Via "Via"
From Dromedary Records:
That’s a pretty big statement – he was, of course, referring to Thalia Zedek (Come, Live Skull, Uzi) and Jerry di Rienzo (Cell, Nuclear Theater). Of course I’d never heard of Via, but soon after, I had a folder of rough mixes emailed to me. And soon after that, I was sitting with Thalia and Jerry – again in Catskill – discussing releasing this music together.
Listening to it was like opening a time capsule – a group of 8-track recordings from 1987, before Come, before Cell, when these amazing musicians were just discovering themselves. The music was loud, aggressive, and actually ferocious in spots, these two brilliant guitar players coming into their own, with a rhythm section of James Apt and Adam Gaynor of the band Nuclear Theater and Phil Milstein of Uzi providing tape loops. I could instantly hear what Chris described to me months before.
Via splintered after playing just two shows – one in Boston, one in New York after the band members moved there to be closer to Thalia, whose work with Live Skull was becoming a more full-time endeavor. The only documents left by Via are these six songs, recorded in Jerry’s basement studio in Somerville, MA, along with one gig flyer and some lo-fi live cassette recordings.
Chris Brokaw, who wrote the liner notes to the album, states, “The music bears some cosmetic resemblances to Sonic Youth, but the songs are way more raw, primal, seething, coiled – inexorable. I still can’t get over it.”
We’re proud to introduce you to the music of Via.
-Al
Moriah Plaza "Própolis"
With effortless cool, Moriah Plaza blend Brazilian samba, cinematic Latin jazz and psychedelic 60s pop on new EP ‘Propolis’.
Moriah Plaza’s self-titled debut album, released on Batov Records in 2023, garnered critical acclaim and widespread airplay, across BBC Radio 6 Music and NTS in the UK, FIP in France, Bandcamp Weekly, and Apple Music, positioning the group as one to watch in the worlds of global pop and contemporary jazz.
‘Propolis’ EP picks up from the where the debut album left off, except now presenting more of a collaborative effort from the relatively settled Berlin-based group of Tamir Chen (bass) and Moosh Lahav (keys, flute), originally from Tel Aviv and formerly of the shoegaze band Soda Fabric, alongside Gretchen Schadebrodt (vocals, guitar) from Chile and Alice Moss (drums) from the UK.
Title track “Propolis”, co-written with Brazilian poet and singer Cecília Erisman, carries a joyful Brazilian tone, recalling Os Mutantes and Hermeto Pascoal with its bossa meets psych “la la la
la la” hook, flying flutes, and organ riffing.
“Dizendo” exudes the effortless cool of a Latin American cafe, cigarette and coffee at the ready. The laid back jazz organ, subtle Latin touches and Gretchen’s carefree vocals carry an irresistible charm.
“Besos en La Playa” takes the listener further across the continent into a more pronounced Latin jazz mode, with Spanish lyrics whispering romantic beachside tales.
The EP closes on the slow-building, “Dom Dom”, gradually blossoming into an epic vocal crescendo, drawing reflections of Stereolab and Zero 7. Alice Moss’ drumming and Moosh Lahav’s gentle flute provide the balance.
‘Propolis’ sees Moriah Plaza take strides into widening their influences and redefining their genre defying sound, and could very well appeal to fans of groups as seemingly disparate as Calexico and Khruangbin.
Pansy "Skin Graft"
The Seattle-based musician Vivian McCall Vivian McCall established her career as a multinstrumentalist and recording engineer with the outsider-y retro pop band Jungle Green in Chicago. After years of engineering sessions for her bandmates, and recording an Jungle Green album with Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado at Sonora Recorders in Los Angeles, she recorded the self-titled Pansy (Earth Libraries, 2021): eight, short, deeply-personal songs about transformation and becoming. Vivian, a transgender woman, was processing her transition in real time, and drawing from the music that helped her survive–The Magnetic Fields, Liz Phair, and the eclectic punk of New Zealand’s Dunedin sound (Chris Knox, The Chills, The Clean, and others).
Where Pansy is about becoming a person, the Skin Graft EP is about being one, Vivian says, and balancing ordinary struggles with the existential crisis of living in a country that’s grown wildly hostile to transgender people. Recorded at “the Unknown” studio in Anacortes, Washington, Skin Graft is due via Earth Libraries in November 2025.
h. pruz "Red sky at morning"
“My mother used to quote the red sky proverb to me growing up. I didn’t realize it had biblical origins for a long time… many years have felt like a homecoming back to my creative start in childhood,” Pruzinsky admits. Wrestling with the twin fears of solitude and reliance and an escape from a life that disallowed an expression of their truest self, Red sky at morning simultaneously heeds the call of the journey while working to construct a momentary shelter from the storm – whether it arrives in the dawn or dusk of our lives. It is the story of a wayfinder relinquishing control and allowing the mutinous chaos of love to chart a path to an acceptance of some great stillness. Shuffling across worn floorboards, polished from overuse, that point toward calmer waters, trying to unlearn the frantic pace of introspection, the goal is evident in the hopeful refrain of “Arrival” – “I can clear the cycle.”
– Dawood Nadurath