As new releases dwindle at year end, we have bundled together all the December releases in one monthly package.
Saint Etienne The Night
Their twelfth album delivers an ambient escape from the chaos of daily life, capturing the essence of the after-hours. The album takes listeners through layered tranquillity, offering calm to restless minds and a gentle respite from modern life’s relentless pace.
The Go-Betweens G Stands For Go-Betweens: The Go-Betweens Anthology – Volume 3
4LP set featuring their last three albums and a new LP comprised of a live acoustic radio session Forster and McLennan recorded for Bayern 2 Radio in Munich in 1999. There are also 7CDs (including collection of fourteen unreleased songs the duo recorded together in 1991) and a 112-page booklet.
Bikini Atoll Moratoria
20th anniversary reissue of a record that gathers together soaring post-rock, clanging alt-rock and moments of sparseness and serenity.
White Denim 12
Appropriately named 12th album that is intricate, hi-tech and forward-facing, yet also somehow still of a piece with the questing ambition, rootsy swing and uplifting way with melody we’ve come to adore about Petralli’s music.
Beans on Toast Wild Goose Chasers
He describes it as “a collection of newfangled pagan hymns to coincide with the end of truth”.
Chikiss Between Time and Laziness
Dramatic and dreamlike synth pop that explores motivation and self-doubt, the long shadow of the Soviet Union, and collective empathy with a cinematic flair.
Various Celebrate Yourself! The Sonic Cathedral Story 2004-2024
4CD 62 track, many of which were previously unreleased, collection celebrating the label’s 20th anniversary. Among those featured are Daniel Avery, David Holmes, Emma Anderson, Dean Wareham and Andrew Weatherall.
Tom Waits The Heart of Saturday Night
50th anniversary edition of a record where Waits imagined a concept album with a small bebop jazz ensemble, filled with the literary influences of the two Jacks – Kerouac and London – along with classic American songbook songwriters and the language and sound of the piano played in intimate clubs for and with musicians who had finished their regular Saturday night engagements.
def.fo Music for Dinosaurs
Bassist with Michael Head’s band joins forces with Chris Geddes of Belle and Sebastian for an ambitious concept album teleports audiences up, up and away into a howling, dystopian nightmare set on Mars, where a troubled civilisation teeters on the sharpened edge of extinction.
The Twang Jewellery Quarter
15th anniversary reissue.
Hepcat Scientist Meets Hepcat: Scientific Dub Special
1996 album remixed by one of the forefathers of dub. Hepcat’s soulful harmonies and mellow rhythms were unlike those of contemporaries and more akin to musicians from the heyday of 1960s Jamaican ska and mixed with elements of soul, jazz and R&B.
Kassie Krut Kassie Krut EP
Their scratch-made sounds melodize the hard-edged noise of daily life — car alarms, notification chimes, dial tones, feedback— against stutter-step high hats, pots-and-pans percussion, and tensile bass tones that thrash around like a rubber ball.
John Post-Kino (Live at Scala)
First live album from the punk duo, recorded at Scala in February 2024.
Aisha Vaughan The Gate
Layers of ASMR sound design and computer music production supplement the main instrument here – her voice – woven within campfire crackle, wind chime, cricket, bird, harp, flute, synthesizer pad & sfx, and new moon wolf howl.
Ciao Malz Safe Then Sorry EP
Inspired by artists like Elliot Smith, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Men I Trust, she combines witty introspection, informed by her experience as a young woman of colour, with a layered musical bounce.
Babymorocco Amour
A breathless gust of 2010s trash-pop couture, 2-step, happy hardcore, French electro, proto-EDM and utter BPM madness.
Thulcandra Live Demise
First live album from the brutal metal band.
Waleed Magdelena EP
Artist born in Washington, DC to Iraqi/Puerto Rican parents. He was raised on a diet of the latin greats from his mother (Juan Luis Guerra, Marc Anthony, Danny Rivera, Jerry Rivera), mixed with the sounds of his Iraqi grandmother’s apartment after she moved to DC giving him a unique perspective on dance music.
Dragunov VEPR
Post metal/industrial sonic historians evoke Ukraine’s turbulent History and its many revolutions. The album not only explores the horror of war and violent atrocities, but also, and above all, carries a message of hope by showcasing the people’s struggle for Freedom.
Nanowar of Steel XX Years of Steel
Italian parody metal masters’ live release celebrates two decades of blending humour and metal.
S.Y.P.H Pure Freude
Reissue for a band who caused a ruckus at the end of the 70s – as one of the bands that began to write lyrics in German around Düsseldorf’s eminent Punk and New Wave venue Ratinger Hof.
Duster In Dreams
Slowcore band hone in on their trademark dark, droning guitar tones, layered textures and introspective lyrics, while exploring synth-heavy and drum machine avenues throughout.
Low Harness Salvo
Channelling atonality and noise alongside expansive shoegaze and hypnotic krautrock, Salvo captures a sense of instability and unknown terrors; political unrest, impending and current wars, economic crisis, environmental collapse and the loss of loved ones.
Cameron Winter Heavy Metal
Debut solo album from the Geese frontman draws on both the chaos of the road and Winter’s greater sense of existential dread.
Lontalius How Can We Lose When We’re So Sincere
New Zealand singer-songwriter conjures relatable scenarios and everyday situations, enveloping the listener in a sense of security and ultimately communicating that they aren’t alone.
Jon Harris Parallel Heart
A sonic adventure that blends bluesy hard rock with infectious funky synth-pop.
The National Rome
A 21 track, career spanning double LP ecorded live (without overdubs) on 3 June 2024 at the Italian city’s Cavea at Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone.
Trouble County Blacken The Sky
Debut album from a band that embodies the spirit of Rock ‘n’ roll with their raw energy and authentic sound.
Spencer Zahn Statues Live
A multi-instrumentalist whose music is marked by openness: spacious, intriguing sonic spaces, rich with contributions from his creative community.
Movieland Then & Now
Shoegaze troupe from the ‘90s is having their work beautifully reissued on 604 Records’ new archival series, 604 Decades, which pays tribute to Vancouver’s overlooked artists from decades past.
Lord Sin Confessions
Blending the raw energy of improvisation with the deep catharsis of doom and psychedelic dark rock, Lord Sin’s sound is built on a foundation of powerful spontaneity.
Gingerbass More or Less
Five track EP of prog fusion rock showcasing the band’s continued exploration of intricate melodies and rhythmic complexity, while the bass takes centre stage.
Conrad Schnitzler Gelb
Schnitzler was a composer and concept artist, one of the most important representatives of Germany’s electronic music avant-garde. A student of Joseph Beuys, he founded Berlin’s legendary Zodiak Free Arts Lab, a subculture club, in 1967/68, was a member of Tangerine Dream and Kluster and also released countless solo albums.
VM There is Something More – We Are Blind
Ukrainian band whose violins and ethnic percussion weave seamlessly into the grungy core.
Subway to Sally Post Mortem
Fifteenth album from folk metal act.
