Valentine Caulfield and Scott Fair (guitar/production) met a couple of years ago when their respective previous bands shared a bill in Manchester. Caulfield was drawn to Fair’s aspirations to write beyond genre, while Fair was instantly taken with the singer’s magnetic stage presence and harsh, visceral vocals delivered in her native French. The pair also enlisted Liam Stewart (percussion), a touring musician who’s powerhouse rhythmic presence compliments the pair’s vision—emphasizing raw energy and emotion over meticulous composition to create a singular cathartic experience.

The songs on ‘…’ EP were recorded in a variety of spaces, from rehearsal rooms and home studios to cavernous industrial mills. You can hear it in the recordings: the clattering footsteps, muffled piano and chatter at the end of “Bottle Episode” were taken from the hall outside of one of their recording spaces. Other sounds like a buzzing fluorescent light and the rhythm of a passing train also found their way into the mix. Mandy, Indiana’s influences are fluid and their lyrics are left intentionally open to interpretation, but the group acknowledge cinematic references alongside musical touchstones. The band’s self-made music videos, influenced by the macabre film-making of Gaspar Noe and Leos Carax, see them carefully stitching together found-footage montages. Every image feels intentional, providing a visual chaos that matches the music’s unpredictability. Mandy, Indiana’s debut EP documents where they’ve been, where they are now, and where they’re going.

“It begins with a marching band-style beat that intensifies as it progresses, providing an ominous backdrop for front person Valentine Caulfield's dissociated vocals. Delivered in her native French, Caulfield adds an extra layer of texture to the band's gnarly sound” (FADER). Daniel Avery reworked the track into a club-ready version.

*Download in master quality .wav format.

Spirit Tamer’ is the debut album from Mia Joy available on limited edition Bright Pink and Classic Black vinyl and compact disc on Fire Talk. A member of the Chicago Children’s Choir at a young age, the record sees Joy's dual backgrounds in music and poetry evolve into a juxtaposition between soaring emotional synthpop and introspective devotional harmonies. Past press has referred to Mia’s music as “warm, ethereal, endlessly layered, and beautifully expanding”. Filled with heady atmospherics and vulnerability that abounds through the shapeshifting sonic palette, fans of Ana Roxanne or Hand Habits will find much to love in this painstakingly crafted, endearingly intimate universe.

1st Pressing
300 on Bright Pink Vinyl
300 on Black Vinyl

*also available 150 on Pink Vinyl Exclusive to Indie Retailers

Everything, the debut album from Chicago quartet Bnny, may as well be a field recording taken from the lone country of grief. Written in sessions that span several years by singer Jess Viscius as she processed the death of her partner, the album is a chronicle of love at its most complex and loss at its most persistent. In the same vein as Sky Blue Sky-era Wilco or the harrowing vulnerability of Tomberlin or Helena Deland, Viscius’ songwriting is evocative and intentional. A longstanding member of the Windy City music scene, the album was produced by Dehd’s Jason Balla, and the sparse arrangements pick apart complicated truths while feeling both timeless and transcendent. Everything is out on Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Pure X, Mamalarky).

A new single from Wombo! The weird world of Wombo is a kaleidoscopic journey of sharp turns and surprising visions, a melting pot of influences with a cheeky cheshire-cat grin that coalesce into a trippy but infinite universe, a portal into their unique vantage point without limitation. Already committed to living outside the traditionally-heralded country sound of the music scene in their hometown of Louisville Kentucky, Sydney Chadwick (vocals) and Cameron Lowe (guitar) had previously played in punk pop band the Debauchees, and with the addition of Joel Taylor (drums) in 2016 they found a winning combination of more straightforward indie rock combined with Chadwick’s pitched up, oscillating vocals and unpredictable shifts in melody that see the band moving forward at an impressive pace.

‘The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive,’ the new album from Los Angeles-based Media Jeweler, is a three-dimensional reckoning with the contradictions of life in all its manic altitudes and claustrophobia. Recorded over three chaotic weeks in Omaha, the band’s elaborate sonic infrastructures carry the same sense of studied experimentation as Palm, Guerrilla Toss or Deerhoof, rollicking across an energetic spectrum that parlay the band’s post-punk roots, jazz rhythms and art punk choruses into something greater than the sum of its parts. The most fully-fleshed release yet, a myriad of musical collaborators were enlisted uniting a finely-tuned sense of adventurousness that roves between the personal and political to frame an acute portrait of modern day societal revelation. ‘The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive’ is out on August 13th on Fire Talk.

1st Pressing
300 Units - Ecomix Vinyl
400 Units - Black Vinyl

300 Units - Swamp Green Vinyl exclusive to independent record stores.

Cola is a new project from former Ought members Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy formed with US Girls drummer Evan Cartwright. "Blank Curtain" provides an exciting hint of the way the new project picks up some of the threads of the pair's earlier work and weaves them into engaging new shapes, constructing a driving tangle of guitars around an arresting performance from Darcy.

"What started as stripped-down open D songwriting with a CR-78 soon became a full album and new band. We wanted to see how far we could stretch our compositions with just drums, one guitar, one bass, and one voice.

Blank Curtain is a quarter note kick drum pushing 240 bpm, a drone-like chord progression, and declarative vocals cutting through the haze. If you could invert the color of the Blank Curtain, you might have something like a Chicago house track that sounds like a band in a room."

*Available to download on high quality .wav format.

The weird world of Wombo is a kaleidoscopic journey of sharp turns and surprising visions, a melting pot of influences with a cheeky cheshire-cat grin that coalesce into a trippy but infinite universe, a portal into their unique vantage point without limitation. Already committed to living outside the traditionally-heralded country sound of the music scene in their hometown of Louisville Kentucky, Sydney Chadwick (vocals) and Cameron Lowe (guitar) had previously played in punk pop band the Debauchees, and with the addition of Joel Taylor (drums) in 2016 they found a winning combination of more straightforward indie rock combined with Chadwick’s pitched up, oscillating vocals and unpredictable shifts in melody that see the band moving forward at an impressive pace. Their 2018 album Blossomlooksdownuponus is a snapshot of Wombo’s wide-ranging aspirations that careen across avant pop, psych and wonky post punk interludes with a sky’s-the-limit approach to translating the mundanity of regular life into their own high-frequency language.

In a generation where pop has come to be defined as anything but, Wombo have spearheaded their own definitive sound that avoids genre classification but is impossible not to tap your foot along to. “Usually if the babies like it, we like it”, admits Chadwick, and it speaks to the band’s bass-driven song structures that pivot through a whirlwind of instrumentation at rapid speeds that they are still able to land on a winning formula that strikes the sweet spot between effervescent overload and razor sharp intention. In 2019, the band toured with White Reaper, Dehd and The Nude Party, bands whose affinity and dedication to strange experimentation have won them fans across a wider audience, and Wombo are poised to follow suit. In a careful balance where no one instrument overwhelms, Chadwick’s vocals are the cherry on top of a decadent dessert that explodes with personality and ingenuity.

Dark Tea, the solo project of LA-based Gary Canino, will release their new self-titled, full-length studio album on April 30, 2021, on Fire Talk Records. The 12-track collection expands the group’s sound from their previous LP (also called Dark Tea), further exploring Canino’s cinematic visions and twangy folk narratives.

Born and raised in Huntington, NY, Gary’s quiet Long Island youth gave him access to all of the pleasures and distractions of New York City. After college at the University of Virginia, Canino made his way to Brooklyn in 2011. He played bass with post-punk revivalists Rips, recording and touring their debut album with Austin Brown (Parquet Courts), forming Dark Tea in 2016. Fire Talk, a label known for left-field rockers like Pure X and Dehd, issued the first Dark Tea LP in 2019, mixed by Jarvis Taveniere of Woods and featuring memorable guitar work from Meg Duffy of Hand Habits.

The new Dark Tea album, recorded by Matt Barrick (The Walkmen) and NYC punk veteran Sasha Stroud, is a document of deeply personal, interior reflections, contrasted with the wide open spaces of an idyllic American soundscape. Beyond the music, Gary channels his Cassavetes obsession by making videos for Dark Tea, Current Joys, and The Berries. It’s a continuation of the Dark Tea vision: creativity, commitment, nurturing a sense of wonder through the haze of nostalgia, while looking toward the future.

1st Pressing
300 - Bright Red LP
200 - Black LP

2020’s ‘Flower of Devotion’ was one of the most critically-heralded releases of the year, named Best New Music by Pitchfork who called the record “an effortless, elegantly rumpled strain of indie rock” and the album received further accolades from the FADER, Vice Noisey, Under the Radar, Variety and more. ‘Flower of Devotion Remixed’ sees Dehd surrounded by a myriad of close collaborators (Lala Lala, Protomartyr, Freak Heat Waves, and more) and points a shining spotlight on the Chicago music scene the band still calls home, staying true to the trio’s earnest melodies while creating an amorphous blend of experimentations in mutated indie pop that feels like a personal mixtape for the friends that know them best.

* Limited one time pressing of 1000 copies on triple button color vinyl!

On the one year anniversary of “Blossomlooksdownuponus” Louisville, KY's avant-pop / post-punk / whatever-rock rookies of the year WOMBO have signed to Fire Talk. The excellent young trio of Sydney Chadwick (bass/vox), Cameron Lowe (guitar), and Joel Taylor (drums) follow in the footsteps of futuristic garage-funk greats with a lovably kool wit, while somehow managing to be sincerely, effortlessly, and unforgivingly themselves. The weird world of Wombo is a kaleidoscopic journey of sharp turns and surprising visions, a melting pot of influences with a cheeky cheshire-cat grin that coalesce into a trippy but infinite universe of the band’s own, and a portal into their unique vantage point without limitation. Already committed to living outside the traditionally-heralded country sound of the music scene in their hometown of Louisville, Sydney Chadwick (vocals) and Cameron Lowe (guitar) had previously played in punk pop band the Debauchees, and with the addition of Joel Taylor (drums) in 2016 they found a winning combination of more straightforward indie rock combined with Chadwick’s pitched up, oscillating vocals and unpredictable shifts in melody that see the band moving forward at an impressive pace. Their 2020 Blossomslookdownuponus LP is a snapshot of Wombo’s wide-ranging aspirations that careen across avant pop, post punk and warbly indie interludes with a sky’s-the-limit approach to translating the mundanity of regular life into their own high-frequency language.

Limited to 300 copies on Lemon Yellow Vinyl

Plastic Flag as an effort began in Berlin in the summer of 2017. Admitedly listening to Calling out of Context most mornings, Cal was carefully piecing together loops from cassettes found on the streets and beats made on an iPad. Over the next year Cal built the songs through performance and experiment and when they returned to Europe the following summer began sewing together discarded and gifted polybags into flags to be shared and used in performance. The album plays with eclectic combinations made possible by bringing together the idiosyncratic clock of tape loops, highly quantized beats, and seemingly endless drones pursuing and freezing Cal's vocals and flute remarks. In content Plastic Flag is a whimsical snapshot of an earth filled with Plastic, Cars, Power, Dance, Love-Attempt, Poisoned Ecosystems, and Longing!

Cal is a multi/non-disciplinary artist from Sea Cliff NY. Musical and sonic exploration has always been at the center of both their art practice and social life and they began performing at Brooklyn diy venues around 2012 at places like Death by Audio and 285 Kent in the band Turnip King. Since, Cal has performed solo song and dance all around the country and in parts of Europe with a synthesis of flute, tape loops, movement, homemade instruments, and sculpture. Cal currently lives and works in Brooklyn making custom clothing/soft sculpture, teaching art/technology classes to kids, and performing and organizing regularly. They are collaborating with Kyle Marshall Choreography as sound artist/designer and a resident artist/manager at the Living Gallery.

Deeper's Auto Pain: Deluxe Edition reframes the liminal spaces of the Chicago quartet’s searingly-nuanced sophomore effort about grief and resilience into a densely-layered perspective of emotional maximalism fearless in its vulnerability. The deluxe edition includes remixes from fellow ascending artists Working Men’s Club, PVA, NNAMDI and more as well as two stripped-back demos and live versions from the band’s performance at the Chicago Cultural Center in March 2021. While the original version delivered a masterclass in razor-sharp post punk, the expanded record gives a glimpse into a lens of a year full of adversity and the growth and perspective that draws these songs together to pack a powerful, personal punch. Auto Pain: Deluxe Edition is out September 3rd on Fire Talk.

Limited to just 500 direct to fan copies! Spot gloss gatefold jacket w/ printed inner sleeves, updated artwork and liner notes & pressed on two ultra limited variants.

Deluxe package includes 5 remixes, 2 demos and 6 live recordings, full track list on the inner flap of the gatefold image below.

Young Prisms’ first music in nearly a decade, “Yourside”, stays true to the band’s “shadowy, reverb-smothered guitar rock” (Pitchfork) and “haunting romanticism” (Consequence of Sound). A step forward from the early oughts shoegaze that put the band on the map. Vocalist Stefanie Hodapp’s vocals anchor the frequencies to create something both alluring and uplifting. Recorded in their home town of San Francisco with production from Shaun Durkan (Weekend/Soft Kill) and mastered by Heba Kadry the new material marks a sea change for a band who's found a new stride creatively with a plethora of life changes (motherhood, aging) to draw from.

*Available to download in Hi Resolution .wav format

Toronto’s PACKS make music that’s like leafing through a diary entry of a time without visible movement, a subtle beauty that appears only when paying close attention. The band’s debut is a collection of songs that marry the loose but incisive jangle of early Pavement with the barbed sweetness of Sebadoh and the wide-eyed wonder of the first Shins LP. Written in two different settings, between the city limits of Toronto where Link was living in 2019, and the Ottawa suburbs where she was quarantined with her parents in the spring 2020, both remain complementary emblems of self-reflection and wry observation of the mundanity of daily life. "Take the Cake" is out on Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Mamalarky) on May 21st digitally and July 9th 2021 on vinyl.

1st Pressing
Cake Splatter Vinyl - 300 Copies
Black Vinyl - 400 Copies

Additional Variants
Light Blue Indie Retail Exclusive - 300 Copies
Bright Red Rough Trade Exclusive - 100 Copies

“Meadow / Moss” is the new double single from Mamalarky available digitally on Fire Talk.  Their “tenderly tangled indie rock” (Pitchfork) has been heralded by Billboard, Nylon, Under the Radar, Vice Noisey and more, and the two new singles carry on the same crafty assurance of sparkling synths and unexpected melodies that showcase the obvious chemistry and camaraderie between the quartet.  From the quirky rhythmic pivots of “Meadow” to the more introspective sheen of “Moss”, the tracks perfectly complement and set the stage for the next step in the band’s proclivity to exploring new soundscapes in indie pop.  

*Download on master quality .wav format