The long-awaited follow up to “Automation Baby” is being released in FOUR different versions: as a regular CD edition, as a limited 2LP edition with special vinyl remastering and 180g pressing, as 2 CD Artbook Edition with 48 pages including lyrics plus 6-track bonus CD a- and as box set (500 copies) containing the 2LP, Artbook Edition plus hand numbered certificate for hardcore fans.
All formats are released on August 26, and we can only say that our anticipation gets fully rewarded. Here is a new video teaser for the Single “Kill Your Darlings”. The full clip will follow shortly.
Lastly, this is what Mark and Rich have to say on the album:
„We really set our sights high and have poured our hearts and souls into creating “Looking Skyward”. The album takes you on a journey of energy and emotion set to a moving soundscape of electronics, driving rhythms, atmospheres, samples and noise. We set out to push ourselves as far as we could and produce an album that we would want to own and love. We hope that we have achieved our goal and that you all enjoy the results for many years to come."
How do you top a burner such as MESH's "Automation Baby" from 2013? Back then, the band not only hit the top 30 but also released a future fan-favourite ("What can possibly come after this?", they cheered) with strong singles, ruling the clubs and your home stereo alike. Also, the duo had written its heaviest and most energetic songs so far. The just reward were more successful tours and an ever-increasing fan base. MESH have long since progressed from being a mere scene band.
Therefore, they did not even try to apply the formula of "Automation Baby" to "Looking Skyward" once more. Although the advance single ‚Kill Your Darlings' reminds of ‚Born To Lie', the album's mood and sound are different.
After all, Mark Hockings and Rich Silverthorn have also changed their approach to producing. "Following up to ‚Automation Baby' was difficult because we really saw it as our ‚baby'", singer Mark confesses. "For ‚Looking Skyward', we juggled with different ideas, used smartphones, laptops or tablets and walked the streets with audio recorders making samples. The demos were recorded all over the world, we even wrote our own software and made photos in abandoned factories, not to forget a great video."
Apart from that, the focus of "Looking Skyward" lies on the music itself. Whereas its predecessor marked the Bristol natives' "Sturm und Drang"-period, this record is more accessible and in part poppier (‚Last Man Standing', ‚The Fixer').Analogue synthesizers (‚My Protector') and classical ballads (‚Before The World Ends') convey a certain retro charm, so it is different while still maintaining MESH's core strengths - an equally synthetic and organic melancholy or wistfulness supported by Mark's incredibly strong singing and Rich's intense arrangements.
"Looking Skyward" is MESH second fabulous album in a row. "We set out to push ourselves as far as we could and produce an album that we would want to own and love. We hope that we have achieved our goal and that you all enjoy the results for many years to come."
Release date: 26.08.2016
Available editions:
- CD
- 2LP in gatefold cover, printed inner sleeves, 180g, PVC protection sleeve, 500 copies
- Book 2CD, hardcover, 48 pages, 2CDs incl. 5 bonus tracks
- "Complete Box", 2LP, 2CD book, LP incl. tracks of the bonus CD, poster, 500 copies
The longstanding and prolific experimentalist project, Controlled Bleeding, will return with its first proper studio album since 2002, entitled Larva Lumps and Baby Bumps, this summer on Artoffact Records. An eclectic mix of industrial, progressive rock, jazz and heavy metal influences, Larva Lumps and Baby Bumps will be released as a 2CD digipak and digital download on August 26, with a 2LP edition, housed in a beautiful gatefold sleeve, to be released on September 23.
Originally formed nearly 40 years ago in 1978, New York-based Controlled Bleeding remains one of the most hard to classify and avant-garde experimental projects. The band's output ranges from brutal noise to eclectic industrial, from avant-jazz to prog rock, and its works have appeared on Tone Casualties, Wax Trax, Broken Flag, Soleilmoon, Sub Rosa and more. Controlled Bleeding today is Paul Lemos, Anthony Meola, Mike Bazini, and Chvad SB.
Stay tuned for more information on Controlled Bleeding and Larva Lumps and Baby Bumps, out this summer on Artoffact Records.
With a first video teaser electro pioneers X-MARKS THE PEDWALK reveal the title of album no. 9 in a long band history since 1988. „SECRETS“ is currently under construction. Sevren Ni-Arb and Estefanìa are working in the studio and they hope to announce a release date soon.
You can leave your bags right here, for you definitely won’t need any of it on your stirring trip with CRAYVEN into the twilight zone of „All The Sordid Details“.
Somewhere between illusion and reality the ugly truth will arise from bittersweet melodies and linger on a skillfully woven fabric of distinctive riffing, powerful cellos and chilly electronic elements.
The band leader of this aspiring group will give you chills with her relentlessy forceful and versatile voice and thrill you just like the excellent drummer, who has been successful for years with the legendary German black metal band MIGHTIEST.
darkTunes is proud to present you the new lyrics video taken from the debut album of this amazing band from Freiburg (Germany).

Psy'Aviah & Kyoko Baertsoen launch 'magical' and 'out of this world' music video
Psy'Aviah and Kyoko Baertsoen launch a brand new music video for their most recent collaboration "Alcubierre Drive": The song is taken from the most recent Psy'Aviah full length "Seven Sorrows, Seven Stars".
Both the music, atmosphere and lyrics draw from the movie Interstellar's thematics and atmosphere. It's a kind of personal soundtrack to the movie where father and daughter are being seperated. But those events are transposed to the "real world", where to lovers, friends and family sometimes grow apart due to work, differen lifestyles and much more... As the chorus says: "Breaking the wall of sound, chasing the speed of light, we grew apart, we lost each other".
The music video is edited by Yves Schelpe and portrays vocalist Kyoko Baertsoen in a special "magic" almost "outworldy" atmosphere. This to create a link to the movie that inspired both this song and the album "Seven Sorrows, Seven Stars", but also to create a certain distance from the vocalist & the viewer to symbolise the "growing apart".
LYRICS:
time, crusaders of space
moving on the waves
past, present, future
as planets gravity moved us
towards each other
breaking the wall of sound
chasing the speed of light
we grew apart, we lost each other
out of time, out of sync
we grew apart, we lost each other
moving, once we were
on the same speed at the same rate
floating into space
moving on the waves
pulling me away
on a path to forever
breaking the wall of sound
chasing the speed of light
we grew apart, we lost each other
out of time, out of sync
we grew apart, we lost each other
out of time, out of sync
out of time, out of sync
we are chasing the speed
we lost each other
breaking the wall of sound
chasing the speed of light
we grew apart, we lost each other
out of time, out of sync
we grew apart, we lost each other
breaking the wall of sound
chasing the speed of light
we grew apart, we lost each other
out of time, out of sync
we grew apart, we lost each other