Description: Exuberance/Ebullience, banter, possibly an interview, context and connection, the familiar, the strange.
Find: Symphonies of Treble, Words Of Expectation, stab, skronk, shimmer, sheen, The New Sound of Now, Ideas for Walls, pleasure, pith, Flutter and Wow, Motorik, cowbells, disco akimbo, at least one Cantankerous Singer, The German Language, shards of glass, Ethiopian Punk, organic, synthetic, sawtooths & squarewaves, Library Riffage, yesterday's recipes, the wrong speed, intentional static, floating, ethereal, time and timelessness.
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Tonight!!! Pre-recorded; but almost live... [Short handfuls of minutes prior] ---- Babs w/ much music of all wondrous kinds + Derek w/ an interview from the past & music related to a Toronto show in progress at broadcast time... -------------------------------- On the eve of a Toronto show by The Ex in 2026: a once-only-aired Toronto interview w/ The Ex; which was recorded on the eve of a Toronto show by the Ex in 2011. Featured are Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer, interviewed at a table as all their bandmates ate + socialised. Listening back to it now, it seems like the perfect way to visit the world of The Ex. Voices of the band at play, sometimes overcoming the voices of the band at work. A blend of seriousness, duty to art, & friendly life-living. Where I once worried that the technical aspects of this interview was not up-to-par [on my part] throughout, now I love it for the artifact it is & the time/place/mood that it captures. ........ Originally I had thought this had gone unaired completely. My mistake. It was aired once in 2013 on Toronto's CIUT 89.5 FM on "No Beat Radio", a show [still going strong since the early nineties] co-founded by Minesh Mandoda, Michelle Breslin + myself (Derek.). Many thanks to Michelle Breslin for the patient & superlative editing of this interview between The Ex & an uncharacteristically nervous Derek. Many thanks to Minesh & Marco Landini for their steady steering of the No Beat Radio ship right into this present-day. Many thanks to CIUT [+ Ken Stowar] for the kind permission to rebroadcast. Many thanks to The Ex for the go-ahead to broadcast on one of their fav. stations WFMU. Very grateful for all things The Ex + the excellence they bring to the world. They are on tour currently, with tonight's stop in Toronto for the ever-wonderful "Tone" festival. https://theex.nl/
Music behind DJ:
Ocean Therapy
Rosy Sea
Along The Coast
Ambia
2024
The Ex
Monday Song
If Your Mirror Breaks
Ex Records
2025
"In true ‘Ex fashion’, If Your Mirror Breaks picks up where 27 Passports left off, and erupts like a musical short story collection, a ten-part series of surrealist daydreams, calls to action, ominous warnings and bursts of vitality tapped into the pulse of time. What time could be more appropriate to release this album in, as the current one? Arnold de Boer, Katherina Bornefeld, Andy Moor and Terrie Hessels once again impress with their trademark urgency and creativity.
Starting from a staccato Walt Whitman poem from 1861 and wrapping things up with the unstoppable, joyful thrust of “Great!”, the new album by The Ex is equal parts exploration and determination, with wistful shades accentuating their live wire intensity, unpredictability and sheer determination. Yes, there are moments of doubt and insecurity (“reality is shifting / there is no escape”), of distress (“I get desperate / I feel the wide washing of death”), but time and again, perseverance wins. As Bornefeld sings so aptly in her beautiful contribution “Wheel”: “New life force unfolds for those who flow / with the song of their souls.” ..............................
De Boer has a striking way with images. Walls speak, spiders write and turning into an apartment block becomes a life goal. Imagination and language become a refuge, but also weapons in times of loss and division. When you’re not afraid to question yourself and realise, in James Baldwin’s words, that “You could be that person / Be that monster, be that cop”, you might find a way out of it. It’s the way we interact that defines us. If Your Mirror Breaks is an album that brims with passion and commitment, with three guitars, voice and drums ready to revitalize, or overthrow, the old formulas. It is rugged and fierce, connecting the dots between the swaying waltz of “Circuit Breaker” and the overflowing lava energy of “In The Rain”. Steve Albini, whom the album is dedicated to, would have approved. ..........................
With music (and words) as committed, poetic, exciting and imaginative as this, The Ex has made one for the ages. A work that reflects the conflicting ideas and moods of its time, while pushing forward, convinced there’s always a more viable alternative around the
corner. It’s a process that never loses its thrilling buzz.
- Guy Peters, Geraardsbergen, 2025. " ........................ https://theex.bandcamp.com/
The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
Pt. 1. - The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
WFMU
2011 / 2026
Previously Unaired Interview: w/ The Ex: - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer (Circa: May 18, 2011... hours prior to their concert at Lee's Palace in Toronto, when Brass Unbound were collaborating with them.) --- This interview was recorded at a table where the whole band was eating together, back in the time before easily arranged web-based recordings; back in the time before streaming music... Has it really only been 15 years?) .................. "The Ex started playing in 1979. Using guitars, bass, drums and voice as their starting point The Ex have continued to musically explore undiscovered areas right up to the present day: collaborations with jazz musicians and an Iraqi-Kurdish band, Kamagurka, Tom Cora, Sonic Youth, Han Bennink, Jan Mulder, Shellac and Wolter Wierbos. In 2002 The Ex set up a lively musical exchange with Ethiopia." --------- https://theex.nl
*
The Ex
Great! (LP Version)
If Your Mirror Breaks
Ex Records
2025
The 7" inch version was released a year earlier in 2024. Both sides were later released as different LP versions on the full-length from 2025. This is the LP version. From 'Felthat - Reviews": "The Ex is a legend, a dynamic hybrid that will soon span 50 years of collective, collaborative and expanding work. Through many personal changes and changes in the style and music itself, they are still here. And what a great comeback it is. .......................... When I was thinking of approaching this album, I thought: maybe a different mindset and different aspects should be highlighted this time, when I will try to describe their music. And I feel even stronger now that the best way to do it is simply story telling, a narrative that is more on pair with literature. My first thought was what Ryszard Kapuscinski once said about learning history through personal stories of individuals from all walks of life but surely someone who has been affected by the history. .................... Who couldn't tell this tale better than The Ex'ers. ................. “reality is shifting / there is no escape” ....................... “I get desperate / I feel the wide washing of death” - those are just two lines that you can hear here on the album. Shattered illusions and shattered ideas of life well lived and other existential aspects are present here in one way or another. Put it in a wider concept of how The Ex has existed in the social space as well as their cultural approach towards blending different elements of music and their experience in this field - and the picture is already deepening and widening. .......................... There is something else in their output and that thing is perseverance and the energy that both sustains it and stems from it. They are impossibly energetic and somewhat through the cracks of pessimism, the realism and optimism re-appears. Maybe we should treat The Ex as a proper ''radio music'' that uplifts and shatters all the negativity. I have had that feeling throughout listening of this album. ..................... Blend ethnic music with crunchy post-punk experimental guitars, polyrhythmic net of Katherina's drumming along with Arnold's vocals and spoken word poetry. There you go... They are back and will stay here for good." ...................................... ........................ https://theex.bandcamp.com/
The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
Pt. 2. - The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
WFMU
2011 / 2026
Previously Unaired Interview: w/ The Ex: - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer (Circa: May 18, 2011... hours prior to their concert at Lee's Palace in Toronto, when Brass Unbound were collaborating with them.) --- This interview was recorded at a table where the whole band was eating together, back in the time before easily arranged web-based recordings; back in the time before streaming music... Has it really only been 15 years?) .................. "The Ex started playing in 1979. Using guitars, bass, drums and voice as their starting point The Ex have continued to musically explore undiscovered areas right up to the present day: collaborations with jazz musicians and an Iraqi-Kurdish band, Kamagurka, Tom Cora, Sonic Youth, Han Bennink, Jan Mulder, Shellac and Wolter Wierbos. In 2002 The Ex set up a lively musical exchange with Ethiopia." --------- https://theex.nl
*
The Ex & Brass Unbound
Belomi Benna
Enormous Door
Ex Records
2013
"The Ex have hooked up with one of the most powerful horn sections imaginable and sparks are sure to fly. Since 1979 this inspired, intrepid and seminal band has consistently pushed the envelope, plotting a restless course from their anarchist punk origins to embrace everything from fractured noise to Ethiopian groove. Their thrillingly raw and rhythmic rock sound is born from their ideals, musical friendships/networks and work ethic. Alive to the moment, they are sometimes described as “experimental trance-dance avant-afro-punk improv music” and no one knows what descriptions this metamorphosis will conjure up. ........................... The Ex unleash a wild and combustible show in collaboration with four of the world's most powerful and performative horn players for some in-the-red swing time. Brass Unbound comprise Swedish force of nature Mats Gustafsson (saxophone), Chicago jazz heavyweight Ken Vandermark (saxophone), Italian wild card Roy Paci (trumpet) and boundary busting classical/futurist Wolter Wierbos (trombone). The line up is dexterous and dangerous, as players, improvisers and entertainers, this group is nothing short of phenomenal. Expect fireworks. ..................... The Ex have been involved in a steady stream of boundary-breaking collaborations, releases, tours and films that have established them as a unique but under-acknowledged force in rock music, who are always on the move, but always sound like The Ex" ......................The Ex ---
Andy Moor: guitar, baritone guitar //
Terrie Hessels: guitar, baritone guitar //
Arnold de Boer: vocals, guitar, sampler //
Katherina Bornefeld: drums, vocals ........ -------
Brass Unbound ---
Mats Gustafsson: baritone saxophone //
Ken Vandermark: tenor and baritone saxophones, clarinet //
Wolter Wierbos: trombone //
Roy Paci: trumpet ---
................ https://theex.bandcamp.com/
The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
Pt. 3. - The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
WFMU
2011 / 2026
Previously Unaired Interview: w/ The Ex: - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer (Circa: May 18, 2011... hours prior to their concert at Lee's Palace in Toronto, when Brass Unbound were collaborating with them.) --- This interview was recorded at a table where the whole band was eating together, back in the time before easily arranged web-based recordings; back in the time before streaming music... Has it really only been 15 years?) .................. "The Ex started playing in 1979. Using guitars, bass, drums and voice as their starting point The Ex have continued to musically explore undiscovered areas right up to the present day: collaborations with jazz musicians and an Iraqi-Kurdish band, Kamagurka, Tom Cora, Sonic Youth, Han Bennink, Jan Mulder, Shellac and Wolter Wierbos. In 2002 The Ex set up a lively musical exchange with Ethiopia." --------- https://theex.nl
*
The Ex & Brass Unbound
24 Problems (33 1/3 Festival, 21-12-2012)
The Ex at Bimhuis (1991-2015)
Ex Records/BIMHUIS
2015
"The Ex 33 1/3 Festival", 22-12-2012 ........... The Ex & Brass Unbound: Peter Evans, Wolter Wierbos, Joost Buis, Xavier Charles, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark and Ab Baars. ............." https://theex.bandcamp.com/ ...................... "THIS DIGITAL ALBUM INCLUDES BONUS ITEM: 32-pages booklet scan in PDF
A 2CD compilation from almost 25 years of history of The Ex at the Bimhuis, Amsterdam, one of the world's leading jazz clubs. Twelve exciting concerts and festivals with dozens of amazing guests from all over the planet: the almost legendary first gig in June 1991 with guests Han Bennink, Wolter Wierbos, Ab Baars and comedian Herr Seele; the October Meeting; Han Buhrs PodiumPrijs; ICP Jubilee; The Ex Orkest; three Getatchew Mekuria nights; a New Year's Eve party; two nights of the 33⅓ Festival; concert for children May 2015. ..........
CD at The Ex shop - exmailorder.nl/shop/the-ex-at-bimhuis .........
The Ex Records / Bimhuis 2015 ..........
EX 143/144D / BIM 011 ..........
released June 10, 2015 "
The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
Pt. 4. - The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
The Ex: Interview - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer - WFMU: Transmissions From Echo Beach (Circa 2011)
WFMU
2011 / 2026
Previously Unaired Interview: w/ The Ex: - Katherina Bornefeld & Arnold de Boer (Circa: May 18, 2011... hours prior to their concert at Lee's Palace in Toronto, when Brass Unbound were collaborating with them.) --- This interview was recorded at a table where the whole band was eating together, back in the time before easily arranged web-based recordings; back in the time before streaming music... Has it really only been 15 years?) "The Ex started playing in 1979. Using guitars, bass, drums and voice as their starting point The Ex have continued to musically explore undiscovered areas right up to the present day: collaborations with jazz musicians and an Iraqi-Kurdish band, Kamagurka, Tom Cora, Sonic Youth, Han Bennink, Jan Mulder, Shellac and Wolter Wierbos. In 2002 The Ex set up a lively musical exchange with Ethiopia." --------- https://theex.nl
*
The Ex
The Apartment Block
If Your Mirror Breaks
Ex Records
2025
"In 1982, the Ex named its second album History Is What’s Happening. Four and a half decades since the band’s founding and a couple up-endings of the world order later, the Amsterdam-based quartet remains unerringly perspicacious. The 10 songs on If Your Mirror Breaks are by turns unsparing and surreal takes on the tasks of witnessing and persisting in overwhelming times. ....................... The Ex is ready to face the conflict on opener “Beat Beat Drums.” But certainty is a luxury soon lost; just one song later, guitarist/vocalist Arnold De Boer sounds like he’s drowning as he tries to make sense of a catastrophe in which everything is where it’s not supposed to be and nothing is nailed down. No wonder that he sings in another song about wanting to grow up to be an apartment block; bricks stand a better chance than flesh and blood in this world. The group’s other vocalist, drummer Katherina Bornefeld, gets just one song, “The Wheel,” but it’s History Is What’s Happening’s philosophical center. In the face of internal and external change, neither of which can be denied, she casts her lot with the ever-emerging life force. ....................... But you don’t turn to the Ex for thoughtfulness alone. The band’s very sound, an intricate system of interlocking rhythms and jagged textures, embodies that living energy. Bornefeld’s clattering beats are ruggedly undeniable and forever non-standard; she’s probably the best person on earth to sit behind the kit whenever some wiseacre yells, “More cowbell!” The guitars of De Boer, Terrie Hessel and Andy Moor stake out an immense dynamic range, battering one moment and dropping to flickering sparks the next. Sometimes it feels like they’re going to crash and collapse, but each flirtation with entropy resolves into a reenergized surge. ...................... If Your Mirror Breaks is too honest to lie to you about the times, but so exhilarating that it makes you believe that the truth will make it through."........................ https://theex.bandcamp.com/
Not A Band
Ode To The Ether
Modern Rot
Self-Released
2025
Not A Band are a multi-headed glorious beast from Toronto, Ontario. They will be opening for The Ex tonight in Toronto. They are fantastic to behold ---- be sure to see them/listen... Tonight or any time... ............................... From the "Tone Fest" write-up: "not a band is Kalina Nedelcheva, Danny Alexander, Mitchel Lohmeier, Roya Biazar, Victor Ostrovsky & Marilyn Yogarajah. A carpe diem home-recording project quickly grew into a musical ensemble of friends from different disciplines & perspectives. not a band’s sound is playfully chaotic, energetic & experimental. It draws influence from new wave, post-punk, jazz, grunge, spoken word, free improvisation & avant-garde sounds. ....................................... The group is known for its lively theatrical performances, complex scores of unexpected tonal transitions & a laid-back, collective creative direction, which can be observed in the ‘not our job’ zine, the stop-motion music video for ‘Paprika,’ our all-improv side-project ‘band’ & a forthcoming video project for our latest EP, ‘Modern Rot.’"
https://hiwerenotaband.bandcamp.com/
Andy Moor & Yannis Kyriakides
Today is the Same As Yesterday
A Life Is A Billion Heartbeats (Improvisations on old Rebetika Songs)
Unsounds Records
2014
"Rebetika songs quoted: Markos Vamvakaris - The Blue Windows (1), Kostas Bezos - I Wasted Away (2), Markos Vamvakaris - When I Smoke the Nargile (3), Kostas Bezos - This Summer (4), Rita Abadzi - Gazeli Neva Sabah (5), Anestis Delias - When I Enter the Teke (6), Vassilis Tsitsanis - Improvisation (7), Giorgos Batis - Gypsy (8). "Psyche" is an edited version of a piece originally written for a solo dance piece called 'Psyche' choreographed by Gabriella Maiorino and performed by Valentina Campora. Different versions of "A Life is a Billion Heartbeats" and "Everyone Should Think About Their Final Breath" were originally created for a dance piece called "A Divine Threesome" choreographed by Gabriella Maiorino. "This Summer" first appeared on Sound-eyet's compilation "On A Steady Diet of Hash, Bread, & Salt". Slowed down bird sounds on vinyl used on "Wasting Away" from Letizia Renzini. .......................
Unsounds, 47U, 2014. ...........
released January 1, 2014 ............ From the "Tone Fest" info: "Hailing from opposite ends of the experimental music spectrum Amsterdam based Andy Moor and Yannis Kyriakides have been making music together for over 20 years now, brought together by a mutual passion for 1920’s & 30’s underground Greek rebetika music. The combination of Yannis’ remarkable compositional skills and Andy’s improvisational work with guitar, results in a loose but well structured musical landscape that constantly shifts and surprises the musicians playing as much as the audience."
........................
Andy Moor - electric guitar & baritone guitar // Yannis Kyriakides - computer & analogue synths " https://unsounds.bandcamp.com/album/a-life-is-a-billion-heartbeats
Music behind DJ:
The Ex & Brass Unbound
Red Cow
Enormous Door
Ex Records
2013
"Emerging as an anarchist punk rock quartet in 1979, The Ex began to frequently work with jazz musicians within their first decade. Their 1989 album Joggers and Smoggers, 1995's Instant, and the singles series the band released in 1991 and 1992 featured extensive collaborations with members of the Dutch free jazz ensemble Instant Composers Pool (ICP), and 2001's Een Rondje Holland presented a larger horn section as part of the band's Ex Orkest. As the band developed their repertoire into the 21st century, they turned their attention to Ethiojazz and were backing Addis Ababa saxophonist Getachew Mekurya on world tours and for his 2006 album Moa Anbessa with French, Dutch, and Canadian musicians Xavier Charles, Joost Buis, and Brodie West on clarinet, trombone and alto saxophone. The Ex's 2010 album Catch My Shoe featured trumpet work by Italian Roy Paci, and when The Ex returned to record a final album with Mekurya in 2012, they were joined by Chicago reed player Ken Vandermark, as well as Buis, Charles, West, and ICP trombonist Wolter Wierbos.
..............................
Amidst these collaborations with The Ex, a new international collective of horn players gradually formed and by 2010 adopted the name "Brass Unbound" after Johan van der Keuken's 1993 film of the same name. In his film, Van der Keuken follows the development of the European brass band tradition in the former Dutch colonies to include traditional marching bands to more hybridized forms of brass music that combine European instruments with Ghanaian rhythms. Independent of concerts with Getatchew Mekurya, Brass Unbound began touring as a live act with The Ex in 2010. For these concerts, the ensemble wrote and improvised new material, as well as reworkings of songs from The Ex's catalog. .........................
Released in 2013, Enormous Door catalogues The Ex's material with Brass Unbound. The songs "Bicycle Illusion" from their first album with vocalist Arnold de Boer and "Our Leaky Homes" from a 2011 single rearrange their songs to make space for horn parts. A popular love song by Ethiopian singer Mahmoud Ahmed that had long been in The Ex's live set with Getatchew Mekurya is sung by drummer Katherina Bornefeld. And The Ex's tribute to Congolese street band Konono Nº1, which first appeared on the Ex's 2004 album as "Theme from Konono", resurfaces as "Theme from Konono Nº2" on Enormous Door. .....................
Previously unreleased songs comprise the remainder of the album, leading with the North African-inspired "Last Famous Words", with others exploring themes from punk culture, free jazz, and leftist politics." .....................The Ex ---
Andy Moor: guitar, baritone guitar //
Terrie Hessels: guitar, baritone guitar //
Arnold de Boer: vocals, guitar, sampler //
Katherina Bornefeld: drums, vocals ........ -------
Brass Unbound ---
Mats Gustafsson: baritone saxophone //
Ken Vandermark: tenor and baritone saxophones, clarinet //
Wolter Wierbos: trombone //
Roy Paci: trumpet ---
................ https://theex.bandcamp.com/
The Oscillation
Liquid Memory Man
Out Of Phase
DC Recordings
2007
The brainchild of multi-instrumentalist and producer Demian Castellanos, the Oscillation has risen out of the ashes of the critically acclaimed Orichalc Phase. The tracks on Out of Phase show an artist who is as comfortable making Pop songs as he is recording expansive Psychedelic freak outs. Tracks like 'Respond in Silence' demand comparison with the harder edge of the 70's Krautrock scene. The vocals tones of "Hear Your Sadness' recall bands like Spiritualized or Loop at their most medicated, 'Liquid Memoryman' like the Ruts battling their way out of an echo chamber to a background of white noise. Also features the single 'Head Hang Low', a blissed-out reworking of Julian Cope's moribund ballad from 1984. DC. 2007. They are still releasing music, with a SHIT TON of releases to choose from. I like this British Krautrock.
Heavy Lungs
Late Night Burger
Single
Belch Records
2026
I had a late night burger last night and it was very good. And this is not Poppa Iggy... Heavy Lungs continue their obsessions with food...but have gone from Caviar to greasy late night burgers..."Heavy Lungs is definitely one of the most fascinating groups from that dreary England, the country where people like to eat soggy fries, drowned in vinegar and wrapped in newspaper. The Brits have already released two albums, and “Late Night Burger” is a brand-new single from the quartet from Bristol.
Holy bim-bam bells, what a menacing sound is coming out of those instruments from that quartet right now?! This is a truly über-cool sound and it sounds really scary. Look, this is *the* reason why you have to listen to fresh batches of music every single day, because suddenly there’s something in there that sounds truly different. Not much actually happens in the song itself, though, but that sound is so creepy that it’s just starting to become psychopathic. And that 'background vocals', they are ugly and screechy, as if someone is being flayed alive and then has to eat their own skin in front of their own family. And yet, somehow, it could also be called a bit cute. Honestly, we can’t figure it out; just listen to this sinister little piece of work of less than three minutes for yourself. " There is a video and yes go watch it.
*
K.H. Mirth
Falling Over
The KH Mirth
KOFF
2020
The KH Mirth is the debut full-length release from K.H. mirth. Two years in the making (owing to procrastination rather than perfectionism) the album begins to map out a territory between proto-punk/pre-punk/post-punk and hunky-punk. Group vocals choral or caterwaul, lyrics that wear a sardonic grin, a mess of guitar lines that trip over each other, a driving primal underbeat - these are the markers of the mirth in formation.
K. H. mirth is a band from Leicester, formed from past members of Thee Ludds and Earth Rod. In their desire to see what can happen if you keep things unrepentantly basic, KH are committed to taking two steps back before they take one step forward. I have a feeling Marc Riley really likes this band and if he doesn't he SHOULD.
Sweeping Promises
Cocoon
You Say I Romanticize
Sub Pop
2026
Sweeping Promises has shared an official video for their smoldering new single, “Cocoon,” available now on all streaming platforms. Following lead single and pummeling album opener “Shooting Shadows,” “Cocoon” is the second offering from the post-punk duo’s forthcoming third album, You Say I Romanticize, out worldwide on August 14th on Sub Pop. The video was co-produced by Shawn Brackbill and the band.
Of the track, the band says, “We wrote ‘Cocoon’ years ago to extend our live set back when we only knew the ten songs from our first album. It has become a staple of our live set over the years and has undergone several metamorphoses in our home studio, as we wanted to develop this track in a disarming and dead-simple way for the ‘live sound’ mentality of YSIR. The music video intercuts homegrown live footage of the band playing shows in the Kansas community with the sculptural and psychogeographic idea of the cocoon, which entices and finally envelops our singer, Lira Mondal.”
Recorded over an 18-month period, You Say I Romanticize is a tribute to the chaos of creation and collaboration under shifting circumstances.
*
Parisian Orgy
Four Boys
Parisian Orgy
Neon Taste
2025
Parisian Orgy go a long way to convince you they aren’t that great. They call themselves a “slapstick” band, speak with cheeky disdain about their use of “toy instruments,” and, at first glance, seem to relegate their music to something that veers closer to good kitsch than art. All of this self-deprecation betrays how adroitly the collective plait together playfulness and malaise. How they write fantastically frantic, pin-eyed songs, packed with sharp-angled turns, rubbery basslines and twee vocalizations. Or how their newest self-titled full-length may just be one of the finest art punk albums released last year.
Transmitting from the Red House Studios, a multimedia art space in Calgary, they cram themselves at a work-table, trying to all be visible in my camera. Still, with six of them (and this with a couple of key members missing!), Kyle, the guitarist, is left out of view, a mythical voice that chimes in intermittently with a sarcastic riposte.
Gwen Morgan, the band’s de facto leader, had first started the project in 2015. Slowly since then, it has been accumulating members and instruments, and rotating roles, shaping itself into the Parisian Orgy we know and love today.
“Some people wanted to be in the band. Some people got wrangled into the band. But once you join, you cannot leave. That’s the rule,” she quips.
“For a long time, Parisian Orgy was a very femme band. Then Tyler joined and ruined it by fucking bringing penis into the band! Now there’s three of them,” laughs Nyssa Brown, the band’s singer/singer, and occasional bassist. All the best aspects of Delta 5, the Slits and the Mo-Dettes get passed through their singular prism into a tight nine-song set heaving with great ideas and instincts. They add a tasteful touch of dub on “Jazz Song for Shrimp,” pump “Parasite” full of cavernous atmospherics, and throw in a wicked cover of Tokow Boys, an oft-forgotten gem from the catacombs of 80’s post-punk. Altogether, their album is an intoxicating listen, bristly and lyrical, as melodic as it is unhinged. I LOVE THIS BAND
Pan Amsterdam, The 1FS
Szechuan Beef
Def Presse
2026
Pan Amsterdam (the genre-bending alias of jazz trumpeter and vocalist Leron Thomas) teamed up with New York composer and visual artist The1FS to deliver "Szechuan Beef", an eccentric, lo-fi fusion of jazz and hip-hop. My favourite hip hop act going these days. He definitely has beef...with junk, stupidity, mediocrity, systemic shitty everything. As he should. Pan Am tells it straight.
*
Music behind DJ:
Keith Mansfield
Sunset Trip
KPM Series 1000: The Big Screen
KPM Library Ltd.
1972
Les Big Byrd
Hoekvind
Ruin Everything
Chimp Limbs
2026
“We all know what’s coming,” sings Jocke Åhlund on “Big Flood,” the epic centrepiece to the fifth album from his band Les Big Byrd. The track reckons with Ragnarök, the Norse mythological prophecy of the apocalypse, which is fitting; Ruin Everything is informed by the world around it, and accordingly, it swirls with dystopian portent. The Stockholm stalwarts’ signature blend of psych and krautrock remains as adventurous as ever, as the four-piece confront death, desolation and a world on the brink.
The four-piece, comprising Jocke Åhlund (Teddybears, Caesars) bassist Frans Johansson, keyboardist Christian Olsson and drummer Nino Keller, have marked themselves out as one of Sweden’s most consistently thrilling rock outfits with their willingness to counterbalance experimental psych odysseys with irresistibly straightforward pop songs. “I can never stop myself from writing melodies,” explains Åhlund. “I don’t really enjoy singing that much, but there ended up being quite a few vocal tracks on this record.” In that respect, the band continue in the same vein as 2023’s Diamonds, Rhinestones and Hard Rain; they pick up where they left off with pulsating opener “Hökvind,” which sees the guitars and synth lines spiral skywards on a track with a title that Åhlund wryly notes translates into English as ‘Hawkwind.’
*
Det Jordiska
Den Jordiska
Det Jordiska
Lazy Octopus
2018
hashtags: electronic metal rock alternative hip-hop/rap experimental punk pop ambient "Functional musical group residing in the strange realms of northern Sweden. ""When Det Jordiska steps on, they take over with their scruffy, slightly arty rock where the pulse of the drum machine meets angular guitars and lyrics about Norrbotten."
Hot Garbage
Easy Believer
Single
Self Releaed
2024
Calling on the driving rhythms of dark post-punk and motorik krautrock, Toronto’s Hot Garbage seamlessly work shining melodies and swirling textures into deliberate, brooding arrangements...Following the release of EPs Max Blonda in November 2017 and Coco’s Paradise in April 2019, Hot Garbage entered the studio with Juno-nominated producer Graham Walsh (of evil experimental Toronto supergroup Holy F*ck) in early 2020 to cut a selection of tracks live off the floor. The result was a blazing standalone single, Easy Believer,...Fans of Sonic Youth, Broadcast and 70’s era Iggy Pop should no doubt find a familiar pull into their raw sound, which draws inspiration from a wide and eclectic range of musical genres and art forms.
The Sick Man of Europe
Obsolete
The Sick Man of Europe
The Leaf Label
2025
"The Sick Man of Europe’s Music Is Succour for the Soul"
The British-American poet W. H. Auden, in his poem “The Age of Anxiety” (1947), highlights humanity’s isolation in an increasingly industrialized and failing world. Nearly 80 years later, the Sick Man of Europe is picking up the threads of the same discussion: how to navigate in a world that is diametrically opposed to our needs? How not to lose your ipseity in a data-driven culture vying for your attention? Sick Man of Europe’s eponymous debut album is an exploration of these existential matters—and more. The Sick Man of Europe is candid—if not provocative. “We eat, we fight, we shit,” he intones in “Profane Not Profound”, which is not lurid in the slightest. Instead, it captures a poetic vulgarity, as if the Sick Man of Europe is taking a lesson from the French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud. More importantly, it exposes the bestiality of man—a reminder of what lies behind the mask in an age when life seems to be purely operating on the surface level or a digital screen. “Obsolete”, is about a character who, due to the rapid pace of modernity, feels irrelevant, leading to him wanting to be put out to pasture: “Retire me, make me obsolete”. Then he begins to recite corporate jargon: “growth” and “progression”. It illustrates how he cannot escape workplace parlance, even if he wanted to. Bad enough? He starts believing in the message: “Progression is inherent, that is that”. The Sick Man of Europe highlights the adverse effects of complicity in the digital age, resulting in a Kafkaesque nightmare; this record serves as a clarion call. COMPLICITY WILL KILL US ALL.
Music behind DJ:
Alan Parker, Alan Hackshaw
Blue Haze
Contemporary Contrasts
Themes Intl Music
1977
Love As Laughter
Uninvited Trumpets
The Greks Bring Gifts
Sam Jayne
1996
Love as Laughter was an American indie rock band from Olympia, Washington. The band was formed in 1994 by vocalist & guitarist Sam Jayne as a solo project following the break-up of his previous band, Lync. In 2008, the band signed with Isaac Brock's label Glacial Pace & released the album Holy. At the time, the band featured Jayne, Ivan Berko on bass, Zeke Howard on drums, Andy Macleod on guitar ‘ Robbie Lee on keyboards.Jayne was found dead on December 15, 2020, at the age of 46.
Oscillator Bug
Dancing In The Night
Return to Ambrosia
Volutus Records
2026
Chicago’s analog synth melting psych-pop artist Oscillator Bug is like a force of nature in the age of climate change: unpredictable. Borrowing from the revolution-minded mass hallucinations of 60s psych as well as weirdo bedroom pop and several decades worth of avant-garde synth experimentalism, Oscillator Bug is a wild, infectious and occasionally disturbing rendering of 21st Century popular music. Taking the sounds of indie pop and warping them just to the point where they're still recognizable yet undeniably altered, Oscillator Bug is the twisted pop brainchild of Zaid Maxwell. Breaking down genres like new wave, indie pop, and post-punk and rebuilding them in a way that's broken but functional, the project feels like the synth world's answer to Ween, offering up fractured reflections of familiar genres and sounds that serve as both pastiche and commentary. Oscillator Bug made its debut with Bursts of the Million, released by Dymaxion Groove in 2014.
*
The Intelligence, Alice Sandahl
Getting Gravotropic
Witches Woo
Vapid Moonlighting Inc
2026
“Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself,” says Miles Davis. It took Lars Finberg twenty-seven years. As leader of post-punk garage smart-asses The Intelligence, as well as stints drumming for psych rock all-stars Thee Oh Sees and Seattle’s experimental post-punk
luminaries The A-Frames, Finberg honed the sharp but playful inversion of garage punk he’s become known for.
And now he debuts Witches Woo - a double LP that marks number 13 in the Intelligence catalog, or “number 3 in Phase 2” says Finberg, referencing transitional albums Lil’ Peril (2022) and Now, Squirm (2024), which both saw him drop everything he knew in search of new beginnings. His work on those two albums, as well as scoring a feature film, were the necessary steps towards a bigger and more authentic idea of what his music could be. Not that he wasn’t already singular - an idiosyncratic songwriter doing his best to stretch the limits of recognizable genres, Finberg earned his place as a cult favorite in the underground rock world. But Witches Woo ushers in a new era - this is music beyond genre, influence or convention. It’s music as direct extension of personality. It’s music that doesn’t come from the “Lars Finberg” persona, but from the person himself. It’s joyous, strange, vulnerable, and above all searching. It feels less like listening to a collection of songs than it does being led through a musical landscape that connects you directly to another person’s subconscious. It’s cinematic in its immersiveness, stripping away structure to expose the raw creative act, the inspiration and emotion at the heart of it. Witches Woo is eleven songs divided into four sections, one for each season, and it attempts to traverse, in 69 minutes, as big a space as one year of human life. It’s a symphony of electronic bedroom big band storytelling, chittering circuit board warbling vocals and lovelorn musings that ebb and flow like the aforementioned seasons.
*
Wah Together
Teen Vito
Let's Wah Together
DedStrange
2022
As the economics of music-making increasingly push young artists to work alone and “in the box,” Wah Together rejects anti-social techbro musical austerity in favor of spontaneous face-to-face creation. Wah Together is a New York band with members of LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture, Longwave, and Electroputas. So you know they are good. Really good.
Music behind DJ:
Keith Mansfield
Life of Leisure
KPM Series 1000: The Big Screen
KPM Library
1972
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