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Margaret Chardiet was born and raised in New York City. She has been making power electronics / death-industrial music under the name Pharmakon for five years. As a founding member of the Red Light District collective in Far Rockaway, NY she has been a figurehead in the underground experimental scene since the age of seventeen. She describes her drive to make noise music as something akin to exorcism where she is able to express, her ?deep-seated need/drive/urge/possession to reach other people and make them FEEL something [specifically] in uncomfortable/ confrontational ways.? Engineered by Sean Ragon of Cult of Youth at his self-built recording studio Heaven Street, Abandon is Pharmakon?s 1st proper studio album and also her first widely distributed release.

What began as the extremely lo-fi two-piece of Elias Rønnenfelt (Iceage) and Loke Rahbek recording on 4-track has evolved into an experimental noise/ industrial/ techno pop quartet. On this album Vår utilize everything from acoustic guitar, power electronics, bass, trumpet, multi-tracked vocals, and various percussive instruments, to broken glass & sheet metal samples. No One Dances Quite Like My Brothers is a remarkable debut, an emotional rollercoaster of sorts which at times is profoundly uplifting, at times decidedly morose but remains unfailingly moving throughout.

With their fourth full-length album to be released in as many years, The Men proudly present the sweeping New Moon, the most intensely personal and immersive installment yet. Never content to draw on the same methods twice, nor to recline under the heel of expectation, The Men quit the city in early 2012 to head for Big Indian, NY - transforming a remote Catskills locale into a full-fledged stray dog studio home. Entering with only the most skeletal sketches, the house was selected as an incubator for its technical limitations. Familiar faces remain, the core of guitarists Nick Chiericozzi and Mark Perro, with drummer Rich Samis all returning from last year?s much-acclaimed Open Your Heart. However, inroads have since been made to previously unreachable trails, as close friend and producer Ben Greenberg (Pygmy Shrews, Hubble, Zs) officially joins the ranks as bassist on paper, and full-bore compositional partner in practice. In tandem, wayward brother Kevin Faulkner occupies his most substantial sphere to date, dreaming aloud on lap steel guitar. New Moon is simultaneously an expansion of palette and a contraction of focus, hedged with as much leaden dirge and ecstatic abandon, as it is genuine saccharine steel-string levity and an ever-tightening, no apologies pop concision. Summarily, it is a love letter devoted in bowed humility to the grand continuum, exposing the hoax of the great divide

Swedish electronic producer, Hannes Norrvide (aka Lust For Youth) has been inconspicuously hinting at his brighter side throughout his last couple of releases. What began as a lo-fi, atonal, bedroom drone-synth project in 2009 has slowly but surely been evolving into a full frontal synth-pop assault. The Quietus quite aptly caught on to these genres? overlapping breeding ground in his review of Growing Seeds for The Quiteus, ?If you take the two musical genres of noise and synth pop and trace them back, back through Wolf Eyes and La Roux, all the way back to Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire and The Normal, you reach a point where the two lines wind together and fuse?..In the last few years, a number of groups have emerged who, whether by intention or not, are working to reconcile these two paths of noise and synth-pop.?

When it comes to following the beat of their own drum, New York's Psychic Ills have exemplified the phrase since their beginnings in 2003. The early years saw several releases for Social Registry, tons of time on the road, and collaborations with artists as diverse as Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers) and Sonic Boom (Spacemen Three/ Spectrum). In 2011, their 1st effort for Sacred Bones, Hazed Dream traded in the synthesizer space-outs and raga rumbles, and delivered a record of sunburned psych pop, awash in warm tones and blues damaged songwriting.

In 2012 they did two full US tours including a stop at Austin Psych Fest, and had their first trip to China. They recorded One Track Mind, their fourth full length, this fall. The album features collaborations with and production by Neil Michael Hagerty of Royal Trux/The Howling Hex. There will be a limited value-add covers 7" containing the Ills takes on The Godz' Radar Eyes and private press psych pop obscurity Cosmic Michaels' Cosmic Michael Theme. One Track Mind is perhaps the most straight-forward rock record the Ills have ever made. They will be touring in support of it heavily in both Europe and the US.

Föllakzoid began in Santiago, Chile from what they describe as the result of “a product of a trance experience between friends, sort of a soul abduction in which they’ve been living since 2008.” The band is made up of multi-faceted artists: Juan Pablo (bass, vocals) is a producer of the Sangre Fresca Music Festival in Santiago, Diego (drums) is a photographer, Alfredo (synth) is an architect and Domingo (guitar) is also a filmmaker who just premiered his first long length movie “Partir to Live”. They believe that there is some sort of gravitational force that makes South America able to dialogue directly with other places, times and dimensions. They have all known each other from childhood in Santiago. This album shows the band growing an enormous amount as songwriters, focusing on more developed songs and structures. Throughout these five songs, Föllakzoid craft one of the finest kraut-rock record in years.

The Holydrug Couple have done a lot of growing since their first release with Sacred Bones Records in 2011. The ?couple?, consisting of Ives Sepúlveda and Manuel Parra recorded Noctuary in Santiago, Chile. They put together a home studio and recorded the entire album themselves, from start to finish. After four months of obsessively working and barely leaving the house, Ives emerged with a final product of which he band is truly proud. While Awe and their Ancient Land EP had a bluesier, woodsy sound, Noctuary plays out like a slow motion 60?s beach party dream that you never want to wake from. This is not your typical motorik beat kraut album; rather it sounds more like a breezy take on Love or Beau Brummels.