Matching Outfits "Ditch Me"
A trio of adopted Berliners whose warped take on indie pop captures life’s major heartbreaks and minor inconveniences in gut-wrenching, occasionally hilarious detail. They do not wear matching outfits, except when they do.
“Lo-fi, poppy, wistful, exuberant, and playfully deadpan. Like a crooked smile or a knowing wink. Lovable weirdos who celebrate the profound charm of the everyday.” Olivia Bradley-Skill / Radio Ravioli WFMU
Manslaughter777 "God’s World"
Manslaughter 777 are powerhouses of forward-thinking rhythmic music and production. The duo, composed of drummers/programmers Lee Buford (The Body, Sightless Pit, Dead Times, Everyone Asked About You) and Zac Jones (MSC, Nothing, Braveyoung), combine their prowess as percussionists and producers into beat-centric music that delights in turning unexpected sounds into razor sharp rhythms. Buford and Jones, along with engineer/producer Seth Manchester of Machines with Magnets (The Body, Model/Actriz, Liturgy), have collaborated for nearly two decades, consistently shattering genre boundaries and redefining the role of the studio in the process. God’s World uses innovative sound sampling to create expansive sonics driven by complex rhythms. The resulting album’s infectious grooves are both celebratory and irreverent. The duo imbue their music with a sinewy pulse and sense of dynamic care that lends a humanity to their unyielding arrangements. God’s World is an album whose electrifying turns and gripping compounds, in pursuit of lush, incendiary grooves, is a thrilling and joyous expressive delight.
Jiri Jiri "Give Me Disco Vol. 1"
Mysterious disco outfit Jiri Jiri deliver an essential EP — four tracks of sublime, summery European cool hand-picked by Batov Records boss DJ Kobayashi for the label’s brand new and carefully curated ‘Give Me Disco’ 12” series, named after Raja Zahr’s disco classic.
Springing from the ranks of global grooves ensemble Muito Kaballa and psychedelic travellers YĪN YĪN, Jiri Jiri have honed their musical chops and crafted four Neapolitan funk and pan-European disco jams as hot as the Adriatic coastline.
The ‘Give Me Disco – Vol. 1’ EP marks the beginning of two exciting new ventures — the emergence of Jiri Jiri, and inspired by their need for a home, the launch of Batov Records’ ‘Give Me Disco’ 12” series.
Sister "Two Birds"
Sister.’s sophomore album Two Birds showcases a band pushing toward a fresh and cathartic communal vision. The story of the NYC indie band (Ceci Sturman, Hannah Pruzinsky (h. pruz), James Chrisman)’s development is a testament to the deep, almost unfathomably close personal and artistic bond between lead singers Sturman and Pruzinsky over the course of a decade. As the two songwriters began to explore their own relationship in their work, they embarked down a path of total, mutual honesty, writing crystalline indie-folk songs exploring the rare beauty of profound and close friendship, as well as its pitfalls. Two Birds is produced by Chrisman and co produced by Sturman, Pruzinsky, and Felix Walworth (Told Slant, Florist). The project, now expanded into a mature, fully formed quartet—pushes definitively into unexplored emotional and musical terrain.
Here, Sister. have accomplished a rare feat, turning in a collection of songs full of windswept space, patient arcs, and cathartic moments of release, in which new interactions within the music reveal themselves with repeated listening. It is an inventive, devastating, and confident statement, exploring relationships that drift apart before folding back into each other, embodying togetherness and apartness in both its lyrics and musical forms.