[listen & order Metallic Life Review]

Metallic Life Review is finally out! An album made purely of metallic sounds collected over the years from Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt. The album is an electronic sonic journey, made from pots and pans, cemetery gates, quarters, salad bowls, and other mundane, strange items-turned-instruments. We’re so excited that fans can finally enjoy this record where Matmos play sounds and smack metallic objects!

Matmos continue the US leg of tour at the following dates. Get your tickets now:

Jun. 25 - Philadelphia, PA - Solar Myth [tickets]
Jun. 29 - Chicago, IL - Constellation [tickets]
Jul. 3 - Louisville, KY - Art Sanctuary [tickets]
Jul. 4 - Pittsburgh, PA - The Government Center [tickets]
Jul. 8 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall [tickets]
Jul. 11 - Los Angeles, CA - 2220 Arts [tickets]
Jul. 16 - Portland, OR - Holocene [tickets]
Aug. 30 - Washington, DC - Black Cat [tickets]

 

[listen & order Second Circle The Horizon]

Sally Anne Morgan paints a vivid and serene canvas of Appalachian pastures with new album Second Circle The Horizon. The sounds are lush, light, and piercing. Improvising with the fiddle, banjo, hurdy gurdy, shruti box, electric guitar, and more, Morgan's latest is as simple as it is rare, as innovative as it is traditional. It is an honor to share this fantastic record with you!

Available now on limited edition Opaque Lavender or Classic Black LP and CD and every version includes a digital download.

Manslaughter 777, the duo composed of drummers/programmers Lee Buford (The Body, Sightless Pit, Dead Times, Everyone Asked About You) and Zac Jones (MSC, Nothing, Braveyoung) have shared the shapeshifting, transfigurative single "Silk Barricade," a warped suite adeptly shifting between grooves, its dub-gone-jungle drop eventually met with an industrial breakdown.

God's World will not be available on major streaming platforms — only on the Thrill Jockey site and Bandcamp.

Listen now and grab a Limited LP copy.

Artist and naturalist Sally Anne Morgan has shared the pastoral new single "Eye is the First", taken from her new album Second Circle The Horizon, out on June 20th.

Named for the Ralph Waldo Emerson essay Circles, where the album also pulls it's name, specifically "The Eye is the First Circle, the horizon is the second."

The piece is a rustling journey through the pasture, with a lush blend of organic textural instruments freely moving in and out of focus, its repetitive guitar figures laying out rolling hills with chittering wildlife dotting the horizon and banjo shaped like rain and shadows.

[listen to the track here]

The distinction of looking out beyond oneself and the cyclical nature of life’s patterns became central focuses of Morgan’s outlook and craft. In her own experience, circling back to her second pregnancy and to the ideas that started Cups (2021), coincided with her desire to meditate on circularity, to take in, create, and unleash something new imprinted with her voice as part of the chorus around her. The pieces themselves are true evocations of environmental atmosphere, replete with fleeting moments of joy, the buzzing din and repetitions of daily life, and spells of quiet solace.

Pre order Second Circle The Horizon on Lavender LP & receive it before it is widely available next month!

[pre-order]

Matmos, the duo of Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt, have shared new single "Steel Tongues," taken from their upcoming album Metallic Life Review, out June 20th. The track's loping bassline is constructed from a metallic salad bowl, gently propelling the piece as layers of glockenspiel and steel tongue drum dance in sweet melodies atop before grinding towards a scraping conclusion.

[listen now & buy a copy of Metallic Life Review]

Matmos' Drew Daniel elaborates on the themes and construction of the piece:

"This song has a kind of buried allegory about capitalism inside it: the rhythm is partially made out of clinking a handful of American quarters, and some of the beat is made by sampling one of those “executive desk toys” called a “Newton’s cradle” that you used to see on the desks of people in the 1980s, the one with the swinging metal balls. But the last sound of the song is the distorted noise made by the gates of a cemetery. There is a buried (not to pun) mortality theme on this album, and this song has a kind of easy, gentle beat made out of money that leads the listener straight to the grave. So there is a dark humor behind the assemblage that might not be apparent to a casual listener but is a kind of inner joke for us, or an Easter egg."

listen to Dissever & order a copy here

emptyset’s new album Dissever builds on their ongoing exploration into the histories of electronic sound and media across the 20th century, considering the intertwined evolution of cosmic rock, minimalism and electronic music, viewed through their prospective dreams and overlapping technological ambitions. The compositions across Dissever draw threads from these pioneering production methods emerging in parallel across the late 1960’s, considering the cross talk between these fields and their radical intentions to carve out the future from differing paths, traversing the mystical and modern, while incorporating elements of the transformative, hypnotic, expansive and transcendent to define new principles within sound.

"Emptyset are in a class by themselves when it comes to excavating brutality out of silence." - Pitchfork

"Elliptical and visceral." - The Wire

“[Emptyset] mold recorded sound into weaponry, sharpening the edges and wrapping them in muddied and bloodied armor.” - Treble

"A brutalist aesthetic that's been going around in British techno for a while now, but Emptyset stand out from that crowd due to the poetry in their reductionism" - Uncut (8/10)

 

listen to The Boat Outside Your Window & order a copy here

The Boat Outside Your Window by Thalia Zedek Band is out today. Thalia Zedek’s considerable body of work demonstrates a clarity of vision, a singular performance style, and an expansive range. Her ability to deliver raw emotions through her vivid stories of loss and hope, strife and triumph is unmatched. Zedek’s mastery of songwriting is on full display on The Boat Outside Your Window. Her unique musical voice remains potent and pointed. Cultivating her sound with purpose and an unflinching view of humanity, Zedek’s words and music are both invigorating, and capable of capturing the deep emotional complexities of life. The Boat Outside Your Window is Thalia Zedek reaching new heights, reinforcing her status as a peerless songwriter and voice.

"[Zedek's] delivery ranges from hushed to strident against a backdrop of freeform country blues that plunges and rises around her... a powerful, politically charged investigation of a chaotic time in America.”  - MOJO

“[Zedek] has rediscovered the energy that defined her work with Uzi, Live Skull and Come, pouring imposing defiance into [her music].” - The Wire

“Her rough, keening alto carries the hardest of sentiments; her band storms and surges, billowing up under the verses and crashing in release at the choruses,” - Dusted Magazine

 

Disarm, "a story about medical emergencies, separation and reunification that happened to people close to me" is now streaming on Thrill Jockey, Bandcamp, and major streaming platforms.

[listen now]

Thalia Zedek will be touring Australia and the US starting soon! See all dates and tickets here:

[tour]

emptyset have shared the new single "Penumbra" taken from their upcoming album Dissever, out May 23rd. Coming just after their first US show in over 5 years at Long Play Festival in New York, the track evolves from a simple oscillation, the tones growing in volume and density as the piece progresses. "Penumbra" emanates with slow deliberate pulses that expand and contract, like slinking otherworldly coils of sparks that bristle outwards in syncopated rhythms.

Listen now & pre-order Dissever on limited blue vinyl!
[listen now]

[watch the video here]

[pre-order Metallic Life Review now]

Matmos, the duo of Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt, have shared the new track and video for "The Rust Belt," taken from their upcoming album Metallic Life Review, out June 20th. Animated and directed by artist Jack Colbert, the video is a celebration of the myriad eclectic materials used to make Metallic Life Review, animating pocket-sized metallic objects that Colbert sourced from metal detecting—from pull tabs to gold rings. Colbert describes the video: "The objects' unique eroded surfaces overlap through replacement animation, and the cyclical rhythm of the film mimics the normalization of discarding and replacing belongings."

On the track "The Rust Belt", Matmos' Drew Daniel elaborates:

"This song evolved over a year of editing in which we kept adding and taking away and playing solos on top and chopping and re-mixing. The intro is entirely manipulations of aluminum cans and then it gradually expands to include more and more sounds, including us playing some “drum solos” on all the pots and pans from our own kitchen. The central riff is made out of a steel bar that M.C. Schmidt played with his fist and fingers. The ending sounds are manipulations of a steel railing from an underpass in Switzerland. The kind of foghorn-like tone is made with a steel slide-whistle that we are heavily processing."

Thalia Zedek Band has shared the rollicking, country-infused new single "Circus", from new album The Boat Outside Your Window, out May 23rd. In keeping with Zedek's ability to  plainly, yet powerfully speak truth to power and incisively critique oppressive forces. On the track, Zedek says: "This was actually written during the pandemic but is just as relevant today as we watch our nation as we have known it disappearing." Zedek will be touring throughout 2025 in support of The Boat Outside Your Window, including a special tour throughout Australia and New Zealand, throughout the US east coast and midwest, and more to be announced.

[hear Circus & order The Boat Outside Your Window]

As our newsletter subscribers well know, we have a glorious new album by Sally Anne Morgan entitled Second Circle The Horizon coming out June 20th. Thanks to all your support, the deluxe version (comes with a Unique Bookmark printed by Sally) is nearly gone with only 4 remaining and…. the word is out we announced Second Circle the Horizonwidely this week! This phenomenal record immerses the listener into Morgan’s contemporary approach to traditional instruments, her pastoral pieces are heavily influenced by the nature that surrounds her home and studio.

[buy & listen to the first single]

Along with the album's announcement, Morgan has shared the serene first single "I Saw a Heron," which finds her fiddle skating atop gleaming drones and stately piano figures, harnessing the dynamic landscape and hum of life all around her in Appalachia. The album’s title, taken from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Circles, pulls directly from the line “The Eye is the First Circle, the horizon is the second.”

“The Film is one the best punk releases you will encounter this year.” - Sun-13

We are so excited to let you know that Sumac and Moor Mother's groundbreaking debut collab is available everywhere today. They blew minds at Roadburn! SUMAC is still on tour in Europe with Endon.

[order The Film and listen]

“Listening to BIG BRAVE is like standing between a Richard Serra installation: massive and imposing, but curved to let the light shine on the edges.” - NPR Music

Like SUMAC & Moor Mother, BIG BRAVE are not afraid to push boundaries and expectations. Their limited LP release OST (notice the film themes happening this month) is minimal, but that does not mean it is not powerful. If you are in Europe, BIG BRAVE are also on tour, catch them if you can!

[order OST and listen]

 

Never hesitant to speak truth to power and a master of seamlessly intertwining the personal and the political, "Naming Names" works through the pains of confronting those who do wrong in our daily lives as much as it stands as an anthem for calling out oppressive forces in all forms.

[listen/buy]

Along with the album and single, Zedek has announced a tour throughout the US this Spring and Summer, as well as special tour throughout Australia and New Zealand with more dates to be announced.

[see all tour dates and tickets here]

Matmos, the duo composed of Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt, have announced their new album Metallic Life Review, out June 20th, 2025 and made entirely with sounds from metallic objects. Along with the album announcement, the duo have shared the first single "Changing States", a twinkling constellation of pangs and glitchy rhythmic jubilee. The piece features and is dedicated to the late pedal steel player Susan Alcorn.

[pre-order]

“We have the sounds of plucking the metallic gates around a tomb recorded in an underground crypt, the sound of cemetery gates, and the death of Susan Alcorn and the death of David Lynch occurred as we completed the album,” notes Daniel. “We had already mixed the music with Susan before she passed, and we dedicate “Changing States” to her. David Lynch’s way of being an American artist was inspiring to us and we dedicated “The Chrome Reflects Our Image” to him.”