Miami, Florida proctors of hard rock, TORCHE, have announced the first European tour dates in support of their recently released third LP, Harmonicraft, today. The band will perform in the UK, Germany, Netherlands, France, Belgium and Switzerland in September.

Led by vocalist/guitarist Steve Brooks (formerly of doom dropouts, Floor), Jonathan Nuñez and Rick Smith (also members of the grindcore outfit, Shitstorm) and new guitarist, Andrew Elstner, (former vocalist/guitarist for St. Louis’ Riddle of Steel), TORCHE have been steamrolling the underground-metal scene since their 2004 inception and made big waves in 2008 with the release of Meanderthal, their second full-length album. Winning accolades from both the underground metal scene as well as a whole new crop of fans who were just taking notice for the first time, the mainstream indie rock community. Now with outlets like Pitchfork, Spin, Stereogum, Decibel, Quietus, Classic Rock and Kerrang! all piling praise upon the band for their newest collection of super heavy, yet totally accessible melodic metal songs, TORCHE are bringing their dense, delicious and peerless live performance to the UK and Europe.

“Currently buying every note of music ever made by the band Torche. Rather excited about this”

-Zane Lowe via Twitter

TORCHE Tour Dates:

13 Sep Moho Live Manchester, England

14 Sep Rock City Basement Nottingham, England

15 Sep Captain’s Rest Glasgow, Scotland

16 Sep XOYO London, England

17 Sep The Haunt Brighton, England

18 Sep The Cellar Southampton, England

19 Sep Effenaar Eindhoven, Holland

20 Sep Divan Du Monde Paris, France

21 Sep Magasin 4 Brussels, Belgium

22 Sep Bastard Club Osnabruck, Germany

23 Sep Hafenklang Hamburg, Germany

24 Sep Schlachthof Wiesbaden, Germany

25 Sep 1210 Stuttgart, Germany

26 Sep 59 to 1 Munich, Germany

27 Sep Abart Zurich, Switzerland

28 Sep Bi Nuu Berlin, Germany

29 Sep Luxor Cologne, Germany

30 Sep FZW Dortmund, Germany

“[Harmonicraft] still brings the heft and thick cut distortion, but never wastes a single moment’s breath on anything superfluous. So whether it’s head-spinning fretboard wig-outs of Sky Trials or the sleepy sludge of Roaming, everything on here hits the spot…this record is deserving of a mainstream audience.” – 4/5 KERRANG!

“The cover art…actually serves as a rather apt visual representation for exactly what it is that makes the group such an enigma: their inane ability to appear fun, whilst actually being quite dark, and to culture hugely melodic, almost pop hooks yet graft them to gigantic thunderous riffs that are amongst the heaviest around…in a different league.” – 9/10 METAL HAMMER

Torche Official Site: http://www.torchemusic.com/

Volcom Entertainment Official Site: http://www.volcoment.com/

• 06.06.2012 NIRL Belfast, tba.
• 07.06.2012 IRL Galway, tba.
• 08.06.2012 IRL Cork, Fred Zeppelins
• 09.06.2012 IRL Dublin, The Pint
• 15.06.2012 DK Copenhagen, Copenhell Festival (where they will be amongst some fine company indeed playing alongside Slayer, Mastodon, Anthrax, Immortal and more)
• 16.06.2012 SWE Hultsfred, Hultsfred Festival

Musique Fragile Volume 02 is the second in the series of limited-edition, artwork-intensive box sets featuring three full-length albums by three different artists, available June 26 on heavyweight vinyl and as a digital bundle. The vinyl set will be limited to 500 hand-numbered copies, lovingly designed and hand-assembled: each album comes in its own jacket accompanied by a pull-out poster, and all three albums are housed in a lovely screenprinted slipcover box (pictured above). Records are pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl and the box, jackets and posters are all screenprinted by Jesse Purcell at Repetitive Press in Montreal.

Pre-order your copy directly from Constellation and it will ship to arrive on or before release date.

Musique Fragile Volume 02:

Kanada 70 • Vamp Ire
Pacha • Affaires Étrangères
Hangedup & Tony Conrad • Transit Of Venus

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Kanada 70 • Vamp Ire

Kanada 70 is the home-recording project of Toronto’s Craig Dunsmuir, who started giving away CD-R micro-releases under this moniker in 2006. There have been over two dozen K70 titles issued since then – truly a treasure chest of 21st century études, where the repetitive and cyclical nature of mostly loop-based tracks is conditioned by the fact that Dunsmuir plays and punches everything by hand; returns of phrase contain odd stutters and variations, intention and accident collide, and there’s an organic immediacy throughout. Vamp Ire spans a wide range of influences, from abstract techno, industrial and noise music to prog-rock, African funk, no wave and metal. The hardest part was selecting only 45 minutes worth! But we think Vamp Ire opens a window to Craig’s subtle, introverted and brilliant sensibility.

Dunsmuir is known for his work as one half of Glissandro 70 (with Sandro Perri) and as an encyclopedic musicologist on staff at Toronto’s Soundscapes record store. Under his Max Gross alter-ego, Dunsmuir recently remixed “Love & Light” from Sandro Perri’s Impossible Spaces album, which will be part of a Perri remix album issued by DFA in summer 2012. Craig also DJs disco 12″s as part of Invisible City Sound System. Other Kanada 70 compilations have appeared as digital releases on Polyphasic, Medusa Editions and Inyrdisk. Vamp Ire marks the first appearance of K70 material on vinyl. The album was mastered by Sandro Perri.

Pacha • Affaires Étrangères

Pacha is the solo work of percussionist Pierre-Guy Blanchard, who recorded this album at home with engineer Radwan Moumneh in 2009 and subsequently self-released it in a tiny run of CD-Rs. Affaires Étrangères features intensely satisfying rhythm-heavy instrumentals often propelled by fried, amped-up Middle-Eastern synth lines and sprinkled with guitar, bass and oud along with the odd looped field recording. Think early Trans Am if they had come out of Cairo or Beirut, or Oneida in their motorik mode and with an Arabic pop fixation.

Blanchard received a BA in music in 2003, majoring in percussion performance, and then escaped the ‘new music’ trajectory by traveling extensively and immersing himself in Middle Eastern and Balkan traditions, studying under various masters and playing with a wide range of regional groups. During his periods back in Canada he performed in countless ensembles and first came to Constellation’s attention when he was recruited as guest percussionist for Black Ox Orkestar and ultimately appeared on that group’s Nisht Azoy album, about which Tiny Mix Tapes wrote “Blanchard’s freeform jazz-indebted playing opens the album up to even more adventurous terrain…the second leg plays like a Balkan Henry Cow”. Pierre-Guy has also performed regularly with Sam Shalabi’s jazz/psych/arabic orchestra Land Of Kush.

Constellation re-sequenced and remastered the Affaires Étrangères CD-R for vinyl and is proud to be giving this album a more substantial life. It marks Blanchard’ first attempt at a definitive musical statement of his own and we think it succeeds wildly.

Hangedup & Tony Conrad • Transit Of Venus

A meeting of the legendary violin minimalist and one of the past decade’s finest instrumental punk bands. Tony Conrad needs no introduction, having made crucial contributions to avant-garde experimental film and sound since the 1960s. Hangedup – the Montréal duo of Eric Craven and Gen Heistek – released three searing albums of steam-engine percussion and layered, distorted, dive-bombing viola on Constellation in the early 2000s.

Conrad and Hangedup first met in 2003 at the k-raa-k festival in Belgium, which led to a series of shared concerts and collaborations in 2004 and a pile of live-in-the-studio recordings captured while the trio were working up various pieces and improvisations. These tapes rock. Having gone unreleased at the time, Craven together with Harris Newman at Greymarket Mastering recently plunged back into the archives and started shaping an album from the various 2-track and live-mixed multi-track source material.

Transit Of Venus documents this fertile collaboration and includes some enormous slabs of drone rock alongside more decomposed pieces and gorgeously gritty string duos.

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Tracklist

Kanada 70 Vamp Ire
1. Ignore Dub I
2. Mou
3. Krankqui
4. Molle
5. Delivery
6. Gnaer
7. Errora High II
8. Chimura
9. For T.O. (Perish)
10. Annoyo
11. Redrag
12. Thumas
13. Redsidled
14. Scorpi
15. Doubles

Pacha Affaires Étrangères
1. L’Aeroport De Charlo
2. Macedonian Mind
3. Modern Malaise
4. La Gare De Podgorica
5. Tunel
6. Ankara
7. Starcevo
8. Le Soviet

Hangedup & Tony Conrad Transit Of Venus
1. Flying Fast n Furious
2. Transit Of Venus
3. Principles
4. Bright Arc Of Light
5. Gentil The Unlucky Astronomer
6. Panorama From Maxwell Montes

Read more and listen on the Constellation website.

Since announcing the initial line up for Supersonic Festival’s Tenth birthday this October, early bird tickets have sold out (and in record time) and the event is really starting to take shape.

Having already fulfilled the promise of working with Supersonic alumni as well as emerging artists in the first line up alone, Supersonic now proudly announce an extremely special collaboration and UK exclusive performance of the unique and unpredictable guitar pairing of the iconic Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and Boston’s favourite free-noise guitarist Bill Nace. Together, they are known as BODY/HEAD.

So far they have only played a handful of shows, released a limited cassette on Ecstatic Peace and included a cover of ‘Fever’ for an Ultra Eczema compilation. Given the credentials of both musicians, Supersonic are confident that BODY/HEAD will deliver a mind-melting performance. Check out a recent video performance of the duo on vimeo as a taste of what is to come.

There will be another announcement to follow in a few short weeks with more acts joining this celebratory event and there are still some more very special additions to unveil soon as well.

“Supersonic is a place to be educated and surprised: new, experimental and intellectually nourishing.” – WIRE

“Having been a journalist for 15 years I’ve had cause to work at approaching 100 festivals all over the world and in my opinion Supersonic has the consistently best quality line-ups and is the most engaging and stimulating to fans of underground music. Certainly no other festival introduces me to more new and exciting music than this one.” – THE QUIETUS

“Capsule’s Supersonic festival has evolved…to consistently provide one of UK’s most anticipated Festival line-ups. Fans of dubstep, krautrock, free-jazz and doom metal were all catered for on a bill which promised to both rupture the ears while stimulating the mind through its diverse selection of music, film and specialist talks.” – CLASH

 Crafting extraordinary events for adventurous audiences

Six Organs of Admittance as an electric entity is not without precedent. Ben Chasny regularly performs with a full, electric band, often cascades an electric guitar solo in the middle of an acoustic jam, and has recorded entire sides of electric drone. This element goes all the way back to 2002, when a short-lived rock version of Six Organs (with the members of Comets on Fire) toured the West Coast and etched a few demos to tape before moving on. Ten years later, with the idea to record new songs as a full rock band firmly entrenched in his mind, Chasny warped over to Tim Green’s Louder Studios with members of Comets as his backing band. He emerged with Ascent, the rollicking realization of the Six Organs full band experience.

No, these aren’t those dusty old 2002 moments with the dust blown off. We live today, and so does Six Organs of Admittance! To manipulate the past would change the world forever. Instead, the time line for Ascent occurs on our identical Earth, on the other side of the sun, telescoping the strength and power of that moment in 2002 and it’s electri-Six-O after-affects by viewing it through the mind’s opera-glass, in the present.

From the opening red storm of “Waswasa” to the sentinel strength of “Even If You Knew” and the sensual lilt of “Visions (From Io),” the sound of this Six Organs is that of full-tilt rock band. The fun and fury of electric Six Organs of Admittance is evidenced in every molten groove.

Ascent will reach this Earth via Drag City Records come August 20th in the UK.

Ascent tracklisting

1. Waswasa

2. Close To The Sky

3. They Called You Near

4. Solar Ascent

5. A Thousand Birds

6. Your Ghost

7. Even If You Knew

8. Visions (From Io)

13.05.12 Bristol, The Cube w/ Esmerine
14.05.12 Norwich, Arts Centre w/ Esmerine
15.05.12 London, The Lexington w/ Esmerine
16.05.12 London, The Gallery Cafe The Local presents: Gallery Chapel series
05.06.12 Coventry, Taylor Johns w/ Two Wings
06.06.12 Oxford, St John’s Church w/ Two Wings
07.06.12 Manchester, Kraak Gallery w/ Two Wings
08.06.12 London, Wilmington Arms w/ Two Wings
09.06.12 Lewes, Needlemakers w/ Two Wings
14.06.12 Glasgow, Mono w/ Two Wings
16.06.12 Aviemore, Insider Festival w/ Two Wings
16.06.12 Inverness, ICA w/ Two Wings

As a reminder, you can view video footage of new Eric Chenaux album tracks and share his sound with MP3s that Constellation are giving away for free, available as download and stream. Here are the vital links:

VIDEO: “Put In Music” (film by Eric Cazdyn)
VIDEO: “Put In Music” (live, film by Carlo Proto)
VIDEO: “Dull Lights (White or Grey)” (film by Eric Cazdyn)
VIDEO: “Amazing Backgrounds” (film by Eric Cazdyn)

MP3: “Amazing Backgrounds“
MP3: “Dull Lights (White or Grey)“

View it now on Broken Sound Records’ YouTube.

A Great River, the debut solo album from doom/psyche masters USX’s founding guitarist NATE HALL, is out now via Neurot Recordings.

Featuring nearly forty minutes of material over ten original numbers, A Great River even further explores the lush bed of Appalachian heritage and songcraft USX has become widely popular for, yet showcases an even more folk and bluegrass influence as well as more expansive, soundscape passages. Fully envisioned and crafted by HALL himself, the album was recorded at Fahrenheit Studio in Johnson City, Tennessee by Travis Kammeyer. Here the multi-instrumentalist HALL displays his musical abilities by layering multiple styles of guitars, banjo, Theremin and all vocals, outside of keyboards courtesy of Kammeyer on two tracks, resulting in an incredible display of unique, modern Americana. A Great River can be ordered HERE.

“The songs are haunting but finely crafted in their simplicity, engorged with sincerity and emotionally coercive.” – ECHOES AND DUST

“Musically A Great River is on the complete opposite of what I usually listen to, but sometimes you come across an album that really resonates with you, regardless of genre or style. Stunning album! 8.5/10“ – THIS IS NOT A SCENE

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nate-Hall

http://neurotrecordings.com

https://www.facebook.com/officialNR

               

               

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