■ Magic Mountain – ‘Taboo Session’

■ Various Artists – ‘Hello America’

■ Jacko Hooper – ‘This Was The Earth’

■ Sweet Williams – ‘What’s Wrong With You’

■ They Fell From The Sky – ‘Dry’

■ Yr Poetry – ‘Porthmadog, dog’

Magick Mountain is box fresh psychedelia from dynamic husband and wife duo Tom and Lynds, with total mad man Nestor Matthews on drums. A debut LP exploding with savage riffery – Weird Feelings – landed last October to a procession of melted faces… It’s an absolute piledriver written over years in between/in the wake of other projects – most notably Sky Larkin, Grammatics and Pulled Apart By Horses – and is one you can still add to your physical collection in a sexy magenta hue!

With Weird Feelings the trio managed to capture a real intensity that made it clear they’d be an all out assault in a live setting, just at a time when no band could actually be experienced live… But turn that frown upside down, kido! A four track session recorded at Eigar Studios in Leeds has just dropped as part of the excellent Taboo series to confirm suspicion that yes, these guys absolutely do indeed slay. Enjoy it below, throw them a few quid for the wavs, and keep an eye on these three as they’re bound to go far.

One of the brightest lights in contemporary American prose, Adam Gnade (guh naa dee), has had a torrid year, as anyone supporting him through Patreon will know only too well. But he’s tough… he’s had to be, weathered for years as a genuine artist in a world where consumption is valued by its immediacy and contemplative reflection is a fusty notion that withers lest it can be abridged by a Tweet.

So still he fights on (“Again and again it goes on”, as the excerpt echos from his 2020 tale ‘This is The End of Something, But it is Not The End of You‘) leaving pearls of pure, shimmering beauty in tow. The latest is this: a new label boldly anointed Hello America, which offers a voice for short stories, novellas and poems, sometimes backed with noise, other times sold on cassettes. The Spring collection is a gateway into some of your new favourite artists so do explore it before setting your watch by upcoming releases.

This one from Brighton impresario Jacko Hooper is worthy of note purely for the fact it was able to melt my bitter heart for at least a few moments. His voice is arrestingly unique, and powerfully so on a topic as personal as his own mental health, which veered close to crisis but instead formed this beautiful bedroom recording that has the power to heal others too.

“I don’t feel that the original story of why I wrote the song is necessarily the most
important thing” he states, humbly. “I think the fact people can listen to it and all of a sudden it becomes a different story with a totally different meaning is the best thing of all, to be able to connect to it people need it to be their story, not mine”.

As with our physical wellbeing, mental health is also a universal trait, but one that can feel suffocatingly singular at the worst possible times. This Was The Earth offers an outstretched arm to everyone, then, with its heart very firmly on its sleeve.

Thomas House (who, for my money, is straight up one of the most interesting musicians we have) is on a hot streak, having just released the lead single from his third album in just three years. For the uninitiated, Dead Singer is hallmark Sweet Williams; an expert interweaving of tense vocality, oddly angled guitar and 808 drums, now bought to life through bandmates of Picore and Los Conches Velasques somewhere near Zaragoza.

The four track foundation has been a thread throughout his career (yes, even during the early days of Charlottefield), but the post-punk brutalism it spawns is never tired nor worn. This example opens new record What’s Wrong With You which is out through Nottingham’s Gringo Records (Hey Colossus, Part Chimp, That Fucking Tank, Reciprocate) on May 28th but can be pre-ordered today.

1. Dry They Came From The Sun 3:06

Featuring members of Hundred Reasons, Killing Joke and Snuff, They Fell From The Sky offers a hearty dose of nostalgia for those of us that grew up adoring this sound around the turn of the millennium, and I’m all for the next generation finding it anew. ‘Dry’ is the first taste of an LP set for release later this Spring which will hopefully be cut in the same mould – it evokes the very best of Rise Against and This Et Al, with Colin Doran’s vocals perfectly on point despite countless live outings over the years.

The track offers a taste of these accomplished musicians’ ability to mix their heavier roots with a mainstream appeal. But mortgage rock this is certainly not: far from a bare faced attempt to cash in on yesteryear, you get the palpable sense that they’re having fun with this project in its own right and, better yet, that they’re only just getting started.

1. Porthmaddog, dog YR POETRY 4:27

I had the good fortune to have a candid interview with Johnny Foreigner before a Camden Crawl too many years ago, during which Alexi stated that he felt the band ought to be more famous (this was on topic, I hasten to add, and not some kind of narcissistic blurt apropos of nothing).

I agreed then as I do now – I’d be willing to bet there’s not a 200 cap venue he and Junior haven’t played in the UK to get the word out, and that the kind of fuzz folded emo they offered us more than a decade ago was a perfect tonic for a crowd weened on, well, music as above.

But for whatever reason it didn’t land, really, beyond those of us who knew to turn up to shows and savour those energetic nights with friends new and old.

Yr Poetry isn’t far removed from that original sound, and it needn’t be. It’s as honest, as fresh and as accomplished as ever, so just fucking take note this time.