New Releases! May 31 2023
New releases ready for pre-order!
DION LUNADON - SYSTEMS EDGE LP PRE-ORDER
In 2022 Henry Rollins heard an early version of Dion Lunadons sophomore album ‘Beyond Everything’.He liked it so much that he suggested that In The Red Records should release it and we did!
Just over a year later and we are set to release Dion's 3rd album, ‘Systems Edge’. Recorded, performed (sans drums) and mixed by Dion and mastered by Mikey Young, Systems Edge captures Dions unique style of Rock n Roll at its most dynamic. Real, raw and off the chain!
Born in Auckland, New Zealand and now residing in New York City, Dion has played in various bands, most notably The D4, who released two albums on legendary New Zealand label Flying Nun Records and A Place To Bury Strangers. He also played in the formidable Flowers Of Evil beside members of Crocodiles.
Music video for the first single Secrets is out now! Full album to be released November 14th, 2023.
A note from Dion:
"Systems Edge is a collection of songs I wrote between 2015 and 2022. Most of them in 2021/22.
I’ve used this before, but it’s taken directly from Systems Edge’s first single “Secrets” and I think it perfectly sums the song up.
Beyond your skin, beyond your screen, beyond what you think you know. What lies in this area? An area with no opinions, motives, sides or divisions. An area where governments and capitalists have no currency and the absolute truth reigns supreme."
KIM SALMON & THE SURREALISTS - RANTINGS FROM THE BOOK OF SWAMP
In the Red Records is proud to present the U.S. edition of Rantings from the Book of Swamp, the freewheeling eighth studio release by Australia’s magnificent and unpredictable Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, as a two-LP set.The Surrealists were formed by the Scientists’ singer-songwriter-guitarist Kim Salmon in 1987, betwixt the last two tours by the original incarnation of that pathfinding Perth-bred band. The Surrealists had been dormant in recent years, as the bandleader focused his energy on recording and touring with a reunited lineup of the Scientists.In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown settled around the globeSalmon reconvened with bassist/baritone guitarist Stu Thomas and drummer Phil Collings, who had appeared on the Surrealists’ 2010 release Grand Unifying Theory, the group’s most recent record. As with that work, the new material was created live on the studio floor, and emphasized improvisation in both its structure and content.“The premise for this recording,” Salmon explains, “was that at its commencement the band members would come prepared with no other material than whatever ideas they might be able to individually bring. The lyrical content was all derived from my notebooks (Book of Swamp) from sketches I’d been jotting down over the last couple of years. There was to be no consultation about musical forms until the event began. Once the event began, the band had carte blanche to do whatever necessary to salvage compelling performances over the two live events @ 7PM AEST 6/13/20 + 6/14/20 respectively…….i.e., we had to make it up from scratch!”Captured at Rolling Stock Recording Rooms in Collingwood, Victoria, Australia, by Myles Mumford, the music heard on Rantings from the Book of Swamp was originally presented as a pair of live streams directed by Andrew Watson at Semiconductor Media. The resultant album comprises 13 brain-bending tracks characterized by Salmon’s percolating lyrical imagination and the raw, unfettered interplay of the three seasoned musical collaborators.Offbeat, off the street, off the map, and off the wall, Rantings from the Books of Swamp serves as a potent reminder that Kim Salmon and the Surrealists remain a puissant force in boundary-pushing rock music. Limited edition fluorescent green vinyl.
NUDGE SQUIDFISH- EARLY SQUID LP
Another winner from our pals at Spacecase Records! Early Squid is a collection of songs Nudge Squidfish cut between 1975 and 1980. Nudge is one of the major figures of the Columbus, Ohio, DIY-underground scene that spawned other major talents like the late Tommy Jay (who’s makes a couple of appearances on Early Squid) and Jim Shepard, Mike Rep, Don Howland, Ron House, etc.
After years of home recording, Nudge joined the True Believers with Mike Rep and Tommy Jay who released a single on the Columbus-based New Age imprint in 1980. Throughout the ‘80s, Nudge put out several LPs and tapes on his NS label, as well as with New Age. Notably, he was a member of V-3 with Jim Shepard who he recorded with throughout the 1990s. During the 2010s, the superb Columbus Discount Records and Feeding Tube released several archival Squid LPs.
DIVINE HORSEMEN - BITTER END OF A SWEET NIGHT DOUBLE LP
Single and Video for “Bitter End” Out Today!FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASELOS ANGELES (TUESDAY AUGUST 15) - The renaissance of Divine Horsemen — which began in 2021 with the release of Hot Rise of an Ice Cream Phoenix, the legendary Los Angeles band’s first release in 33 years — continues with a thrilling new album for In the Red Records, Bitter End of a Sweet Night, to be released as a two-LP set and a single CD on October 27, just in time for Halloween. The first track off the new album, “Bitter End” was released today.The new 16-track collection again features the band’s co-founding members, singers-songwriters Chris Desjardins (better known as Chris D.) and Julie Christensen, and the core members of the ferocious Hot Rise band — guitarist/co-writer Peter Andrus (a member of the group’s late-‘80s lineup), bassist Bobby Permanent and X’s nonpareil drummer DJ Bonebrake (who won’t be doing ‘live’ dates). The sound is filled out by Green On Red and Dream Syndicate keyboardist Chris Cacavas (who appeared on the 1984 Chris D./Divine Horsemen album Time Stands Still) and classically trained violinist Elizabeth Wilson. Desjardins produced the album.Divine Horsemen’s dramatic In the Red bow, and a late 2020 archival set of club performances from 1985 and 1987 issued by Feeding Tube Records, reacquainted listeners with their powerful roots-punk musicianship, which diversified the searing approach taken by Desjardins’ L.A. punk unit The Flesh Eaters. (Christensen had previously regrouped with her ex-husband/musical partner Desjardins on I Used to Be Pretty, the 2019 album that reunited the 1981 “all-star” Flesh Eaters lineup.)Reaction to the group’s rebirth was rapturous. Jaime Pina of Punk Globe called Hot Rise of an Ice Cream Phoenix “brilliant,” adding, “The music is lush with both acoustic and electric guitars and the songs pull influences from…country, rock, traditional ethnic folk music and blues.” Michael Toland wrote in The Big Takeover, “Reclaiming its classic sound of sweat-and grime-stained Americana, Divine Horsemen is reborn like the mythical creature in the title.” John Apice of Americana Highways raved, “Like the Rolling Stones, [Divine Horsemen] continue to thrill. They have grit, muscle and potency….Divine indeed.”Bitter End of a Sweet Night sports seven new original songs by Desjardins and Andrus, two Desjardins-Christensen collaborations, and two solo Christensen collaborations. Another fresh original, “Garden of Night,” was contributed by Erika Wear (her lyrics), who appeared on the Flesh Eaters’ 1999 album Ashes of Time.The set is rounded out by a new version of Desjardins’ “Murder of Courage,” first heard on his 1995 solo album Love Cannot Die, and three diverse covers: “The Next Man That I See” by the late Anita Lane of The Birthday Party and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “Coffee Shop Blues” by English duo Smoke Fairies, and “It’s Still Nowhere” by Ed Kuepper’s post-Saints combo The Aints.Considering that Divine Horsemen’s last album was released after a three-decade hiatus, the rapid materialization of a new collection may surprise some. But Desjardins says the enforced confinement of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a major creative burst.“I started writing for this mid-2020,” he says. “I couldn’t work with Peter until the pandemic had calmed, so I wrote reams of stream-of-consciousness, and then to pull out some songs, I ruthlessly carved it up.” He adds, “I was inventing riffs on guitar, making video versions of me playing to show Peter the parts.”A couple songs drew on Desjardins’ knowledge of world cinema. Two bear titular references of films: “Vanina Vanini,” Italian master Roberto Rossellini’s 1961 costume drama, adapted from Stendahl’s 1829 novella, and “Dirty Like an Angel,” a noirish 1991 drama by Catherine Breillat.Though Desjardins’ marriage to Christensen ended in the late ’80s, their creative partnership remains as strong as ever, as evidenced in new song collaborations “Bitter End” and “Notorious,” which were penned in a long-distance back-and-forth.Christensen knows good songwriters; after all, she sang with Chris, and then with Leonard Cohen from 1988-1993. Her other contributions to Bitter End of a Sweet Night were both the result of partnering with outside veterans. “No Mercy,” written with John Hadley and the late David Olney, (the latter penned Emmylou Harris’ “Deeper Well,”) first appeared on the 2016 set The Cardinal by her Nashville-based rock band Stone Cupid. She says, “Written in the vein of Divine Horsemen. I was proud of it because I had not tried to conjure that stuff in a long time.”“These Evils,” which also fits into Divine Horsemen’s darker side of Hollywood, was written in 1990 for an unfinished Christensen solo album with the L.A. team of Dan Navarro and the late Eric Lowen, the writers of Pat Benatar’s hit “We Belong.” It had not been recorded until now. “We had done a demo then, and when I was finally digitizing the cassette, it broke, so I had to rewrite the second verse — I never had the lyrics written.”Work on Bitter End of a Sweet Night moved fitfully during 2021, as the pandemic surges imperiled in-person work. When recording began in January 2022, the musicians employed some remote recording techniques for safety’s sake as well as long distance issues.Desjardins says, “I knew that Chris Cacavas – who lives in Germany now – had done remote recording. When we sent rough mixes of the songs to him, he came back in a couple of days with finished versions. All of DJ’s drum stuff was done remote. He had returned from a tour with X where everyone had gotten COVID – except him! He said, ‘I’ve got an agreement with my wife. I can’t leave the house for a few months, but I think I can do this in my backyard studio.’ And he did, flawlessly.”The wild card for the sessions was classical violinist Wilson, who adds magic to four of the songs. “Elizabeth Wilson is one of Bobby Permanent’s friends,” Desjardins says. “She had wanted to do some rock stuff and was a quick study — we only had one rehearsal with her. Even on her first passes in the studio, she had a feel for it.” Christensen enthuses, “Oh, my God! Isn’t she badass!”Peter Andrus and Bobby Permanent have plenty more in their resumes: Peter supplied additional guitar on the recent album release of Detroit-based The Volebeats. “Lonesome Galaxy" was released on Ben Harper's Mad Bunny label. One of Bobby’s most memorable efforts was supplying several songs for John Cassavetes’ final feature film in 1984, Love Streams.On March 29, 2022, Divine Horsemen rode again with their first live show since 1987, at the Los Angeles club Zebulon. There will be more live dates in the late fall/early winter of 2023 following Bitter End of a Sweet Night’s debut.Additional videos for the songs “Dirty Like an Angel” and “Memory Fails” will see staggered release through the summer and early fall of 2023, preceding the October issue of the new album.
THE DOUBLE - RELAXIN' IN THE JUNGLE 7"
THE SIDE EYES- "WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?" LP PRE-ORDER
OSEES - "INTERCEPTED MESSAGE" LP + CD PRE-ORDER
Osees announce new record ‘Intercepted Message’ out August 18 via In the Red. Four limited edition color vinyl. 500 Copies of each color available.
A message from John Dwyer:
”A pop record for tired times.
Sugared with bits of shatterproof glass to put more crack in your strap.
At long last, Verse / chorus
A weathered thesaurus
This is Osees bookend sound
Early grade garage pop meets proto-synth punk suicide-repellant
Have a whack at the grass or listen while flat on your ass
Heaps of electronic whirling accelerants to gum up your cheapskate broadband
Social media toilet scrapers unite!
Allow your 24 hour news cycle eyes to squint at this smiling abattoir doorman
You can find your place here at long last
All are welcome
From the get go to the finale …. A distant crackling transmission of 80s synth last-dance-of-the-night tune for your lost loves
Suffering from Politic amnesia?
Bored of AI-generated pop slop?
Then this one is for you, our friends
Wasteland wanderer, stick around.
Love y’all
For fans of Teutonic synth punk and Thee Oh Sees (who the fuck are they?)”
- John Dwyer
THE URINALS - THE HAPPY SQUID SAMPLER 7" 
“The Happy Squid Sampler” was originally released in 1980 on the Urinals’ Happy Squid Records. The 7” sampler features the Urinals as well as the band’s alter ego, Arrow Book Club. Danny and the Doorknobs (an early moniker for Trotsky Icepick), The Vidiots, featuring the late Rik L. Rik with their memorable “Laurie’s Lament,” and experimental synth artist Phil Bedel round out the A side. Neef, who has more in common with Pierre Schaeffer and Robert Rental than any group on Dangerhouse or Slash, takes up the entirety of the B side.
“The Happy Squid Sampler” is an incredible EP capturing how eclectic Los Angeles’ music scene was in 1980. The Urinals bridged several scenes, from LA punk to LAFMS, and that’s what they captured here. “The Happy Squid Sampler” was originally released in a small run of 500 and has been out of print for decades. Spacecase Records is proud to reissue this outstanding collection. Limited to 300 copies.
OPTIC SINK - A FACE IN THE CROWD 7"
“A Face in the Crowd” is the new 7” from Memphis’ Optic Sink. The group features Natalie Hoffmann (Nots), Ben Bauermeister (Magic Kids) and Keith Cooper (The Sheiks). Optic Sink released their well-received debut LP with Goner in 2020. For fans of synth-punk/minimalist-synth acts like Oppenheimer Analysis, The Petticoats, and Robert Rental and Thomas Leer. Limited to 300 copies.
WOLFMANHATTAN PROJECT - SUMMER FOREVER AND EVER
The Wolfmanhattan Project are back with their follow up to their debut from 2019. What began as a one-off studio project for this super group (Bob Bert, Kid Congo Powers, Mick Collins) wound up becoming an actual band that played gigs and it shows on this sophomore album. More rocking and cohesive than Blue Gene Stew (and it was no slouch), this sounds like a group that’s been together for years (and they have by now!). References and sometimes even direct quotes from sources as diverse as the Andrea True Connection, Captain Beefheart, the Count Five, and Eurythmics leap out of the speakers.
PAUL B. CUTLER - LES FLEURS
