Plutonic Rainbows

Glooming folk drone ambience from Barn Owl's Evan Caminiti and Lisa McGee aka Higuma. This gorgeous pressing is every bit as dark and brooding as you'd expect from someone involved in Barn Owl, conjuring arcane drones and spellbound choirs of forest folk to commune with the gods during a sixth month winter.

This is the kind of stuff that would have been banned in 1342. If they had electricity. And turntables. It feels like we've stumbled across a meditative ceremony where simple folk voices gradually emerge from the gloom into haunting choral hazes. Coruscating guitar notes provide faint light, gaseous shimmers which sometimes grow into subdued swells and moments of intensity but always dissipate into the black background, lost to the night. The drawn-out bowed strings are a constant, maintaining a slow burning tension throughout while occasional occult percussion chimes across the scene, jangling rhythms gently dusting the surface with bells and gongs.

This record creates it's own fully formed alternate dimension for a limited opening of time, allowing us to enter and observe the proceedings from a branch on a tree before receding into the run-out grooves and wondering where we just were. Magnificent.

This is Alexei Navalny’s life in his own words: his Soviet childhood, political awakening, his marriage and beloved family, his total commitment to taking on a corrupt regime and his enduring love of Russia and its people. His 2020 poisoning by the Russian security services was a global news event. In 2024 he died in a brutal Siberian prison. He began writing Patriot whilst recovering from his poisoning; it ends with his prison diaries, seen here for the first time.

We witness the growth of his nationwide support. We see his many arrests and harassment and, in stunning detail, the attempt on his life. We understand why he felt he had to return to Russia. In prison, he shows a spirit and a sense of humour that cannot be crushed.

Patriot is the exhilarating life story of one of the most fearless and inspiring figures of our time, who became a beacon to millions and the sole political threat to Vladimir Putin.

Richie Culver's debut full-length album under his Quiet Husband alias, 'Religious Equipment' on independent Jordan-based label Drowned By Locals.

'Religious Equipment' drills deep into the gritty depths of industrial techno and noise, pulling no punches with a set of tracks named after opiate blockers or substitute drugs like Methadone and Subutex, which serve as sonic stand-ins for suppressed urges, blurring the line between resistance and surrender. Fresh from his live assault at Berlin's Atonal Festival, the album draws on the brutal, repetitive rhythms of techno, while spoken word passages — including one featuring his mother — cut through the chaos with a deeply personal narrative. From the gates of hell to the empty solace of noise, 'Religious Equipment' paints a harrowing portrait of addiction and substitution, where noise becomes a proxy for silence, and intensity replaces numbness.

The album drops on 22nd November 2024.

Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese group of atomic bomb survivors, has won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. Known as hibakusha, the survivors of the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been recognised by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

I think this comes at a very unstable time, especially with the current conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. I think the committee are sending a message and maybe a warning.