Major Stars "More Colors of Sound"
Out of the roiling miasma of timeless time comes a long-promised delivery from one of the constants of our era: Major Stars, and their new LP, More Colors of Sound. Fueled by overdriven guitars and gut-punching rhythm, these veteran rockers are stalwart in their delivery of trippy, psyched-out extremes. Over 27 years since The Rock Revival (their Twisted Village debut), they can be counted on to come back around every three or four years or so, with something heavy picked up on their journey. This time, it’s been since 2019’s Roots of Confusion Seeds of Joy – but what’s a few years in the larger scheme of things? Because ‘larger’ IS the Major Stars scheme of things, one that’s always cut deeply into the grooves.
YES. It’s been since the late 90s that Major Stars have been transmitting their signal. But even eternity wasn’t built in such an arc of time: Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggar have been crossing necks dating back to the 80s, with Crystallized Movements’ screaming psych-punk hybrids. Tom Leonard, Major Stars’ current third axeman, has been in the mix almost as long: Luxurious Bags’ amorphous low-fi (that’s him!) was released on Twisted Village too, and Kate and Wayne and him all played together in Vermonster. After the demise of Magic Hour -Wayne and Kate’s proto-freak-folk outfit with Damon & Naomi – the three of them formed Major Stars, with Wayne singing and Dave Lynch on drums. Which brings us… not quite to today, but, the More Colors of Sound lineup is as-was for Roots of Confusion Seeds of Joy: Kate, Tom, Wayne, Dave Dougan on bass, Casey Keenan on drums and Noell Dorsey singing lead.
More Colors of Sound had been earmarked as a title for nearly twenty years when they started work on the album that would finally bear its name. For the first ten Major Stars releases, Wayne wrote everything, but due to the way things were in 2020 and 2021, Tom and Noell wrote a bunch of things together, along with Wayne’s stuff. By the time they got around to recording, at Gloucester’s Bang-A Song Studios, there was enough stuff to make a double LP! A double’s a once-in-a-lifetime dream scenario, but once they’d done the overdubs, they skinnied it down to the 44 minutes here – 22 minutes of each songwriting team. Ultimately democratic, not too long… you don’t see that much nowadays!
As ever (and ever), the crush of the three guitars as they riff with the rhythm defines Major Stars’ sound. The work of two writing camps has produced a song-centric focus on More Colors of Sound – one, of course, shot through with distorted tones, fevered neck-wringing solos and several extended jammers – but the production overall has a cleaner sound than its predecessor. That, plus the increased number of writers on deck gives the title a kind of kismet to go along with its historical weight, and that’s alright!
On More Colors of Sound, Major Stars find new hues inside the incendiary approach that’s launched them so ecstatically since early times; another jar of infinity captured with a quality all its own – and it’s all in the grooves!
HAAi "HUMANiSE"
HAAi returns with her bold and brilliant second album, HUMANiSE, exploring the sweet spot between machine-led dystopia and emotion-filled utopia.
In all of her work, Teneil has always sought to conquer new frontiers in electronic music, and on the new album, she’s drilling deeper into the grid. HUMANiSE reckons with what it is to be human in an increasingly digital world, as AI threatens to eclipse everything and our screens separate us from each other. The result is an ambitious and thrilling epic: embodying a sonic step up, and a distinct evolution from her 2022 debut, Baby, We’re Ascending.
Voices – both real and digitised – play a huge part on HUMANiSE, alongside ideas of community and a sense of belonging. She has returned to work with friends including Jon Hopkins, Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, singer Obi Franky, rapper KAM-BU, artist Kaiden Ford, and poet James Massiah, as well as two choirs: TRANS VOICES with choir leader ILĀ and a gospel choir led by Wendi Rose. Having spent years behind the decks, HAAi also brings her own voice to the forefront in a powerful shift toward vulnerability and self-expression. Her vocals, stunningly delicate, give a newfound dimension to her kinetic productions.
The album’s concept became clear while HAAi was in the studio with Hopkins. The pair were playing with a vocal harmonizer plug-in with a function called ‘Humanize’. For HAAi, a light went off: “The idea of something completely synthetic trying to make an actual person sound more human is crazy,” she says. HAAi blurs these extremes throughout the album: digitising voices, layering them to hazy effect, and even using an AI text-to-speech to generate her voice. But, ultimately, she concludes that experience and memory – what makes us truly human – cannot be replaced.
From the euphoric opener ‘Satellite’, to BBC Radio 6 Music A-listed track ‘Can’t Stand To Lose’, and genre-smashing cuts like ‘Shapeshift’, the album is filled with exhilarating sonic twists and deeply personal lyrics. HUMANiSE is a powerful, emotionally charged leap forward: a celebration of community, self-expression and humanity.
Clarice Jenson "In holiday clothing out of the great darkness"
“… what steps forth, in holiday clothing, out of the great darkness.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Clarice Jensen releases her fourth solo album, In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness, on 17 October 2025 via FatCat Records’ 130701 imprint. The new album showcases Jensen’s distinctive compositional approach, in which she improvises and layers her cello through shifting loops and a chain of electronic effects, exploring a series of rich, drone-based sound fields. Pulsing, visceral and full of color, her work is deeply immersive, marked by a wonderful sense of restraint and an almost hallucinatory clarity.
As a composer, Jensen insists that the programmatic elements of her albums align and ring true. She writes that, “the quote from Rilke had been bouncing around my mind for many years; the visualisation of musical ideas being born and echoing inside a ‘great darkness,’ then emerging ‘in holiday clothing’ felt very beautiful and tangible, and this essay, which to me is a manifesto in celebration of solitude, depicts what so many artists and composers experience when they endeavor solitary work. This album reflects a personal and conceptual exploration of what solo means.”
Clarice Jensen recorded In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness as part of the Visiting Artist Programme at Studio Richter Mahr, the creative space co-founded by Yulia Mahr and Max Richter in Oxfordshire, England.
Spaced "No Escape"
Buffalo, NY’s Spaced present “No Escape,” their debut EP on Pure Noise Records. The new release follows their 2024 full-length, “This Is All We Ever Get,” which introduced the band’s distinct “far-out hardcore” sound to a wider audience and earned them recognition as one of the scene’s most promising new acts. With “No Escape,” Spaced sharpen their approach while continuing to push the boundaries of modern punk.