Berlin > To Rococo Rot is a no wave pop trio with jazz and classical elements and a little Velvet Underground feeling in their music. The upcoming album featuring Arto Lindsay (DNA, Lounge Lizard, Ambitious Lovers)

‘instrument’ – LP, CD on City Slang (UK)

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New York > Sex Scheme (ex-Mountain Cult) plays noisy blues with harp. Strange, but it comes Big Black to my mind.

7″+ digital + cassette + if you order either of them, then you can pick a CD-r

The BILDERS are groups of various musicians and friends from New Zealand, Australia, United States, Germany, Austria and France. It had/have various line-ups. The New Zealander writer and musician, Bill Direen stands in the centre of the groups. Their alternative melodic minimal pop is like the Blurt.

TOO MUCH MUCH

A 7″ vinyl with 3 songs will be released late summer/early fall on Smart Guy Records (US). One of his drummers is Stu Kawovski (Stuart Page), who also in the best alternative pop band of New Zealand, The Axemen

Simple, beautiful and funny living room pop by English twins, Amelia and Pat. They’re like a little Breeders from Brighton, or an alternative Simon & Garfunkel, or Osmonds on cheap whizz with a taste of tropicalia. They formed in the summer of 2011 after sharing a dream in which David Bowie told them they were destined to make music together

Bentcousin – Dizzy 7″ on Team Love Records (US)

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OvO is an Italian industrial noise metal duo by Stefania & Bruno with guitar, drums, effects and electronics from the deepest corner of Hell. Averno/Oblio (ie. Arrow/Point) 1 sided 12″ EP with 2 songs, other side black and gold handscreened artwork by Luca Font. 300 copies. Nice work

„I wasn’t always a model citizen, but I always played music.” – Dan McGee

Spider Bags is a rock’n’roll band. It’s got a bit of a country and two bit of blues influence. The main figure, the songwriter Dan McGee started playing guitar when he was really little because of Blind Lemon Jefferson (blues musician, 1893-1929). His favourite songwriters are three delta blues musician: Skip James (1902-69), Robert Johnson (1911-38), Tommy Johnson (1896-1956)  and Lou Red. He don’t have any kind of training, and  didn’t really even start playing shows for a long time, until he was in his late twenties, then his band has become a favorite of the garage rock scene. The forth album will be released soon, and I’m very curious because he „wanted to make a record that sounded like a classic rock record, that was mixed like the old AC/DC records, or like Dark Side Of The Moon.”

Frozen Letter LP/CD/digital on Merge Records (US)

Among the many favorite songs of RNR666 there is a Spider Bags’ forever green, Hey Delinquents!

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Australian suburban country that’s made while sitting around the kitchen table by/in Lower Plenty. The band (with UV Race and Total Control members) named after a Melbourne suburb. The life is there so

Life/Thrills LP on Bedroom Suck Records (Aus)

Jonathan Kingsley Seilman is a French musician, arranger and producer from Nantes. For me he is unknown for his previous projects, This Melodramatic Sauna, and its collaborations with The Patriotic Sunday, but is known through Birds Are Alive and Sieur & Dame. He now back to himself with a new project, LE FEU, in collaboration with My Name Is Nobody, Binidu and Fordamage members. The most simple phrase is: indie pop, but it came Mick Harvey to my mind. Well, it’s not a simple case.

WE ALL RUN

from debut album „Playgrounds & Battlefields” on My Little Cab and Havalina Records (both labels are French)

Never mind the bollocks, here is the Landlady. A very amusing alternative rock band from Brooklyn. Or alternative jazz, possibly indie gospel. All the same. Dog bless them.

„Upright Behavior” album on LP/CD/digital on Hometapes (US)

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Members of Greys grew up on 90s noise rock like Helmet and similar bands, nevertheless their music is melodic like Therapy. At the same time this is hardcore punk.

„If Anything” album on LP/CD/digital on Buzz (Canada) and Carpark Records (US)

Hand of Dust is a trio from Copenhagen, and plays folk rooted dark rock. Their music is like a mix of Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave and 16 Horsepower.

7″ on Avant! Records (Italy)

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“We are a well educated band.” Yet UV Race is the silliest garage punk band in Australia.

7″ EP on XVIII Records (France) for the fans of UV Race only.

They will come to Europe between mid July and early August. For dates check their FB page

Free singles by Swiss/Canadian art-punk band PETER KERNEL. These songs are like the cross of (Dutch folk punk) The Ex and The Breeders.

Taken from the upcoming album Thrill Addict out in January 2015. Free from here

One of the two key members is the bassist Barbara Lehnhoff, with whom you can read an interview with reference to her amazing electronic side project, Camilla Sparksss here. Peter Kernel was formed because there was need of a soundtrack for her film.

„We work like dogs drinking sparkling water”

CHEVEU is more and more absurd and entertaining eclectic electronic punk rock band, like Devo, but in France

Johnny Hurry Up!

from the album BUM on Born Bad Records (France)

CRETIN STOMPERS are from Memphis, members of Jay Retard Band, Barbaras, Wavves, Big Muff Radio. Their debut album „Looking Forward To Being Attacked” is out now on Hozac Records (US).

Garage – sure, rock – naturally, punk – of course. Not raw or hard, but simple and sweetly rough, sometimes psychedelic, with drum machine and nice Japanese pop style vocal and tunes, with covers from The Styrenes and Dave Brock (Hawkwind). Sometimes turns into chaos. Vivid. Cretin. A-ha, oh yeah.

Armand Margejka was born an Albanian small town Tropoia, located on the highland near the border of Kosovo. Tropoia district has had a long reputation as one of the wildest and most conservative regions in Albania, virtually out of control of every government in Tirana. The family arsenal often takes up a whole room and typically includes anti-tank mines, hand grenades, and rocket launchers besides rifles, revolvers, machine guns, stilettos, swords, baseball bats and all sorts of old guns which goes from father to son. Instead of insurance brokers insurgence agents go about the countryside. Albania was the most isolated and most poorest among the Eastern-European communist states. The Stalinism was the most persistent here. Moreover there are the tribal differences and the beautiful tradition of vendetta.

Margejka’s musical influences were Western cinema, MTV Europe, and fortuitous cassette tape of American pop/rock legends Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley taught Margjeka the fundamentals of rock and roll, and subsequently the English language. The country is however friendly and secure, he has changed Albania for Alabama. He plays indie folk rock with sure hands.

„Hummingbird” LP, CD on Communicating Vessels (USA)

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Ghetto Ghouls are (a handyman, a geography assistant, a sound guy, and a student) like their predecessor Texan punks,  Bobby Soxx, Dicks, Stick Man With Rayguns or Scratch Acid. This 7” couples a pair of songs from the S/T LP sessions

Japanese psychedelic rock band Kikagaku Moyo have started their own label called Guruguru Brain to contribute to Asian music scene. The  1st release is a compile of Japanese musicians who played Tokyo Psych Fest, for example: Fancy Numnum, Bombori, Korakora, or Old Man Bondage Machine, who has written their song about Steven Segall. It’s free to download