Darkplace • The End • 2023

Darkplace is an anonymous art-project that emerged on the music scene with  impressive presence and storytelling earlier this year. The music is  rooted in post punk, but incorporates a variety of other genres in ist  sound, among which Experimental Rock, Alt-Pop and Shoegaze are  prominent. The debut album 'About the End of the World'  is a monumental release, speaking not only through the medium of sound,  but also through stunningly glum digital paintings and animations. The  concept behind the album is set in a grim future, or perhaps present,  where the world is depicted through imagery inspired by real life  places, mostly centred around the bleak landscape of Stockholm's east  suburbs - but with a dark, imaginative twist.

Automotion • Auto 3 • 2021

As dense and foreboding as it is intricate and meditative, the music Automotion create is rooted in process; looped guitar lines provide mesmerising structures on which the rest of the intense instrumentation is built. These rolling guitar phrases, which tonally wouldn’t sound out of place on a Pixies record, are often juxtaposed with spoken word vocals, reminiscent of minimalist composer Steve Reich - one of the band’s key influences.

the GOLDEN DREGS • Hope is for the Hopeless • 2020

“Woods drawls his woes in baritone, mixing Lee Hazlewood with The Magnetic Fields’ Stephen Merritt.”

**** MOJO  

“A sophomore album of this stature deserves praise, and 2019 is all the more privileged to have it.” 

Atwood Magazine 

"Truly an album to savour"

 * * * * Metro

Sam Valdez • Clean • 2020

Sam Valdez’s immersive indie-rock sensibility reflects her childhood growing up at the edge of the Nevada desert, and her formative musical experiences as a child violinist. The mystery, beauty, and haunting quality of desert life has shaped the LA-based artist’s sense of dreamy textures, and her flair for abstract but emotive lyrics. Classical music’s majesty has informed her imaginative arrangements, and cinematic sense of dynamics.

Sam has melded in an intriguing blend of shoe-gaze, Americana, indie-rock, and pop into a signature aesthetic. Select career highlights thus far include garnering rave reviews in Clash Music, Consequence of Sound, and Earmilk; earning heavy rotation from KCRW for multiple singles; and opening tours for Stella Donnelly, Cayucas, and Giant Rooks.

 The new single from Sam Valdez just premiered via The Fader. Entitled "Clean" the reverb-dipped slow burner glows with warm vocals, melancholy soundscape and a twist on a breakup narrative. 

Valdez shares, "Clean is a love song in a way but it’s more about being drawn to self destruction. It’s about finding comfort in uncertainty and appreciating the darker qualities in someone as well as the good."

Sam Valdez has garnered acclaim from the likes of Consequence of Sound, NPR, FADER and LADYGUNN among others. 

Muzz • "Broken Tambourine" • 2020

"Building from moody ballad, to Cobain-worthy misdirection... ending in a sparse trance of harmonics..." -Black Book

Cuny’s sultry and expressive vocals while being prominently placed front and center, effortlessly glide over lush yet spacious arrangements of shimmering acoustic guitars, atmospheric electronics and twinkling keys with the material possessing a cinematic air that recalls Dummy-era Portishead, Tales of Us-era Goldfrapp, Radiohead circa OK Computer and others.

Claire Cronin • Big Dread Moon • 2019

Big Dread Moon by Claire Cronin is a record of spiritual urgency. Cronin's lyrics and melodies draw on the the stranger aspects of early American musical tradition, revealing the genre’s ties to “folk horror,” wherein supernatural and mundane worlds merge. Quietly sinister ballads like "Tourniquet" and "Wolfman" arise from the weird logic of dream, myth, and half-forgotten memories. Suburban homes, TV screens, and city landscapes are haunted by saints, beasts, ghosts, seers, and a “calm and decisionless” god. Lyrics which implore or command act like prayers or spells embedded inside Cronin's fever dream stories and personal confessions. 

orindal.limitedrun.com

Weeknight - "Outside the Pale" - 2018

"Weeknight is a dark-synth [band] out of New York City that play music that's brooding, sensual, and infectious... The [band] manages to extract the elements of 80s goth and new-wave, and re-appropriate them in a context that isn't reliant on nostalgia." -Noisey 

2019 TOUR DATES

Fri 2/1 - Baltimore, MD - Joe2

Mon 2/4 - New Haven, CT - Cafe Nine

Tues 2/5 - Boston, MA - Middle East Upstairs 

Wed 2/6 - Portland, ME - The Apohadion

Thurs 2/7 - Montreal, QC - Brasserie Beaubien

Fri 2/8 - Toronto, ON - Baby G 

Sat 2/9 - Hamilton, ON - This Ain’t Hollywood

Tues 2/12 - Milwaukee, WI - Cactus Club 

Wed 2/13 - Chicago, IL - The Hideout 

Thurs 2/14 - Cincinnati, OH - MOTR Pub (Free!)

Fri 2/15 -  Columbus, OH - Big Room Bar

Sat 2/16 - Cleveland, OH - Beachland Tavern 

Wed 2/20 - Brooklyn, NY - Alphaville

Best of 2018 - SOAP&SKIN - Italy & (this is) Water

Over the new album’s opening five songs alone, she embraces becalmed, almost hymnal piano and vocal (This Day). spellbound, electronic-flecked tranquillity (Athom), Italy coloured by organ and militaristic drums, the choral ambience of (This Is) Water and the tense grandeur of Surrounded, ethereal and earthy.

Palodine - Lowborn - 2018

Palodine has been described as "a melancholic, yet intense and powerful experience". Band members Katrina Whitney (vocals,percussion) and Michael Aryn (guitars, multi-instumentalist) formed in 2007 in Seattle WA. 

Emilie Zoé - Dead​-​End Tape - 2018

hummusrecords.bigcartel.com

14th dec. 2014, Pascal drove Emilie and me to that fabulous place he calls LE GLAUCAL in Courfaivre, Jura, Suisse. His collective of sweet talking weirdos turned this ancient shooting camp in an ali baba cavern. It's jam packed with music toys of all kinds; pawn shop amps, shit keys, lo-fi drums, all transformed and crooked to perfection. We spent five days there in between my 4-tracks portastudio and the fire place. Emilie found a rusty arc top Aria and a spring reverb. She seemed to have millions of songs to record, so we kept it as simple as it needed. Guitar, vocals and some of my favorite noises far in the back. Emilie straight on tape and nothing or nobody to stand on her way. On the wall was written "dead end" and we never knew why. We smelled so bad (cheese, sweat and smoke) on our way back that people in the train were changing seats to avoid us. (Louis Jucker)

Deliluh - Day Catcher - 2018

handdrawndracula.com

“Creeping Tom is just one of several standout jams on Day Catcher, an underachiever’s paean to modest resolve in bleak times.” – NOW MAGAZINE

Neon Lights - Take Me (Radio Edit) - 2018

There is a place where dreams come true 

There is a place that nobady knows 

A place where I go when I feel alone 

Probably you will never know 

Take me, take me where I belong 

You won't change me anymore 

There is a place