Ashley Shadow - Ashley Shadow - VINYL LP

Bay Area DIY pop duo Loveshadow join up with Dark Entries to II, their sophomore LP. Anya Prisk and Izaak Schlossman met in Oakland in 2016, bonded over their love of '80s sounds and immediately began building their musical world with rich synths, funky basslines, and irresistible hooks. The past is always in their palette, but Loveshadow's nostalgia doesn't trace to any single locus; it's more like a cloud, and it's through this haze that they breathe new life into the music they love. Their debut album was released in 2021 on Music from Memory to acclaim. II presents a more subtle and refined statement from the band - laser-focused on the vaporous expanse. Album opener InchLast RoomInch saunters with the confidence of Sade, while InchEarthen TrackInch feels like Kate Bush covering a forgotten city pop anthem. The album is largely focused on club-friendly material, but mellower pieces like InchWinter's DoorInch and InchMirageInch are sophisticated stand-outs that would make Ryuchi Sakamoto proud. Italo funk groover InchPower Melts AwayInch closes out the album by upping the energy into fist-pumping territory. Anya's lyrics on II use the unreality of dreams as a lens to examine the realities of change and personal growth; illusions made material. Loveshadow elegantly smear the lines between past and present, pop and avant, immanent and transcendent.

Ashley Shadow winks at darkness, but she won't lead you towards it. It's easy to fall under the spell of Ashley's haunting voice. The Vancouver, B.C. based songwriter forged her own identity as a songwriter with 2016's eponymous self-titled debut. Her sophomore effort, Only the End, maintains the moody introspection that is ingrained in Pacific Northwest life, but now comes armed with a palpable hope complementing her signature melancholy.InchI wanted to make a more upbeat album, something you could play with some friends over. Some of the songs I wrote were initially bummers, but when we went to record them, we lightened them up.InchBalancing a couple of jobs and navigating life and love in increasingly unstable times, the album was written over two years by Ashley at her apartment. Her confident vibrato above lightly, distorted guitars mirrors the album's theme of resilience, if not triumph, over adversity. There is comfort in these warm songs that endorse the realism of contented acceptance, rather than the naïve search for non-existent utopias.While the songs were conceived in contemplative solitude, Ashley invited some very capable collaborators for their journey into the studio.InchDon't Slow Me DownInch reunites Ashley with Bonnie InchPrinceInch Billy for the first time on record when she sang vocals on Bonnie's Lie Down In Light album in 2018. They intertwine joyful melodies, celebrating the perspective experience brings as they Inchoutran the darkness and shook off the cold/taking back feeling from all it controlled.Inch In InchGreyInch, she sings, InchGrey took over the sky/far too much to think about, don't try.Inch However, any temptation to wallow is countered by Colin Cowan's (Elastic Stars) buoyant French-pop bass line and a dancing pedal steel played by Paul Rigby (Neko Case). In InchFor Love,Inch shuffling drums by producer Joshua Wells (Black Mountai

UK based Kill Shelter blends modern electronica, post-punk & darkwave with heavily processed guitars. The new , Asylum, is a tour de force of dark alternative, featuring collaborations with Ronny Moorings (Clan of Xymox), Agent Side Grinder, Ash Code, Stefan Netschio (Beborn Beton), William Faith (The Bellwether Syndicate/ Faith and the Muse), Valentina Veil (VV & the Void) & Antipole.