their advantage. Quality time spent devouring work by the likes of Hank Williams, Jorge Luis Borges, Nathanial Hawthorne, Flannery O'Connor and Karen Dalton, in between understanding the dynamics of sound in a tiny space as well as the power of a 10,000 capacity room.

While their lyrics to date have focused on the personal, the songs on New Inheritors tend towards a bigger worldview. The narrator is a voyeur, commenting on situations rather than being in the situation itself. Without a doubt, a much more brooding, shadowy record, at times the lyrics verge on the intentionally indecipherable - check the pre-chorus to "Blood Collection" - suggesting a menacing, indefinable figure. Moments and memories are alluded to across multiple songs and overarching themes of alienation and despondency crop up repeatedly. But make no mistake this is not a miserable record, from album opener, ‘Experience The Jewel’ to the closer ‘Baltic’, New Inheritors is an album of rousing, inspirational rock songs.

Recorded in Montreal and mixed in Glasgow with Tony Doogan (Mogwai, Malcolm Middleton, Dirty Pretty Things, Teenage Fanclub, The Delgados), Wintersleep's sound is more expansive, less distorted and more cerebral. For the first time, the band opted to work with both a brass and string arranger on some songs, but rather than overpower with swathes of violins and trumpets, they form a core part of each track rather than an awkward add-on.

You may have felt like you had Wintersleep pegged and pigeonholed but this record will undoubtedly sweep away any misconceptions and win over a huge new audience. You may have thought you knew exactly what this record would sound like before you clicked play or dropped a needle. But you definitely will not have been expecting this