Annika Henderson is a musician, poet and artist who rose to fame as ANIKA with two highly acclaimed eponymous records (Recorded with Geoff Barrow of Portishead and his band Beak>, released on Stones Throw in the US), and was touring the world. She is well known as a DJ too, hosts a radio program on BCR – Berlin Community Radio, is seen and heard in experimental cinema and collaborates with a variety of Berlin, London, or Mexico City based artists and musicians among them Jandek, Shackleton, Michael Rother (Neu!), Dave Clarke (Skint BMG), Andreas Reihse of Kreidler, T.Raumschmiere (Sleeping Pills and Habits), Doireann O'Malley, Ricardo Domeneck, Stine Omar / Max Boss (EASTER), Phillip Geist (Live Video mapping project and soundtrack in Tehran, Iran) or Yann Tiersen. Last year, Anika released an album with her new WOLFYPIEHANDSMGMT | wolfypiehands.com | wolfypiehands@nym.hush.com Mexico City-based project, Exploded View on Sacred Bones (US).

In 2017, Anika released a string of new material, comprising of two releases with new partners and a follow-up record with her Mexico-City based band, Exploded View. In July was the release of her new collaboration projection with bass outsider, Shackleton, in the form of a full length LP released on Shackleton’s own Woe To The Septic Heart! label and accompanied by a string of exclusive live dates. Next came another new collab with Techno legend, Dave Clarke, on his longawaited full-length LP The Desecration Of Desire, which came out in October (Skint BMG). The year was rounded off with a follow-up EP from Exploded View in November, released again on Sacred Bones (US)

“Political Journalist” isn’t a credential we usually have in musician’s bios, but this is exactly what Anika was doing while living between Berlin and Bristol, when she met Geoff Barrow. The producer was looking for a new singer to work with his band Beak>, and it was immediately clear they shared the same musical vision, including a love of punk, dub and 60s girl groups.

Just a week later Anika and Beak> (Barrow, Billy Fuller and Matt Williams) went into the studio to begin recording material. The resulting album was recorded in twelve days, live, with the four together in one room. Dub with no overdubs. The collaboration is political, trashy, dub, punk, funk … a cohesive sound, and experience in uneasy listening.

In the tradition of short-lived but deeply infuential 99 Records and the NYC’s 80s No Wave nexus, the nine songs on Anika run the gamut from experimental rock (“Yang Yang”, “Offcer Offcer”) to covers of folk (“Masters of War”) and pop songs (“Terry”, “I Go to Sleep”), while showcasing reverb-drenched ancient drum machine rhythms.

2 decades of tinkering with musical instruments can go a lot of different ways and that's exactly where Christopher Ian Brooker went and is going with Where.Are.We. He wistfully combines elements of ambient electronica, afro beat, and hip hop and stews it with the heat of raw psychedelic rock and roll. Live he lets the material stew a bit more; bringing in moments of improvisation and raw emotion, followed by somber lulls of fading outros. He has graced the stage with the likes of Tobacco, Wax Tailor, and Jel (of Anticon fame) and has worked on countless sessions across Atlanta and the country. The first full length And.Who.Are.All.These.Mystics was named one of the top 10 albums of 2012 by Ohmpark and the new EP Engineer's Handbook Vol. 1 was honored in Creative Loafing's Best of Atlanta 2013 and voted Best Trip-Hop Krautrock Pysch-Pop Underdog in Creative Loafing's Best of Atlanta 2014.

Since post-punk morphed from an offshoot of new wave into something less bound by generation but more nebulous as a whole, artists have been utilizing the colder elements of the genre to expose the emptiness of consumerism and to push back against the bankrupt neon hues of success and progress. On the second EP from Night Cleaner, All the Saints guitarist and vocalist Matthew Lambert focuses these social queries into an analysis of sound and self. The name conjures visions of fluorescent hallways and patterned carpets in deserted office parks, but the isolation and introspective longing of Even lend themselves to his focused meditation. Though these six tracks channel the same anti-commercial desperation of ‘80s post-punk, Lambert digs further into the psyche of the individual, and as a result, Even reflects the endless motility of mind and body. Lambert’s first foray as a solo artist came in the form of a more ambient project. His debut release, 2015’s A Sketch for Winter III: Greensleeves, was an emotionally resonant dreamscape, which, though hazy and narcotic, was also pastoral and intimate—a bucolic scene from another planet. Even is no less delicate, but here the textures take sharper forms. The urgency of the EP is new to Night Cleaner and nowhere is it more evident than on “Solids (No Tint).” The track rides a simple, grinding synth line to an unknown destination, but the insistence of the beat is confrontational and gripping. This immediacy is also evident in the less robotic bits of the EP. Indeed, the carnal thrum of “WDE” reflects the sensory experience that is key to the album: Throughout Even, what is known must be encountered personally. Much as All the Saints are shoegaze by way of expression rather than intention, the diverse sounds of Night Cleaner are driven by process rather than objective. Geographic North releases are always extremely focused in scope if not sound, and Even is no different. Yet within this collection of densely curated post-punk, there’s a sprawling universe of individual palettes and tones. Lambert drew inspiration from a wide variety of sources, from DJ Screw to Depeche Mode. “On the surface, it definitely seems disparate, but to me it makes all kinds of sense,” he explains over email. “I just draw inspiration from the analog glaze and continuous pulsing flow of Screw tapes. Once I started writing more with the MPC and synths, I became even more drawn to groups like Solid Space, Depeche Mode, and especially Seventeen Seconds by the Cure. I love the way these guys balanced icy keys/synths, simple drum machine beats, and mix them with the melodic, psych-tinged guitar.” Though he makes the comparisons seem obvious, and the implementation effortless, the frigid textures of the EP are balanced by a sense of wonder which buoys the synth lines and prevents the harsher elements from dragging the record into the depths of self-conscious claustrophobia. Lambert wrote most of Even in the seclusion of a home studio late in the evening, but just as critical to the writing process were a series of drives he took around East Point, College Park, and Decatur. Driving as a theme or even as part of the writing process isn’t novel to songwriting, but the device works especially well in the car-centric world of metro Atlanta. For Lambert, the insular environment of city streets at night is a palette for sounds and ideas to take shape internally. “As I’ve gotten older, I started finding beauty in the sprawling nature of this city,” he says. “Motion is a key element of creation for me. So often I take these demos and just drive and fine tune them in my head until I can get back to my setup and bang them out.” This focus on motion as a catalyst for creation permeates the entire record without seeming contrived, especially on “Privacy Light.” The woozy, slow-burning track transmits the decaying romance of the Jesus and Mary Chain in its pulsing beat before whining into the distance. Throughout Even Lambert indulges his own creativity while deftly paying homage to his idols. In doing so, he has made a record which constantly changes its form. Though it is expansive as a whole, each track is narrowly focused. As a result, the sources of light and intimacy on Even may be distant, but the EP’s untethered exploration makes them feel reachable and therefore even more consequential. Even is available now on limited-edition cassette and digital.

That Which Is Not Said is an album about learning to accept oneself within, and accept the reality of all that comes from without. It’s an eponymous abstract exposition on navigating the realms of intimacy that the living world inevitably unveils and their equally inevitable fallout, the panic of abandonment and the loss of desire, and dragging oneself back up the hill once the lonely valleys lose their allure. Written and recorded over the course of two years in TWINS home studio in Atlanta with various synths, samplers, drum machines, and his very own flesh-and-muscle vocals, That Which Is Not Said is the result of countless studio sessions and experiments that were refined and distilled into the songs presented here, rigorously worked out through live performances and repeated critical overhaul. The material was all conceived more or less the same way: a mood or feeling would be channeled through whatever machines were plugged in at the time and eventually a foundation would be developed upon which a loose structure would be improvised. Experimenting and throwing around vocals came next, making up phrases and lyrics on the fly until something clicked and a pathway cleared through the fog and mist. TWINS (the acronym from which the album derives its title, if one’s curious about the order of origin) is the mutant machine-pop project of Atlantan producer, label operator, and all-around aesthete-visionary Matt Weiner. Having spent the better part of a decade reveling in a moody murk that intersects seductive synth-pop with Featureless Ghost and grotesque industrial-dance grooves in his own right as TWINS, Weiner has more than proved his sincerely sinister and auspiciously artful finesse of synth-based music. Operating from his home studio, arrayed with various tools of the trade, Weiner tempers his subtle scourges of sound with an unending sense of bold exploration, processing tracks of pulse-heavy aural catharsis. When performing these songs live, he brings an array of hardware to back up his flooring vocal performances, using his entire being to work the audience into a frenzied trance. When not making music as TWINS, Weiner also runs the CGI Records label and co-runs the DKA label, between the two releasing music from Boy Harsher, Profligate, Alex Falk, High-Functioning Flesh, VALIS, Scott Fraser, Beau Wanzer, Featureless Ghost, Golden Donna, and more. Weiner also performs in the duo Pyramid Club with Chris Daresta, and produces music in the studio with Stefan Ringer as SM42 and with the esteemed CH Rom as Wo.