Lights in Forgotten Places is the first full length for Karma Voyage from Venice, available from January 27th, 2023 on CDs, vinyls and digital on Shyrec (IT) and Icy Cold Records (FR). Anticipated by the single Shine, released on January 13th, Lights in Forgotten Places fluctuates between light and darkness, with the musicians painting the tracks with sounds coming from their different backgrounds, avoiding to be stuck on a single genre. At the same time, it’s a bare album, far from clichés. Emotions pour on the listener giving freedom to create different visions, allthough it’s not lacking guitars crescendo and wild rides almost oniric, leading to nordic empty spaces. Not by chance, the track New Foundations features the unmistakable voice of Nils Ottensmeyer from Blue Angel Lounge.
Karma Voyage were born at the end of 2019 as neo-psych experimental band, with strong new wave influences. The project was started by Luca Castellaro (guitars and vocals) and Giuseppe Brunetti (solo guitars), with the addition in May 2020 of Alvise Scarpa (bass), Leonardo Sebastiani (synth) and Edoardo Dotta (drums). Anticipated by the single Untold Desires, their first EP was released in October 2021 by the cult french label Icy Cold Records, and quickly got recognition in the neo psych underground, being even shared on Captain Beefart’s YouTube Channel. From August to November 2022, with the new drummer Stefano Anoè, Karma Voyage recorded at Velvet StudioLights in Forgotten Places, produced by Luca Castellaro.
…expansive shoegaze sound, nestled in that psychedelic sonic sphere akin to Skying-era Horrors, The Maccabees, and Deerhunter. Post-Punk (video premiere)
Parallel is the second album from the Milan based duo PINHDAR, released on March 26th 2021 for the English label Fruits de Mer Records. Announced in January by its title track chosen as the first single, the album was entirely recorded during the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 epidemic and subsequently co-produced by Howie B (Björk, Massive Attack, Tricky, Everything But The Girl, U2 …) It’s a concept, a journey through human fears and frailties, going up from song to song as in Dante’s Circles of Hell, from the fear of death up to an escape route, represented by the infinite coda of the last song.
Since exploding onto the music scene in 2019 with their self-titled debut PINHDAR have further refined their brand of Psychedelic dark Pop on this latest album. The duo have made a name for themselves on both sides of the Atlantic when in the band Nomoredolls; relentlessly playing New York venues like CBGB’s, Knitting Factory & Arlene’s Grocery and established a loyal US fanbase before moving on to establish PINHDAR. Under the new name and armed with a new sound it wasn’t long before they’d won over the ears of legendary British critic and Rock Music Biographer Kris Needs.
So impressed with the band’s unique sound, Kris invited them to play at the launch of his new book in London, all the while ‘TOY’ was starting to gain critical acclaim across the world with VICE/Noisey listing it in their top 10 tracks of 2019 and legendary station KEXP adding it to their repertoire.
PINHDAR are currently touring Europe as a trio, joined by drummer/multi-instrumentalist Alessandro Baris, while demoing new songs for a new release planned in 2023.
“Parallel is one of the albums I’m most proud of” HOWIE B
“Italian duo’s masterpiece” RECORD COLLECTOR (UK)
“A snapshot of life experienced in 2020” Prog (UK)
“Great and seducing.” Electronic Sound (UK)
“A haunting record that takes you into a world, as we have all come to know it over the past year. Not a happy world, but it does produce a beautiful record.” The Next Gig (NL)
“Dark ed atmosferico, tra dream pop and trip hop” LA REPUBBLICA (IT)
“E’ un amplesso artistico convincente, quello tra i Pinhdar e Howie B, a impreziosire un’opera in cui svettano i tumulti ritmici e gli squarci alla chitarra” Ondarock (IT)
Clustersun Avalanche Labels: Little Cloud Records (US) // Icy Cold Records (FR) Release date: May 20th, 2021 Format: vinyl 300 copies limited edition translucent red with rainbow splatter, cd digipack, digital Artwork: Marco Baldassari Mixing and Mastering: James Aparicio
Tracklisting: Desert Daze, All Your Pain, Closer/Deeper, Juggernaut, Avalanche (Legion 5), Barricades, Sinking In to You, Scar
“At the beginning there’s silence, a deaf sound and the spell of the forthcoming uproar. Then, vibrations cover what is actually hiding beyond the avalanche, while the sun struggles to warm and melt. In the end, the chemical of sounds reveals itself through the chemical of pictures.”
These words by Marco Baldassarri, painter and founder of Sonic Jesus, perfectly describe what Avalanche stands for. Marco realised the album artwork, that’s a real painting called Avalanche too, following the creative flux inspired by the listening of Clustersun’s new sounds. Avalanche departs from dreamy shoegaze, reaching at high speed desertic and acid sideways. Dark and shiny, disturbing and glorious, straightforward and ambitious, it’s an album that will fit well in a playlist featuring The Black Angels, The Lucid Dream, The (early) Telescopes, Dead Skeletons. The mix and mastering have been in charge of James Aparicio, a real scene’s guru, thanks to his work for The Cult Of Dom Keller, Dead Vibrations, Piatcions / Throw Down Bones, Rev Rev Rev. Avalanche was released on May 20th, 2021 by a joint effort between Icy Cold Records (FR) and Little Cloud Records (US), two labels that don’t need any introduction for space rock and psych lovers.
CLUSTERSUN have established themselves as a solid reality in the international panorama of fuzz & reverb purveyors. Their cosmic and 3D signature sound delivers massive walls of fuzz, otherwordly reverberations and psychedelic trips. The trio formed in 2013 and debuted with a self-produced single, Be Vegetal, that was noticed by Dave Allison of US indie label Custom Made Music and featured in the compilation CMM Summer Sampler. The first album’s lead single Hipgnosis was featured in REVOLUTION – The Shoegaze Revival, massive international compilation out in 2015 via Raphalite Records (UK/Canada) and Gerpfast Kolektif (Indonesia). CLUSTERSUN supported Out Of Your Ego extensively with a tour that also reached the US, with gigs in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other cities of the East Coast. They also contributed to the compilations Rock Back For Nepal Vol. I (2015) and Rock Back: Stronger Than The Storm (2017), both issued by via Philadelphia based label Patetico Recordings, and to The Blog That Celebrates Itself’s tributes to Echo & The Bunnymen (Gods Will Be Gods, 2016) and Slowdive (Just For A Life, 2017). On 19th May 2017, CLUSTERSUN released the sophomore album Surfacing To Breathe, again via Seahorse Recordings, with singles Raw Nerve and Lonely Moon receiving up to 40k views on YouTube.
Following the explosive “Desert Daze”, whose video reached more than 50k views, All Your Pain is the second single anticipating Avalanche, the third album for Clustersun, to be released on May 20th, 2021 onIcy Cold Records (FR) and Little Cloud Records (US).All Your Pain is a majestic kraut psychedelic ride, hitting a grand 7′:45″ duration. Hypnotic, ravishing, fiery, All Your Pain sounds like ice being cut by white-hot fuzzy blades, held through a ritual dance. The video, produced by Clustersun’s drummer Andrea Conti, pictures the different stages of a relationship’s failure, through the rollercoaster of an adult couple, turning from sweetness and eroticism to estrangement and nihilism, under the menacing shadow of their young alter-egos in bridal dresses. All around, a blue cold and hostile landscape, freezes their love as winter does with nature: “You know me, not what I feel”.
“I got fire in my hands” This is Psych. Yes, this is the kind of sound that will make you crave for being squashed in a massive crowd at a festival, eyes closed, ears exploding, mind tripping, legs dancing and head banging, lost and found, flooded by the fuzz, the reverb, the tune. Released November 18th, 2020, Desert Daze is a refreshing cauldron and marks a huge comeback for Clustersun, four years since their last effort Surfacing To Breathe (Seahorse 2017), a classic shoegaze album that brought to the trio from Catania massive attention and airplay worldwide.
A GIANT LEAP 