BLESSED CHILD OPERA
IT – post-rock / dark psychedelia
New album “Love Songs / Complications”
out now on Seahorse Recordings
Blessed Child Opera have been a cult group for almost 20 years by now, with different incarnations always gravitating around the creative brain of Paolo Messere. “Love Songs/Complications” – out September 22nd 2018 on Seahorse Recordings – is album number nine in a story which started back in 2001, and sounds like the most intricated and accomplished they ever released. Conceived and written in plain solitude mostly at nighttime in Paolo studio in Siracusa (Sicily), like a two-headed Sphynx “Love Songs / Complications” deals with the torturing contradictions of love: the sweetness, the dreaminess, the freedom and the revelations, but also the dirt, the violence, the anger and revenge.
This lost-and found labyrinth is masterfully expressed through a sound often dark, rarely decompressing, juxtaposing minimal passages and dense and chaotic moments. It could be a soundtrack for a Lynch movie written by Neil Young, with contributions from Blixa Bargeld and Ry Cooder. Post-Rock, electronic loops, psychedelia and indie rock merge to create a larger and broader 360° landscape, where it’s difficult to tell the horizon or to guess the final destination of the journey.
“Love Songs / Complication” was recorded by Paolo Messere (guitar, electronics, vocals) with the help of Rino Marchese (bass guitar and electronics) and Ivano Augugliaro (drums).
With Italian dates planned in autumn ’18, the first being a support for Lydia Lunch, BCO will be on tour in Europe and UK in the first half of 2019.
THE CALLAS
GR – Sonic R’n’R
New album “Trouble and Desire”
out October 2018 on Dirty Water / Inner Ear
The Callas worked with Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) on their new album “Trouble and Desire”, released October 26th 2018 by Dirty Water Records (London) and Inner Ear (Greece).
The Callas is the tip of an artistic squad producing music, artworks, films, magazines, events, art shows, initiated by the brothers Lakis & Aris Ionas.
Both their latest two albums, “Am I Vertical?” and “Half Kiss, Half Pain” were produced by Jim Sclavunos (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Lydia Lunch, The Cramps).
They have performed live in churches, galleries, flats, museums, boats, mountains, toilets and festivals like Liverpool Psych Festival (Liverpool UK), The Great Escape Festival (Brighton, UK), Indigenes Festival (Nantes, France), Reeperbahn Festival (Hamburg, DE) and with bands/artists such as Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Ty Segall and Grinderman.
The Callas are also used to play shows in art spaces, as Documenta 14 (Athens – Kassel), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Family Business gallery / Anna Kustera gallery (NYC), DESTE Foundation (Athens), Athens Biennial (Athens), Andreas Melas gallery (Athens), Yinka Shonibare Space (London), The Breeder gallery (Athens), ATOPOS CVC (Athens) etc.
The last 10 years Lakis & Aris Ionas / The Callas have been publishing significant magazines for the Athenian (Greece) underground music/art/film scene such as Velvet magazine and Lust magazine. Their studio is one of the most active cultural spaces in Athens. Going by the name Velvet Room they are organizing art shows combined with music gigs and DJ sets involving some of the best new bands and artists in Athens.
QUOTES
Rock ‘n’ Roll thick and heavy with a strong motorik backbone BROOKLYN VEGAN
Disaster! Disaster! Disaster! It happens! So goes The Callas’ riotous chant over the dirgy, life-affirming garage rock stomp that is “Disaster. NOISEY
Oddly Thrilling! MOJO (****)
5/5 – Album of the week ARTROCKER
As multi-media artists and filmmakers, they approach music-making from a very different perspective than the average musician and come up with some quite unexpected results. The sonic palette of the new album is diverse and exploratory, with songs that range in style from dreamy subversive pop to brutal post-punk skronk to deconstructed rebetiko. Jim Sclavunos
Available for Festivals & Special Events
Available for UK May 24th, 25th, 26th 2019
JOINTPOP
Trinidad and Tobago – Classic Rock
New album “From Trinidad…with Love”
out January 25th, 2019 on Seahorse Recordings.
They sound like The Clash being molested by The Beatles while smoking with Bob Marley.
The Guardian
FROM TRINIDAD…WITH LOVE, produced by Paul Kimble of Grant Lee Buffalo, is the brand new album from Rock’n’Roll legends of Trinidad and Tobago JOINTPOP.
The album will be released worldwide on January 25th, 2019 by Sicily based cult label Seahorse Recordings, with Europe / Uk tour and Festivals to follow in July 2019.
Jointpop latest albums have had radio support from Tom Robinson (BBC 6 Music) and Jim Gellatly (ex XFM Scotland/ Amazing Radio). Their musical background lists the likes of Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who. The Velvet Underground, David Bowie, T-REX, The Sex Pistols and The Clash. Those classic influences are now blending into a polished eclectic eleven track album delivered with supreme musicianship.
Founded back in 1996, Jointpop built over the years a rich catalogue of albums and Eps, most of them released through TnT based Little 2 Tune Records and Anarchy on the Ave.
Their line up features some of the most skilled musicians of T&T’s underground circuit, glued together by charismatic singer Gary Hector’s brilliant piercing social commentary, engraved in heavy and groovy tunes.
More than 20 years later, JOINTPOP are the most influential rock’n’roll band to come out of The Caribbean, with a real international following, having toured the UK four times. The band has also racked up festival appearances at Belladrum Festival, Mugstock Festival and XPONORTH (Scotland), plus they have stormed legendary venues as100 Club in London, CBGB’s and The Mercury Lounge in the US.
Available for Festivals & shows in EU / UK in July 2019
LISA PAPINEAU
CAN / FR – etno / experimental
New album “OH DEAD ON OH LOVE” out February 15, 2019
on Team Player Records.
One would be hard-pressed to think of a more quintessential go-to artisan for dynamic and progressive new music than Lisa Papineau. She began in her performance career in experimental theatre, and has since amassed a body of work that spans albums, film soundtracks, art installations, dance and theater productions, narration and producing, but is best known for her own mold-breaking voice – which Tori Amos once declared to have “…the power of Bon Scott and yet the lyricalness in the voice of a reed instrument…” One may even know her voice before they know her name, as we almost couldn’t keep track of her prolific collaborations with, among them, AIR, M83, Jun Miyake, Halo Orbit, Jam Da Silva, Anubian Lights, her appearances on the (Academy Award nominated) film Pina, Watchman, Super and Crow II soundtracks, as well as her own projects, Pet (with composer Tyler Bates), Big Sir (her long-running project with bassist Juan Alderete) and her eponymous group.
On her fourth solo record, “Oh Dead On Oh Love” Papineau has created an aural canvas of lush but quietly unsettling arrangements: strings, brass, woodwinds, and other traditional instrumentation fuse organically with ambient tones. Vocal harmonies reminiscent of 70s FM radio super groups twine seamlessly through percussive vocalizations, haunting Yma Sumac or Meredith Monk-like swells unravel into plaintive shouts.
In fleshing out the world of the album, Papineau was able, “…to (her) great joy and contentment, after wandering out of the cave…” to collaborate with many longtime musical partners: Tyler Bates, Jam Da Silva, Juan Alderete, Matthew Embree, and Koool G Murder to name a few. The album artwork is by artist Andrea Mastrovito, who also provided the cover for her album Red Trees.
THE PIER
IT – Post Punk
New album out December 07th 2018
on Kallax Records
“Dead Reckoning” is the second album for The Pier, released on December 07th by KALLAX RECORDS. The band started their journey in 2016 with an eponymous album, which was produced when members were still at high school.
Their young age is possibly the main reason for The Pier’s lack of reverence towards trends and rules. One can define them as a math rock group, or post-punk, indeed their attitude combines punk edgy angularity with an uncontainable playfulness.
Listening to these 10 tracks – produced between Bari and Rome – echoes of Don Caballero, Foals, This Town Needs Guns, and Joy Division will resonate, but surely The Pier can push influences further into their own creativity’s land, using electronics and rhythms patterns as a free jazz combo gone on acid, singing nursery rhymes.
Gabriele Terlizzi, Davide Pasculli and Danilo De Candia started the project back in 2013, and their sailing has gone far already, with concerts in Hamburg, Budapest and Vienna and – in summer 2018 – appearances in key festivals as Sziget and Reeperbahn, where they’ve previewed a few songs from the new album.
2019 is going to start with a bang: The Pier have been selected for prestigious Eurosonic Festival in January 2019, and they’re ready and fit to make Europe their stage and playground.
REV REV REV
IT – HEAVY SPACE ROCK
New album out summer 2019
Named as ‘One of Europe’s finest ’gazer bands of the last decade’ [Daily Bandcamp], Rev Rev Rev re- metabolize shoegaze and psychedelic rock elements in a loud, woozy, fuzz-driven way.
Since their debut (S/t) their signature wall-of-sound has inspired rave reviews and single “Catching a buzz” (2014 / WinWin Records, branch of One Little Indian) has been spun on BBC 6 by the likes of Steve Lamacq and Radcliffe and Maconie; in Italy, in 2015 the band was ranked among the best live shows by 200 promoters and venue managers of the KeepOn Live indie network.
In 2016 their sophomore “Des Fleurs Magiques Bourdonnaient”, out via Northern Light Records (CA) and Custom Made Music (US), pushed even further the borders of their sonic belligerence.
Their live set at Manchester’s Cosmosis Festival, headlined by The Jesus and Mary Chain, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Raveonettes and WIRE, kick-started a 44 dates tour touching UK, France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, during which the quartet shared the stage with The Telescopes, Ringo Deathstarr and Gonjasufi.
Praised by influential webzines like Drowned In Sound, Clash Music, Sounds better with reverb, Rockit, Decay FM Radio, Primal Music, the album sold out in three months, leading to an early reissue on US label Neon Sigh (The Telescopes, Ringo Deathstarr).
Recently Rev Rev Rev hit the studio once more with Sergio Pomante (Ulan Bator, Lay Llamas) on drums. The new album, produced by James Aparicio (Spiritualized, Mogwai, Cult Of Dom Keller, Dead Vibrations, Throw Down Bones), is due for release in 2019. The band has been selected to showcase at SXSW 2019.
QUOTES
One of Europe’s finest ’gazer bands of the last decade Daily Bandcamp
Their set was tectonic and hypnotic at the same time. Italy loves their phantasmagorical doom bands, and Rev Rev Rev fit the quintessential bill and then some Drowned in Sound
Straddling the fine line between My Bloody Valentine’s effervescent beauty and the sonic belligerence of A Place To Bury Strangers. Drowned in Sound
Inspiring, searing music, it’s shot through with Eastern tinged drones and ear-bleeding noise. Clash Music
A mix of swooning numbers, psych, and over-the-top ear bleeders. Sounds Better With Reverb
An utterly compelling and oblique document from a band that excites the hell out of me. Pennyblackmusic
Let’s get one thing clear: this is a record literally dripping with fuzz. NARC Magazine
Tour scheduled September / October 2019
Available for Festivals & Special Events
