Helicon & Al Lover release ‘Backbreaker’ from incoming collab album, ‘Arise’ Due out February 13th, it finds Helicon’s psych-rock infused with Lover’s genre-bending electronics – resulting in a maximalist, uplifting sound with a baggy, hypnotic pulse.
“Backbreaker came from a desire to fuse sounds we’d never really heard living side by side”, says Helicon frontman John-Paul Hughes: “Middle Eastern guitars paired with a melodic bassline that sits somewhere between Motown and indie rock; eastern strings and percussion rubbing up against sub-basses and breakbeats; chanting harmonies woven through Helicon’s psychedelia, Al’s sampler work, and Tony Doogan’s production. It’s a track you can listen to thirty times and still find something new; some independent melody, texture, or rhythm hiding in the layers. It’s a beautiful melting pot of moving, colliding sounds.”
Lover says: “This one was especially fun for me. I grew up going to drum & bass parties in my late teens and early twenties. It was never a huge part of my identity, but I always loved the music. As I dug deeper into the genre, the importance of the Amen break and how entire branches of electronic music were built around that single drum pattern. It all became endlessly fascinating. Blending that world with rock has been done before, but not quite in the way we approached ‘Backbreaker’. The aggression and intensity of both genres fit naturally together, and the psychedelic edge that emerges when they collide feels like its own new space.”
Emma Swift’s “The Resurrection Game” follows in the tradition of her heroes, singer-songwriters like Sandy Denny and Marianne Faithfull, artists who transformed personal struggle into compelling music. As Swift’s first album of original material, it represents an important and promising step in her artistic development. Emma Swift is an Australian songwriter. She lives in Nashville, TN with the British cult musician Robyn Hitchcock. Swift herself describes this collection as “a bummer of a record,” a characterization that proves accurate, if reductive. Written primarily between 2022 and 2024, these songs emerged from the aftermath of what Swift describes as a seven-week “nervous breakdown” that resulted in her being sectioned in her native Australia. What followed was over a year of recovery—a period Swift characterizes as “very fragile”—during which she processed her experience through therapy, medication, and ultimately, her art.
The album succeeds in its stated goal of transforming personal pain into music. Swift’s voice remains her strongest asset, providing clarity and emotional weight to lyrics that confront difficult subjects directly. The juxtaposition between her crystalline vocals and the album’s heavy emotional content creates tension that works well on the stronger tracks, though it occasionally feels forced on weaker material.
Producer Jordan Lehning has created arrangements that serve Swift’s material well. The album’s sonic landscape aims for lush orchestration that creates space for Swift’s voice while providing musical support for the lyrics. The production occasionally leans too heavily into the album’s melancholy, making some tracks feel overwrought where a lighter touch might have been more effective.
Swift’s core band — Spencer Cullum (pedal steel), Jordan Lehning (keys) and Dominic Billet (drums), Juan Solorzano (guitar) — are largely experienced Nashville hands, a group who recently has started to play together as Echolalia. They’ve all known each other for years, played together at different times but never altogether as a band. Cullum’s pedal steel work provides some of the album’s most memorable moments. Cullum, whose extensive experience includes work with Miranda Lambert, Kesha, and Little Big Town, brings a deft touch to Swift’s material. His playing adds the right Americana flavour while maintaining the album’s emotional consistency, particularly on tracks like “How To Be Small” and “Beautiful Ruins.”
The addition of a string section—featuring Annaliese Kowert and Laura Epling on violin, Betsy Lamb on viola, and Emily Rodgers on cello—brings classical sensibilities to the album’s texture. Rather than simply adding orchestral grandeur, these players approach the material with precision and emotional intelligence, creating arrangements that enhance the songs’ emotional impact without overwhelming them.
Swift’s approach to addressing mental health and personal crisis through her songwriting is both brave and necessary. As she notes, “I believe that there is a space for songs about real pain. In this moment in time, we live in a world where we’re encouraged to anesthetize what ails us by any means possible. But this record is more about spending time with your sadness, of leaning into that sorrow and facing it head on.”
This philosophy permeates every track on “The Resurrection Game”. Swift doesn’t offer easy answers or false comfort; instead, she presents a clear-eyed examination of suffering that acknowledges its reality while searching for meaning within it. On “No Happy Endings,” she confronts mortality and impermanence with unflinching honesty: “The world’s a spinning time bomb / That there’s no denying / There are no happy endings / But baby I’m trying.” Yet even in this stark assessment, there’s defiance—an insistence on connection despite inevitable loss.
Her lyrics cut straight to the heart of complex emotions without resorting to cliché or sentimentality. In “How to Be Small,” she captures the vulnerability of depression with devastating simplicity: “I am so terribly lonely / How are things with you?” The contrast between profound isolation and casual social convention captures the disconnect between internal experience and external performance that defines much of modern suffering.
The album’s title track and songs like “Nothing and Forever” and “Catholic Girls Are Easy” showcase Swift’s ability to find universal truths within personal experience. In “Beautiful Ruins,” she transforms the aftermath of trauma into something almost mythic: “I come from the place, the place of many crows / And I’ve told them all my stories / And I’ve let them pick my bones.” The imagery is both visceral and poetic, suggesting both destruction and renewal.
Swift gives us songs that go beyond her personal mental health crisis; they are explorations of humanity that will resonate with anyone who has faced loss, grief, or the kind of existential questioning that comes with life’s darker moments. The album’s closing track, “Signing Off With Love,” perhaps best encapsulates this duality: “Is this how the end of the world is supposed to feel?” Swift asks repeatedly, but the act of asking—and the love in the song’s title—suggests that even in endings, connection remains possible.
Swift’s belief in “the redemptive power of art” (as she puts it) is evident throughout “The Resurrection Game“. She describes her process as attempting “to alchemize the experience. To make the brutal become beautiful.” This transformation is perhaps the album’s greatest achievement—it takes pain that could have been purely destructive and channels it into something that offers both artist and listener a path toward healing. In “The Resurrection Game,” she literally excavates the past: “In Calistoga, where the redwoods grow / I have come to, to excavate your bones,” transforming the archaeological metaphor into something deeply personal yet universally resonant.
“The Resurrection Game” is quite different from Swift’s previous album, 2020’s “Blonde on the Tracks“, which featured her interpretations of Bob Dylan songs. Where that earlier effort demonstrated Swift’s ability to reinterpret existing material through her own perspective, this new collection presents her original songwriting. The contrast is notable: “Blonde on the Tracks benefited, of course, from classic source material and allowed Swift to focus on vocal interpretation, while “The Resurrection Game” requires her to carry the full weight of both song writing and performance.
“The Resurrection Game” succeeds as both personal statement and artistic milestone. Swift’s willingness to address difficult subject matter directly demonstrates real courage, and her voice remains compelling throughout. While the album has its uneven moments, it achieves something meaningful: transforming private pain into music that speaks to universal experiences of loss and recovery. The stronger tracks—particularly “The Resurrection Game,” “Beautiful Ruins,” and “How to Be Small”—reveal Swift as a songwriter of genuine talent, capable of finding poetry in darkness without resorting to easy sentiment. For listeners drawn to honest, emotionally direct music,
Emma’s album, “The Resurrection Game” came out September 12th, 2025 on Tiny Ghost Records.
This year marks 45 years since the release of The Durutti Column’s landmark album “The Return Of The Durutti Column”. To celebrate, London Records will release a very special reissue of the seminal Manchester band’s 1980 debut, out now. One of the first groups to be signed to the legendary Manchester label Factory Records in 1978, The Durutti Column took their name from Spanish Civil War anarchist Buenaventura Durruti and a 1960s Situationist comic strip. Having appeared on Factory’s inaugural release “A Factory Sample” (a double 7” compilation also featuring Joy Division, John Dowie, and Cabaret Voltaire), the band’s relationship with the label would endure for two decades and ten studio albums.
“The Return Of The Durutti Column” remains one of Factory’s most enduring and important works: fragile, otherworldly, and quietly radical. Produced by Martin Hannett, it showcased Vini Reilly’s distinctive, delicate guitar work against Hannett’s ambient textures, post-punk reverb, and glacial electronics. The 45th Anniversary Edition will be available in several formats:
The Deluxe Sandpaper LP, replicating the rare first pressing and limited to 500 numbered copies worldwide. Each sleeve has been spray-painted by hand with the original catalogue number, FACT 14. This edition includes a unique printed inner sleeve featuring an essay by Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, housed inside a protective outer cover. Available exclusively at store.the-durutti-column.com.
The Standard Edition LP, replicating the second pressing, commonly known as the “Dufy” sleeve (after a featured triptych of images by French painter Jean Dufy), with the outer sleeve printed on the same textured card as the 1980 version. The inner sleeve features an essay by Durutti Column/Factory Records expert James Nice. Rough Trade will stock a unique pressing of this edition as part of their Essentials range, pressed on black-and-white marbled vinyl and limited to 500 copies (with bonus sandpaper postcard).
All vinyl editions have been remastered from the original source tapes, recently rediscovered in a Stockport warehouse, and cut at half-speed for maximum audio fidelity. The tracklisting includes the original album plus “Untitled” (featured on later iterations), alongside two further tracks: “Lips That Would Kiss” and “Madeleine,” both originally issued on Factory Records’ Belgian sister label Factory Benelux in autumn 1980.
The Expanded Hardback Book Edition is a 2CD, 38-track collection housed in a tall storybook format with a 48-page booklet. Alongside essays from James Nice and Bobby Gillespie, this edition also includes a new piece by Mojo journalist Ian Harrison. The expanded audio features the vinyl track-listing plus material from the 1980 bonus flexidisc “Testcard,” first recordings, studio and home demos, live performances, and several previously unreleased tracks. The artwork reflects the special 1985 boxed cassette edition (part of Factory’s series alongside releases from Joy Division, New Order, and A CertainRatio) and is printed on authentically sourced paper stock.
The first 500 orders from the official store will receive an exclusive bonus CD, “Lost Songs and Sketches”, featuring early live recordings and a rare 1981 audio interview with Vini Reilly.
The Durutti Column’s sparse yet emotionally charged soundscapes have influenced generations of musicians. Most recently, Blood Orange sampled the band’s “Sing For Me” on “The Field,” the lead single from his album “Essex Honey”, while their catalogue now enjoys millions of streams worldwide.
The band is experiencing a renewed cultural resonance, with songs featured in acclaimed series The Bear, in Jonathan Anderson’s debut collection for Dior Spring-Summer 2026, and across the entire soundtrack of Dries Van Noten’s Autumn-Winter 2025 runway show.
“The Return Of The Durutti Column” endures as a defining statement of minimalism and atmosphere: an album that still sounds as visionary today as it did 45 years ago.
It’s always fun to see big bands play NPR Music’s Tiny Desk concert series, as groups attempt to squeeze all their members into the small office. This week it’s the one and only David Byrne, whose current band numbers 13, including him. Interestingly, though, David’s tour for his new album ‘Who Is The Sky?’ is designed to have all its musicians performing close to one another, so apparently it wasn’t as hard as it may seem.
David Byrne has a long history of staging elaborate live shows, often with a sprawling cast of musicians, highly choreographed dancing and unusual instrumentation. So when we learned he wanted to have more than a dozen performers at the Tiny Desk, playing everything from cello, saxophone and marimba to a Brazilian timbau and zabumba (not to mention various guitars and keys), we weren’t sure we’d be able to fit it all in. It turns out his latest tour, for the album Who Is The Sky?, is well designed for our roughly 10 by 11-foot space. Though Byrne and his band do normally spread out across large stages, the set design for each show is almost completely bare, without any cables or amps, and the artists wear or carry compact, custom-made instruments to make it easier to move, almost like a marching band.
David & his band played “Everybody Laughs” and “Don’t Be Like That” from the new album, & then treated Tiny Desk to a couple of Talking Heads songs “Nothing But Flowers” and “Life During Wartime.”
It was a bucket-list performance for the Tiny Desk. Afterward, as the rest of the band and crew dispersed, Byrne hopped on a rented bike for a solo ride through the District on a beautiful, fall afternoon.
SET LIST “Everybody Laughs” “Don’t Be Like That” “(Nothing But) Flowers” “Life During Wartime” MUSICIANS David Byrne: vocals, guitar Mauro Refosco: percussion, music director Ray Suen: guitar, bass, violin, music director Kely Pinheiro: bass, cello Daniel Mintseris: keys Stephane San Juan: drums Tim Keiper: percussion Yuri Yamashita: percussion, marimba Tendayi Kuumba: background vocals Sasha Rivero: background vocals Hannah Straney: background vocals Sean Donovan: background vocals Jordan Dobson: saxophone, background vocals
Meanwhile, David has just shared a new playlist perfect for the season, which you can also view at the link below: ‘Christmas Music for People Who Hate Christmas Music’. It includes songs from Run-DMC, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Yellowman, Prince, Sufjan Stevens, The Staple Singers, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Neko Case, Tierra Whack, Phoebe Bridgers, The Decemberists, Sabrina Carpenter, Captain Beefheart & more, & he ends things with his own “Fat Man’s Comin’”.
Danny Lee Blackwell’s Night Beats released their self-titled debut album back in 2011 and 2024 sees a long-overdue vinyl reissue hit the racks courtesy of UK label Fuzz Club. An acid-drenched modern garage-rock classic in the Texan thirteenth-floor tradition, the band’s R&B-inspired Western Psychedelic sound on this 12-track set is a reckoning, a shoot-out at dawn, the ear-splitting peel-out that leaves nothing but a cloud of red dust in its wake.
Following early releases in the shape of the ‘H-Bomb’ 45 and a split 10″ with UFO Club (a collaborative project between Blackwell and The Black Angels’ Christian Bland), the ‘Night Beats’ LP was the first full-length introduction to the band and propelled them to the forefront of burgeoning contemporary psych scene in a blaze of scuzzy rock’n’roll release. Heavy touring immediately ensued and hasn’t let up in the years that followed, and the definitive Night Beats hit ‘Puppet On A String’ has since clocked up millions of streams and become the soundtrack to an underground, fuzz-worshipping generation.
Looking back on the record and upcoming reissue, Danny Lee Blackwell says: “Turning stones, looking for a sound. In bloom, or right before. Looking back on this first album I see a band with ideas that committed early on. I see where things will be built from, ideas that set up the groundwork for sounds to expand far beyond while honing a classic sound. I ventured with my voice and guitar and glad I did because there’s self acceptance and experimentation on this album. I’m proud of it and very glad it’s getting a long overdue repress.”
Vinyl reissue of Night Beats’ S/T debut album – a long out-of-print modern garage-rock classic. The splatter vinyl edition – exclusive to the Fuzz Club store and Night Beats live shows – includes fold-out poster designed by Night Beats’ Danny Lee Blackwell and limited to 500 copies.
“Forever, I’ve Been Being Born” is Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter’s first new album since 2011’s “Marble Son“, and the band’s fifth album since 2002. It is a suite of masterful, emotive songs from an open heart, dwelling in a brightness yet deep in the ethereal and melancholic, steeped in themes of magical thinking, emotional dislocation, death and transformation.
In the making for 10 years, the album centres around the power of Jesse’s transcendent voice, which has never been more beautiful, evocative, and hauntingly intimate. Guitarist Phil Wandscher’s playing masterfully frames these songs with classic and fractured tones, a duet of vulnerability and strength frequently on the edge. The album also features exquisite contributions from Marissa Nadler.
“This album is our attempt to create elegant folk and sometimes ragged, cosmic, heart rendered songs full of eulogies and laments,” says Sykes. “Our sound is still familiar enough, but unrecognisable at times — we’ve gotten older and wearier, the music more fragile…
“When we started recording this album, I remember saying, ‘Play the songs as if the edge of a butterfly wing was brushing against your cheek in the dark while you’re holding a small child.’ I wanted to connote tenderness and a state of grace in the wake of resolution — paying homage to the creeping knowledge of an emerging, menacing undertone forming in our collective psyche. In hindsight, the delay in releasing this record has been a bit of a blessing, as the lyrics seem more poignant now, transcending our own internal voices and psyches. As the world shares its collective crisis, so we too, share our songs.”
With “Forever, I’ve Been Being Born”, Sykes and co. have crafted a work which feels “very much like a eulogy” — a collection of tracks which see her exploring the idea of mortality with a calm acceptance. While Sykes’ voice has already acted as a guiding light through dark times for others, for Jesse herself, that presence is felt in the form of a chaperone on this record. More specifically, Jesse’s childhood babysitter inspired a motif on the record, “She truly was the person who taught me love,” muses Jesse, “When I think of the moment of death, I often think that it would just be going to her.”
Recording a new album was delayed for years, in the wake of two band members unexpectedly leaving after “Marble Son”. “Losing our rhythm section was heartbreaking,” she reflects. “ It sounds cliche, but we had to grieve that loss, and in doing so, we had to separate ourselves from making music for a while, because dare I say, music was painful at the time. It reminded us of what we’d lost. Bands are like family and I’d lost my family. So yes, I had to give up music in order to fall in love with music again.”
The album title, “Forever I’ve Been Being Born“, hints towards this sense of cyclical surrender — “I’ve felt I’m constantly being born and constantly having to die. Or constantly dying in order to be reborn.” We live in a time of collective mourning, and to Jesse, “the lyrics make more sense now than when I was writing them. I think there was some kind of premonition going on… juxtaposed to what’s happening in the country, the emotional climate — this music speaks to the times we are living through.”
The emotional feeling of the record can be summed up in a single line from the title track — “Eternities, they will crumble.” A quiet sense of acceptance runs through the record like a stream meandering towards the sea. Listen in the dark.”
“The Waterboys Present: Rips From The Cutting Room Floor (Extras from Life, Death And Dennis Hopper) is the genre-defying companion to The Waterboys’ Sun Records debut album “Life, Death, and Dennis Hopper”,a song cycle telling the life story of the great American trailblazer and actor. Written and self-produced by Mike Scott and the storied international rock band, the eclectic album is comprised of 16 all new tracks including “The Next Time I Saw Elvis, Still Raging On” and an alternate version of “Golf, They Say.”
First single from the Waterboys’ forthcoming album of bonus tracks – “Rips From The Cutting Room Floor” extras from Life, Death And Dennis Hopper, out December 5th. Performance featuring Mike Scott on guitar and vocals and Dylan Bishop on lead guitar.
STILL RAGING ON, the second track to be released from our Hopper extras album Rips From the Cutting Room Floor, is out now.
“Still Raging On” is the prototype of what became “Ten Years Gone” on the album. It features the same lyric but with a completely different and very beautiful tune sung by Mike with acoustic guitar.
The Waterboys will perform a special series of dates in August and September 2026 under the banner THE FISHERMAN’S BLUES REVUE. The shows will celebrate and explore the music of the Waterboys’ classic “Fisherman’s Blues” album era of the mid-late 1980s.
Legendary Waterboys fiddler Steve Wickham will rejoin the band for the shows, and in an exciting development the ensemble will be graced by great American singer/songwriter Steve Earle, who will perform as a member of the Revue, singing his own songs while adding vocals, guitar and mandolin to Waterboys numbers.
The shows will follow hot on the heels of the release of “ATLANTIC RAIN“, a 3-disc set of previously undiscovered music from the Fisherman’s Blues sessions, to be issued July 17th 2026 on Chrysalis Records.
Waterboys leader Mike Scott: says “The Fisherman’s era was a transcendent time for The Waterboys and it’s always exciting to delve into its spirit and see what happens. We’ll be performing with an eight-piece band including the mighty Steve Earle who I’ve wanted to do a project with for many years. He’ll bring Americana roots and killer songs to the party, and these promise to be among the best Waterboys shows ever.”
Other band members include Brother Paul (organ), Famous James (piano), Aongus Ralston (bass), Eamon Ferris (drums) and Norwegian Pedal Steel ace Roar Øien.
“ATLANTIC RAIN” will comprise 3 discs of previously unheard songs and alternate versions recorded during “Fisherman’s Blues” but forgotten due to the sheer volume of music recorded. Says Scott: “We made so much music during those days – hundreds and hundreds of individual recordings – that I’m still discovering magical stuff in the vaults. This set contains the best I’ve found so far – the music is every bit as good as the original album.”.
“The Vipers are back. With their signature blend of ’60s pop hooks, garage grit and psychedelic edge, the New York City legends return with a newly remixed and remastered edition of their lost 1986 album “How About Some More”. Born from the same scene that made them kings of Irving Plaza, The Ritz and The Peppermint Lounge, this record captures The Vipers at full throttle — raw, melodic, timeless. Once buried, now revived: The sound that could’ve ruled the world.”
NYC’s Vipers saga can easily fill an entire book. Caught in the tumult of the early 80s garage scene, the band forged a solid reputation of delivering incredible live performances matched with some stellar song writing. A talent that not surprisingly brought them to the very brink of national recognition. However, in a moment the sudden passing of their manager set off a chain reaction that slowly ate away at the band. The Vipers limped along for a few more years, but disagreements, dissatisfaction, and a hard-living 80s lifestyle took a predictable toll. Eventually, the members all went their separate ways.
Teaming up with label owner (and former vocalist of 80s Long Island surf-punk band Immortal Primitives) Bob Cantillo, this year saw the release of the first 45 of “new” Vipers material in over 30 years. “Pretty Lies” (as well as the flip, “Find Another”) is a classic example of a hungry garage band at the height of their powers. Sounding closer to their rough live sound than the full-length platters, the single is an astounding reminder of the talent of the early band and makes an essential addition to The Vipers discography.
While The Vipers catalogue has always been available in some form or another, it was only in recent years that guitarist Paul Martin took it upon himself to remix and remaster much of the original material so that it better represented the band. Among one of his first projects was to properly release material from the sloppily mixed, cassette-only “Cryptic Vaults/Not So Pretty, Not So New.
TRACKS 00:00 You’re Doin’ It Well 02:29 Rules Of Love 06:02 Don’t Try To Mend It “10:17 That Ain’t Fair! 12:46 Need Some Lovin’ 15:20 Try Me 18:25 How About Somemore? 23:09 Too Bad 26:47 Silver Linings 30:02 Talking To Stone 33:11 She’s Comin’ Home
Once at the forefront of doomgaze, the heavy branch of shoegaze’s recent renaissance, Greet Death choose to re-imagine themselves on “Die in Love”, their first album in six years, by adding soft layers of optimism in songs about being miserable and depressed. There are pretty, tranquil moments from both co-leads Logan Gaval and Harper Boyhtari, as their light, floating voices and newfound hopefulness feel almost as seismic as their big, crushing guitars. “Die in Love’s” delightful sonic pivots between sludgy walls of sound, hushed acoustic ballads and rich storytelling have set Greet Death apart from their peers.
“Die In Love” is a beautifully melancholic album by Greet Death. The band’s dizzying melodic nature shines throughout its nine tracks, featuring delicate acoustic shimmers, somber percussion, and high-volume post-everything fuzz.
released June 27, 2025
Greet Death are: Logan Gaval Harper Boyhtari Jim Versluis Jackie Kalmink Eric Beck
Julianna Riolino considers her own growth on her sophomore record, ‘Echo In The Dust’. On these songs, the Southern Ontario musician is soft as she is tough; seeing the benefit of laying down armour and splitting her heart open so that we may get a glimpse of our own.
We’ve seen Canadian rock ‘n’ roll’s future, and its name is Julianna Riolino. Riolino has a history of taking to stages with such might, it’s as if she’s finally free of something that had prevented her from being herself. She’s no less spirited on “Echo in the Dust”, but her theatricality is more dynamic, digging into thoughtfully written songs exploring interpersonal transitions, almost like they’re scenes in a larger play that’s a memorably compelling emotional roller coaster.
The Fat Angel Sings 
