Mountaintop Junkshop - Mercury’s Antennae - Lala Salama

Mountaintop Junkshop - Misadventureland (Album).

Leicester UK-based alternative folk unit Mountaintop Junkshop are thrilled to share their first full length album, Misadventureland. The record showcases the band’s signature blend of Americana, country, and indie folk, delivering heartfelt narratives that explore themes of resilience, longing, and human connection.

Hailing from Leicester UK, Mountaintop Junkshop could easily be mistaken for alt/country misfits from some lost California scene. The band make country-tinged minimal torch songs leaving space to hear pins drop and hearts breaking. Since forming they have shared stages with Jolie Holland, Herman Dune, Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance, Nina Nastasia and many more. File in your record collection somewhere between Low, Mazzy Star, Songs Ohia and next to an old, yellowing, red-wine-stained copy of Frank Stanford poems.

Mountaintop Junkshop consists of Jon Bennett (Vocals/Guitar), Amy Cooper (Vocals/Keys), Dave Fellows (Bass), Natasha Pattinson (Violin), Katie Shields (Drums). Misadventureland, the first full length album from Mountaintop Junkshop, is now available now across music platforms courtesy of Electric Blanket Records.

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Mercury’s Antennae - Among the Black Trees (Album).

Seven years after the release of their celestial The Moon Viewing Garden EP (Sett Records, 2018), Mercury’s Antennae have re-emerged with their latest offering of sonic lullabies, Among the Black Trees. Nine existential tales inhabit a ghostly realm of reflection, rebirth and reconciliation, overlaying dense bass, swirling ghostly guitars, and atmospheric electronics, all melding with lustrous and soaring vocal melodies.

Currently based between Geneva, Switzerland and Portland, Oregon in the US, the trio comprises Dru Allen (This Ascension), Cindy Coulter (This Ascension, Faith and the Muse), and Erick r. Scheid (The Palace of Tears). Their sound incorporates influences from shoegaze pop, ethereal darkwave, and unadorned acoustic beauty, often compared to ‘90s-era Projekt artists, while also drawing inspiration from modern ambient electronica.

Through the iconic Projekt label, Mercury’s Antennae released their debut album, A Waking Ghost Inside (2014); followed by The Guides EP (2015); and sophomore album, Beneath the Serene (2016). Their debut for Sett Records was 2018’s The Moon Viewing Garden EP, followed by appearances at prestigious festivals Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig, Germany; and Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival in Whitby, England. It was also during this period (c.2018) that songs for Among the Black Trees were conceived, prior to a hiatus as members went on to explore other projects. Reflecting on the themes explored by the new album, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Erick r. Scheid says:

“Among the Black Trees is almost concept album in a way. Themes of love, death, rebirth, reconciliation and the imagined landscape of the unseen world are all intentionally, sonically and emotionally fed into the music. And Dru’s lyrical contribution truly adds a vastness of beauty and life to the music. Her lyrics on this album are my favorite; literally every song. Cindy was very receptive and active in writing this music alongside of me. While I had the demos, her ideas and creative insights held the music to be very truthful and not to be too overindulgent. Her openness to explore a deeper bass sound with tunings makes this album truly different from all our previous work. Both Dru and Cindy have had a huge impact on this work, and it’s the first album where we all three equally wrote the music together.”

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Lala Salama - Miltähän me näytettäis yhdessä (Album).

Rising Helsinki-based indie band Lala Salama is set to release their highly anticipated debut album, Miltähän me näytettäis yhdessä, on March 21, 2025. The album will be available digitally as well as in limited-edition colored vinyl pressings (150 copies each of yellow & violet editions). Blending Nordic melancholy, dreamy shoegaze textures, post-punk energy, and raw storytelling, the album serves as a soundtrack for those navigating the space between youth and adulthood, longing for something just out of reach.

"The songs move from the euphoria of falling in love to the fear of commitment, from the highs of a party to the anxiety of the morning after. This album is for those searching for themselves, dreaming of summer love, and learning to let go." – Rosa Jules

Beyond their music, Lala Salama's members are engaging, dynamic, and compelling interview subjects. Rosa Jules – A fiercely independent frontwoman, singer, guitarist, violinist, and proudly Lahti-born engineer. A charismatic force on and off stage, she blends feminist energy with Jack White-like artistry. Rosa also plays in Swedish-Finnish superstar Markus Krunegård’s band, further cementing her role in the Nordic indie scene.

Aliisa Keränen – A powerhouse drummer, known for her work in Bad Sauna and Kaksipäinen Koira. Not just a force behind the kit, she’s also a national team athlete in Finland’s Roller Derby squad, bringing the same relentless energy to music as she does to the sport. Santeri Hytönen – A bassist and one of the most genuine and respected figures in the indie scene, also known from Bad Sauna. He’s a mix of Lemmy and your friendly next-door neighbor, fiercely standing up for the underdog and always ready to support those who need it.

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Lead Pony - Lala Salama - The Drive-By Truckers - The Broken Islands

Lead Pony - Vultures.

San Diego psych/blues rock group Lead Pony release their new single, “Vultures” this week, the title-track to their upcoming debut full-length, which they have announced for a July 14 release.

Discussing the single, guitarist Jesse Hofstee noted, "’Vultures’ is a story about someone leaving their hometown to go to the city and 'make it big'. It’s about change, taking risks and finding yourself, but also a cautionary tale about the vultures that will take advantage of people that are finding themselves, and send them in the wrong direction. It was one of the first songs we wrote for the record that started to lay the groundwork for the sound and idea of this being a record about the city.”

Lead Pony emerged in 2017, releasing their debut EP, Eclipse, and quickly followed with the appropriately titled, double-single, Two Love Songs in 2018. The band toured relentlessly, and had successes getting music placements, including on the TV show “Shameless”. In 2019 the they decided to take a break to pursue other projects and creative endeavors.

In the summer of 2022, the addition of bassist Seancarlo Ohlin sparked desire to make a full-length record. Writing shifted into overdrive with a goal of creating an environment where these songs could really live. In this case, it’s Lead Pony’s imagined version of ‘70s New York City. Various stories weave through Vultures with a diverse range of sounds and styles all glued together with the voices and production that they were able to achieve with producer Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty, Beach House).

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Lala Salama - Summer Love.

Lala Salama, the newest signing to the All That Plazz record label, is joining the summer hit parade with the release of the irresistibly cheerful single Summer Love. The new single, which is being released today May 17, doesn’t pale sonically alongside the world’s biggest contemporary indie bands at all thanks to mastering by American Grammy nominee Ryan Schwabe.

Lala Salama comprises singer and guitarist Rosa Jules together with drummer Aliisa Keränen and bassist Santeri Hytönen, who also play with the band Bad Sauna. Having gained a following in Helsinki’s punk and indie circles, Lala Salama has previously self-published one EP and a single. With their new single, the band is readier than ever.

Summer Love is a wistful but also empowering and rollicking love song that yearns for a summer love in the style of a modern and urban hit. Musical points of comparison can be found in dreampop and Scandinavian nostalgia pop, but also strongly in shoegaze, indie rock and even punk. Bands like Regina, Beach House, DIIV and Wet Leg come to mind. However, perhaps no one has previously been able to combine Finnish melancholy and jagged romanticism with indie rock quite like Lala Salama does.

The strongly feminist DIY band formed during the pandemic, when Hytönen and Keränen fell in love with the demo tapes of singer and songwriter Rosa Jules. The trio bonded immediately, and Lala Salama became a real band. Summer Love will no doubt grab the attention of not only the local punk gang in Kallio but also wider indie circles, both in Finland and around the world.

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The Drive-By Truckers - Goode’s Field Road (Remixed / Remastered).

The Drive-By Truckers will release The Complete Dirty South on June 16, 2023, via New West Records. Originally released in 2004 to wide acclaim, The Dirty South explores the mean highways and dark hollers of what the band called the “Mythological South,” a tornado-ravaged landscape populated by bootleggers and small-time criminals, everyday folks just scraping to get by and looming icons like Sam Phillips, John Henry, and Sheriff Buford Pusser. The album is a reckoning with the place they call home. Pitchfork sang its praises: “The Drive-By Truckers’ Southern rock always sounds homemade, and like liquor from a still, it’s extremely potent… [They] find the connections between these larger-than-life figures and the life-size experiences that shaped them. For them, the South is a stretch of highway where many have died, an ordinary place made extraordinary by human tragedies. The Dirty South is their homemade roadside memorial.”

The ground-breaking album has been re-sequenced and expanded to the band’s initially proposed 17-song track listing. It includes 3 bonus tracks that were left off the original album, and 4 remixed songs featuring newly updated vocals. Also included is a 32-page book featuring original and new liner notes written by the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood, track-by-track descriptions written by Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell, never-before-seen photos, and updated artwork by the late Wes Freed. The Complete Dirty South was remastered by the legendary Greg Calbi. This definitive version of the album will finally be available as the band intended.

This week, the Drive-By Truckers shared the remixed “Goode’s Field Road” featuring new vocals from Patterson Hood. He says, “I wrote the song as part of the album as we originally envisioned it as a kind of connective tissue between the state line gang narrative and the more personal songs on the album. We recorded it in Athens during the fall of 2003. When it ended up being dropped from the sequence, it was later released on The Fine Print collection of outtakes and oddities. This version features a new vocal and mix (and is quite a different version from the one on Brighter Than Creation’s Dark). It has always been one of my favorite songs that I have ever written.”

 

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The Broken Islands - Tempest.

Following on from the release of their highly-acclaimed sophomore LP 'Masquerade’ in 2020, Canadian outfit The Broken Islands are now ready to break their three-year silence with the release of their euphoric new single ‘Tempest’. Lifted from their eagerly-awaited third studio album, which is set to arrive later this year, ‘Tempest’ sees them bring back more of that raw and driven post-punk-meets-shoegaze aesthetic they have developed for themselves over the years. Brimming with broad and immersive textures from start to finish, they are returning with one of their most impactful efforts to date here.

To celebrate the release of their new single, The Broken Islands will also be performing a string of shows across the UK throughout May, including a slot at this year’s Great Escape Festival. The Broken Islands are a Vancouver-based quintet who meld elements of ambient pop, shoegaze, post-rock, post-punk, trip-hop and dark wave to create their own distinct sound. With crashing guitars and delicate sounding keyboards weaving around swooning, siren-like vocals, the band’s songs can sound at times like an otherworldly sonic experience while still being packed with emotion and moments of tenderness.

Their well-received debut album ‘Wars’ was released in the autumn of 2017, with the follow-up LP ‘Masquerade’ released in February 2020. The Broken Islands third album is slated for release in late 2023, with full details emerging soon. Like its predecessors, the new untitled third album has been produced and mixed by Dave ‘Rave’ Ogilvie, who is best known for his work with industrial music titans such as Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and Skinny Puppy and was the perfect choice to harness the many influences that constitute the sound of The Broken Islands.

The Broken Islands · Tempest

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