Stereolab shares new single "Melodie Is A Wound"

STEREOLAB SHARES NEW SINGLE “MELODIE IS A WOUND” ACCOMPANIED BY NEW CRYPTIC WORDSEARCH BY ALAN CONNOR INSTANT HOLOGRAMS ON METAL FILM DUE MAY 23RD VIA DUOPHONIC UHF DISKS / WARP RECORDS WORLD TOUR LAUNCHING MAY 25TH  NEW UK, US SHOWS ADDED

Photo credit Joe Dilworth Instant Holograms on Metal Film PRE-SAVE/ORDER: https://stereolab.co.uk/   “Melodie Is A Wound”  LISTEN: https://stereolab.ffm.to/melodie WATCH: https://youtu.be/Nndpg90P2O8  TICKETS:  https://warp.net/stereolab-2025  (April 29th, 2025) - Today, Stereolab shares “Melodie Is A Wound,” the follow-up single to the album’s announcement earlier this month, accompanied by an edited version. Following the wordsearch and fill-in-the-blanks puzzles from the last release, “Melodie Is A Wound” arrives alongside a Stereolab-themed cryptic crossword puzzle. The crossword has been compiled by Alan Connor, who serves as the crossword editor for The Guardian and sets the cryptic crossword for The Observer, has been question editor for TV shows House Of Games and Only Connect, and is the author of books including 188 Words For Rain. Stereolab’s forthcoming album, Instant Holograms On Metal Film, will be available on May 23rd, co-released by the band’s own label Duophonic UHF Disks, and Warp Records. Their first new record in fifteen years, Instant Holograms On Metal Film features thirteen songs written by Laetitia Sadier and Tim Gane; performed by Laetitia, Tim, Andy Ramsay, Joe Watson and Xavi Muñoz, who comprise the current touring line-up of the band. The album also features guest contributions by Cooper Crain and Rob Frye (Bitchin Bajas), Ben LaMar Gay (International Anthem), Ric Elsworth, Holger Zapf (Cavern Of Anti-Matter), Marie Merlet and Molly Hansen Read. Instant Holograms On Metal Film will be available on double vinyl LP in standard and colour variants, as well as compact disc and digital formats. Pre-order/save it here. Stereolab are touring extensively this year throughout Europe, North America and the UK, with select shows in South America, many of which are already sold out.  “Melodie Is A Wound” single artwork

Alan is also a Stereolab fan, and comments:  “Writing this puzzle I felt an unfamiliar sensation, at first in my knees. A recovered memory of Stereolab in a venue which sent the groop's noise bursts - bass? sub-bass? whatever might be under that? - directly inside each of us in the crowd, reshaping us in wonderful ways. No one else has done that, but then no one else has done the alchemic things Stereolab has done. Happily for me, this is a band fond of titles which read just like fragments of cryptic clues. So long, that is, as your brain has been suitably warped by puzzles. Happily, mine has been warped this way - as well as my body by Stereolab. Thank you for the warping, thank you Warp and thank you Stereolab.  By the way, I sincerely believe that anyone in public life would do public life better if they listened to Emperor Tomato Ketchup's “Tomorrow Is Already Here” a few times. What was then the future has borne out that one plenty.” Previously, some fans of the band received a package stamped “unsolicited Stereolab material”. Inside was a 7” single containing “Aerial Troubles” on one side, an instrumental version on the flip, with a cryptic wordsearch insert. At the same time, posters with the band’s name appeared in a number of major cities with the same word grid printed on. Over the past few days, several attempts have been made to solve the wordsearch, with much online speculation about how the words go together, and whether the single did indeed contain new music, or something uncovered from the band’s archives. And in lieu of a description of the music, the band are inviting fans, detractors, and journalists alike to provide their own adjectives on a fill-in-the-blanks sheet.

Instant Holograms On Metal Film Wordsearch Instant Holograms On Metal Film Fill-in-the-Blank Puzzle The album art was first slowly revealed on the Lab Report sign-up page of the band’s website, with different layers gradually appearing. The 7” started landing with people on 2nd April 2025, sixteen years to the day after the group announced they were going on indefinite hiatus. In 2019, the band released expanded and remastered editions of seven of their studio albums, coinciding with Stereolab playing live for the first time in nine years. They have continued to tour sporadically since then, and have augmented their catalogue further with the release of the compilations Electrically Possessed [Switched On Vol 4] in 2021, and Pulse Of The Early Brain [Switched On Vol 5] in 2022. “Aerial Troubles” single art Pre-save Instant Holograms On Metal Film, listen and watch “Melodie Is A Wound” above, check out the tour dates, and find full album details below.  Instant Holograms On Metal Film album art  Stereolab  Instant Holograms On Metal Film Duophonic UHF Disks / Warp Records  May 23, 2025  1. Mystical Plosives 2. Aerial Troubles 3. Melodie Is A Wound 4. Immortal Hands 5. Vermona F Transistor 6. Le Coeur Et La Force 7. Electrified Teenybop! 8. Transmuted Matter 9. Esemplastic Creeping Eruption 10. If You Remember I Forgot How To Dream Pt.1 11. Flashes From Everywhere 12. Colour Television 13. If You Remember I Forgot How To Dream Pt.2

Stereolab EU tour poster  Stereolab North American tour poster

Stereolab North American and LATAM tour poster

Stereolab UK tour poster  Upcoming Live Dates  Europe Dates + = Astrobal  * = TBC 5/24 - Dover, UK @ The Booking Hall * SOLD OUT 5/25 - Brussels, BE @ Botanique Les Nuits Botanique  5/26 - Köln, DE @ Gloria 5/28 - Hamburg, DE @ Grunspan 5/29 - Berlin, DE @ Huxley Neue Welt  5/30 - Frankfurt, DE @ Zoom  5/31 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso  6/1 -  Nijmegen, NL @ Doornroosje 6/3 - Nantes, FR @ Stereolux + 6/4 - Paris, FR @ Le Trianon + SOLD OUT 6/5 - Bordeaux, FR @ Barbey + 6/6 - Barcelona, ESP @ Primavera Sound + SOLD OUT 6/7 - Madrid, ESP @ Teatro Eslava + 6/9 - Grenoble, FR @ La Belle Electrique + 6/10 - Ferrara, IT @ Ferrara Sotto le Stelle  6/11 -  Zurich, CH @ Volkshaus + 6/12 - Munich, DE @ Hansa 36 + 6/14 - Zagreb, CR @ Tvornica Kulture + 6/15 - Budapest, HU @ A38 Ship + 6/16 - Vienna, AU @ WUK + 6/17 - Prague, CZ @ Meet Factory + 6/19 - Schorndorf, DE - Manufaktur + 6/20 - Luxembourg, LU @ Den Atelier + 7/11 - Cagliari, SD, IT @ Siren Festival   North American Dates  + = Memorials  @ = Dorothea Paas & Bitchin’ Bajas / Natural Information Society  * = Bitchin’ Bajas  ^ = TBC 9/13 - Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl + 9/14 - Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse + 9/16 - Miami, FL @ Miami Beach Bandshell + 9/18 - New Orleans, LA @ The Civic Theatre + 9/19 - Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre + 9/20 - Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel + 9/21 - Saxapahaw, NC @ Haw River Ballroom SOLD OUT + 9/23 - Washington, D.C. @ The Howard Theatre + 9/24 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer SOLD OUT + 9/26 - Boston, MA @ Royale + 9/27 - Portland, ME @ State Theatre + 10/1 - Brooklyn, NY @  Brooklyn Steel SOLD OUT + 10/2 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel @ 10/3 - Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground SOLD OUT @ 10/4 - Montreal, QC @ Théâtre Beanfield SOLD OUT @ 10/6 - Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall SOLD OUT @ 10/7 - Buffalo, NY @ Asbury Hall @ 10/8 - Cleveland, OH @ Globe Iron @ 10/9 - Chicago, IL @ Metro SOLD OUT @ 10/10 - Chicago, IL @ Metro SOLD OUT  10/11 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue @ 10/12 - Iowa City, IA @ Hancher Auditorium at the Englert Theatre @ 10/14 - Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre @ 10/17 - Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre * 10/18 - Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre SOLD OUT * 10/19 - Portland, OR @ McMenamins Crystal Ballroom* 10/21 - San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Ballroom SOLD OUT * 10/22 - San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Ballroom ^ 10/24 - Santa Cruz, CA @ Rio Theatre SOLD OUT * 10/25 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Bellwether SOLD OUT * 10/26 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Bellwether SOLD OUT ^ 10/28 - San Diego, CA @ Observatory North Park * 10/30 - Marfa, TX @ The Capri SOLD OUT * 10/31 - Austin, TX @ TBC 11/1 - Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall * 11/2 - Dallas, TX @ Granada Theatre * Latin American Dates  11/4 - Buenos Aires, ARG @ Complejo Art Media  11/7 - Santiago, CHI @ Fauna Primaversa  11/9 - São Paulo, BRA @ Balaclava Festival  11/12 - Mexico City, MX @ Foro Indie Rocks! SOLD OUT  11/13 - Mexico City, MX @ Foro Indie Rocks!  UK Dates  12/5 - Brighton, UK @ Corn Exchange  12/6 - London, UK @ Royal Festival Hall SOLD OUT  12/8 - Glasgow, UK @ SWG3  12/9 - Leeds, UK @ Project House  12/11 - Manchester, UK @ O2 Ritz  12/12 - Wolverhampton, UK @ University of Wolverhampton at the Wulfrun Hall  12/13 - Oxford, UK @ O2 Academy  12/14 - London, UK @ Brixton Electric

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Pyramids share genre-defying single, “Bones and Eggshells”

Pyramids share genre-defying single “Bones and Eggshells”

New LP Pythagoras out this Friday on The Flenser

Photo credit: Vivian Bartell | Hi-res here

Out this Friday on The Flenser, the new album from Pyramids is a daring study in genre synthesis. The band continues to push boundaries in both sound and aesthetic, blending jagged fragments of black metal and shoegaze as they have done since their influential 2008 debut.

With Pythagoras, Pyramids add unconventional layers of reggaeton and neoperreo to both voice and rhythm. Named after the ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras represents the band’s ongoing commitment to innovation, and the perpetual juxtaposition of the delicate and the devastating, embracing complex musical structures and rhythms that both challenge and captivate the listener. At the heart of the album lies an intricate balance between aggressive blast beats and the syncopated pulse of reggaeton’s signature dembow rhythm—a concept born from founder Rich Loren Balling’s own immersion in both extreme music and pop genres. 

The album's third single "Bones and Eggshells" arrives today.  Rich Loren Balling says the song, "...plays on the edge of fate and forged reality — the inescapable reality of freedom of the will locking fingers with a world that overpowers, overrides, and overwrites our selves. The burden of freedom. The heart of moral experience. Bones and Eggshells captures most precisely the vision that we set out to achieve with Pythagoras.  When I envisioned the organic relationship between the rhythmic pattern of reggaeton and the blast beat of black metal and its inherent ability to be a natural habitat for tremolo guitars and any gauzy extraneous washes of sound that might envelope the track, this is what I heard.  This song also best presents the cadence of the Spanish vocals and their interplay with our existing vocal sound.  Despite its strong representation of our end goal, we didn't drop this song first, since the song gives no time at all to anticipate the amalgam of genres and can be a jarring first impression.  But now that the cat is out of the bag with what we are doing on Pythagoras, I am proud to put this one on full display."

Watch / share "Bones and Eggshells" music video

The journey to Pythagoras began after the release of Pyramids' 2015 album A Northern Meadow (Profound Lore), a work that earned critical acclaim for taking what Pitchfork deemed “a beautiful mess” of its debut to a more focused, yet equally genre-defying, sound. The following nine years, Balling, along with original members Matthew Kelly, Matt Embree, and David Embree,  ventured further into harsh noise before finding a link between the evolution of extreme music (think Black Sabbath to Darkthrone) where the intensity of genre keeps mounting until eventually it becomes blissful and harrowing, and in a move akin to palette cleansing, adopted an unexpected reverence for the innovation happening in pop music, specifically female Neoperreo and reggaeton artists such as Emjay, La Zowi, Six Sex, Bea Pelea, Karol G, and Rosalia. His newfound appreciation for the rhythm and intensity of reggaeton, particularly its organic ability to interplay with metal’s blast beats, laid the foundation for the distinctive sound of Pythagoras. Through this album, Pyramids introduces a dynamic fusion where global rhythms meet atmospheric shoegaze textures, all with the aggression of a black metal sensibility at its core.

Pythagoras is not just a sonic evolution—it is an exploration of the cycles of musical extremes. Balling believes that genres, like metal, evolve towards greater intensity until they reach a point of such sonic density and noise that they return to something beautifully melodic and transcendent. This concept is reflected in the album’s dense, layered compositions and its ability to both overwhelm and soothe the listener. The album’s rhythm is a complex mathematical interplay, where the familiar blast beat and pounding dembow rhythm intersect, creating a sound that is both chaotic and hypnotic.

To bring the album’s vision to life, Pyramids enlisted vocalist Emy Smith, whose neoperreo-influenced vocals add a haunting, ethereal layer to the dense soundscape. The album's cover art, created by Miami-based nail artist Kro Vargas (aka Krocaine), further captures the ominous yet captivating essence of the music, hinting at the fusion of genres and cultures that defines Pythagoras.

With Pythagoras, Pyramids are once again poised to redefine the future of extreme music. As one of the most forward-thinking forces in contemporary music, the band continues to forge a path that transcends genre and time. Their unique blend of delicate beauty and devastating intensity invites listeners to explore a world of sound that is both expansive and claustrophobic, suspended between warmth and emptiness. Pythagoras is not just an album; it is a statement—a daring, innovative work that challenges convention and leads the listener through the unknown into new realms of sonic possibility.

Pre-order Pythagoras here.

Pythagoras, track list:

1. Fools Gold (Mi Vida Ha Ido Pa Atras)
2. Pretty Pigs
3. Bones and Eggshells
4. Mira Mirame Brillar
5. Brine
6. Cracks
7. God of Light

Pyramids: Bandcamp | Instagram

Pachyman shares "Calor Ahora"

PACHYMAN SHARES "CALOR AHORA" RIPPLING MINIMAL DUB & SCI-FI SYNTHS FOR SPRING WATCH THE "CALOR AHORA" VIDEO HERE, A GOOFY, DIRECT-TO-VHS LA NOIR THE LATEST FROM NEW ALBUM ANOTHER PLACE OUT MAY 23 VIA ATO RECORDS ADDS FIRST-EVER MEXICO HEADLINE DATES FOR FALL 2025

Photo by Alex Bulli

Today, Pachyman — the musical project of Puerto Rican-born, Los Angeles-based musician Pachy Garcia — shares "Calor Ahora," the latest preview of his new album Another Place (May 23 / ATO Records). Listen to "Calor Ahora" here and preorder/save Another Place here. "Calor Ahora" — which Pachy describes as "the backbone of the record" and the moment when he "achieved a new sound that I had never encountered in my music before" — is rippling, minimal dub that incorporates sparkling, alien synthesizers and a koan-like vocal. “I journal a lot,” Pachy explains, “so I’m starting to realize that I get into cycles. Every December or January, at the turn of the year, I get back on trying to recreate the Channel One studio sound. Once the cold weather comes in, it’s always Reggae Christmas.” “Calor Ahora,” which opens Another Place, is the bountiful fruit of this yearly tradition. “The words were taken from a journal entry I made when I was on the verge of an anxiety attack and felt this oppressive cold,” he shares. "I finally felt a sense of relief and started feeling more like myself." He clarifies: “I know LA isn’t cold, but I’m from the Caribbean.” Watch the video for "Calor Ahora" — a goofy, direct-to-VHS-style send-up of LA noir mysteries — here. Another Place is Pachyman’s most daring project to-date, one that builds upon its forebears by leaning into the idiosyncratic elements lurking beneath previous projects. In doing so, it synthesizes the myriad scenes that have recontextualized the methods and aesthetics of dub — from pioneering synth-pop weirdos like William Onyeabor and Yellow Magic Orchestra to Basic Channel’s amniotic dub techno — into a sound that, while still anchored in dub reggae’s glorious walls of sound, is undeniably Pachyman’s own. The video for Pachyman's previous single "In Love" — a track that imbues Pachy's signature dub sound with a joyful, egg-melting-on-the-sidewalk haze in the vein of Washed Out or Neon Indian — introduces a new quartet lineup that will debut on the upcoming Europe / UK tour dates: Pachy on drums and vocals, Javier Perez on guitar, Jordan Brooks on bass, and Diego Gaeta on keys. Watch the "In Love" video here. Meanwhile, lead single "Hard To Part" is a skeletal drone workout that doubles as "a funky dub reggae love letter to Los Angeles" (Remezcla). KCRW called it "funky-spooky-cool" and put it at #2 on their Top 30 chart, adding: "ESG fans, take note." Watch the video for “Hard To Part” here. Pachyman continues to take the alchemical, indelible sound of Another Place global. He just wrapped shows in New Zealand and Australia, as well as some North American dates with Darkside and an NYC festival performance at Indieplaza, a Record Store Day featuring The Hives, Scowl, Clipping., and Lifeguard. However, following his imminent Europe and UK tour, Pachyman has also just announced his first-ever Mexican headlining shows. Full dates below — keep an eye out for more to be announced later this year. "Calor Ahora" is out now, listen to it here. Another Place is out May 23, preorder/save it here. TRACKLIST Calor Ahora In Love Berlin SJU Take Me To Dance False Moves Strikes Back Hard to Part Another Place ADSH TOUR DATES May 21: Hamburg, DE @ Knust May 23: Stockholm, SE @ Hosoi May 24: Gothenburg, SE @ Nefertiti May 25: Copenhagen, DN @ Ideal Bar May 28: Berlin, DE @ LARK May 29: Munich, DE @ Import Export May 30: Zurich, CH @ Moods May 31: Antwerp, BE @ De Roma June 1: Utrecht, NL @ De Nijverheid June 3: Paris, FR @ Le Point Ephémère June 4: Brighton, UK @ The Hope & Ruin June 5: London, UK @ Jazz Cafe June 6: Bristol, UK @ Rough Trade June 7: Nottingham, UK @ Rough Trade June 20 - 22: Nelsonville, OH @ Nelsonville Music Festival June 26 - July 5: Montreal, QC @ Montreal Jazz Festival Sept 18: Mexico City, MX @ Foro IR (Sala B) Sept 19: Guadalajara, MX @ C3 Rooftop Sept 20: Querétaro @ Salón Salvaje Stay connected with Pachyman: 23 Profile | Facebook | Instagram | Soundcloud | Tiktok | Twitter | Youtube