Upcoming Releases

• Solar Bears

  She Was Coloured In

  Planet Mu

  Hailing from Ireland--Wicklow and Dublin to be precise--Solar Bears are John Kowalski and Rian Trench, the sole producers and musicians on the group's debut full-length, She Was Coloured In. They met at Pulse Sound Engineering School, started recording and were swiftly picked up by Planet Mu. This album follows in the wake of expectation stirred up by their recent Inner Sunshine EP and a series of remixes.

   

  Available September 20th, 2010

   

• Optimum

  Max Power

  Planet Mu

  Optimum is Malcolm Chen, a new producer from South West London. He's collaborated with Ikonika recently, and Planet Mu is very happy to release his first solo 12-inch. Lead track "Max Power" lives up to its name, mixing tight electro-soca drums with a barrage of ravey riffs and strange transporting noises, creating an almost unbearable, driving intensity without ever reaching for wobbly bass or other cliches.

   

  Available September 20th, 2010

   

• Forgetters

  S/t

  Too Small To Fail

  INCLUDES FREE DOWNLOAD COUPON!!!

   

  Forgetters is a three-piece Brooklyn band that formed in the summer of 2009. The members, Blake Schwarzenbach (Jawbreaker, Jets to Brazil), Caroline Paquita (Bitchin'), and Kevin Mahon (Against Me!), are not novices but still believe in the possibility of new music and new forms.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Rose, Frankie And The Outs

  S/t

  Slumberland

  Frankie Rose has a reputation for minimal, Maureen Tucker-like beats and iconic presence in such buzz-stirring bands as Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls and Vivian Girls--groups that spearheaded a thriving scene that mixes the sounds of lo-fi garage and big, reverb-drenched, Phil Spector-produced '60s girl groups with the noise aesthetic of The Jesus and Mary Chain, a touch of Velvet Underground and a strong DIY ethic.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• U.s. Christmas

  Run Thick In The Night

  Neurot Recordings

  Hailing from the Appalachian mountains region of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, US Christmas's unique brand of psychedelic, high-volume blues rock evades easy classification. The band was founded in Marion, NC, in the summer of 2002, and played biker bars, art spaces and house shows all over the Southeast dirt circuit for years, self-releasing albums in CDR form.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• La Otracina

  Reality Has Got To Die

  Holy Mountain

  Since 2003, La Otracina has been hell-bent on creating highly visionary music that melds sonic ideas from the outer reaches of heavy and weird. The Brooklyn group has released three full-length albums and twelve mini-albums, along with a slew of splits and compilation trackss on labels including Holy Mountain and band founder Adam Kriney's own Colour Sounds Recordings.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Sole / Ravi Zupa

  Pyre

  Black Canyon

  The Pyre is a collaboration between Tim Holland and Ravi Zupa--a 72-page illustrated epic poem with an accompanying full-length "audiobook" album. The pair evokes the confusion, violence and hope of 12,000 years spent digging in the mud. Holland's far-reaching story of civilization is told in the language of ancient myth and draws on Keats, Villon, Debord, Byron and The Epic of Gilgamesh.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Munly And The Lupercalians

  Petr And The Wulf

  Alternative Tentacles

  The first installment in a multi-album set describing The Kinnery of Lupercalia, Petr & The Wulf is the correct telling of a story about which most have been woefully misinformed. This truth is courtesy of Munly (known as both a solo artist and as the co-frontman of Slim Cessna's Auto Club) and his extremely talented backing band, The Lupercalians (which includes Daniel Grandbois of Slim Cessna's Auto Club and Tarantella).

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Dawnbringer

  Nucleus

  Profound Lore

  Chicago's Dawnbringer could very well be the most under-appreciated underground metal band in the US. Formed more than 15 years ago by prolific multi-instrumentalist Chris Black (also of Nachtmystium and a number of other projects), the group put out an EP and two killer and highly praised full-lengths in the late '90s and early '00s.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Swans

  My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky

  Young God

  LP VERSION INCLUDES FREE DOWNLOAD COUPON!!!

   

  After years of pursuing Angels of Light and recording and producing a diverse roster of artists for his Young God label, Michael Gira has reconvened his legendary group Swans. As he says: "This is not a reunion. It's not some dumb-ass nostalgia act.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Shit Robot

  From The Cradle To The Rave

  Dfa

  To list the ways Marcus Lambkin, a.k.a. Shit Robot, spent the '90s and early '00s is to document some of New York City's most seminal moments in music. After moving to the city in 1992 from his native Dublin, Ireland, Lambkin served a stint as a resident DJ at the infamous club Save the Robots, co-founded Plant Records and the now-defunct Plant Bar (where The Rapture's Luke Jenner poured drinks and which UK magazine The Face called "New York's coolest and loudest bar"), used his cabinet-making skills to literally help build the DFA studio, and DJed the legendary Shit Robot parties with future LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Nobunny

  First Blood

  Goner

  Hail! Hail! America's favorite loopily leporine rock 'n' roller, Nobunny, is back with a new album, First Blood, and it's his catchiest batch of tunes yet. The melodious masked man kicks it off with "Ain't It a Shame," a bittersweet tale of a rocky romance in which Nobunny's lover has no choice but to endure his frequent indiscretions.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Cloudland Canyon

  Fin Eaves

  Holy Mountain

  LP VERSION INCLUDES FREE DOWNLOAD COUPON!!!

   

  Originally an all-things-not-Panthers outlet for guitarist Kip Ulhorn swapping musical ideas with Simon Wojan (now in King Khan and his Shrines), Cloudland Canyon spent several years interpreting the more structurally-challenged examples of Krautrock, '70s psych of the drone-discovering variety, spots of unnerving (in a good way) improv here and there, and the wonderful '90s bands that started out as head-scratchers and ended up as innovators (first-wave Siltbreeze and Kranky highlights).

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Nekrasov

  Extinction

  Crucial Blast

  Riding atop the recent wave of black metal / noise hybrids that combine the bleak, frosty riffs and blackened ferocity of underground metal with blown-out, corrosive strains of industrial noise (see also Wold, Emit, Grief No Absolution, Enbilulugugal, Vargr), the Australian one-man band Nekrasov has made a substantial mark in the realm of extremist necro-racket with a series of brutally abrasive limited-edition albums.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Van Etten, Sharon

  Epic

  Ba Da Bing!

  Sharon Van Etten came to Brooklyn via Jersey via Tennessee via Jersey. Along the way, she sang in choirs, rejected her school's music program, worked at an all-ages venue, trained as a sommelier and got a full time job at a record label. She also had a few bad experiences in relationships. More than a few.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Dj Nate

  Da Trak Genious

  Planet Mu

  DJ Nate, born Nathan Clark, grew up on Chicago's West Side. The 20-year-old artist started making Footwurk tracks five years ago, more recently turning his hand to hip hop and R&B. With only a few self-made CDRs and YouTube videos, Nate attracted the attention of London's Planet Mu Records, who is proud to present his proper debut releases.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Themselves

  Crowns Down And Company

  Anticon

  CrownsDown and Company completes a trilogy by Doseone and Jel's revived rap power-duo, Themselves. What began in early 2009 with theFREEhoudini--a monumental mixtape that reunited a dozen of indie hip-hop's seminal vocalists--now reaches its apt conclusion as ten gifted producers reinvent the pair's recently released CrownsDown LP.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Circle Pit

  Bruise Constellation

  Siltbreeze

  INCLUDES FREE DOWNLOAD COUPON!!!

   

  Glimmer Twins infatuation--well, some folks can pull it off, others cannot. We all know how well Royal Trux rocked 'n' cocked it through the '90s, and now in the second decade of the 21st century, Circle Pit have sauntered into the boozy sway with their debut LP Bruise Constellation.

   

  Available September 21st, 2010

   

• Davila 666

  Mala

  In The Red

  Digital release, includes two tracks from the upcoming Davila 666 LP, and two exclusive tracks to this EP.

   

  Available September 28th, 2010

   

• Tropics

  Soft Vision

  Planet Mu

  The man behind Tropics is Chris Ward, a 22-year-old Brit inspired by '70s jams, post-punk and whatever else he taped in his youth. His radiant sounds of dreamy, summer nostalgia have already caught the attention of Pitchfork and XLR8R (who have posted some of his tracks) as well as a number of bands including Little Dragon, with whom he will collaborate on his forthcoming album.

   

  Available October 4th, 2010

   

• Dj Rashad

  Itz Not Rite

  Planet Mu

  DJ Rashad has been instrumental to the creation and evolution of Chicago juke music. This lifelong friend to key players on the scene--Paul Johnson, DJ Gant-Man, DJ Spinn, DJ Godfather and Jammin Gerald--blends elements of house, disco, juke and ghetto tech, and has a knack for sparse, snappy tracks that convey a physicality and funk with spectacular precision.

   

  Available October 4th, 2010

   

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