dälek, Publicist UK, Azar Swan

Stepping out from behind the dark, ugly shadow of contemporary Hip Hop, Newark, NJ's Dälek are here to redefine pretenses of the genre now and forever with their challenging new full length on Ipecac Recordings.

Back in the day, Dälek and the Oktopus met at William Patterson University. The O, learning that Dälek made beats at his home studio offered to help him engineer his nascent tracks at his growing studio, Sweetwood Sound. Since a creative mind is a terrible thing to waste, Dälek later dropped out of Patterson, cashing in his college loan checks to pick up his first MPC 3000 -- turning what began as an experiment into one of the most inventive Hip Hop records the world will ever hear.

The duo's first album, 1998's Negro, Necro, Nekros (Gern Blandsten) caught the attention of critics around the world and established Dälek as risk takers, and flag bearers for a new generation of Hip Hop. The five track full length (clocking in at under 39 minutes) debuted the group's eclectic musical force. Blending elements of Faust's over the top noise, the Velvet Underground's grit, shoegazer rock density, innovative arrangements, prophetically insightful lyrics and hard hitting drums, all to come up with something truly rare in any musical genre: a sound that's hard, honest and unique. This record showcases a group as unconcerned with conforming to conventions as it is with breaking them.

By fall of '98, the young group made yet another uncommon move in the Hip Hop world by committing themselves to a ceaseless, DIY touring ethic which they maintain to this day. It was on the road at a college show that the group met Still. He impressed them by jumping up during their sound check and improvising a 15 minute set on the turntables. While Dälek and the Oktopus are consistently pushing the limits and expectations of the sampler as a musical instrument, Still spends most of his time recreating how audiences hear turntables. Alternately pulling out old school cuts or making the turntable sound like a guitar, a violin, or a wall of white noise, Still aims to be equal parts Grandmaster Flash, Jimi Hendrix, and Merzbow rolled up into one tight afro.

The group spent years since meeting Still on the road, captivating audiences across the board opening for such varied groups as De La Soul, EC8OR, Isis, Prince Paul, DJ Spooky, The Rye Coalition, Lovage, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Pharcyde, Techno Animal, Tomahawk, Funkstrong, and The Roots (to name a few). Not to mention their studio and on-stage collaborations with Avant-Garde Jazz artists like William Hooker and Ravish Momin, to electronic artists like Kid606, Velma, and the legendary Krautrock super-group Faust.

Biographies can't explain it all: this is a band you want to hear, and definitely want to see live, no matter who you are. The group's innovative show, which grabbed the attention of The New York Press, CMJ, NJ's Star Ledger, NME, Melody Maker, Wire Magazine, and more, usually includes a dense wall of sound, intense delivery, and at times, a blinding light show. Dead serious on stage, many a Dälek set has ended with monitors thrown, mic stands strewn, and a deafening feedback lingering in what was once the empty space between audience members.

Expect the band to tour extensively starting the early summer of 2002 in support of their new album "From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots," on Ipecac Recordings.


PUBLICIST UK is a band that combines members of Municipal Waste,
Revocation, Goes Cube, and Freshkills to form a sound that blends
elements of post-punk and new wave with metal and hardcore. The band
formed in 2013 when guitarist David Obuchowski and Zachary Lipez (who
had toured together with their bands Goes Cube and Freshkills
respectively) began writing songs long distance; Obuchowski in
Colorado, and Lipez in New York. Shortly thereafter, Obuchowski met up
with his old friend and Revocation bassist Brett Bamberger (who'd he'd
toured with when Brett was the bass player of East of the Wall).
Obuchowski showed Bamberger the two songs he and Lipez had been
working on, and Bamberger was in.

That same weekend, Bamberger went to Richmond, Virginia and paid a
visit to his friend Dave Witte (Municipal Waste, ex-Burnt By The Sun).
After hearing the songs, Witte immediately offered his talents, and
was quickly welcomed into the fold. In the summer of 2014, the band
posted a single demo, which saw instant coverage from Decibel
Magazine, MetalSucks.net, and many others. Later that same summer,
Noisey premiered another demo, and stated that, "unlimited beer,
nudity, thick-cut bacon, and PUBLICIST UK are things that you need in
your life!" The media attention, to say nothing of the supergroup's
innovative and dynamic take on post-punk, were more than enough to
catch the eye of Relapse Records, who signed the band in the fall of
2014.



Following the band's signing to Relapse, they headed to Wild Arctic
Studios in Dover, NH to track their first full-length release, where
they recorded with producer Dean Baltulonis (Goes Cube, The Hold
Steady, Sick Of It All, Sheer Terror, and many others). Upon the
album's completion, PUBLICIST UK embarked upon a SXSW tour that
included seven shows, and also appeared alongside Obituary,
Pallbearer, Kylesa, and Corrosion Of Conformity at Dark Lord Day in
Indiana. This past spring, Portland, OR-based boutique label Static
Tension Recordings released PUBLICIST UK's two demos as an exclusive
Record Store Day 7-inch, setting the stage for the band's hotly
anticipated debut. PUBLICIST UK's first album, Forgive Yourself, is a
roaring 9-track genre bender that proves that music doesn't
necessarily need to grind or blast to be heavy and dark. The album is
set for release via Relapse Records on August 21, 2015.


Brooklyn's Azar Swan were catapulted into the spotlight toward the end of last year after lighting up blogs across the globe with their debut track 'Amrika'. Founding members Zohra Atash and Joshua Strawn have stepped out of the shadows once more with 'Lusty', a pulsating three minute slog through swells of frighteningly resonant percussion and ominous bass rumbles.

The spectre of their past incarnation as an instrumental ensemble appears at the midway point; distorted whirrs of synthesizer and hollow industrial clanks come to the fore, gripping at Zohra's ghostly pipes and squeezing out the kind of twisted, tribal incantations perfected by These New Puritans on Hidden.