Past Releases

Savak "Flavors of Paradise"

Flavors Of Paradise. Freaky Orange Parka. Fun-loving Octogenarian Pickleballers. The 6th album by Brooklyn’s post-punk stalwarts SAVAK, Flavors Of Paradise, was recorded in Chicago at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio without Steve Albini. For a band that has toured Europe five times and never set foot in California, recording 12 songs in 3 days was a breeze across the Danube. The band hunkered down, jammed out ideas in 2 marathon sessions, played a couple of shows to test drive the new material and then got to work with Matthew Barnhart (Superchunk, Bob Mould). No guests, no edits, no country and definitely no funk—the record is lean, spacious and lively.

Noisey/VICE wrote that SAVAK makes “a potent and pointed agitpop racket which manages to balance the dark and moody with the catchy as fuck.” UK’s Louder noted the group’s “endlessly astute observations on the modern world.” And Mojo magazine highlighted their “superior twin-guitar slash action.” So what does that get you? Well, there are recognizable touchstones across electric guitar-based music from the 60s to today. The jagged stabs of The Fall are tempered by harmonies you might hear in a Flamin’ Groovies tune. A nod to The 13th Floor Elevators is purposefully undercut with a riff that’d make Wilko Johnson proud. You can pull out details that wouldn’t be out of place in songs by Royal Headache, Stereolab, NoMeansNo, Feelies, Stooges, Kinks, Mission of Burma, etc. If the guitar can do it, SAVAK is willing to find a way to use it.

After 5 LPs, an EP, a handful of 7”s, and a couple of split releases, SAVAK still has plenty to say. They comfortably take on marriage, espionage, self-reflection, credit (or lack of), sympathy, absurdity, vulnerability, polarization, dogs . . . dogs? Yes. Sure, it’s probably a metaphor, but—woof woof SAVAK is equally comfortable at the dog park as they are browsing the local used bookstore.

What’s your flavor? Press play and find out.

SAVAK was formed in 2015 by Sohrab Habibion (Obits, Edsel) and Michael Jaworski (The Cops, Virgin Islands), who play guitars and trade off singing songs, along with drummer Matt Schulz (Holy Fuck, Enon). The live band features Jeff Gensterblum (Small Brown Bike, Her Heads On Fire) on drums and bassist Matt Hunter (New Radiant Storm King, Silver Jews).

Ben Frost "Scope Neglect"

Ben Frost presents his first studio album in six years, Scope Neglect, via Mute. Available January 11th on limited edition white vinyl, followed by black vinyl, CD, and digital formats on March 1st.

In the sonic crucible of Ben Frost’s Scope Neglect, music undergoes a metamorphic alchemy. From the album’s opening seconds, the familiar aural chemistry of metal is immediately untethered, isolated in the vacuum, stripped of its cultural trappings and heavy armory, and loaded into a particle accelerator.

Where Scope Neglect leans sonically into metal – fuelled by progressive metal outfit Car Bomb’s guitarist Greg Kubacki and bassist Liam Andrews of fellow Australians My Disco – its true form seems to draw more upon the transcendental reveries of the West Coast minimalists. What at first appears confrontational, and ephemeral, is meditatively and methodically unfolded through time, revealing crystalline vulnerabilities.

Frost’s titles weave narratives of cycling, perpetual attempts at ignition, math, and mythology; ‘Tritium Bath’, ‘Lamb Shift’, ‘Chimera’… The slow burn of ‘Unreal in the Eyes of the Dead’ channels the disorienting writings of author W.G Sebald, whose own work often gives the impression of being only the faint, flickering shadow of its actual referent.

Similarly, this genre-defying music seems to feed on an unseen dark matter. Detached from their native surroundings, guitar shapes roar through negative spaces whose dimension is only revealed through the shadows cast upon them. What remains is the outer scaffolding of structures long since dismantled, and which we can no longer see. What Frost wants us to hear, in other words, is frequently not what he wants us to feel.

Scope Neglect is a deliberate opposition in terms; a dualistic game of obfuscation and obliteration, mechanics reconfigured and reengineered, old energies diverted and redirected, scope expanded, contracted and dissolved.

Spiral Heads "Till I’m Dead"

From Trash Casual:

The album begins with the Flying Nun-inspired distorted pop jangle, “One of My Dreams,” and ends with the somber tribute to late-’80s Damned, “World Without Pain.” Throughout the record, the listener is exposed to the wallowing loneliness of Jim’s “Just So Down” and “Don’t Wanna See You Around,” Simon’s tongue-in-cheek nihilism on “NY Sorrow” and “The Roomba,” and the unnerving confessional intimacy of the Colin Newman-esque, “Seizure in Paris,” “One Before the One,” and “The Day My Baby Stopped Breathing.” Though the material was primarily conceived in isolation, the album as a whole purveys a sense of musical cohesion, as if the band didn’t compose a note outside the company of one another. The result is the rabble-rousing, boot-stomping, 13-track sing-along that is Spiral Heads… ‘Til I’m Dead.

Mary Timony "Untame the Tiger"

Singer-songwriter and guitar hero Mary Timony new album, Untame the Tiger, marks her fifth solo album, her first in 15 years (and first for Merge). It’s a startling document of an artist fully coming into her own power during the fourth decade of her career, the product of lessons learned during life-altering struggle.

Lead single “Dominoes” is a cynical and funny description of a relationship not working out, and a reminder of the healing power of music. “This song was almost not on the record,” says Timony. “We needed one last song, and I found a demo of it I had forgotten about at the last minute.” Mixed by Dave Fridmann (MGMT, The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev), “Dominoes” features album contributors David Christian (Karen O, Hospitality) on drums and album co-producer Dennis Kane on bass.