This week’s edition of “Pump Up The Jam” features A Band Aparte, Myrkur, Marching Church, Axis: Sova, Vallens, and more.
If you miss the days of moody yet catchy alternative pop with a Goth twist, there is good news. A Band Aparte has a new album out today called Memory On Trial from Manifesto and it fulfills all of those needs and more.
Check out the single “Cherry Chapstick” and you’ll see just what I mean.
Buy Memory On Trial here. You can also catch A Band Aparte live on September 23 and 24 at the Desert Stars Festival in Pioneertown, CA.
Also out today is the much-anticipated sophomore album from MYRKUR, the Danish black metal artist that is making a lot of music fans sit up and take notice. Rather than relying on the tired trope of the “Cookie Monster” vocals, MYRKUR boasts gorgeous, piercing vocals from Amalie Bruun, who also provides all of the music. The result is something akin to what it might sound like if the elves of Lothlorien started a black metal band. Mausoleum features acoustic versions of the songs from MYRKUR’s debut M, which came out in August 2015.
Mausoleum is out from Relapse Records and you can purchase it from MYRKUR’s website.
There’s a new single coming up from A Shoreline Dream called “Whirlwind.” When I read their press release description as RIYL: Bauhaus, Love and Rockets, The Damned I was skeptical, but damn it if that isn’t just what they sound like. It’s an unusual and refreshing combination.
The full-length release is still in progress; in a clever move, the band is releasing one track at a time. “Whirlwind” will be released on September 2, but you can check it out on Bandcamp now.
One of my fave releases of this year thus far has been Vallens’ Consent. Now there’s a video for “Devour” and it’s got that creepy, dreamy David Lynch quality you’ve been craving.
For an interview with Vallens’ Robyn Phillips, check out Popshifter.
It’s been awhile since we heard anything new from Iceage, but fear not! Marching Church has a new single, video, and an upcoming album out from Sacred Bones on October 28 called Telling It Like It Is.
The band is comprised of Iceage singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt and his bandmate Johan S. Weith (electric viola, guitar), fellow Danish post-punk band Lower’s rhythm section of Kristian Emdal (bass) and Anton Rothstein (drums), Jakob Emil Lamdahl (trumpet) and Hand of Dust’s Bo Høyer Hansen (guitar). The band also includes Maaike Van der Linde (flute) and Thora Sveinsdottir (strings) of theStargaze Orchestra, and the Choir of Young Believers’ Sonja La Bianca (saxophone).
More experimental and challenging than Iceage, but less post-punk than Lower, Marching Church is another breath of fresh air from the Copenhagen indie music scene. Here’s “Heart of Life.”
If you like Male Gaze and Ty Segall you’ll probably love the new track from Axis: Sova called “Violent Yellow,” out now from God? Records (Ty Segall’s Drag City label imprint). The full-length, Motor Earth, comes out on October 14.
There’s a documentary out today called Almost Holy that you might want to catch in theaters. Here’s a synopsis:
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s social and political institutions faced massive change, including an increasingly corrupt government and crippled infrastructure. A number of the nation’s youth wound up homeless and addicted to a lethal cocktail of injected cold medicine and alcohol. Steve Hoover’s documentary follows a pastor named Gennadiy Mokhnenko, who saves street kids, at times by forcible abduction, and brings them to his Pilgrim Republic rehabilitation center—the largest organization of its kind in the former Soviet Union.
Bobby Krlic (Haxan Cloak) and Atticus and Leopold Ross contributed to the score. Based on this unsettling and powerful sample track, “The End,” the soundtrack seems like it will stand on its own merits.
Also on the soundtrack front is the vinyl release of the From Beyond score from Waxwork Records. Directed by Stuart Gordon, From Beyond is a 1986 sci fi body horror classic with a soundtrack from composer Richard Band. The soundtrack won the award for Best Original Soundtrack at the Catalonian International Film Festival in Stiges, Spain, and Waxwork’s newly re-mastered release is the first time that the complete soundtrack has been released on vinyl.
From the press release: “Features include deluxe packaging with 180 gram colored vinyl, heavyweight old style tip-on gatefold jackets, liner notes from both director Stuart Gordon and composer Richard Band, and all new artwork by Marc Schoenbach of Sadist Art Designs.”
You can purchase the soundtrack here.
Because I’ve been listening to them a lot this week, here’s a #FlashbackFriday to an old song by The Cure, “Sinking,” in a live performance from earlier this year.
