Past Releases

Persher "Sleep Well"

Persher, the duo of Arthur Cayzer (Pariah) and Jamie Roberts (Blawan), take the same subversive, boundaryless approach to extreme music that underpins their electronic explorations. The pair together run the influential Voam label, whose releases are as forwardthinking as they are eclectic. Their output as producers is always highly anticipated in the dance world, in part because of their affinity for expression beyond a trend – an independent streak that shares much in common with the philosophical ethos of punk, hardcore and extreme metal. Cayzer and Roberts started Persher as an opportunity to explore their shared love and extensive knowledge of heavy music. The duo’s debut release, the limited- edition Man With The Magic Soap CD thundered out of the gates as an astounding statement of intent – sidestepping underground orthodoxy with gleeful buzz-saw riffs and baleful howls enveloped in coruscating noise and texture, sounding like a bad trip at a basement show. Persher’s debut album Sleep Well manages to be even more ferocious and innovative, as direct and incisive as it is ingenious.

On Sleep Well, Cayzer and Roberts take a decidedly unconventional approach to writing, using the full potential of the studio in their exploration of extreme music. What sounds like a live band performance is more often than not an amalgam of many different sessions, the duo applying techniques from electronic music to heavier sonics. Recording in Roberts’ studio at Funkhaus, the home of the former East German state-owned radio station, Cayzer would improvise long takes on guitar and bass, contorted and mutated by Robert’s using his extensive modular setup to add weight and texture. This primordial ooze of raw sonics was then chopped up and reassembled into bristling hooks and corrosive atmospheres. The duo’s playful, exuberant approach to making music is palpable throughout Sleep Well – evident as much in the album’s absurdist themes and lyrics as its exhilarating sonics. “Medieval Soup From The Milkbar” references a particularly bad mid-studio session meal of gray, gruel-like soup, which seeps into the track’s noxious slurry and stomach churning riffs, while “Portable Aquarium” references a cup of herbal tea overflowing with foliage. The duo’s wry and often self-deprecating sense of humor allows them to find inspiration even in the most seemingly mundane of life’s events.

Persher’s Sleep Well provides a daring, revelatory expansion on heavy music’s myriad mutations. The duo use their production skills and wry humor to embrace the powerful release they find in extremes. Persher’s debut album exudes the sheer joy of making music unconstrained by genre-boundaries, as gleefully weird as it is visceral and primal.

Mint Mile "Roughrider"

Mint Mile – the “new” band from Silkworm / Bottomless Pit’s Tim Midyett – is nearing a decade of existence. With Jeff Panall (Songs: Ohia), Justin Brown (Palliard), Matthew Barnhart (Tre Orsi) and a cast of fellow travelers, the group has to its credit a trio of EPs, the acclaimed double album Ambertron (which improbably owned its otherwise-ill-timed March 20th, 2020 release date) and now…Roughrider, the band’s second full-length.

Roughrider pulls from all the rest stops Mint Mile have traversed to get here. “Sunbreaking” opens the album with a timeless chord progression, hidden melodies sketched throughout the margins.

“Interpretive Overlook” is shockingly bare, dwelling on perspective and differing vantage points, with its final line (“This place so old…it needs something new”) both certain and open-ended. Songs like “Halocline” have become the heart of Mint Mile – Crazy Horse-fluent pieces that let Brown’s pedal steel do heavy lifting until the finale, where every instrument pours in all it can. The kinetic energy the band brings – aided by excellent alto saxophone (hold onto that thought for a second) – indicates that the group is far from out of new ways to immerse themselves in this world.

“Empty Island” is perhaps the band’s finest moment as “rockers,” and the record’s second track, the seven-minute “Brigadier,” loses itself completely in its main metaphor, unmooring Roughrider from any convenient frame of reference almost immediately.

Contributions from cellist Alison Chesley and Corvair’s Heather Larimer, both long in Midyett’s orbit, are welcome, although nothing prepares one for hearing Nina Nastasia – whom Silkworm covered on an EP over twenty years ago – sing Roughrider’s aching closing track. Nastasia gets some of the album’s darkest lyrics, and “I Hope It’s Different” sounds as beautiful as its last stanza (“Scrub off your history / Don’t learn / Don’t remember anything”) is uncomfortable.

That saxophone on “Halocline?” It is provided by founding Silkworm guitarist and vocalist Joel R.L. Phelps, a truly momentous occasion for those of us who still listen to In the West regularly. His contributions are a fascinating coda to “Halocline,” and on “S c ent” he is possibly the backbone of the entire song.

Change and “the new” hover all over Roughrider’s lyrics and subjects, from the peaking sunrise in the opening track to Nastasia’s fervent hope echoed by the title of the album’s closing number. In that sense, it’s not surprising that the song that most prominently features Phelps is the one that sounds the least like anything he or Midyett have ever done, together or separately.

Every trip through Roughrider is its own look, a new perspective on constant themes, with fresh elements coming to the fore. – Rosy Overdrive

Liam Bailey "Zero Grace"

Big Crown Records is proud to present Zero Grace, Liam Bailey’s sophomore album on the label. Following the success of 2020’s Ekundayo album, the tried and true chemistry of Bailey and producer Leon Michels (El Michels Affair) is on full display again as they take the sound they established and push it further. On Zero Grace they lean more into the bleeding heart singer-songwriter side of Liam. The result, much like Bailey himself, is impulsively honest without reserve.

Born and raised in Nottingham, England, the son of an English mother and 2nd generation Jamaican English father, Liam will admit his early childhood was fairly chaotic and filled with “all the cliche racism that happens when people started mixing up in the ’80s in England.” Liam got his early influences from his mom’s record collection. Bob Marley and Dillinger, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix would eventually shape the singer/songwriter we know today. Fast-forward to 2005, Liam is in London performing at every open mic and acoustic night he could, hustling with hopes of landing a record deal. It was through this time that Liam first teamed up with Michels, musician/producer luminary, and the co-founder of Brooklyn’s own Big Crown Records. Liam flew out to New York and those first sessions together produced the now classic tunes “When Will They Learn” and “I’m Gonna Miss You” which still gets spins at Reggae spots around the globe and were co-signed by heavy hitters like David Rodigan & Don Letts.

That first trip to NYC brought a lot of industry attention to Liam, including being noticed by a just-famous Amy Winehouse who heard one of Liam’s apartment-made, lo-fi recordings, and liked what she heard. Regardless of the audio quality, Liam’s particular sound shone through—all guitar, warm-rough and genuine soul. Eventually Liam signed to Polydor and wound up bumping against the typical major label industry obstacles. They already had an idea of the Liam they wanted to make, promote, and push. With the typical large advance enticement, Liam did his best to trust that path. “Maybe I can make it work,’ that’s what you’re thinking,” Liam remembers, “but, you quickly find out that you can’t.”

Zero Grace is full of freedom and love, in fact, working with Leon Michels and Big Crown Records has encouraged Liam to be himself. On album opener “Holding On ” Bailey speaks to his observations & fears when looking out at the world in front of him and also to the dedication it has taken to get on the other side of his personal trials & tribulations. “Dance With Me” is an instantly infectious two-stepper that nods to those incredible soul records that were coming out of Jamaica during the early Reggae days. Bailey steps into the dance with hopes of finding a new love and pulls us all out on the dance floor with him. “Disorder Starts At Home” is another close to the chest tune that addresses the difficulties he struggles with from his early chaotic childhood and his progress in getting past them. “Mercy Tree” is a powerhouse of Reggae Rebel Music. Bailey addresses the racial tensions that plague humanity and encourages everyone to step up and do their part to help foster equality. What starts out as a declaration of injustice turns into a call for action and an inspiration for hope.

Bailey has managed another album that moves across genres but remains entirely cohesive. The title Zero Grace represents his uninhibited energy. He wears his heart on his sleeve, he speaks his mind without filters, and he has little concern for formalities where his ambitions are concerned. He won’t be held back ever. One thing is for sure, his talent speaks for itself, and it is on full display on this album.

The Body & Dis Fig "Orchids of a Futile Heaven"

Orchards of a Futile Heaven’s walls of sputtering texture and tectonic booms are soaked in the reverence and melancholy of sacred spaces brought to life by palpable intensity by Chen’s voice. Crafted during a time of personal fragility, the album’s devastating force lies beyond any of the expected noise and abrasive textures typically associated with both The Body & Dis Fig. Suffused with a raw vulnerability and a longing for catharsis, Chen’s voice searches for escape in the midst of oppressive atmospheres as if determined to find relief from guilt. “Eternal Hours” patiently unfurls waves of surprising sounds, whispered undulations that are punctuated by sudden crashes, all beneath Chen’s haunting harmonies. “Dissent, Shame” evokes grief and shame with a minimalist drone dirge that gradually builds to an enchanting choral passage. King’s guitar on “Holy Lance” matches the uncanny drone of Chen’s accordion in an all-consuming blast, Chen’s voice transforming the moment from anguish to defiance and empowerment. The album’s arc finishes with “Coils of Kaa” acting as a kind of propulsive exorcism, breaking through a suffocating air before the funeral procession of “Back to the Water” lays the album to rest.

While sampling has long been essential to each, The Body & Dis Fig deftly meld their differing approaches to sampling and creating extreme sounds until the boundaries are entirely blurred. The two found kinship in their desire to find new avenues to make heavy music that looked beyond tropes of metal and electronic music by merging the two. “I always wanted the heavier stuff but I also didn’t really like heavier guitar music,” says Buford. “None of it really felt quite heavy enough to me. A human can’t be as heavy as a machine.”  Chen counters, “I love the balance. You could never connect to just a machine as well as you could a human. Which is why the combination is so potent for me. I don’t want to hide. I think nothing connects you more empathetically than another human’s voice.”

Orchards of a Futile Heaven affirms The Body & Dis Fig as skilled sound sculptors who have an exceptional ability to make deeply affecting music, bracing as it is touching, harrowing as it is awe-inspiring. Together, the two have harnessed their expansive artistry to make music that is profoundly emotional, and staggering in its beauty.