AVANT! Records: The Agnes Circle – Some Vague Desire

The Agnes Circle - Some Vague Desire

The Agnes Circle are a London based post-punk duo that consist of bassist Rachael Redfern and songwriter Florian Voytek. LA native Florian arrived in London in 2015 via Brooklyn. He instantly met Rachael and the two immediately began writing and recording together in a make shift home studio in North London. Drawing on elements of English post-punk and French cold wave, their first full length album Some Vague Desire enhances the formula earlier displayed on the debut EP Modern Idea.

Eight new songs that combine angular guitars with lush and driven bass lines, the two envelope their sound together with hypnotic rhythms and melodic croons.

LP / CD / Digital Album

Posted on November 15th, 2016 under Releases, ,

AVANT! Records: Pleasure Symbols – Self-titled

Pleasure Symbols - Self-titled

Pleasure Symbols from Brisbane, Australia is the post punk/synth duo project of Phoebe Paradise and Jasmine Dunn.

Desolate but not devoid, Pleasure Symbols engulf honest pop music under a sea of slowed, cold synth and bass. Ritualistic vocals perpetually conveying a sense of desperation, but not without fortitude, the bands unembellished restraint continually on show.

12″ EP / Digital Album

Posted on October 18th, 2016 under Releases, ,

AVANT! Records: Rendez-vous – Distance 12″ EP

Rendez-vous - Distance

It was more than a year ago, in the grey parisian midst that we discovered the first EP of a group that we couldn’t ignore any longer, Rendez-Vous.

The band’s first track «The Others» was heard like a traveling echo in the capital. The 4 piece band was then discovered like a secret longing to be kept, but in vain. While the expectance were heavy on the band, they kept their distance with the outside and focused on the music. So for a while they hibernated in a cave in Bastille that became the core and inspired the corrosive sound of this second EP «Distance».

The mixing was entrusted to Ben Greenberg, singer and bassist of The Men also producer of Destruction Unit, Beach Fossils and other Sacred Bones Record artists. The result is a six track EP that sounds closer to the vision of the band.

Supported by a procession of ghosts like Fad Gadget’s, Sad Lovers and Giants, the Dance Society’s or Nitzer Ebb’s ones, that the band resurfaces from the underground ready to shake the dead. The EP is like a heartbreaking beautiful reunion, which is mostly the case with the best rendez-vous.

Listen and order here.

Posted on June 22nd, 2016 under Releases, ,

AVANT! Records: Koban – Abject Obsessions

Koban - Abject Obsessions

Koban is a young duo hailing from Vancouver, Canada. They had their first album out on Broadway To Boundary back in 2013 but it really was their 2014’s EP on Weyrd Son that got our attention.

Now their second full-length is ready and with it Koban achieved to extend and improve the great results of their previous Vide EP.

Cold yet catchy dark post-punk driven by caustic drum machines, featuring French-speaking female vocals and English-speaking male voice, powered by synths and guitars as sharp and dangerous as a rusty blade.

Elegant 4-side Digipak limited to 200.

Posted on June 16th, 2016 under Releases, ,

AVANT! Records: DRIFT – Black Devotion

DRIFT - Black Devotion

Black Devotion is the debut release by new London‐based act DRIFT.

Already founding member of the synth/wave trio Phosphor and currently in the shoegaze duo Leave The Planet, young and talented Nathalia Bruno started her own solo project once the band split up after the Youth and Immortality LP back in 2013.

Listening to DRIFT one can tell now how much Nathalia influenced Phosphor back then and at the same time a personal evolution is clearly in full sight. Needless to say Depeche Mode and HTRK, Slowdive and Cocteau Twins exercise some influence here, but Nathalia is shaping her own way to those sounds that bands as Tropic Of Cancer and Northern Electronics’ Född Död have also been pursuing.
There’s a brighter component to DRIFT’s music visible both in shiny tracks like Grave and Hard to Accept as in the more ethereal Dreams in Silkscreen and Say it Right. Featuring six songs, Black Devotion marks the birth of what Nathalia herself calls devotional synth. Purity in drifting.

Listen and order here.

Posted on January 18th, 2016 under Releases, ,