Infall released, Lower Automation premiere

November 15, 2022 by David Norman

Massa Nera releases in just over two weeks! Above is a picture of the cds /100! Holy crap I’m excited, and you should be too. This is some monumental shit. Stereogum knows what’s up. Click on this text to read.

After a most excellent push, Infall’s ‘Far’ is finally out and available for mass consumption! Is this release for the masses? Fuck no! It’s a goddamned clusterfuck of math, chaos, seething rage, breakdowns, and screaming and will probably appeal to about 3% of the population. But if you are part of that 3% you are gonna eat this shit up. For fans of: Converge, Anna Sage, Stuntman, Ed Gein, Zeit, etc.

Lower Automation premiere on (((((OPENmind/SATURATEDbrain))))) for new track “Guzzler”. 12”LPs for ‘Strobe Light Shadow Play’ release next week! Click on this text for the full premiere or jam the new song below.

Ramona Cordova is attempting to undergo gender affirmation surgery and needs help making it happen. All Softseed sales of the Ramona Cordova tapes will go to Ramona, and if you’d like to contribute please click on this text to be transported to the Go Fund Me page.

RAMONA CORDOVA - On Paper (cassette)

CA$12.00

For fans of: The One AM Radio and Denver In Dallas.

This is the most recent album by Ramona Córdova. Originally released in 2017. «On_Paper» invites us into a world awash with sonic nuances, where vocals slash at us with soothing bleeding cuts. A world where the melodies of keyboard, violin and a broken megaphone peak out like soft beams of sunlight from behind an ominous blanket of clouds. 33 cassettes, 32 on white with A/B stickers, and 1 golden tape. Download code included.

Listen here:
https://softseedmusic.bandcamp.com/album/on-paper

Crossed Letters did a most excellent review of that killer Letterbombs + Portrëit split tape that we released last year. A few copies remain in the best packaging we’ve ever done. Click on this text for the review and/or nab a copy below.

LETTERBOMBS + PORTRËIT - Split (tape)

from CA$12.00

LETTERBOMBS + PORTRËIT ‘Split' tape (ZB272)

For fans of: Salt Money, Wolves, Cease Upon The Capitol and Eros + Massacre

An exceptional Finnish/German split with stunning DIY packaging to boot! Finland’s LETTERBOMBS offer up four new tracks of their most chaotic and heavy material to date, while Germany’s PORTRËIT pump out their mathiest/jangliest screamo and even include a fifth track that is a Comadre cover. Each tape comes in a gorgeous outer o-card/box, an inner o-card, four screenprinted picture cards, a two-sided lyric sheet with explanations and ZBR stickers! Co-released with Dingleberry Records. Cassettes /154. 77 silver, 25 red, 36 glitter swirl, 10 blue/red/black swirl and 6 test dips. 4 songs by Letterbombs and 5 by Portreit.

Listen here:
https://zegemabeachrecords.bandcamp.com/album/split-13

Variant:

Hiding In The Outpost is back with a ridiculously old release, the Pastel + Merridew split 12”! This silk-screened b-side has an a-side bursting with Italian screamo and gorgeous post-hardcore. Get it. NOW!

now sold out:
Massa Nera 1st 12”
Binary 12”
People’s Temple Project + Sleeper Wave 12”
Sans Visage tapes
Blind Girls ‘Residue’ / Blind Girls ‘The Weight of Everything’ (tapes still available for both!)
Rotting In Dirt 12”

Sold out

PASTEL / MERRIDEW - Split (12"LP)

CA$15.00

For fans of: Suis La Lune, Old Gray, Envy and Explosions In The Sky.

This split is like the offset to the Oaken/Marnost split. This is one of ZBR's more chill releases. PASTEL play a beautiful, thick-yet-twinkly style of post-rock/screamo that reminds me a lot of Suis La Lune and newer Death Of Anna Karina. MERRIDEW is a one-man band that plays ethereal instrumental music that combines a lot of layers, relaxing melodies as well as more aggressive moments. For fans of Explosions In The Sky and Tomydeepestego.

Silkscreened b-side on black vinyl/300.

Listen here:
http://zegemabeachrecords.bandcamp.com/album/pastel-merridew-split-12

This past Friday’s Operation X-Ray played more righteous jams including tracks from Thank You Driver and To Be Gentle!

Johnny’s Reco-mmendations: THE TOTEMIST = Awesome proggy instrumental math/hardcore/metal from a member of Toska and Frog Leap.

Click on this pic for the full premiere post!

2022 - 10 - 26 /// Thank You Driver premiere

October 26, 2022 by David Norman

Thank You Driver is releasing their ‘Nothing You Do Can Stop This’ cassette EP on ZBR November 6th through a Mathcore Index exclusive premiere. We’ll have 60-ish tapes and CanaDave is going to the release show (fb event linked here). Click on the pick to go straight to the full premiere!

Distro update tomorrow! Le Blast sent us a fresh round of restocks and about 7 new releases! Pictured below are the newbies, these will be up with the distro update in the Canada/International store and the U.S. store in 2-4 weeks. Both stores will have a ton of new ditro/restocks of other releases too including Icorrupt, Dingleberry, Relapse, and some randos!

I worked for an ungodly amount of time cranking out these To Be Gentle tapes for ‘It always hurts and one day it will win’ so here are the variants. Tomb Tree still has some left in our stores but I don’t expect them to last into 2023. Tomb Tree also just put it on their bandcamp!

Aeryn from Massa Nera was on the (((((OPENmind/SATURATEDbrain))))) podcast with CanaDave so head on over to that by clicking on the pic above or this text. Gotta post that “April 7th” video again as she talks a lot about the meaning behind the lyrics!

MASSA NERA - Los Pensamientos De Una Cara Palida (12"LP)

from CA$15.00

ZBR101 Release date: November 2017
For fans of: Off Minor, City Of Caterpillar and Shizune

'Los Pensamientos De Una Cara Palida'

12" vinyl on translucent purple/200 & black/300 with insert. 7 songs.

Listen here:
https://zegemabeachrecords.bandcamp.com/album/los-pensamientos-de-una-cara-palida

Vinyl colour:

Hiding In The Outpost is back with the final Massa Nera 12”! What timing! Get it now before the new album drops as I’m unsure if this will get a repress or not as many members have changed. LAST COPY!!!

now sold out:
Binary 12”
People’s Temple Project + Sleeper Wave 12”
Sans Visage tapes
Blind Girls ‘Residue’ / Blind Girls ‘The Weight of Everything’ (tapes still available for both!)
Rotting In Dirt 12”

Our good friend and supporter Christopher Livingstone from Letterbombs was on Edie’s Everything Remade podcast, check it out! Letterbombs have tons of releases out so go to their bandcamp and nab it all!

CanaDave’s bestie Jesse Mowery was on The Unquiet Grave’s radio show and co-hosted the History of Screamo. It’s a truly amazing/accurate listen from the late 1980s to now, including our Trachimbrod to close it out! Click on this text to listen. It’s Episode 65 and titled “Waiting for the Crash”. We love you Jesse!

Johnny’s Reco-mmendations: VOTIVE = Good god go listen to this fucking shit. Unreal!

2022 - 10 - 13 /// Massa Nera song premiere tomorrow

October 13, 2022 by David Norman

Massa Nera song premiere happens tomorrow at 10am EST via Brooklyn Vegan. It’ll be April in October, just wait and see!

Of Death is out! Grab a copy now (those blobbly are moving extra fast!) and jam this full 30-track discography by Fort Worth’s pioneer of: beakercore, chickenviolence, scree scree, bird shrieks, the whistle of death

Infant Island’s first/self-titled full length is the most recent subject of Out Past the Rings, now including a professional intro/outro! Everything else is still ridiculously amateur, but hey…at least it’s something.

Hiding In The Outpost is proving quite effective, as the previous two things posted have since sold out. What’s up next? Why it’s the Sore Eyelids ‘For Now’ 12”EP! Originally released AND sold out years ago, we got three copies in and the other two sold immediately. Please clear us out of this incredible release featuring a member of Suis La Lune!

now sold out:
People’s Temple Project + Sleeper Wave 12”
Sans Visage tapes
Blind Girls ‘Residue’ / Blind Girls ‘The Weight of Everything’ (tapes still available for both!)
Rotting In Dirt 12”
Lower Automation 12”/tapes

Sold out

SORE EYELIDS - For Now (12")

from CA$18.00

LAST COPY!!! Unlikely to be made again!!!!

SORE EYELIDS - For Now EP

ZBR029
500 copies (200 black, 200 red,100 clear) 12" vinyl, insert.

For fans of: Trachimbrod, Coldplay, Animal Faces and Suis La Lune.

From dreamy to technical in a heartbeat, Sweden's SORE EYELIDS take twinkly shoegaze to a new level. This is a lengthy EP clocking in at 26 minutes and features members of Suis La Lune and Trachimbrod. ZBR is humbled that we were chosen to release this very, very surreal and beautiful album, as well as cover art.

Listen here:
https://zegemabeachrecords.bandcamp.com/album/for-now

Released December 16th, 2014 on:
Zegema Beach Records
Through Love Records
Protagonist Records

Colour:

Griffin (vocals) from Brahm was recently on Edie’s Everything Remade podcast, check it out! And definitely check out the band’s two EPs on our label because they are fire.

Works have released a teaser video for the upcoming 12”LP. This band was previously known as Girl Arm and 100 full lengths will be ready for release on November 1st, 2022 via Tomb Tree.

Virgin Mother’s full 12”LP is now streaming over at New Noise! Click on this link to go to the premiere and jam that incredible album. You can pick up a copy below if you enjoy it, and they’re only 113 in existence so don’t wait too long as the price goes back up to full tomorrow!!!

VIRGIN MOTHER - Mourning Ritual (12"LP)

CA$35.00

VIRGIN MOTHER ‘Mourning Ritual’ 12”LP (TT078)

For fans of: An Autumn For Crippled Children, New Order, and Meth.

Over two years ago we released a short run of demo tapes titled ‘It Is’, and after much more writing, polishing, and expanding of the VIRGIN MOTHER sound, we are set to drop the brand new debut 12”LP ‘Mourning Ritual’ on Friday October 17th. Drawing cues from industrial, new wave, black metal, noise, screamo, punk, post-punk, and more, this deep, dark look into Seb’s subconscious and it’s subsequent artistic representation is truly a work of art. From the hellish, eerie, almost gothic-sounding intro of “[promised end]“ it becomes obvious that this album is meant to be consumed in full, with spiking adrenaline surges (see “I’d Never Feel Like Anything” and “Fault”), soothing/groovy vibes (“Traffic Stop” and “Black Light On 16th Street“), uncomfortable noise (“Vanity’s Sake“ and “Parasite“) and the epic genre-mashes (“Blossoming Winter” and “Field of Warmth“). Released on Tomb Tree. Ships mid-October.

Vinyl /113 on 180gram Eco-Grime. Includes sticker. 11 songs.

Listen here:
https://tombtreetapes.bandcamp.com/album/mourning-ritual

Quantity:

New song premiered from Soul Crusher’s debut cassette EP releasing October 19th. Thanks to This Noise Is Ours for the premiere! Click on this text or that sexy variant #2 pic above for the full premiere.

Fiesta Bizarra from Softseed Music is down to four tapes left!!! Nab’em or not.

Johnny’s Reco-mmendations: TO BE GENTLE = What’s that? More To Be Gentle? Good lord this thing is 33 minutes of epic post-hardcore/screamo bliss.

2022 - 10 - 09 /// ...Of Death day!

October 09, 2022 by David Norman

October 10th at 9am PST / 11am CST / 12pm EST is officially …Of Death day! The governments approve! No school! All places of businesses will be closed! Mark in the calendar every year! Too much? Sorry. Seriously stoked on this massive 30-track release from the Fort Worth, Texas band who released from 2000-2003 in the Jeromes Dream, Saetia, Spirit Of Versailles vein. That D-side etching is awesome and shows up on both C/D variants of ghostly/166 and blobbly/168. Co-released with Cliff Parade Records and Law Of Cycles, the latter of which we’ll be selling through our store.

Soul Crusher has a debut EP coming out on Softseed Music on October 19th! Who is behind Soul Crusher? Why it’s Sasha from Life In Vacuum, Kiken, and Congratulations! There was a music video premiered a week or two back (embedded below) and there’s another song premiere dropping before the release, but I figured it’s probably time to show off that primary variant! Opaque red swirl! Woot woot!!!

2 flowers and flowers and flowers swirl.jpg

A friendly reminder that we did the double To Be Gentle cassette drop on Friday and you can get ‘Unbroken’ now and pre-order ‘it always hurts and one day it will win’. Just click on this text to head over to the Tomb Tree bandcamp page where you can link to either ZBR store.

Hiding In The Outpost resumes as since the last post I’ve sold out of at least three ZBR titles. Jump on that People’s Temple Project/Sleeper Wave split 12” because I got restocks from Dingleberry but now I’m down to my last copy of that!

now sold out:
Blind Girls ‘Residue’ / Blind Girls ‘The Weight of Everything’ (tapes still available for both!)
Rotting In Dirt 12”
Lower Automation 12”/tapes

PEOPLE'S TEMPLE PROJECT / SLEEPER WAVE - Split (12"LP)

CA$20.00

PEOPLE'S TEMPLE PROJECT / SLEEPER WAVE - Split 12" (ZBR134)

For fans of: Funeral Diner, Snag, Kidcrash and Off Minor.

A split years in the making finally sees the light of day, with two incredible U.S. screamo bands offering up a total of 30 minutes of chill emo all the way to explosive, cathartic, dual vocal screamo. PTP has been releasing for years now and their 7 songs come in as their most mature, atmospheric and epic of all of their material thus far. SW drops 3 new tunes, with two of them being five-minutes plus in length and coming across as even heavier than their earlier Kidcrash/Off Minor jazz/screamo worship. ONLY 1 COPY IN STOCK, ACQUIRED FROM DINGLEBERRY!!!

12” black vinyl/300. 7 songs by PTP and 3 by SW. Download code included.

Listen here:
https://zegemabeachrecords.bandcamp.com/album/peoples-temple-project-sleeper-wave-split

A friendly reminder that the ‘RAXIS’ cassette full length is an absolutely stellar album and we still have a few final copies in the Canada/International store. Copies will be arriving in the U.S. later this month and will be included in our next massive distro update.

Operation X-Ray played so many songs from our bands it was a brain-slap. Blue Youth, Venus Twins, Virgin Mother, Works, Fiesta Bizarra, Colacon, and To Be Gentle!

Looking for more Massa Nera? Look, we totally get it. So here’s an Everything Remade with Edie of Middle Man Records and Coma Regalia featuring Chris Rodriguez (guitar/vox) of Massa Nera!

Johnny’s Reco-mmendations: SOMN = There were some very brief discussions about ZBR releasing the upcoming Somn album and it looks like said record either became a split OR here’s a split and the album is coming later. That first track is absolute fire!

2022 - 10 - 07 /// Tomb Tree trips out

October 07, 2022 by David Norman

Tomb Tree is going off the rails today. Is it because of Bandcamp Friday? No actually, CanaDave didn’t even realize that was the case until 2 hours before it began. Nonetheless, here’s the breakdown for today’s releases as well as an official/final Of Death reminder for the impending release this Monday October 10th @9am PST / 11am CST / 12pm EST via Zegema Beach Records and Cliff Parade Records with additional help from Law Of Cycles.

First up? Georgia’s Colacon. They’ve already released two ear-ravaging music videos so without further ado, ‘The Pestilent Sickness’!!!

Next up is the ridiculously prolific To Be Gentle from Portland, Oregon as they’re pulling double-duty today! They released the digital full length ‘Unbroken’ back in August and now we’ve got our very sexy tapes ready to go! Digitals were also released on our Bandcamp today so feel free to jam/grab it today as it’s Bandcamp Friday and you’d be funding more Zegema Beach and Tomb Tree releases! These tapes are shipping now and look awesome!!!

The new album ‘it always hurts and one day it will win‘ released today and we’ve got cassette pre-orders. We’ll hold off on our Bandcamp release until we’ve got the physical tapes in (should be late October, shipping early November). This album is absolutely sensational and our vote for their best work thus far.

TO BE GENTLE - it always hurts and one day it will win (cassette)

from CA$10.00

TO BE GENTLE ‘it always hurts and one day it will win’ cassette LP (TT083)

For fans of: Envy, Daitro, and Gillian Carter.

Arguably the strongest TO BE GENTLE release to date, ‘it always hurts and one day it will win‘ is a truly special collection of 10 songs that deal with honesty, accountability, beauty, loss, and acceptance through the medium of post-hardcore, screamo, post-rock, grind, and metal. The level of emotion, catharsis, and songwriting here is enveloping and caressing, despite being rooted in aggressive music. The gorgeous/epic “greenhug”, the mathy/chuggy “i worship what will kill me”, and the fuzzed-out grunge of “we are all connected and we all love you“ are prime examples of the mastery shown here, but every track provides its own insular and warming experience.

Tapes /66, 34 on primary swirl, 15 on secondary swirl (5 of these are available as a set w/Unbroken), 10 rare swirl, “outta 2” swirl, and 5 test dips, all w/jcard and download code. 10 songs.

Listen here:
https://tobegentle.bandcamp.com/album/it-always-hurts-and-one-day-it-will-win

Colour:

Virgin Mother released physically yesterday and we’ll have it on sale for a few bucks off until the official digital release on October 14th, 2022. We did 113 12”LPs and with the band taking some we’re already half depleted! Features Seb of Meth., Cadence Fox, and a million other things.

VIRGIN MOTHER - Mourning Ritual (12"LP)

CA$35.00

VIRGIN MOTHER ‘Mourning Ritual’ 12”LP (TT078)

For fans of: An Autumn For Crippled Children, New Order, and Meth.

Vinyl /113 on 180gram Eco-Grime. Includes sticker. 11 songs.

Listen here:
https://tombtreetapes.bandcamp.com/album/mourning-ritual

Quantity:

Softseed Music just released the new Venus Twins album ‘RAXIS’. You might remember their release on Tomb Tree a few years back, incredible bass and drums duo doing a garage/noise rock/sass-punk thing that fans of Death From Above 1979, Big Dick, and Raw Grip will fucking love. I sure do!

A final reminder for those in PERU that today is the last chance to pre-order a copy before shipping goes back up. Wait…what’s this? Well Fiesta Bizarra has a new EP releasing on October 31st via Softseed Music but you can nab a tape now that will ship immediately!

Out Past the Rings 125 Snag and Swallows Nest split cassette. Only 2 left in stock! Nab a yellow below!

SNAG / SWALLOWS NEST - Split (cassette+poster)

Sold out

SNAG / SWALLOWS NEST - Split (cassette+poster)

CA$12.50

SNAG / SWALLOWS NEST - Split cassetteEP + poster (ZBR125)

for fans of: People's Temple Project, Robots Don't Cry, Dangers! and Welcome The Plague Year.

This U.S./New Zealand split came about as the two bands are adamant in their stand with the environment, thus gravitating toward one another from across the globe. SNAG offers up an epic and astounding six-minute masterpiece of late 90/early 2000s driven screamo while SWALLOWS NEST drop two tracks with layered male/female screaming atop dark, screamy post-hardcore. Tapes come in an 11x17 two-sided poster with lyrics and band statements.

200 copies on white tapes with two-sided poster/lyric sheet and download code.

Listen here:
https://zegemabeachrecords.bandcamp.com/album/snag-swallows-nest-split

Cassette colour:

Johnny’s Reco-mmendations: GILLIAN CARTER = This pillar of modern screamo just released a new record ooooooooo baby!!!