Kronstad 23 "Dødehavet"
Kronstad 23 return with Dødehavet, the Norwegian quartet’s third album and first release on Batov Records. Continuing their instinctive, analogue-led approach, the record sits between cinematic jazz and psychedelic rock, threaded with Scandinavian folk and wider global influences. Recorded live to tape with minimal preparation and no modern studio intervention, Dødehavet captures a band working on feel, interaction and momentum rather than polish or precision.
Recorded with all four core musicians playing together in the same room, Dødehavet avoids sterile production in favour of a raw, direct sound. Tracks typically begin with a simple idea — a bassline, melody or chord sequence — before being allowed to unfold naturally through collective playing. Most pieces were captured in one or two takes using a 50-year-old mixing console and tape recorder, deliberately resisting contemporary studio techniques to preserve a timeless, lived-in character.
Weird Nightmare "Hoopla"
On the new studio album Hoopla—co-produced with Spoon’s Jim Eno and recorded at Seth Manchester’s Machines with Magnets— singer and guitarist Alex Edkins expands Weird Nightmare’s dimensions even further. Gilded onto the direct emotions of his straightforward songwriting, new musical textures such as piano, bells, and castanets give these well-wrought tunes a shiny luster. It’s like a beloved indie director leveling up to their first studio feature. Hoopla represents a huge leap forward in his sonic palette and emotional vulnerability.
At its heart, this album is an optimistic, shining light in our strange time. Through Weird Nightmare, Edkins wants you to know that he is still in love with the world, and he invites the listeners of Hoopla to feel the same. Take this chance to seize a glimmer of widescreen pop magic in our used-up old world. You deserve it.
Bolbec "Fotu Félin"
The Bolbec duo return with their sophomore album Foutu Félin, a richly cinematic collection of instrumental music that unfolds like an imaginary soundtrack, melodic, tactile and transportive. The record is inspired as much by the cut-and-paste production techniques of Portishead and the Beastie Boys as by the legendary composers of le cinéma français and il cinema italiano.
Following directly from their debut Victime De L’aube, Foutu Félin feels like a continuation rather than a departure, a second reel instead of a reset. Axel Concato and Barth Corbelet each wrote five pieces independently, deliberately exploring as instinctively and introspectively as possible before reshaping their embryonic ideas together into bigger, brighter compositions, uncovering hidden humor along the way.
Ultimately, Foutu Félin confirms Bolbec’s identity. Music that feels like the beginning of a story. Less theatre, more cinema. Close your eyes, the film is already rolling.
Koyo "Barely Here"
From Pitchfork…
Barely Here’s an immediate, deeply earnest album; the members of Koyo seem to really believe in the power of this sound, and they want you to believe, too. Joey Chiaramonte’s impassioned vocals cut through the shimmering crunch of “Jet Stream Wish,” elevating what should sound like Hot Topic pastiche into a tight-sounding throwback anthem. The singles are clear highlights: the pit-ready “You Hate Me”; “Irreversible,” which recalls The Movielife with the spite dialed way up. The pummeling riff that powers “It Happens to the Best Of Us” sounds primed for either the KROQ Weenie Roast stage or an American Pie sequel trailer. In the wrong hands, those points of reference could land like an affectation, but instead, the band’s embrace of them feels genuine.