[engl] Four years into Preening’s existence and the Bay Area trio hasn’t shown any signs of stagnation–they remain committed to the urge to move forward, to push themselves and their audience. Thus, the restless and relentless motion of Preening’s new 12” EP on Ever/Never Records, who also released 2018’s excellent Greasetrap Frisbee 7”. Preening sounds more than ever like no one but themselves–Max and Alejandra’s duel (sic) vocals and sax/bass interplay is masterfully augmented and driven by Sam’s all-hands-on- deck drumming. “Twinning” exemplifies all of these aspects, achieving a head-spinning velocity occasionally interrupted by sections that mimic drips and chimes amidst the cacophony. This is dance music for sleep-deprived geniuses and those who love them. “Rapt Fashions” demands to know “Whose body is this anyway?” And then, to drive the theme of dislocation home, the EP ends with a wigged-out “Extortion” dub mix by Andy Human (of The World/Naked Roommate/ Reptoids) & Brett Eastman (Reptoids). Dragged Through The Garden proves that Preening and Ever/ Never continue to deliver the goods, and then some.

[engl] Born in Iraq but raised in Sweden, Prince of Assyria stands with one foot in Baghdad and one foot in Scandinavian melancholy. As a Mesopotamian royalty sentenced to diaspora in an Astrid Lindgren saga, he builds longing bridges between East and West that have touched a dedicated fanbase far beyond Sweden’s borders. Teasing, spooky, grinding, fateful and swarmy, sometimes stripped like Nick Drake or Leonard Cohen, sometimes dramatic and theatrical as Tindersticks or Lambchop, sometimes with obvious but usually only hinted references to his Assyrian origins. And then that golden voice of his. Prince of Assyria enchants his audience whether he performs at Café De La Danse in Paris, Lido in Berlin or Bar Loose in Helsinki. His debut record Missing Note from 2009 made him a favourite among the critics with his acoustic songs full of bittersweet sadness about lost love, desperation and threatening madness. On the sequel Changing Places in 2014 Prince of Assyria’s multifaceted explorations continued, now with a broader emotional register and warmer production. After six years of silence he is finally back with his album 3rd Level released in September on Busy Bee Production on vinyl, CD and streaming services. Here Prince of Assyria dives deep right into the magic world of the 60’s and takes his songwriting and production to a whole new level. Playing almost all the instru- ments by himself the songs have been recorded and re-recorded over and over to catch the turmoil of the past years. Death, illness, breakups, homelessness – the songs on 3rd Level have gone through almost as much as Prince of Assyria himself. There were times when he never thought he would be capable of putting it all together but here we are at last with an outstanding record of intricate patterns soon to be uncovered to the world. Prince of Assyria’s music cannot be captured – after three superb albums it’s fair to say that he sounds like no other, just like himself. All other comparisons are superfluous.

[engl] Rory Heane and Jonno Ross-Brewin have been best mates since their first year of primary school in Melbourne's south-east, and have been playing music together since forming two-piece SeeSaw when they were 18 years old (Rory has also kept busy with the likes of The Blinds and The Stroppies). The seeds for Program were sown in the duo's sharehouse in 2016 when they began writing songs together on guitar for the first time, and the band sprouted in earnest the following year when old friends James Kane (The Faculty, Meter Men) and James Tyrell (Meter Men) were roped in on bass and drums respectively. Since then, the group has graduated from jams and house shows to regular gigs around Melbourne, adding keyboardist Jessie Fernandez (DARTS) along the way. October 2018 saw Program record with Anti Fade mogul Billy Gardner in his Geelong studio. The lightning sessions yielded the band's debut LP, Show Me. Also mixed and soon to be released by Gardner through Anti Fade, the LP will be the band's first release of any sort. The nine tracks on Show Me channel the deeply personal and often unfathomable nature of modern being through snarling, tangled riffs and power chords into a fresh brand of unhinged, modern Australiana - just as easy to dance to as is it to cry to. "It's personal heartache, disappointment, broader social panic, everyday confusion and a general acceptance of it all" says Jonno of the record's themes. The lead single "Motorbike", penned by Rory, showcases the band's knack for tight guitar harmonies, effortless noodling and endless charm. It's the electric twang of Neil Young with the cool swagger of Pavement. The Go-Betweens burning the Midnight Oil. Rory describes it as an anthem of frustration and self-doubt: "The protagonist sits static in traffic while a woman on a motorcycle whizzes past. It's a metaphor for your position in society: feeling stuck and watching haplessly as someone else zooms ahead".

[engl] Puberty (the band, the lifestyle, the etc.) though, belongs entirely to Susanna Welbourneand Lars Finberg. The band was hatched during a pocket of uncertainty, a time when signals seemed to point toward the half-promised oblivion of this duo’s day-job in The Intelligence, a favorite Whip-Wave unit and guardians of The Underground’s coveted Golden Drink Tickets. During these uncertain 2010 evenings, the tag team launchedTrainwreck, a monthly musical happening held at Seattle’s deepest, dankest karaoke dive, The Orient Express. Dance, dress-up (drag?) and debauchery were of principal concern, with a soundtrack tailored to exalt such values. Guess there’s really something to all of that revolting gonad-signaling after all. The by-now-trad’ Art-Punk that most would associate with These Intelligence Kids negated their mere insertion as house-band at Trainwreck, so The Intelligence’s assumed influences were swiftly replaced in Puberty by (as confirmed by Finberg) Trainwreck playlist regulars like U-Roy, Tones On Tail, Fun Boy Three, prime sleaze Roxy Music and other grandiose splatterings. This was to be the inverse of what the duo had been doing musically in terms of mood and motivation. The Intelligence’s air-tight guitar jerking delivered with (ahem) casual professionalism was to be largely displaced by big-band arrangements with wildly unexpected turns, delivered via eccentric theatrics and playing upon classically sexual, sultry and moody Rock’N’Roll with odd atmospherics. Plus pink outfits.

[engl] For nearly ten years, songwriter and sound-sculptor Geoffrey Bankowski has been digging secret tunnels through recorded sound with his project, Quietus. Like all the best home-recording artists, Bankowski seizes the limitations of his medium and shapes them into brand-new spaces with a physics and logic all their own. Bankowski's songs are deceptively simple, relying on no more than two or three chords, without bridges or choruses, building tension and momentum from subtle dynamic shifts and bursts of noise that serve as settings for his idiosyncratic narratives and plaintive singing. It passes for rock 'n' roll but comes closer to a sort of ambient-country music, populated by ghostly woodwinds, electronics, and voices that huddle around the bar band at the end of world. Each Quietus record lights the music from a different angle. This fourth untitled volume lets a touch of light in through the shades. A couple of the songs scrape the periphery of pop music, emphasizing vocals (Geoff's, but also Alejandra Foerg's, who lends an eerie touch to "House Finch" redolent of Gene Clark's "Silver Raven"), jauntier rhythms, gorgeous clarinet passages by Steve Goldstein, and Joseph Harms's quarrelsome lead guitar, which, implausibly, recalls both John Morton in the Electric Eels and Robbie Blunt on The Principle of Moments: the secrets in the attic, the return of the repressed. Recommended to listeners of Pink Reason, Leonard Cohen, U.S. Saucer, Cowboy Junkies. -e/n!

[engl] David West (rank/xerox, total control, lace curtain) delivers 5 new songs of his shoe gaze driven earnest unashamed guitar pop. 5 songs of wonderful frosted jangle, sad pop post punk with potential ear wings that let you melt away under the sun on some beach. Just beautiful. The new record goes hand in hand with their current european tour and gets a pressing of 500 records with silk screened covers.

[engl] RAYMONDE HOWARD likes it short. With this record called le Lit, she did a soundtrack to the movie of the same name. Expect some infectious and « I just can’t get em outta my head » songs in her traditional trademark aka choruses and lalala’s that won’t be easy to forget. Raymonde is as sharp and cute as Rowland. She knows how to play guitar as well. Looping voices and riffs, that’s her thing. Creating 90 seconds masterpieces after masterpieces. The shorter, the more efficient. She’s got the sense of pop. Writing catchy choruses that stick to your brain forever. A real talent. Yes, she’s amazing and I don’t need to write a stupid biography or explain why. Just listen to her goddamn songs.

[engl] We are so excited to finally, officially announce the brand new LP from Washington, DC’s The Rememberables! Breathe, their second full-length, will be available everywhere Friday, October 8th, and is being released in conjunction with our friends Head2Wall Records in the USA. Descended from the ‘90s wave of guitar-driven power pop bands that owed as much to Van Halen as to Big Star, The Rememberables have crafted a hook-laden, fuzzed out masterpiece. Deftly produced by the legendary Kurt Ballou to perfectly capture every subtle nuance of their deep and sophisticated approach to the genre, this is not a record to miss. The Rememberables formed in 2013 in Washington DC and solidified their lineup one year later with the addition of Chris Moore on drums (Coke Bust, Repulsion, etc). After releasing their self-titled debut EP in 2015, the quartet coupled that with new songs to create the 2017 self-titled LP. The seven track effort, which saw release via Adagio830, was engineered by Kevin Bernsten (Triac, Eyeflys) at Developing Nations Studio in Baltimore, MD and mastered by Brad Boatright (From Ashes Rise) at Audiosiege Engineering in Portland, OR. The band released a pair of digital tracks in late 2019 as the B-Side You EP before heading into the studio in 2019 to record Breathe.

[engl] The Rememberables (members of Coke Bust, Walk the Plank, etc.), from Washington D.C., deliver a modern blend of grunge, power pop and fuzzy 90s alternative, reminiscent of Superchunk, Weezer, & Dinosaur Jr., on their infectious debut album. Seven blistering tracks serve as a perfect accompaniment for your summer drive -- windows down, hair blowing, engine roaring fast down endless highways. In other words - loud, refreshing and catchy as hell.

[engl] Influenced in equal measure by both sides of the street and the top and bottom of the charts, Richard Papiercuts’ “IF” sets a new standard for ambitious pop music on a shoestring budget. Meticulously recorded throughout New York City over the course of a turbulent year, Papiercuts & co. traffic in shades of light and dark. Like a master of ceremonies at an underground cabaret, Papiercuts -- a mystery man of uncertain origin and pedigree -- is an expert guide to the many quandaries of a modern metropolitan existence. “IF” is unafraid to explore a complex inner life rife with anxiety and doubt, yet reveling in the sensual pleasures only the contemporary cityscape can provide. “IF” is the ultimate marriage of subversive, underground sensibilities and classic songwriting craftsmanship silhouetted on a larger-than-life canvas. This music encompasses an ordinary life played out in widescreen. We are all our own celluloid heroes, Papiercuts seems to be telling us. Embrace your starring role, be your biggest fan. “How It Really Begins” opens the album as an interruption -- the band in mid-rock-out -- a throbbing pulse peppered with sudden starts and stops, used here not as demonstrations of musical prowess, but as building blocks of tension. Papiercuts’ deep voice walks a thin line between utter sincerity and gentle mocking -- here used to excellent effect as the band engages in a sort of stately post-punk, all jagged propulsion and knowing winks. “How It Really Begins” is a suitably thrilling beginning to the masterful new album by enigmatic troubadour Richard Papiercuts. “Bull and Cup Relax” is a slowly twisting trip through latter-day psychpop, an update on Tears For Fears’ update on The Beatles. Future smash “Peanut Butter Is Back” features an instant hook that could be chanted by cheerleaders or groups of school children. Viral YouTube videos are waiting in the wings for this one.... Dousing cocaine dreams in cascades of champagne, “The Sorrow Of Faith” is a late-night lament that summons decadent images of 1980s excess -- an attempt to maintain an unsustainable harem, and no amount of silk pillows will cushion the inevitable fall. Bryan Ferry is on the phone right now, asking his manager why nobody has brought him a song this good in years. “The Sorrow OF Faith” works perfectly as both reflecting pool and enticing come-on -- it is the hand that reaches out from the darkness to clasp your own. “Twelve Days” is a beautiful pop-psych gem that gleams like The Byrds covering The Velvet Underground. The song tries to hide its darkness from you, but it is unmistakably present in the gently roiling verses. “They Tried To Change Me” taps back into Richard Papiercuts’ aggressive side, utilizing sheets of guitars and a pounded piano to air its complaints. “Now I’ve Found You” leans hard into its romantic overtures, but allows them to include family into its lovefest. “Tired Of Playing The Drums” is some kind of funhouse mirror take on a Dire Straits or Don Henley ‘80s chestnut. It shouldn’t work, but it does, and how. The smoldering Papercuts of “Personality” is the smoothest talker at the bar, and you can’t resist his charms; the music swooning and swelling along with you. After such an eventful journey, “Manhattanville” is the perfect endpoint, its deadpan coda telling us that “Life is only so long.” Richard Papiercuts is adult music made by adult adults. “IF” is an album that harkens back to the old world of Brecht and Weill, Bowie and Cale -- and is surely one of 2015’s boldest musical statements.

[engl] Hello, friend. I hope all is well with you. I am writing to let you know that my new album, Reunion, is now available in a limited vinyl edition on the ever/never label. After working with a backing band for the last two records, I decided to return to writing and recording alone in the studio, the way I made A Sudden Shift ten years ago, and the way I did for nearly 20 years before that. I started tracking for Reunion at the tail end of 2019 with my engineer, Gregg, at a beautifully appointed studio in Connecticut. That proved a slow and expensive process, and of course it ground to a halt when the pandemic struck in March 2020. I thought I’d make the best of it, start over and try fleshing out the songs at home on the Mac, so that when the world opened up again I would have a detailed blueprint for the album, and I could go back to the studio and track all of it quickly and methodically. Instead, I wound up making the entire record at home. Gregg’s mix and mastering job made these homemade tracks go bang, and thanks to his finesse, it is the best-sounding record I’ve made so far. Last night when we listened to the test pressing of the album at e/n’s offices, a friend remarked that “Anita, Sing” is an adult contemporary track. I winced, reflexively, but of course, she was right: the song is based on the changes in Anita Baker’s “Real Love,” a perennial on AC radio, and the song is partly about Anita Baker. I had worked on the track for weeks and weeks, revising the lyrics, adding bits and pieces of piano and fake brass, and I guess along the way I forgot that I had set out to write an adult contemporary ballad. Sam Cooke has been on my mind a lot these past several years, and he was on my mind when I made this record. So were Prince, Al Green, Luther Vandross, and Rick James. Not to mention all the wonderful, shameless Brits, beginning with Bowie, who fashioned improbably slick art music from strands of Motown, Stax, Philly Int’l, etc. — people like Mark Hollis, George Michael, Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel. Of course I was also thinking about the tumult and the horrors that enveloped us in mid-2020. It would be trite to claim that this is my COVID record, but obviously, those realities animated the making of the album, materially and otherwise. “Judgment” turned out like a song that Killing Joke might have made for a car commercial; “Night Beats Night” is a groove built from pieces of “Footsteps in the Dark,” “Careless Whisper,” and maybe “You Scared the Love Right Out of Me.” If they seem opaque — and they do even to me, at times — it’s because I couldn’t find the words to adequately express the rage and sorrow of those summer months. It would be facile to say that the songs on Reunion are examples of “eighties music.” I certainly don’t hear any period effects, sonic or otherwise, and I’m not interested in nostalgia. It’s true, though, that “Alma” is based on a Motown groove that many musicians of the eighties, especially British ones, pilfered indiscriminately: The Jam, The Cure, The Pretenders, and The Smiths all had their way with it, to fabulous effects; and of course Phil Collins, who understood that in pop music there is no such thing as being too obvious, covered the whole tune and took it to number one (UK). It’s also true that half the songs on Reunion have a modular architecture: discreet sections built up and layered in different configurations to create intros, verses, choruses, and bridges. This process, a distant descendant of cubism, was first applied to pop songwriting in the mid-1980s, when digital technology made it easy to move around chunks of a song and rearrange them, and it gave rise to the 12” remix boom that extended through the end of the decade. I confess that this period, which framed my childhood, is an affective ground-zero for me: that was the music that first gripped me and shaped my sensibility, and I find myself returning to it instinctively in my middle age. I hope this record finds a home with you and that you cherish it as much as I do. Sincerely, Richard Papiercuts

[engl] When we last checked in with urban troubadour Richard Papiercuts, he was leading his band through the ambitious pop of IF, his debut for Ever/Never. A major statement from an unknown artist, IF was ripping with drama and daring listeners into a twilight world rife with lust, life, and the many contradictions contained within such four-letter words. Now three years wiser, Papiercuts has shed some of the mystery to confront the camera dead-on. Twisting the Night is a glossier production, timeless while conjuring the flickering pop-surrealism of ‘80s music videos and the grandiose maximalism of Peter Gabriel, INXS, and Tears for Fears, but on a 20 hour studio time limit. Over the course of TTN's four songs, Papiercuts and his crack band sculpt stately tableaus that hew toward the dark side of pop while avoiding cliches and sentimentality. 'There’s no correction, no distortion / in the way your voice cuts through the air': So begin the lyrics to opening cut 'A Place to Stay,' which serves as a re-introduction to Papiercuts’s sound-world, this time around avoiding obfuscation and willing to meet the listener halfway. 'Starless Summer Night', an epic, seven-minute centerpiece, is described by Papiercuts as a 'lucid nightmare' in the tradition of the Elevators and Tom Verlaine, but where apocalyptic dread mingles with the everyday anxieties of fatherhood. This is big pop music for big hearts and minds. But the hit on Twisting the Night is 'The Riddle,' a shimmering anthem that whorls about like a mirage, seducing the listener as it takes its time to get into its zone. 'World and Not World' closes out the EP with hints of Madchester poking through the rhythm ’n’ wooze. 'Turn it off,' Papiercuts pleads. But we’ve got a better idea: flip the record over and start the journey again.

[engl] Formed by Brazilians Gustavo Riviera and Paulo Kishimoto from the band Forgotten Boys and American Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth, Riviera Gaz presents their debut album “Connection” on CD, LP and K7, released Hearts Bleed Blue (HBB). The band, as drummer Steve describes it, is “international and multiracial” and for that reason, “Connection” took three sessions to take shape. In the first one, Ubu, Take it, Crowboy were recorded and also appear on their 2016's EP. As two other recording sessions took place when the trio were on tour. “For the process to be legal, the direct mix will be done very well, without any fuss. John represented this very well. We will work more and more in gear, but the result of the record is very coherent”, says vocalist and guitarist Gustavo. The album, full of cultural references, has the title and the track Cowboy inspired in the film “The Connection” (1961) by Shirley Clarke, based on the play by Jack Gelber. Pere Ubury, text by Alfred Jar King Ubury. The cover of “Connection” features a work by the plastic artist Hudinilson Jr. (1957 - 2013). However, as musical influences that pass through The Kinks, T.Rex, Velvet Underground, Ramones, Beatles and Rolling Stones, also appear on Riviera Gaz's debut album. If I Had One track that talks about hopelessness, according to Gustavo, it was designed to sound like the Ramones, but then it was transformed. “It was the last song written for the record, it's fresh and reveals the energy that the band is”, he says. "Bleeding", with influences from The Kinks and The Stooges, was composed in the studio during recording. “I had the base, we discussed a few things, took stock and recorded. This song for me is the final scene of a movie, set in the last moments of life, a little confused, death coming”, reveals Gustavo.

[engl] Great music and deep inspiration, can come at the most unexpected moments. At the most difficult times, and sometimes at the most contented ones, too. In 2021 Robert Forster had a batch of songs written over a period of three years which he knew would be the basis of his next album. The songs felt strong, like they belonged together. They surprised him, too. They had different things to say, more openly personal about those closest to him. He had the beginnings of one other song too, just music and a melody, no lyrics as yet. There was no rush to complete it, since he was also working on his first novel. It felt like the new songs could wait. Life soon had other plans. In July of 2021, Robert’s wife and sometimes musical partner Karin Bäumler was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and so began the intense emotional challenges of hospital, tests, chemotherapy, of hopes and fears. As it had often been in their lives together for 32 years, music was like a rock, a place they could go. “We started to strum songs at night to unwind after a big day, and Karin knew them because I had written them in the house,” Robert says. “When you are concentrating on a song the rest of life goes away, and music became a beautiful escape hatch for us.” In July, Karin talked with Robert of the fight ahead. Soon after, with Karin resting in another room, Robert quietly played that new song he had set aside and whispered “She’s a fighter, fighting for good”. Those lines became the only lyrics needed for She’s A Fighter, the extraordinary opening track and first single from the new Robert Forster album, The Candle And The Flame. “I have always written from life, about things that are close, but what Karin was going through felt too big to write about,” Robert says. “I thought if I did try to write about it the song would be 100 verses long. The only room I could see in this piece of music was for those two lines and that took me right down to the basics. I couldn’t have done it any other way.” Life found a new rhythm. Karin and Robert’s son Louis came to the family home in Brisbane most days, joining the music sessions. Friends dropped in with meals and one of them was Adele Pickvance, bassist with Robert on the final three albums by The Go-Betweens. She would join the music-making too. “We weren’t thinking of making a record. We decided to put our lounge room songs down on tape in a studio so that we would always have a recording of this thing we did.” Time was precious. The songs were recorded quickly at Brisbane studio Alchemix, without headphones, without overdubs, everyone in a studio room together, eye to eye. “Listening back to the day’s recordings, two of the songs in this raw form sounded complete to Karin and I. We wondered, could an album of songs be recorded in the same way?” After a medical procedure in October that year, Karin continued recording when her health allowed, sometimes just a day or two in a month. The joy and respite the music gave them was priceless as Karin drove the album to completion, shortly after finishing her course of chemotherapy in March 2022. Some will hear songs on the new album with titles such as It’s Only Poison (“The body is a temple/The mind is a box/Your heart is like a river that no one can stop”) and Always (“Time moves in one direction/And there’s been a breakdown at the intersection out on Highway 5”) and conclude these must have been written after Karin’s diagnosis. They weren’t. Nor was Tender Years, one of the greatest love songs Robert has written in a career that now stretches across nine studio albums with The Go-Betweens and seven solo albums of original material. The Roads is set in the countryside of Bavaria, Germany, where Karin and Robert met and lived for many years. Go Free is a song from lockdown, as is There’s A Reason To Live, inspired by the discovery of an old concert ticket in a jacket pocket. All three are saying, better times can be up ahead. I Don’t Do Drugs I Do Time is a clear-eyed observation from a mature perspective (“I remember when we first met/Where you sat and what you said”), as is the album’s closing statement, When I Was a Young Man. Robert says: “That was triggered by a show on Radio National where guests were asked, ‘What’s the most important year of your life?’ For me that was when I was 21, moved out of home, The Go-Betweens began, I started to write good songs.” What he did not know then was how far those songs would take him. Or that at 65, with the help of family and friends, in the most testing of times, he would deliver an album of songs as rich, as meaningful, as life-affirming, as true, as anything a younger person might dream.

[engl] Robocop Kraus are back! Incredibly, “Smile” is the first new Robo album in fifteen years. Produced by Jan Philipp Janzen (Die Sterne, von Spar etc.), it sounds very much like ... no ... it sounds exactly like Robocop Kraus! Can we agree, once and for all, that the band often cited as Germany’s answer to “The Make Up / Franz Ferdinand / Talking Heads / The Rapture / Devo” have their own inimitable sound? Which is no small achievement. Come to think of it, how did we achieve the feat of lasting so long without Robocop Kraus? And another thing: how did the band manage to come up with the best album in their history, some 25 years after the debut performance in a Hersbruck youth centre? An album that leaves the anaemic, success-obsessed indie scene in its wake and one that we can already say will be among the most invigorating releases of the year, even though 2023 has only just begun. “Smile“ is an aptly chosen title. The Robos gallop fiercely and fearlessly through an array of musical styles and themes. No false modesty, no malice, embracing the spirit of “Innocent Fun”. Is that doing them a disservice? Not in the slightest, in an age of meticulously plotted musical paths (and life plans), such naive exuberance and inventiveness are more than just charming, they are positively subversive. “Smile” fizzes with impetuous energy and shines with the serenity of a band who have played over 800 gigs all over the world and yet play every single song as if their lives depended on it. “What’s sizzling in those pots, strange kitchen aromas” asks the opening track “Young Man”, fuelled by drums and bongos. Then comes the “Innocent Fun” we alluded to, a touching coming of age story, flaunting a euphoric power pop shiny suit. The first single “On Repeat” floats on dreamy synthesizer waves before drifting into the Kraut-disco. “World/Inferno” is dedicated to the group of the same name, with whom the Robos toured Europe and the USA in the 2000s. The New York band’s vocalist died last year. “Under control” is a new wave banger that sets the emotional state of too much sentiment to music. A state which is swiftly reined in on the next track, thanks to the great rationalist Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Another highlight is the pop ballad “Cradle of Filth” which recounts an episode with the eponymous metal band on the night train to Saint Petersburg. There are flashes everywhere of that innate, idiosyncratic, unmistakeable Robocop Kraus sense of humour, never ironic, never detached. As those (and there are many) who have attended a Robocop Kraus gig or acquired one of their records will know, this band is on our side, they mean well with the world. On “Smile”, Robocop Kraus have succeeded in eluding the downward spiral that would see them end as a tiresome cult band or, perish the thought, a dusty legend. Yes indeed, they’ve charmed their way out of that trap. All this time, they’ve been hidden away, keeping themselves fresh like a deep-frozen gateau, waiting to be savoured when the time is right.

[engl] Long time no hear: after an extended hiatus and just the occasional gig, Robocop Kraus have rewired and reunited. They’re back in the game. Almost a quarter of a century has passed since the band was formed, a period which saw them release on labels like L’Age D’Or, Epitaph, and Anti. Now they have put together a compilation featuring all of the tracks which, for one reason or another, were not available on their regular albums, with an intriguing number of rarities and previously unreleased material. Founded in the late 1990s by members of former (secondary modern and grammar) school bands in the small Middle Franconian town of Hersbruck, endowed with the most rudimentary technical skills on their respective instruments (the deal was that every band member would play an instrument he had yet to master) and unafraid of hammering out songs from blatantly pilfered or well-worn musical ideas, the band was, to all intents and purposes, set up to fail. Nevertheless, Robocop Kraus became the love of our lives: 5 albums between the years of 1999 and 2007, the first on the band’s own label Swing Deluxe, the last on the internationally renowned Epitaph label. Hundreds of shows across Europe, the USA, Russia and Japan. Encounters and friendships with people and bands, adventures and events in squats, bars and clubs. Enough answers? Things quietened down in 2010, a lengthy break with just the odd show here and there. But last year, 2021, we had to concede that Robocop Kraus really are the love of our lives: a concert request was spontaneously accepted – surprising even the promoter, not to mention ourselves. Back to the rehearsal room. Now we are six and we have more instruments too. We had to listen back to the old songs so we could practise, and as we rummaged through the archives we happened upon the 28 songs now gathered here together for you. They range from our very first recordings to songs for (and in) 2022. EPs, compilation tracks, a few all-time faves like Poor Soul Relax (on vinyl for the first time) and previously unreleased songs or alternative versions. This ist he first ever Robocop Kraus double vinyl (check), with superb artwork by Lorenzo Zimmermann and meticulously detailed liner notes courtesy of the band, divulging no end of anecdotes or secrets true and false.

[engl] Limited to 250 copies.