Newly signed to Play It Again Sam at the tail end of last year, FEWS are pleased to announce news of their debut album MEANS on 20th May 2016. Coming into view last summer with the single ILL – an eight-minute sonic rollercoaster courtesy of Dan Carey’s Speedy Wundergound imprint, FEWS then marked their debut for Play It Again Sam with The Zoo. Inhabiting a musical landscape that evokes a post-punk legacy, one that continues to evolve and thrill and one that has already seen The Zoo afforded playlist status at 6 Music is merely a taster of what’s to come.

The Swedish / US quartet have been swift in getting things off the ground, 2016 has already seen a series of rapturously received live shows. Intermingled with their own live shows, the band have also accompanied the likes of Fat White Family and Money in Europe whilst the UK has seen them traversing the country as guests for Bloc Party and the recent sold out Spring King tour.

100 Goosebumps reveals another side to this multi-national four-piece, a swath of pulsating guitar backed with a metronomic backbeat, almost three minutes of perfect symmetry that has already proven to be a live highlight and destined to be a festival favourite this summer.

13/07 LIVE @ Dour Festival

The Swedish duo Invoke The Insult is the exaltation of the best electro-industrial / EBM art, simultaneously oldschool-newschool oriented. Jonas & Klas create an attractive, danceable and dynamic technological sound, through equipments capable of expressing the maximum emphasis, which will lead the listener into a pure and rational electronic dimension.

Aggressive, obscure and acidic vocals, hypnotic drum-programming, punctuations of sequencers and alienating keyboards are the peculiarities of the thirteen songs included in the great album entitled “You Can Trust”, with which Invoke The Insult wish to state once and for all their authority and obtain important credits among the fans.

Distinction, talent and hard determination are the elements that will act as propellant to this amazing project, establishing an intense contact with your body and your senses: the effects will be indescribable.

Today Jenny Hval announces her new album ‘Blood Bitch’, due Sept 30th, via Sacred Bones Records, and shares the first single ‘Female Vampire’. As well as various European festival slots, the Norwegian artist is also set to tour the UK in October this year with shows in London, Glasgow and Manchester.

In the words of Jenny Hval herself:

“Blood Bitch is an investigation of blood. Blood that is shed naturally. The purest and most powerful, yet most trivial, and most terrifying blood: Menstruation. The white and red toilet roll chain which ties together the virgins, the whores, the mothers, the witches, the dreamers, and the lovers.

Blood Bitch is also a fictitious story, fed by characters and images from horror and exploitation films of the '70s. With that language, rather than smart, modern social commentary, I found I could tell a different story about myself and my own time: a poetic diary of modern transience and transcendence.

There is a character in this story that is a vampire Orlando, traveling through time and space. But there is also a story here of a 35-year old artist stuck in a touring loop, and wearing a black wig. She is always up at night, jet lagged, playing late night shows - and by day she is quietly resting over an Arp Odyssey synthesizer while a black van drives her around Europe and America.

So this is my most fictional and most personal album. It’s also the first album where I’ve started reconnecting with the goth and metal scene I started out playing in many years ago, by remembering the drony qualities of Norwegian Black Metal. It’s an album of vampires, lunar cycles, sticky choruses, and the smell of warm leaves and winter.”

Listen to first single ‘Female Vampire’ here.

Norwegian artist and writer Jenny Hval has developed her distinct take on intimate sound since the release of her debut album in 2006. For her last two solo albums, 2013's Innocence Is Kinky and 2015’s Apocalypse, girl, Hval’s debut for Sacred Bones, she has received thoughtful and widespread international acclaim for her fascinating voice, singular delivery and markedly non-traditional arrangements which incorporate elements of poetry, prose writing, performance art, and film. The New York Times defines her writing as “taking a scalpel to the subjects of gender politics and sexuality.” Hval has eloquently brought to light issues of both male and female gaze, which for years had been swept under the rug and/or denied all together.

Hval’s conceptual takes on collective and individual gender identities and sociopolitical constructs landed Apocalypse, girl on dozens of year end lists and compelled writers everywhere to grapple with the age-old, yet previously unspoken, question: What is Soft Dick Rock? After touring for a year and earning her second Nordic Prize nomination, as any perfectionist would, Hval immediately went back into the studio to continue her work with acumen noise producer Lasse Marhaug, with whom she co-produces here on Blood Bitch. Her new effort is in many respects a complete 180° from her last in subject matter, execution and production. It is her most focused, but the lens is filtered through a gaze which the viewer least expects.

‘Blood Bitch’ is set for release September 30th via Sacred Bones Records.

See Jenny Hval live:

3rd Jun – Kilbi Festival, Duedingen CH

4th Jun – Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona ES

16th July – Pitchfork Festival, Chicago US

5th Aug – Off Festival, Katowice PL

1st-5th Sept – End of the Road Festival, UK

14th Sept – Ultima Festival, Oslo NO

30th Sept – LPR, New York City, NY

17th Oct – Stereo, Glasgow UK

18th Oct – Soup Kitchen, Manchester UK

19th Oct – Oslo, London UK

21st Oct – AB, Brussels BE

22nd Oct – Point Ephemere, Paris FR

24th Oct – Suedpol, Luzern CH

26th Oct – Kantine am Berghain, Berlin DE

27th Oct – De School, Amsterdam NL

28th Oct – Kampnagel, Hamburg De

29th Oct – Jazzhouse, Copenhagen, DK

11th Nov – Resident, Los Angeles CA

On June 11, the American electro duo Matmos presents his recent CD Ultimate Care II in Arts Centre België (Hasselt, Belgium). It is a unique concert you should not miss!

Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt create unique sound experiments since 1997. Once they were apprentice surgeons in A Chance to Cut is an Chance to Cure (2001), now a washing machine gets their attention...

Matmos surprises again with its unique style of music. Ultimate Care II is a specific composition for a certain kind of Whirlpool washing machine, including centrifugation and various sounds, or as Matmos puts it: the object being rubbed and stroked and drummed upon and prodded and sampled and sequenced and processed... with the collaboration of Dan Deacon, members of Horse Lords, Half Japanese and Needle Gun. Keywords: industrial, Miami Bass, free jazz, house, krautrock, drone, musique concrète and new age...

Not to be missed: Matmos, on June 11 in KC België, Burgemeester Bollenstraat 54, 3500 Hasselt.

Health&Beauty are as proud as a dog in shoes to announce they have signed to Wichita Recordings, who will release their sixth full-length studio album, ‘NO SCARE’ on 5th August 2016.

Health&Beauty is the name under which Brian J Sulpizio has released music since 2003. The current lineup of the group has been playing together since 2012, featuring pianist Ben Boye (a constant collaborator since 2009, who also plays with Will Oldham, Angel Olsen and many others) and drummer Frank Rosaly (a regular collaborator with Peter Brotzmann and many other jazz and experimental music greats). This version of the group along with bassist Anton Hatwich, made up the band on Ryley Walker's ‘Primrose Green’.

‘NO SCARE’ is the most euphoric listening experience presented yet in the band’s catalogue, where darkness and light can't help but complement each other in the short comedy of the human experience.

Today the Chicago-based three-piece share the first cut from their new record, a track entitled ‘Wartime’. The original version of the song featured a lyric and melody borrowed from Neil Young’s “Hey Babe” (from ‘American Stars and Bars’) which Neil would not clear for usage and which were replaced instead with a killer pedal steel solo, played by Matt Schneider of Moon Bros, and new vocals sung by Emme Williams of Fastness. Brian J Sulpizio said the following about the track:

“A young man who lived in my neighborhood in Chicago was about to graduate high school and he was telling me about how the best option for him was to sign up for the Army. He was also considering becoming a truck driver but I never saw him after the one time so I don't know what he decided. I wrote the song with the volunteer army in mind. I really liked having the Neil Young line at the end; tied it together in a way. We're still doing that live, which I think is legal.”