Modest Mouse
Building Nothing Out Of Something

Le musicien et tenancier des groupe et bar fictifs Mild High Club signe un quatrième album en forme de purgatoire pour temps troublés.Quand certains disques, comme les derniers albums en date de Björk, semblent être le produit ou une fraction d’une dimension parallèle vaste comme le monde et totalement inexplorée, d’autres ont l’air, à l’inverse, d’appartenir à un espace-temps plus modeste aux limites connues.C’est le cas de Going Going Gone, nouvel album du génial multi-instrumentiste Alexander Brettin, qui rassemble tout ce qu’on entendrait dans un petit bar de nuit qui porterait le nom de son vrai-faux groupe : le Mild High Club où funk déglinguée, bidouillages électroniques, musique brésilienne et free jazz cohabitent sans heurt.

Local Heroes !

mash up mix of Grandmaster Flash - The Message acappella over The Clash - Guns Of Brixton bassline

‘Hive Mind Records are excited to announce a new album from King Champion Sounds, the shifting Holland based collective centred around Ajay Saggar and Oli Heffernan (University Challenged), GW Sok (The Ex), Mees Siderius, Holly Habstritt Gaal & Elsa van der Linden.On “Between Two Worlds”, the band bring the same insatiable appetite for experimentation and exploration that made their previous four albums so special. This is music as an open conversation. An opportunity to exchange ideas. To be open-minded. To push boundaries and explore new worlds. Whereas elements of krautrock, electronica, free jazz and dub have always been part of the KCS armoury, they have never stuck to a formula in the music making process, occupying instead the open space that lies between musical worlds. The core members have brought their different experiences into this rich new album that draws influence and inspiration from a dizzying range of sources - from ambient guitar experiments, noisy avant-rock workouts, spidery gothic pop, otherworldly folk inflections - and pulls them all together into a unique and coherent whole.Guest appearances on the album come from Gerry Love (formerly of Teenage Fanclub) adding beautiful vocals and instrumentation to "I'm In Between Two Worlds", Mia Doi Todd bringing her incredible voice to "Easby Abbey Remembered", Sally Timms of The Mekons takes lead vocals on "Thou Hurricane" with Jon Langford (The Mekons) and Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day) on backing vocals. Finally, the Glasgow poet Marieke McKenna brings words from her diary to “Seasick” on which she recalls a surreal escape to a millionaires yacht and the stark contrast it provided to the"real" world outside.We're very excited to help bring this urgent, transcendent and wonderfully varied music out into the world in a beautifully designed gatefold package.’

Remains Of The Light, the debut album by Japanese trio Usurabi, is a gorgeous thing – six generous, deftly melodic songs that stretch out slowly, breathing deeply, yet never outstaying their welcome. The members of Usurabi started playing together in 2017, but they’d known each other for several decades, meeting via their involvement in a music club at university. Led by songwriter, singer and guitarist, Toshimitsu Akiko, previously of psych-pop duos Doodles and Aminome, the trio is completed by Kawaguchi Masami (New Rock Syndicate, Hardy Rocks, Miminokoto) on bass and guitar, and Morohashi Shigeki (Majutsu no Niwa, Uchu Engine, peaflan, Alraune) on drums.Kawaguchi and Morohashi had already played together in the legendary Broomdusters, a group they formed when they were both university students. Toshimitsu, long a fan of Broomdusters, formed Usurabi to explore what she describes as “rock music that features vocal mainly and floating sound like waves.” It’s a clear, simple and apt description of what they do. Toshimitsu’s songs are graceful, each having a dynamic arc to their construction, while allowing for all kinds of subtle inflection from her guitar, sometimes tussling with Kawaguchi’s flinty, overloaded blues; Toshimitsu drives the songs with subtletly and wit, sculpting waves of energy from his kit.Throughout, Toshimitu’s songs hint at questions, complexities, metaphors: allusions and illusions. Songs like “Brunnera” and the closing “Constellation” are adrift, beamed out on rays of light, the trio’s empathic playing harnessing a subtle kind of psychedelia. “Constellation” explores Toshimitsu’s thought, “Am I allowed to turn the feeling I can nothing to do into a constellation, like ancestors did?” The lovely, shaded pop of “Autumn Rain” translates a Toshimitsu solo arrangement into a stripped-back, delightful slice of happy-sad nostalgia; “The rain is always sweet to me,” Toshimitsu says of the song.Ask the trio what other music informs Usurabi, and they share names, some expected, some surprising: Kaneko Jutok, Les Rallizes Denudes, The Doors (“The first real rock experience to me,” Toshimitsu recalls), Captain Beefheart, The Rolling Stones. You can hear elements of all of this music in their songs, but mostly it’s more a hint, or a tint, than an obvious acknowledgment; the playing certainly shares the hopeful freedom of Kaneko, and the stridency and sensitivity of the Stones at their best. It also recalls the independent music of groups like The Pastels; like that outfit, Usurabi have absolute integrity in their sound. It’s quietly ambitious, and quite beautiful.