Contrast and Flow
Different Noises 146
This selection brings together a diverse range of sounds, moving from atmospheric, quiet moments to high-energy tracks. It balances raw edges with smoother melodies, creating a flow that feels varied yet consistent. Rather than sticking to one lane, the mix focuses on interesting transitions and a wide variety of styles, making for a listening experience that keeps you guessing.
AUDIO
PLAYLIST
Stefano Panunzi - Ink Scars - Caravaggio 1
Among Legends - H/A/C/K - Lose My Grip 2
Drakulas - Head In The Clouds - Midnight City 3
Trip Villain - Dose - Dose 4
Teloch Vovin - Gamaliel Pt1 Spectral Gem ov Southern Skies - Towards The Inevitable 5
Cinder Well - While The Womb Screams Silently - While The Womb Screams Silently 6
Cate Kennan - So Far Away - Shadows 7
Bonner Kramer Thurston Moore - The Third Migration - They Came Like Swallows 8
Cabaret Voltaire - Yashar - But What Time Is It Really 9
Dislocation Dance - Rosemary - Music Music Music/Slip That Disc! 10
Dubmatix - Exhale - Exhale 11
2 Lost Souls - Message of Love - Message Of Love 12
Scenius -Five-Arm Crystal (sixth-arm mix) - Single 13
Larynx and Claw - Passin’ Through - Tuning Ether 14
Strawberry Alarm Clock - The Sky Isn’t Falling - The Sky Isn’t Falling 15
Joan As Police Woman - Eternal Flame - Real Life Evolution 16
Wooden Overcoat - Finally Arrived - Finally Arrived 17
The Rallies - You Set Me Free - No Better Time 18
Steve Austin - Henry - Marked Cards and Loaded Dice 19
Pooja Goswani Pavan - The wedding sari has come - The Mind Ecstatic 20
2 Lost Souls - Supercilious - Message Of Love 21
Austin Oteng Har - Voices In The Wind - The Ghost – Act I: Part I 22
Helen Svoboda - Void of Space - Headwater 23
Ana Roxanne - Atonement - Poem 1 24
Dave Graney and Clare Moore - The Wilderness Years - Laburnum of the Mind 25
Moff Skellington - Rain Station Tabernacle - Dawn Ablutions 26
Cate Keenan - Devil’s Hour - Shadows 27
The Go-Betweens - Bright Jesus (Acoustic Demo) - G Stands For Go-Betweens: The Go-Betweens Anthology - Volume 3 28
Neon Crabs - Creature Violence - This Puppy Can See A Frog 29
2 Lost Souls - The Sleep Room - Message Of Love 30
Hugo Race Fatalists - Dream Country Home - I Made It All Up For You 31
NOTES
Stefano Panunzi is a Roman musician and songwriter whose solo work spans five albums Alongside his solo career, he co-founded Fijeri in 1997 with multi-instrumentalist Nicola Lori, a project that has brought together some of the most distinctive voices in progressive and art rock. His fifth solo album, a double record that takes the name of the cursed painter and embraces his aesthetic: light tearing through darkness, the human figure at the centre of the scene, beauty and violence in the same frame. Musically moves through contemporary art rock, weaving ambient and jazz influences into a modern progressive vein, where electronics thread through sharp electric guitars and relentless drumming. But the most significant shift from his previous work is the centrality of the voice Panunzi places himself at the centre of the sonic canvas, navigating a personal landscape of melancholy, urgency and catharsis.
Ontario punk trio Among Legends kick off their next chapter with “H/A/C/K,” the lead single from their upcoming full-length Lose My Grip, due July 10, 2026. The track draws from the band’s roots in southern Ontario’s punk and ska circuit, with touchpoints that run from The Flatliners and Hostage Life through to the melodic urgency of Bad Religion and Less Than Jake. Produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered by Matt Gauthier at ARC Recording Studio and This Place Needs A Name, “H/A/C/K” sets the tone early. Tighter, louder, and a little more frayed at the edges.
Austin, Texas synth-punk lifers Drakulas return with Midnight City, their third full-length, out May 1 via Dirtnap Records (Wild Honey Records in Europe/UK). Built from proto-punk grit, garage rock urgency, and the synthetic pulse of early new wave, the record pulls from the worlds of Devo, Gary Numan, Grauzone, Kraftwerk, and the weirder edges of Neue Deutsche Welle, landing in a tight, off-kilter pocket where jagged guitars and cold synth lines push against each other without ever settling. Both familiar and alien at the same time.
An electronic-infused metal quartet that melds ferocious thrash riffs with the thunderous weight of modern industrial techno on their second LP. Building on the doom-laden, psychedelic textures of their debut LP, Won (2022, Seeing Red Records), the band has sharpened their edge — pioneering an uncompromising electro-thrash sound inspired by crossover icons like Static-X and Atari Teenage Riot, yet pushing both aggression and danceability to new heights.
A record combining black metal with elements of traditional, death, and doom metal, as well as classical and ambient/electronic sounds. A musical sound that is raw and violent while simultaneously captivating and hypnotic. Recorded several years ago for a split release which never materialized, the songs have since been revamped and updated with crushing production capturing both the aggressive and entrancing elements of the band.
Cinder Well is the hauntingly stark musical project of multi-instrumentalist Amelia Baker - her new album A Blooming Body arrives July 17th via Hen House Studios. The album is preceded by this lead single and video. Amelia says...”This song is inspired by the movie “Portrait of A Lady On Fire” from director Céline Sciamma. The song is about listening to your inner knowing, which often screams loudly but is ignored for the sake of conforming - constantly trying to break out of the restraints and projections of patriarchy while stumbling over new ones and internalized ones along the way - “pulling at an endless thread of thistle - whose hooks and briars they catch things you thought you couldn’t miss em / while the womb screams silently for you to listen”.
Los Angeles musician Cate Kennan’s self-produced second full-length unfolds with the poetry and immateriality of its title: Shadows. 10 vignettes of keys, strings, reverb, and voice, the songs sway and lope between dream and lullaby, rose-colored but remote. The album was inspired by the dislocation Kennan felt upon returning, after several years away, to the rustic neighbourhood northwest of L.A. where she’d grown up: “Wandering through a place where my life once existed but where everything had quietly shifted with time.”
The first album-length collaboration between two giants of alternative/ experimental music. The accomplishments and influence of these two artists in the world of independent music cannot be overstated and the result of their artistic union is a startlingly cohesive statement that burns through landscapes of primitive outsider rock, avant-garde composition, progressive and ambient music.
A live document of the band’s 2025 UK tour, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first-ever performance. It is a particularly significant release because it features original co-founders Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson performing together again, joined by Eric Random and Oliver Harrap. The album serves as a tribute to the late Richard H. Kirk (who passed away in 2021) and captures the band’s “Redux” era sound—reimagining classic tracks with modern electronic arrangements.
Led by Ian Runacres, Dislocation Dance’s debut album Music Music Music and the Slip That Disc! EP from the early 1908s (re-released in a combined package)showcased a whimsical “jazz-pop” hybrid that stood in bright contrast to the period’s darker post-punk aesthetics. I also had the pleasure of releasing some of their material via German Shepherd Records and The Lost Album remains one of the labels most successful efforts.
Exhale moves the way mood moves slowly, with weight. The drums are laid-back and slightly dusty, kicks felt more than heard, snares dragging just behind the beat for that deep, involuntary head-nod. The bass is warm and round, sitting low, barely moving but anchoring everything, a heartbeat under the surface.
The penultimate release in Moss and Rosenfeld’s 12 Three Track EP series. Available from Half Edge Records.
Five-Arm Crystal (Sixth-Arm Mix) is Scenius’ self-reimagined club version of their original track. A rework built for late-night momentum, fueled by a relentless electronic pulse and a snarling synth bassline. Somewhere between Kavinsky’s neon haze and LCD Soundsystem’s raw dancefloor edge, it captures the thrill of chasing something elusive — maybe imaginary, maybe not — simply because the pursuit itself becomes irresistible.
Teaser for the new album coming soon. They used to be The Umbilical Chords.
The original psychedelic rock pioneers return with the new single a swirling rocker laden with gorgeous harmonies and lysergic guitars that continues to built the buzz for the legendary band’s new album due this Summer from Big Stir Records. Together with the recent singles “Blow Your Mind” and “Monsters,” it’s strong evidence that they are still going strong with five original members, and may be the most vital force from their generation on the scene today.
A new rendition of ‘Eternal Flame’, the latest offering from her new “Real Life Evolution’ album. Comprised of new arrangements of the songs from the original ‘Real Life’ album. Exactly 20 years since releasing her debut album , Joan has reimagined and re-recorded the album in full with guests, including Iggy Pop and Krystle Warren. This record was developed through countless nights on stage, these new arrangements brought to life by the musical brilliance of the players who helped define their sound.
Portland dreampop outfit Wooden Overcoat presents “Finally Arrived”, the second taste of the band’s debut “Hello Sunbeam” EP, featuring a hypnotic foundation of viscous Gooey guitars and deliberately slow thudding drums, creating a rhythmic trance-like pulse, locking in this dreamy soundscape.
The Rallies have a knack for writing deliciously infectious power pop tunes, seamlessly not missing a beat and delivering irresistible melodies with hooks that stick like glue. Their music might have a reminiscent retro sound that you swear you’ve heard before, but the final result is something quite new and original. Four albums and forty-two songs later, The Rallies will be celebrating fifteen years of existence. Their signature sound remains intact, with songs immersed with heartfelt love for melody and uplifting intoxicating harmonies, apparent in every song. This is from their fourth album.
The founding vocalist/guitarist for long-running visionary metal outfit Today Is The Day, unveils the debut LP of his classic outlaw country/bluegrass act, Marked Cards And Loaded Dice, through his own SuperNova Records.
The Mind, Ecstatic – Songs of Kabir is a transporting collection of sonic meditations that bring the timeless poetry of the 15th-century Indian mystic Kabir into a deeply personal and contemporary soundscape. Bridging Indian mysticism and modern Minnesota, composer and vocalist Dr. Pooja Goswami Pavan draws on her rigorous training in Hindustani classical music and her expansive creative practice to craft seven original tracks that explore Kabir’s paradoxes—terror and laughter, ecstasy and stillness, the body and the infinite.
As 12.
The Ghost — Act I: Part I is a contemporary opera that refracts Greek tragedy through a multicultural, experimental lens. Blending spectral, traditional, and electronic music, it brings together ancient Greek, Chinese, and Western classical instrumentation with a libretto for soprano and male chorus sung in Attic and Doric Greek alongside an invented language from the mythic city-state of Sélvehm.
In a second glimpse of the forthcoming album Headwater (out 26th June), Room40’s Helen Svoboda now shares the sparse and mystical “Void of Space”. The song begins with a stark vocal, before close harmonies and pizzicato strings lurch the song into something more quizzical, full of wonder and uncertainty. The distinctive sonic world of Headwater weaves sixteen threads or ‘earworms’ built around two double basses, two voices, and electronics; heard as singular and combinatory bodies of material. The album forms an abstracted picture of self, rooted in a devolved song form.
“I wanted to travel / Home into somewhere,” Ana Roxanne breathes across an eerie suspended drone on ‘The Age of Innocence’. “I wanted to try / And go very far.” These are the first words we hear on Poem 1 and reintroduce an artist who’s in a conspicuously different phase of her life than she was when her debut album, Because of a Flower, sprouted nearly six years ago. Heartbroken and reflective, Roxanne surveys the transformations that followed and displays a new-found boldness. Her voice is naked, vulnerable and alive, no longer shrouded in tape noise or looped and echoed beyond recognition beneath layered electroacoustic textures. Throughout the course of Poem 1, Roxanne displays her skill as a singer and songwriter in the classic sense, using the limited instrumentation simply to accent her exposed tones.
Much of the new album from Dave and Clare focuses on the music business and their place in it. This personal narrative of the impact of fame and its aftermath is telling.
Featured Album
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Featured Box Set
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