PROCESS & REALITY

12 February 2026

Simply thrilled to announce that Upset The Rhythm will be releasing Gun Outfit's new album 'Process and Reality' (out May 8th); a double-album of majestic folk-dipped underground rock music that strives to remain humble and true to life. It’s alive with ideas and truly expansive, refined and loooooose - with songs moving between fragility and hefty atmospheric passages.

Lead single ‘Unfelt Loss’ is available now online, it crackles with a fractious kind of energy, awash with layered vocals and crucially strummed guitars. ‘Process and Reality’ weighs in at a whopping 81 minutes, it is available to pre-order now on 2 x LPs (first pressing ltd. to 500 copies) and as a CD from all the best shops and our own webstoe and Bandcamp.

INFINITE NUGGETS

9 February 2026

UTR are releasing Dog Chocolate’s new album ‘So Inspired, So Done In’ this month! Here’s the latest exuberant anthem - ‘Infinite Nuggets’ - a song dwelling on the spontaneous nature of the mind in relation to songwriting, and how moments are lost and found, did we mention it also slaps? Have a listen now on all the digi-zones, the new single is accompanied by a beaut of a video made by Smooth Futon, thank you!

‘So Inspired, So Done In’ is available to pre-order now, and Dog Chocolate are planning on launching the album at the following dates:

Friday 27th February: Paper Dress Vintage, Hackney, London

Saturday 28th February: Truck Store, Oxford

SEASON 2

21 January 2026

Best news O’clock! We’ve teamed up with Spoilsport Records to release Season 2’s incredible debut album - ‘Power of Now’! April 24th is the date for your diaries, with the record available for pre-order today digitally and on black vinyl via Bandcamp.

We’re also sharing their first single ‘Abundance of Power’, up on all the digital platforms now, alongside the song’s most excellent video made by band member Freya McLeod… enjoy!

Season 2 formed in late 2024, bringing together seasoned Melbourne musicians with previous and current projects including Parsnip, The Stroppies and Phil and the Tiles. The five piece quickly set to work writing winsome, DIY, shimmer-pop hits that careen through your mind in a gratifying dizzy rush.

In the vein of The Feelies, The Vaselines and The Clean, Season 2 have whipped up a sonic whirlwind. It's a giddy thrill of snappy slap, catchy gang vocals and crystalline guitar refrains.

GREEN STUFF!

7 January 2026

“Bonkers and exquisite” isn’t just a lyric in Dog Chocolate’s new single ‘Green Stuff’ - it’s the perfect snapshot of the band themselves! Spindly cascades of guitar squall, plinky keyboards and eco-minded camaraderie burst into vivid being on Green Stuff, out today. This floral chorale features on the group’s forthcoming album ‘So Inspired, So Done In’, arriving Feb 27th.

Catch Dog Chocolate celebrating with an album launch at Paper Dress Vintage, London (Feb 27th), followed hot on its heels by a show at Truck Store, Oxford (Feb 28th).

‘So Inspired, So Done In’ can be pre-ordered from all the best shops and our very own webshop / bandcamp now.

DOG CHOCOLATE ARE BACK!

2 December 2025

Big day today, the new Dog Chocolate album, heavily trailed in person at our label showcase last week, has been officially announced!

After 7 strange years of relative silence, Dog Chocolate have now returned with ‘So Inspired, So Done In’. This fourth album is their most focused, cohesive and song-based yet. They still sound like a bin full of wasps, but now the bin has double-cream or a Viennetta at the bottom, nice!

Thematically, a lot of ground is covered, with songs tackling subject matter as diverse as overheard conversations, the Rogerian concept of the Actualising Tendency, bronze age living conditions, and human-plant relations. Listen now to Dog Chocolate’s first single ‘Employee’, a bouncy dissonant song that trades experiences of the mid-2020s job market.

Dog Chocolate revel in the mundane and incidental to explore bigger, existential questions with this record. They continue to investigate their internal and external landscapes with playful curiosity, frustration, silliness and empathy, but this time there’s a contemplative glaze. 'So Inspired, So Done In' is available to pre-order now on black bio-vinyl, with accompanying A3 poster and lyric booklet.

OUT NOW - EARTHBALL!

7 November 2025

Here we go! EarthBall’s goliath slamdunk of an album is released today! ‘Outside Over There’ is a phantasmagoria of improvised psychosis, as heavy as a juggernaut, as divine as a tarot hand.

What a head-spinning checklist? Dizzy sprawls of pertinacious drums, spun-out fx, crushed staggering guitars and freaked sax rapture. This landscape of unruly sound is then stalked through by Izzy & Jeremy’s spontaneous vocal projections, the effect is utterly pulse-quickening. The album is out now digitally and as a 180g black vinyl or trippy blue-in-black variant from all the best shops and our very own webstore!

EARTHBALL - HELSINKI

4 November 2025

Canadian psych-bruisers EarthBall return today with their convulsive new single ‘Helsinki’. Bearing down like a juggernaut, ‘Helsinki’ is a quake to the core, inspired by an account of a UFO sighting in Tibet in the late 1920s, an antique locket and the Bock saga. EarthBall will release their new album ‘Outside Over There’ this Friday and kick off their European tour this Thursday! What a way to roll? Mythic awe and inescapable entropy, jump into their whirling vortex!

EARTHBALL - 'OUTSIDE OVER THERE'

24 September 2025

Exceptionally happy to announce that EarthBall’s new album ‘Outside Over There’ will be released on November 7th through Upset The Rhythm. It is a phantasmagoria of improvised psychosis, as heavy as a juggernaut, as divine as a tarot hand.

Today we’re sharing the first single from the Canadian group: 'Where I Come From’ - a dizzy sprawl of pertinacious drums, spun-out fx, crushed staggering guitars and freaked sax rapture. This landscape of unruly sound is then stalked through by Izzy's spontaneous vocal projections, the effect is uncanny to say the least. ‘Outside Over There’ is now available to pre-order on LP, including as a trippy blue-in-black vinyl variant, it truly is a thing of unsettling beauty inside and out!

UTR LABEL SHOWCASE

5 September 2025

Join us for a two-day showcase of all things Upset The Rhythm on November 25th & 26th at Cafe OTO! We’ll be celebrating all the amazing artists we’ve worked with on record releases this year and beyond, plus our 22nd birthday, time to buy a big cake!

FOREFOWK, MIND ME - THE FILM

4 September 2025

We hope you enjoy this short film documenting the gathering phase of Quinie's 'Forefowk, Mind Me' project! Exploring the interdependent relationship between people, ancestors, animals and place, the project was filmed taking shape in the charged landscape of Argyll, alongside artist Dominique Rivard and filmmaker Lizzie McKenzie.

'Forefowk, Mind Me' exists as an LP and as a book too, available here.

SPLIT 7" EP RELEASED!

15 August 2025

What a day!

Upset The Rhythm releases UTR174 - a split 7” single between The Smashing Times and Linda Smith. United by DIY panache, Baltimore habitats and a charmed-pop delicacy, both acts showcase two new tracks on this record. Linda Smith conjures up some keyboard-warble anthems, whilst The Smashing Times encourage all to partake of their low-fidelity daytrips. It is a real meeting of minds. Available on all streaming platforms as of… now, and as an impressive black vinyl artefact from all the best shops (and our Bandcamp)

UTR x

LINDA SMITH & THE SMASHING TIMES

16 July 2025

Cor Blimey! On August 15th Upset The Rhythm will release a split 7” EP by Linda Smith and The Smashing Times. Both based in Baltimore and both best buds, this record celebrates that friendship sharing two new tracks by each act; united by DIY spirit, a bedroom-pop sensibility and now a puddle of black vinyl. Today you can witness their tea-based, umbrella-powered advertisement, listen to Linda’s track ‘So Long Ago’ (streaming through the digital ether) and even choose to pre-order the coveted disc yourself from our Bandcamp or UTR webshop.

THIS MATERIAL MOMENT - RELEASED!

27 June 2025

Today… Upset The Rhythm are proud to release Me Lost Me’s astonishing new album ‘This Material Moment’. MOJO recently described it as “a reassuringly complicated fusion of Björk and Richard Dawson with intense mid-’70s Virgin Records vibes”. It’s a miraculous exploration of the fabric of being and artistic motivation set in non-linear vistas of electronic folk idiom.

‘This Material Moment’ was written and woven by Jayne Dent, but performed with a core band of John Pope on electric/double bass, Faye MacCalman on clarinet, and for the first time Ewan Mackenzie (Dextro/Pigs x7) on live drums. The album was recorded by Sam Grant at Blank Studios in Newcastle, who also worked on its immense predecessor ‘RPG.’

You can hear the whole album streaming everywhere now, plus it is also available on CD and as a limited radiant red LP from all the best shops. We have copies available on Bandcamp and our own webshop too.

ANCIENT SUMMER

29 May 2025

'Ancient Summer' by Me Lost Me, is the final single taken from their forthcoming album 'This Material Moment', out June 27th on Upset The Rhythm. “It’s about stepping back to think on our connectedness, the things humans have made, our structures, our civilizations, our innovations, and also our rituals and beliefs, our relationships with one another - all in one overwhelming moment” Me Lost Me.

FOREFOWK, OUT NOW

23 May 2025

Upset The Rhythm are delighted to release Quinie’s superb album ‘Forefowk, Mind Me’ today! The Guardian have kindly made it their folk album of the month, describing it as “alive with ideas, holding the past like a cauldron, broiling bewitchingly”.

There’s also a brilliant interview just gone up on The Skinny too, well worth your time.

‘Forefowk, Mind Me’ is available now digitally and from all the best shops. You can also buy the LP from us directly through Bandcamp and our own webshop too. Limited edition black vinyl, with riso-graph insert + beautiful art-book option.

We have two launch shows coming up for the album too, next Thursday at Mono in Glasgow, and next Friday at St Pancras Old Church in London, see you there!

QUINIE - SALLOW BUCKTHORN

2 May 2025

It’s almost obligatory to release a folk song on May Day, but here we are on May 2nd still bringing in the May! Enjoy Quinie’s evocative new single ‘Sallow Buckthorn’ out now. It’s a mesmeric sea of swirling sound and Scots poetry.

“Ye micht o thought the sallow buckthorn, Ne’er a hairst could hain” ("You might have thought the buckthorn would be so pale, that no harvest could hold it.”)

‘Sallow Buckthorn’ is featured on Quinie’s forthcoming album ‘Forefowk, Mind Me’ out on Upset The Rhythm on May 23rd. Available to pre-order on LP with a risograph lyric print + magical book.

A PAINTING OF THE WIND

29 April 2025

Me Lost Me returns today with the second miraculous single from their forthcoming album ‘This Material Moment’ (out June 27th through Upset The Rhythm).

‘A Painting of the Wind’ is an astonishing song that we’ve loved in Jayne’s set for a while, it grapples with how artists try to express the inexpressible and how art is used as a means of escape and fantasy. The track is streaming everywhere now and is accompanied by this exquisite landscape portal of a video filmed at Raby Castle by Amelia Read.

‘This Material Moment’ can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp and our very own webshop too. We all love to be carried away!

QUINIE - COL MY LOVE

9 April 2025

Today we’re sharing another soaring single from Quinie’s new album ‘Forefowk, Mind Me’ (out May 23rd). ‘Col My Love’ is the very first track on the album, and it’s a powerful song to sing, accompanied by some epic pipes too.

Quinie explains that the words “warn of the dangers of being close to the shoreline. I thought it would be a good fit with this footage of me and Maisie trying to navigate one of the challenges on one of our walks. Perhaps not quite as scary as being jailed on a cliff top, but nevertheless an adventure.”

PERFECT HIT! OUT NOW

4 April 2025

Buffet Lunch’s new album ‘Perfect Hit!’ is out now on Upset The Rhythm. This record positively zings in the sunlight, whilst its pleasingly imperfect pop songs dazzle to the same degree.

‘Perfect Hit!’ was recorded in the West Highlands, in the shadow of the UK’s Biggest Ben, during Leap Year week 2024. The lo-fi amblers built this album from bricks, ideas and plots, melodies and hooks, each stacked upon the other. It’s a proper expedition of curious turns and dizzy dimensions taking in parenthood, face tattoos, conkers and historical consciousness as subject matter.

This meandering masterpiece of observational charm and offbeat fancy is available to listen to digitally now, the stunning yolk-coloured 180g vinyl can be found in all the best shops and our very own website here.

Buffet Lunch will be performing for us in London next Friday (April 11th) for their album launch at The George Tavern, accompanied by Lerryn and Sassyhiya too. Can’t wait to hear these songs played live! Tour dates incoming:

09/04 - Delicious Clam, Sheffield

10/04 - JT Soar, Nottingham

11/04 - The George Tavern, London

12/04 - The Holloway, Norwich

03/05 - Settlement Projects, Edinburgh

24/05 - The Glad Cafe, Glasgow

ME LOST ME - 'THIS MATERIAL MOMENT'

28 March 2025

What a day to announce this breathtaking new album from Me Lost Me! ‘This Material Moment’, the fourth full-length from Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent, delights in songwriting, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully push the boundaries of genre. Today we’re sharing ‘Compromise!’, a stunning lead single concerned with the notion of ‘performing’ a life, rather than ‘living’ one.

Concerned with physicality, interpretations, and, yes, materiality, ‘This Material Moment’ is an album akin to rummaging through a box of long-forgotten trinkets. With each song, Me Lost Me unearths something and asks us to consider it from every angle.

‘This Material Moment’ will be released on June 27th through Upset The Rhythm, a limited 180g ‘brilliant red’ vinyl version is available to pre-order from all the best shops, and Bandcamp here.

WHITSUN SOUND

19 March 2025

'Whitsun Sound' by Buffet Lunch came out today! Another wizard single from the band's forthcoming album 'Perfect Hit!'. This track is all about hobbies, leisure-time, waiting and repetition.

Huge thanks to the fine people at Raven Sings The Blues for premiering the creeped-out video, made by the talented Joshua Roland.'Perfect Hit!' comes out on April 4th, we’re throwing an album launch in London on April 11th at The George Tavern too.

ACTUAL EARTH MUSIC

7 March 2025

Earth Ball just cracked the planet! ‘Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2’ (out today on Upset The Rhythm) presents two caustic, zoned-out live sets from Canadian noise-rock entropy hunters Earth Ball.

Side A features Earth Ball live at The Fox Cabaret in Vancouver, supporting Wolf Eyes in 2023. Here Earth Ball whip up a vortex of thrashing wild energy, and the ecstatic release is off the charts. Volume 2 occupies Side B, showcasing a collaborative summit at London’s Café OTO last year. This recording features pivotal UK improv luminary Steve Beresford on piano and free-jazz phenomenon Chris Corsano on drums.

This is ‘Actual Earth Music’, sharing Earth Ball in their element as they conjure sound from the unknowing ether. ‘Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2’ is out now digitally and as a limited 180g black vinyl pressing.

QUINIE - 'FOREFOWK, MIND ME'

4 March 2025

We’re so excited for you to hear Quinie's wondrous new album ‘Forefowk, Mind Me’ (out May 23rd on Upset The Rhythm)! The first song from the album, ‘Macaphee Turn the Cattle’ escaped into the wild this morning, thanks to Klof magazine for premiering the video.

A singer working from the Scots song tradition, Quinie brings an approach that is both reverent and radical—exploring authenticity not as an exercise in preservation, but as something lived, questioned, and continually reshaped.

'Forefowk, Mind Me' can be pre-ordered as a 180g black vinyl LP w/ risograph lyric print. There’s also an option to order the LP with a stunning accompanying art book too!

Also… for those of you in London, we’re hosting a special launch party on May 30th at St Pancras Old Church.

RATTLE RELEASED

28 February 2025

Rattle’s entrancing new album ‘Encircle’ is released today!

With this hypnotic third album, Rattle have emerged from the chrysalis with four mutable songs of drum and vocal patterns. They build-up and disintegrate, existing in two places at once, tracing the circle’s edge. What a stunning achievement!

‘Encircle’ can be streamed on all digital platforms now, it is also available on vinyl (pink, black versions) and CD from all the best shops, as well as our Bandcamp and webshop here.

PERFECT HIT

25 February 2025

Buffet Lunch’s new single ‘Perfect Hit!’ is released today! It’s a snappy anthem of clunky guitar, casio wobble and percussive clatter. Teaming up themes like relationships, limbs and an actual swordfish sighting off the Scottish coastline (yes really), Buffet Lunch pack a wonky punch and are not afraid to modulate through multiple key changes.

The accompanying video was filmed on location in Portobello Town Hall where the band also shot the album cover for ‘Perfect Hit!’ - the album (out April 4th on Upset The Rhythm). Is this the birth of Nu-Music Hall? Glimpsed between long Edwardian red curtains? Quite possibly so! Now let’s learn the dance moves.

GET TECTONIC!

4 February 2025

UTR172 has just erupted! ‘Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2’ presents two caustic, yet alluringly unreal live sets from Canadian noise-rock entropy hunters Earth Ball. Following on from the group’s head-turn of an album ‘It’s Yours’ (Upset The Rhythm, 2024) this new LP captures the band at the peak of their powers, playing live, composing spontaneously.

These two live sets demonstrate how intuitive and inventive the group are when they keep cresting the moment. This is ‘Actual Earth Music’, sharing Earth Ball in their element as they conjure sound from the unknowing ether. ‘Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2’ will be released on Upset The Rhythm on March 7th digitally and as a limited 180g black vinyl pressing.

BUFFET LUNCH'S 'PERFECT HIT!'

29 January 2025

Well, I never! Art-pop amblers Buffet Lunch have embarked on their blue period. Released today, new single ‘Blue Chairs, Blue Floors, Blue Folders’ is the first track to sally forth from their forthcoming album ‘Perfect Hit!’, out on April 4th through Upset The Rhythm.

‘Perfect Hit!' is built from bricks, ideas and plots, melodies and hooks, each stacked upon the other. It is available to pre-order now on 180g yellow vinyl from all the best shops and our very own website here.

RATTLE'S RITUAL!

22 January 2025

Rattle return today with their hypnotic cascade of a new single 'Ritual'! 'Ritual' is a song of summoning, a waltz pulled out of the earth, a swirling mist and a spell spoken into a mirror.

Available now digitally and featuring on the duo's forthcoming album 'Encircle', out Feb 28th on Upset The Rhythm. Pink vinyl, black vinyl and CDs all available to pre-order from UTR and all the best shops.

CINDY is a key part of the San Francisco/Bay Area dream pop, fog pop, lofi scene. Led by NYC-originating songwriter Karina Gill, the steady stream of releases has earned sincere support from the international press community who have vividly championed the writing and sound. The songs are hazy but with intent – this is nostalgic pop-craft with lyrical backbone that has opened doors for Cindy to tour and appear at festivals in the UK, Europe and USA, most recently with DIY recording icon, Linda Smith.

The current Cindy touring band includes members Will Smith of Now, Staizsh Rodrigues of Children Maybe Later, and Oli Lipton of Now and Violent Change. Cindy will tour the EU & UK in 2026, while making progress back home in San Francisco on the eagerly awaited fifth album. Cindy have previous releases available through Tough Love and Paisley Shirt Records.

THE GABYS are a duo made up of Matt Wilkinson and Natasha Bikkul. They write mysterious, eerie bedroom pop from their home in Liverpool. This is Velvet Underground-inspired electric folk music that can roll with 90s New Zealand greats like Dadamah and The Garbage & The Flowers but also has parallels with current San Francisco lo-fi pop moodists like April Magazine and Mister Baby. They have released music with All Gone, Fruits and Flowers, and most recently, A Colourful Storm.

YELLOW SWANS have carved an influential path through America’s experimental music underground, at the axis of noise, psychedelia, industrial, drone, and hardcore. From their 2001 founding to the duo’s final shows (and subsequent hiatus) in 2008, Gabriel Mindel Saloman and Pete Swanson released well over 50 recordings documenting studio experiments, live improvisations, and numerous collaborations. Together they relentlessly toured North America, Europe, and Oceania, performing at numerous international music festivals including Sonar (ES), Open Circuit (BE), and Sonic Protest (FR), and were invited to join Art Council England’s Free Noise Tour in 2007. Yellow Swans performed for Upset The Rhythm multiple times over these busy years. Now, after a 15 year break, they have returned to recording and performing. Their music continues to be restless, ragged, and forever in flux, untethered and unresolved. Check out the duo’s two new cassette albums on Bandcamp now, ‘Out of Practice I & II’, the second is particularly striking and alien, enjoy!

UNMARRY ME is a triangular shaped group, comprising of Lise Frances, Jon Slade and Chris Rowley. London to Brighton and back again. Unmarry Me are a group that have been together for about 6 months in a world at war and in trouble. Unmarry Me are therefore a group trying to carve out some joy and light as form of resistance, no small feat, and maybe grandiose but worth the stating. Unmarry Me Is comprised of personnel who have all had time or continue to have time in other groups who did not take easy routes or money and didn't make many friends, so it goes. These groups respectively or chronologically were and are Huggy Bear, Comet Gain, I’m Being Good, Help She Can’t Swim, Snoozers and Adulkt Life. Bands that time will record as being on the right sides of history and her story. Unmarry Me are of a completely different stripe or ilk but comprise the antagonist and peculiar DNA that honour this. Unmarry Me play and record and create and make do in a DIY syncretism that's useful to themselves, distinct and not worth talking about. Unmarry Me! are about bending, queering, breaking and resetting rules, smudging boundaries and in the main having a lot of excellent fun!

RAIME (DJs) will be creating a unsuitable ambience throughout the night.

KEIJI HAINO was born in Chiba, Japan on May 3, 1952. Inspired by Antonin Artaud, he aimed for the theater, but an encounter with The Doors stimulated him into music, where he has examined and absorbed a wide range of expressions from the early blues, especially Blind Lemon Jefferson, or European medieval music to popular songs across the world. In 1970, he joined a group Lost Aaraaf named after Edgar Allan Poe’s poem as a vocalist. Meanwhile, he started to work on home recordings and learned the guitar and percussion autodidactically. In 1978, Haino formed a rock band Fushitsusha, and since 1988, after a recuperation period from 1983 to 1987, he has been internationally active in various forms including solo, groups such as Fushitsusha, Nijiumu, Aihiyo, Vajra, Sanhedrin, Seijaku, Nazoranai or The Hardy Rocks and DJ as “experimental mixture,” as well as in collaboration with artists from different backgrounds, drawing the performance of the guitar, percussion, hurdy gurdy, string instruments, wind instruments, local instruments from across the world and DJ gears to the extreme through idiosyncratic techniques. Haino has released more than 200 recordings and performed live at least 2,000 times.

In March 2026 Japan, Haino will present two exclusive performances in Europe on polygonola, a metal-flat polygonal instrument, based on the 2nd dimensional vibration theory, built by Naoki Sakurai. One fo these performances will take place at the ICA on March 17th.

RICH(ARD) DAWSON has drawn so many long drafts from the whirlpools of Elemental North Eastern Archetypes, he may now be one himself. Fearless in his research and willingness to follow his inspiration, Dawson has created an impressive catalogue of music and storytelling steeped in both ancient myths and contemporary dread. A fog of sickness, trauma and mute inevitability inhabits his records and is often expressed in the havoc with which Dawson’s hands produce sounds from his long-suffering guitar, an instrument as bruised, individual and indefatigable as its owner.

Dawson’s recent album ‘End of the Middle’ is intricate, evocative, stripped-back, tactile and almost has the transportive ability to put you in the places and scenarios it describes. For this very special 'Delight Is Right' mini-festival Rich will be performing twice, as a duo with Andrew Cheetham (on drums) and alongside Finnish rock-wranglers Circle. Whilst the addition of ØXN, Tristwch y Fenywod and The Hameed Brothers Qawwal to the lineup makes for an eclectic showcase of curious exploration. This concert will take place at the Barbican and is produced with them in association.

BILL ORCUTT is a guitarist and composer. He has been described as “thrillingly original” (Will Ainsley, Bandcamp Daily) as "a go-for-broke guitar improviser," (Ben Ratliff, New York Times) “creating a new language” (Marc Masters, Pitchfork) whose playing would "make Derek Bailey do a double-take" (Lars Gotrich, NPR). Orcutt tours actively, appearing at festivals worldwide, including Rewire (The Hague), Presences Electronique (Paris), Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon), Goner Fest (Memphis), Musique Actuelle (Victoriaville), Big Ears (Knoxville), Music Unlimited (Wels), Le Guess Who? (Utrecht), Nouveau Festival du Centre Pompidou (Paris), Unsound (Krakow), a Maida Vale session for BBC 3 (London) and a Tiny Desk concert for NPR.

2025 saw Orcutt release ‘Another Perfect Day’, his first solo electric guitar record since 2017’s eponymous Bill Orcutt. While that eight-year gap might not seem like a ton of time on the cosmic scale, it nonetheless represents a busy half-decade plus for Orcutt projects: a raft of improv collaborations, an acclaimed run of chopped and looped albums on Fake Estates, and the collision of Orcutt’s computer and guitar music on Music For Four Guitars and last year’s How to Rescue Things, both on Palilalia. The undeniable alchemy of those latter mashups inspired not only a wider appreciation of Orcutt-as-composer, but also the resurrection of Orcutt-as-bandleader, as the Bill Orcutt Quartet hit the road in support of Four Guitars, Orcutt’s first work with a proper score. ‘Another Perfect Day’ sees Orcutt building tension with short phrases, repeated with slight variability until it seems like they’ll never stop, finally slamming into a fresh line like the dawning valley at the crest of the mountain pass. It’s an affirmation that Orcutt is above all a lead player - angular runs scaling the heavens, ricocheting back to ground zero before climbing again.

EARTHBALL are a wild ensemble from Canada, mainly based on Vancouver Island. EarthBall's live shows epitomise their commitment to spontaneous composition, offering audiences a unique experience with each performance. The last two years have seen EarthBall release their debut LP 'It's Yours' and a live album entitled 'Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2' featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford on Upset The Rhythm. This winter they returned with their best effort to date 'Outside Over There’ - a gathering of sound at the forest's edge; where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity. Perhaps John Olson of Wolf Eyes sums up the album best:

“Outside Over There is an eight-track odyssey that unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven-minute masterpiece, ‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher. A creation so utterly deconstructed and intertwined with the pulse of nature itself that if AI was called upon to conceive ‘Outside Over There’ anew, it would just spit back, “F.U. in Tree Font”. An enchanting invitation for even the flat-earthers to join the circle, if only just a little.”

LANDE HEKT has quietly become one of the UK’s best underground songwriters. On her 2021 debut full-length Going To Hell and 2022’s House Without a View, she explored her queer identity, sobriety, and childhood trauma through the lens of heartfelt, conversational indie-pop, which led to spots opening for the likes of Alvvays, Throwing Muses and The Beths. Her new album Lucky Now, written and recorded with producer Matthew Simms (Wire, It Hugs Back), reflects the most mature and confident version of Lande Hekt yet. “I’m not as concerned about how I’m presenting myself,” Hekt says. “I’ve tried to think less about how things are coming across, and just write songs that make me feel connected to myself and what I value.”

Hekt’s musical touchstones - The Wedding Present, The Sundays, The Replacements - remain the same, but at the same time she’s delved deeper into other influences. Lucky Now is indebted to 1980s twee-pop and jangle-pop like The Pastels, Tallulah Gosh and The Bats, plus more modern iterations of the sound such as Autocamper and Jeanines, in its ecstatic, soaring melodies and gorgeous, tactile guitars. The sound is fitting for Hekt’s new lyrical outlook, where, though despair and anxiety rear their heads, she digs deep to find the gratitude. During the process of making the album, Hekt also moved from Bristol back to her hometown of Exeter. In a lot of ways, Lucky Now is about return - return to joy, return to places and parts of the self once left behind. Who you once were can seem unreachable, but sometimes you can build a bridge.

THE POPGUNS are an indie pop band formed in Brighton in 1986, known for their melodic sound, chiming guitars, and the vocals of Wendy Morgan (now Pickles). Often associated with the late 80s/early 90s indie scene, they achieved success with singles like "Landslide" and quintessential albums ‘Eugenie’ and ‘Snog’ before a hiatus. 2012 saw the band resume live performances with six gigs in that year. A three-track 7″ single, "Lovejunky", was released in late 2014, followed by a new album, ‘Pop Fiction’, on Matinée Recordings. Soundblab ranked the album at Number 2 on their Top 10 Releases of the year. The band have continued to tour and record new material, and released the single "So Long" in May 2017, followed quic kly by the album ‘Sugar Kisses’.

MUMBLE TIDE is a Bristol-based DIY indie-pop duo formed by vocalist/lyricist Gina Leonard and multi-instrumentalist/producer Ryan Rogers. Known for their "scrappy" bedroom pop sound, the former couple creates music blending grunge, folk, and electronic music. Inspired by the free flowing rhythms of 60’s American folk, the aim was to find a balance between Roger’s vivid arrangements and Leonard’s evocative lyrics, one that truly captured the bittersweet depths of their songwriting. The group’s debut album, ‘Might As Well Play Another One’, was released last year on Breakfast Records.

ORCUTT SHELLEY MILLER are a guitar, bass, drums power trio. Featuring incendiary guitarist Bill Orcutt, psych-seer Ethan Miller (Comets on Fire, Howlin’ Rain), and dynamic powerhouse Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth). Despite rhythmic nods to the SoCal '60s, the overall vibe of Orcutt Shelley Miller is angular, atonal slash piled on a mid-'80s SST punk-fusionoid substrate, with Orcutt's bristling chords anchored by Miller's ebbing/ flowing bass. In the engine room, Shelley, the most beat-anchored of the trio, never quite abandons the two-and-four pocket but scrabbles around it, skitters over it, burrows under it, ultimately tapping a sort of Michael Hurley-gone-motorik vibe on the longer tracks. "Four-Door Charger," easily the most tranced-out of their tracks, passes through kraut-funk on the way to a solid Klaus Dinger-meets-Lothar Meid churn.

Orcutt Shelley Miller’s self-titled debut album is out now on Silver Current, and sounds like a fully formed beast, rather than a mere sum of its distinctive parts. For the improv shy listener, I can gladly inform you that it sounds like Orcutt sketched out a few of the heads beforehand, so there's plenty to clutch onto amidst the slashing Ginn-esque tritones, and plenty of the right-angle bursting-clockwork solos that define Orcutt's hypnotic phrasing.

EARTHBALL are a wild ensemble from Canada, mainly based on Vancouver Island. EarthBall's live shows epitomise their commitment to spontaneous composition, offering audiences a unique experience with each performance. The last two years have seen EarthBall release their debut LP 'It's Yours' and a live album entitled 'Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2' featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford on Upset The Rhythm. This winter they returned with their best effort to date 'Outside Over There’ - a gathering of sound at the forest's edge; where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity.

DEAR NORA is an ever-evolving indie-pop band fronted by songwriter/producer Katy Davidson, and features a rotating cast of collaborators. Davidson was born in Arizona and has also lived in Oregon and California. The energy, intensity, and vastness of the western United States landscape imbue the songwriting and recordings. Dear Nora has existed in two distinct eras – 1999-2008 and 2017-present – with roughly a decade break in the middle (the “Lost Years”) in which Davidson fronted various side projects, and played session guitar/keyboards in the bands YACHT and Gossip. Dear Nora’s early music leans more pop-punk, DIY, confessional, youthful. The contemporary music leans more poetic, expansive, genre-bending, wise. The through-lines between Dear Nora’s two eras are: melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, and lyrics about time, space, capitalism, the internet, daily life vérité, ancient things, real vs. unreal or surreal, and all kinds of relationships.

Partially because Dear Nora’s early years happened before the rise of smartphones and social media (prior to hyper digital documentation), and because very little content survives this era aside from the analog recordings, the group is often described as “legendary" (as in, "legend/myth"). Rediscovered via streaming platforms and word of mouth, Dear Nora’s music has influenced many young songwriters.

TAI HAF HEB DRIGOLYN are a band from Wales. Built atop of a DIY Ethos, THHD have a fantastic ability to merge their musical brain with real life surroundings, perfectly represented by “Ein Albwm Cyntaf Ni” recorded straight onto tape directly sampling the sounds that they recorded over. It’s rare that music so genuine and human arrives with this quality and quantity; this is a special act that has to be seen to be believed. THHD are obsessed with the elephant 6 collective, and as such has members spread across the country, they also stumble after the footsteps of R. Pollard and D. R. Edwards.

ORCUTT SHELLEY MILLER are a guitar, bass, drums power trio. Featuring incendiary guitarist Bill Orcutt, psych-seer Ethan Miller (Comets on Fire, Howlin’ Rain), and dynamic powerhouse Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth). Despite rhythmic nods to the SoCal '60s, the overall vibe of Orcutt Shelley Miller is angular, atonal slash piled on a mid-'80s SST punk-fusionoid substrate, with Orcutt's bristling chords anchored by Miller's ebbing/ flowing bass. In the engine room, Shelley, the most beat-anchored of the trio, never quite abandons the two-and-four pocket but scrabbles around it, skitters over it, burrows under it, ultimately tapping a sort of Michael Hurley-gone-motorik vibe on the longer tracks. "Four-Door Charger," easily the most tranced-out of their tracks, passes through kraut-funk on the way to a solid Klaus Dinger-meets-Lothar Meid churn.

Orcutt Shelley Miller’s self-titled debut album is out now on Silver Current, and sounds like a fully formed beast, rather than a mere sum of its distinctive parts. For the improv shy listener, I can gladly inform you that it sounds like Orcutt sketched out a few of the heads beforehand, so there's plenty to clutch onto amidst the slashing Ginn-esque tritones, and plenty of the right-angle bursting-clockwork solos that define Orcutt's hypnotic phrasing.

PROLAPSE formed in Leicester in the early 90s and are now spread across the UK and Scandinavia. Still pursuing their own path of repetition and twisted melodies, they merge influences from post punk to krautrock and even folk. Their previous releases have included numerous singles and four albums on various labels, including Cherry Red and Radar. They feature vocalists Mick Derrick and Linda Steelyard, whose intense duelling vocals combine with ferocious triple guitar assault and pummelling rhythms.

The fifth Prolapse album “I Wonder When They’re Going to Destroy Your Face” will be released on Tapete Records and marks the bands first new recordings since their last album, “Ghosts of Dead Aeroplanes”, released 26 years ago, but in some ways it feels like there hasn’t a break at all. From the opening incessant riff of ”The Fall of Cashline”, Prolapse set their stall out, hammering the message that they’re back, over and over (and over and over) again.

JEFFREY ALEXANDER has been frittering around the edges of the psychedelic underground for decades, evolving his own musical space that overlays dusty folk, cosmic jazz, deep psych, free improv, and even (gasp!) indie rock. He’s been called a “psych rock lifer” (UNCUT), crafting “digressive jams that meander through free-form jazz, bluesy kosmische” (PROG) and “extremely highgrade psych” (MOJO). Convened in 2019 on Alexander’s relocation back to his native east coast, Philadelphia’s Heavy Lidders are the latest hard-touring expression for the guitarist’s music, joining a vast and tangled discography (and tape list) that includes the beloved long-running west coast Dire Wolves Just Exactly Perfect Sisters Band and, before them, the Iditarod and Black Forest/Black Sea, as well as a bushel of solo play-all-the-instruments projects, a stint with Jackie-O Motherfucker, sessions with Kemialliset Ystävät and Avarus and others.

The newest studio LP, “Liquid Donnon” (released 12 June 2026 on Riot Season), catches Jeffrey Alexander & The Heavy Lidders at their heaviest, “heavy” in the Lidderverse being far from a monolithic musical idea. There’s heavy like the album-opening “From Loch Raven to Fells Point,” one of several tracks with elegant and gnarled conversational jams featuring the core Lidders lineup of Alexander alongside guitarist Drew Gardner and bassist Jesse Sheppard (both of Elkhorn) and drummer Scott Verrastro (Kohoutek, Bardo Pond). But there’s heavy, too, with tracks where Gardner shifts to dream-space vibraphone, and those with Christina Carter of Texas noise-psych legends Charalambides on veil-crossing wordless vocals, her first collaboration with Alexander in some 20 years. She will indeed be fronting the band on this brief UK tour. For fans of Meat Puppets, Trad Gras och Stenar, Ornette inspired Krautrock, Sonny + Linda Sharrock, Jerry - Jorma interplay, SPACE.

CHRISTINA CARTER was born in the bayou city of Houston, Texas in November of 1968, and co-founded the group Charalambides there in December of 1991. Ever since she has deeply mined her own vein of sound-as-music with voice, guitar, harmonica, and piano. For the past several years, Christina has utilized extended improvisational guitar passages within and without song structures and investigated 'the song' as a thing unto itself, specifically concentrating on 'the word'- both in her own lyric writing and her interpretations of the work of other lyricists. In addition to performing extensively in the US, UK and Europe as a solo artist, Christina has played and recorded in various groups and duos with Jeffrey Alexander, Maria Chavez, Loren Connors, Spencer Dobbs, Sandy Ewen, Julia Hungerford, Alistair Lingren, and Joe McPhee, amongst others.

Concurrent with her work as a musician, Christina has expanded her involvement in writing and visual art. Her poetry has been published by Digitalis Industries, The Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal, Glass Eye, Slow Toe, and Shelter Press. In 2007, her art piece Forever 21 appeared at Salon Mijangos in San Antonio, Texas as part of a concert/exhibit featuring Tom Carter, Warmer Milks, and Tetuzi Akiyama. Forever 21 was a labor of love and destruction: six of her handwritten diaries cut up painstakingly with scissors into miniscule pieces, which then filled a large yellow plastic shopping bag. In 2024, Unifactor published For Want Of Walls, Christina’s book of personal yet abstracted writing and watercolor paintings. Christina currently resides in Austin, Texas. Her latest release is the solo voice, guitar and accordion album Like A Bayou To Its Gulf (Bud Tapes 2025).

LINDA SMITH is a pioneer of home recording who self released her music originally on cassette starting in 1987. In the early 90’s, indie labels Slumberland and Harriet Records expanded her reach with the release of two seven inch EPs. Recently, Brooklyn label Captured Tracks has reissued two complete albums on vinyl and she has begun to tour in the US and internationally for the first time. Upset The Rhythm released a recent split single between Smith and The Smashing Times last year too. Paste magazine called Linda Smith “a hidden treasure of America's pop underground”, while Jangle Pop Hub has written that “essentially this is the best bedroom pop you are ever likely to hear, directly from an age that did not really know what to do with it”. For this rare UK show Linda will be joined by her live band.

TRASH KIT are Ray Aggs (guitar, vocals), Rachel Horwood (drums, vocals) and Clémentine March (bass). Three deeply creative individuals who play in a multitude of other groups including Bas Jan and Sacred Paws, not to mention their solo outings. Their songs once succinct, patchwork post-punk numbers of an honest diary-like nature now tussle more with long-form songwriting, expeditious polyphony and cascades of sung-spoke vocals. Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like Sleater Kinney, The Ex and The Raincoats, their sound is still very much their own take on facing forwards and relies as much on the naturalism of an internalised folk music as on their sincerity of vision. Since forming in 2009, Trash Kit have released three albums for Upset The Rhythm and a selection of singles. Trash Kit's approach to life as with music is one of openness, inclusion and potential and most recent album ‘Horizon’ has this in dutiful abundance.