***80% of the planet’s oceans remain unexplored by humans. The vastness, extreme pressure, cold temperatures and darkness of the underwater depths make it incredibly difficult to explore. New York independent record label Ever/Never Records has a solution—send Split Apex to traverse and survey the liquid expanse that covers the greater part of the Earth. What could go wrong? Unlike the crew who manned the ill- fated Titan submersible, the two members of Split Apex—Jussi Palmusaari (guitar, electronics, percussion) and Peter Blundell (voice, bass)—will navigate the oceanic abyss as if they were born to it. Split Apex makes music that thrives under pressure, a sonar- equipped manta ray that plunges so deep it emerges into an alien landscape few humans have witnessed. In other words, Split Apex leads listeners into unchartered waters and reveals sounds yet unheard.Split Apex formed in Autumn 2024 and quickly entered a sustained period of rehearsing and recording in Croydon, South London. Palmusaari came to London from his native Finland, where he played with Preesens during the late ‘90s and early 2000s. As for Blundell, Split Apex exists in a continuum that began with innovative beyond-rock trio Mosquitoes which led to his current work in Komare with Dominic Goodman (also from Mosquitoes). Following a self-released cassette earlier in 2025, Ever/Never commits Split Apex’s vinyl debut—Thoughts In 3D—to wax and it’s a late-breaking entry into the best album of the year conversation. Across five extended tracks, Split Apex roams the depths with unerring grace, sending up transmissions as...
LP $30.95
01/16/2026
"Love Is Coming is the first release from art-rock trio Garden of Love. Garden of Love is from Montréal, Quebec and they rep their local scene with pride. As singer Jane Harms says, "We are lucky to live in a busy music city where DIY punk, alternative and experimental music scenes overlap with a lot of mutual support and cross-pollination.” The Montreal scene’s diversity is proved by Garden of Love’s busy members. In addition to Harms—who plays guitar and synth in addition to vocals & has done an album with labelmate Donna Allen—there is drummer Cole, who is responsible for recording this debut and is also a member of popular pop-rockers Laughing and vicious punks Faze, and bassist Sony, who played in gnarly noise rockers Cheap Wig and underrated post- punk unit Ursula. But the aforementioned pedigree does not prepare you for what Garden Of Love is serving up on their debut. Released on cassette and digital download by New York’s Ever/Never Records, Love Is Coming is a supremely confident venture into the art-rock demimonde full of unexpected twists and turns executed by a well- oiled group of players."—Erick Bradshaw, Spin Age Blasters with Creamo Coyl on WFMU
MC $13.75
10/13/2025
***Singer-songwriter Donna Allen (Chronophage, Love & Compassion) is back with her second Song Diary. Her distinct style of Alt-Folk blooms with personal musings and religious motifs, soaring to reach out and make a connection with anyone who listens with their heart. Recorded with Sasha Stroud at Artifact Audio, these songs want to sit on the couch and hold your hand in the early morning light.
LP $35.95
04/18/2025
***"Greek musician Stelios Papagrigoriou is a practitioner of a dizzying array of creative pursuits. He is a published author with novels, poems and short stories to his credit. His award-winning visual arts practice encompasses sculpture, installations and painting (which adorn the front and back covers). Papagrigoriou has also delved into the digital art realm, proving that no medium is beyond his grasp. Reflecting his voracious appetite, Papagrigoriou’s wide-ranging sonic explorations are just as intriguing and well-executed as the other forms he operates in. Hand & Leg, an art-punk duo with Iro Sofoulaki on bass and Papagrigoriou on drums, put out two albums of addictive, angular crunch before hanging up their limbs. Adopting the moniker Stylianos Ou, Papagrigoriou has embarked upon yet another expedition into uncharted waters. In 2023, Søvn Records released To Qfahlogo, a complete about-face from Hand & Leg, with Papagrigoriou using a modular synth to sculpt Aphex Twin-like compositions. Blending the processed voices of children with frenetic percussive textures, this alien landscape beckoned with a strangely human hand. Just when you think you’ve got Ou figured out, he makes yet another 180 degree turn into an arena that might surprise even his most dedicated listeners—the Athens-based polymath has gone full singer-songwriter." "Released by Ever/Never Records, Fucked Forever finds Ou in troubadour mode, bringing along an entire band, the Cortisol Cows, to lay down a suite of songs teeming with bitter laughter, triumphant resignation and fleeting glimpses of that most elusive of instincts—hope. At first glance, Ou’s version of...
LP $32.50
01/24/2025
***As Patois Counselors close in on a decade of existence, they are back to confirm their standing as one of America’s most consistently forward-thinking rock units. Although it’s been an entire presidential term since the Counselors acclaimed sophomore album The Optimal Seat came out, Bo White’s group hasn’t been lying fallow. Over the last few years, the seven-person line-up has been busy writing, recording and gigging, resulting in Enough: One Night at the Daisy Chain, a live-in-the-studio document captured in Brooklyn while on tour. Released at the beginning of 2024, Daisy Chain works splendidly as both a greatest hits primer and a forthcoming album teaser. Alas, the teasing is over with the arrival of Limited Sphere, the third album from Charlotte, NC’s Patois Counselors. Once again, Ever/Never steps up to the plate to demonstrate their confidence in this hard-working crew. In most contexts, a septet band configuration signals either a jazz ensemble or a mishmash of madcap noise. Beholden to no rules, Patois Counselors pluck from a selection of tactics as needed. Even augmented by extra players, each member reinforces their specific role, performing exactly what is needed for the track at hand. White’s post-modern muse needs plenty of room to stretch out and breathe and the big band spreads out the tent as far as it will go. White’s songs are rife with earned skepticism, sly asides and deft twists of tongues and licks. The manner in which the little details accumulate into the structure of the whole keeps...
LP $26.95
10/25/2024
***"Our Other History is a wonderful new LP by this wandering Berlin-based Melbourne expat. Ned's last album, Afternoon Dusk was an avant instrumental trio outing with James Rushford and Joe Talia, but Our Other History is a return to the delicate, sophisticated song craft of his 2018 masterpiece, Old Chestnut. Ned's approach to lyrics, vocals and music shares a melancholic beauty that is both haunted and haunting. His words are often more impressionistic than overt in their storytelling, but his vocals carry hints that recall those of the legendary Roy Harper. But where Harper's attack was often Dionysian, Collette's approach is Apollonian, and the tracks often have a compositional feel with a distinct taste of Canterbury. The players this time include old hands, like drummer Steve Heather and pianist Chris Abrahams (of The Necks), but there are a bunch of new players on hand, including Melbourne mates Jim White and Mick Turner (of Dirty Three fame) and the folksinger Leah Senior. All these elements (and more) are fitted together with elegance and allowed space to breathe. Collette's music is hard to classify. It exists inside a dynamic flux made up of equal parts post-rock, folk, jazz and avant prog, but it manages to remain plain-spoken and uncluttered regardless of how complex its structure can be when you start parsing it. But why bother? With a record as throughly lovely as Our Other History, the best idea is to just relax and let the music flow. Beautifully.”—Byron Coley, 2024
CD $11.00
09/20/2024
MC $11.00
09/20/2024
***The thing about the last bar at the end of the universe, where Quietus continues to serve, is that it’s very, very far away. Thus the call, thus the reach in every Quietus record. But this time, with Volume Six, their fourth record from NYC’s acclaimed ever/never Records, amidst the expected shadowy wandering, the careful noise and the absence of noise, amidst the reaching, there is something almost romantic afoot. Rick Parker’s horns, this time left clean of wonderful bombast and effects, make a clear call. Bankowski’s lyrics, never not plaintive, continue to try to make difficult truths beautiful, but this time also seem to admit that great small gifts, great fleeting moments, are possible. The call of a blue whale, the light from an uncaring subway car, a stone held in the hand.
CD $9.75
07/12/2024
***"Holed up in their Kingston, NY, hideout, the Rider/Horse gang is growing. What began as a duo delivering stripped-down post-punk screeds has now evolved into a full-blown rock band with the addition of Zoots Houston on pedal steel (who also appeared on Feed ‘Em Salt & Select Trials) and Jared Ashdown on bass. Their latest for ever/never, Matted, finds Rider/Horse as unrelenting as ever. Singer/guitarist Corey Plump’s sung-spoke shouts (honed during his Spray Paint days) remain an inimitable totem of the contemporary underground, working as both blunt confessionals and clarion calls for the terminally frustrated. And while the band’s minimalist industrial clatter is still its sonic foundation, the strains of mutant funk that could always be picked out of the junkyard play a slightly larger role, with Ashdown’s bass and Chris Turco’s drums combining for roaring grooves on tracks such as “Run the Rabbit” and “Empty Boxes.” There has always been something a little mysterious and foreboding about the Rider/Horse sound, as if a shadowy menace follows them from town to town. On Matted, this force has been harnessed and added to the arsenal, as ghostly shrieks of electronic noise haunt nearly every track and reach an apex on the pulsing electronic dust storm that is “Toen.” If one ever contemplated how an outfit like Rider/Horse might grow and develop, well, Matted is your answer. Rider/Horse is locked in and ready to do crimes, producing what is certainly their most dense and fully realized album yet. These guys are nowhere...
LP $26.95
07/12/2024
***Exploiting low wage workers is as American as apple pie, but the trio known as Workers Comp are doing their part to kick against the pricks. Collecting a trio of cassettes, a 45 and an unreleased track, this LP posits what the Dust Bowl migration would have been like if the migrants had access to righteously roughshod rock n’ roll. This is what Americana sounds like after hitchhiking through the Badlands, surrounded on all sides by the ineffectual managerial class, Workers Comp are highly-skilled journeymen—you may recognize drummer Ryan McKeever from his Staffers project, bassist Luke Reddick from art-punk dismantlers Divorce Horse, and singer/guitarist Joshua Gillis from the Detroit-based Deadbeat Beat. With Workers Comp, these three reach back to a time before indie rock became a playground for the idle rich. “High On The Job” sports the kind of weary defiance Johnny Cash made his name with, while “Pick And Choose” sounds like the Replacements got to happy hour before the bartender even started their shift. This self-titled comp contains a baker’s dozen worth of tracks, each one a hunk of soul-nourishing sustenance. Workers Comp might not be able to do anything about the weekly time- theft committed by your place of employment, but they’ll be waiting for you at the end of the day with a cold beer in a frosty mug and a fistful of tears in the form of a song. Edition of 200 copies, includes an insert.
LP $32.25
07/12/2024
***Coming up on a decade as one of the country’s premier post-punk units, Patois Counselors show no sign of slowing down. In advance of its third album Limited Sphere, Patois Counselors drop One Night at the Daisy Chain to whet the appetites of those who crave only the finest in tense tunesmithery. Led by Bo White, the Counselors have swelled to a sextet; but for a band of this size, the music remains stripped of excess and White’s songs are given ample room to shine. As this session demonstrates, Bo writes some absolute gems. Recorded and mixed by Ian Rose at the Daisy Chain in Brooklyn, One Night captures the band in the midst of a short tour, firing on all cylinders, taking no prisoners and laughing all the way to the (blood) bank. One Night at the Daisy Chain functions as both a career retrospective and a teaser for the forthcoming LP. Highlights from PC’s previous albums (Proper Release / The Optimal Seat) get another lease on life as the band breathes fresh air into tracks like “Modern Station,” “Repeat Offender” and “The Galvanizer.” If new cuts like “Ranking Set,” “What’s The News” and “Fountain of UHF” are any indication, Limited Sphere will complete Patois Counselors’ hat trick of stellar full-lengths.
CD $11.00
03/29/2024
MC $11.00
03/29/2024
***"At the frayed bottom-edge of Indiana—just a moderate bike ride north of Louisville, Kentucky—multi-instrumentalist, artist and songwriter RYAN DAVIS’ Americana-noir soundwaves have been emanating for years in a myriad of forms. As driving force for the lauded STATE CHAMPION, long-running member of TROPICAL TRASH, administrator of the esoteric and excellent Cropped Out festival, and lone proprietor of the Sophomore Lounge label, Davis lays down his first proper ‘solo’ release with Dancing on the Edge, a rich, 2xLP tapestry of tunes that absolutely glows over seven expansive cuts. It’s a pure collage of modernity and heritage. Recorded in early 2023 with help both in-studio and remotely from peers like JOAN SHELLEY, CATHERINE IRWIN (FREAKWATER), WILL LAWRENCE (FELICE BROTHERS, GUN OUTFIT, JOHN EARLY), JENNY ROSE (GIVING UP), CHRISTOPHER MAY (MAIL THE HORSE), ELISABETH FUCHSIA (FOOTINGS, BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLY), and AARON ROSENBLUM (SON OF EARTH, SAPAT), Dancing on the Edge draws backup perhaps primarily from Davis' tight-knit drinking buddies-cum-cast of collaborators in EQUIPMENT POINTED ANKH (records on Astral Editions, Bruit Direct Disques, Torn Light)—a five-headed hive-mind from which he drew impetus for his own foray into more abstract and improvisational terrain these past few years under the ROADHOUSE alias. The results herein are melancholic, gentle, minimal yet colorful in mood: a lilting highway accompaniment of crisp instrumentation and a relaxed, amiable approach to vocals with rhapsodic wordsmithery. Fans of the aforementioned artists as well as those of Souled American, David Berman, Kurt Vile and Comes A Time-era Neil should all easily find bounty.
CD $11.00
02/02/2024
MC $11.00
02/02/2024
***On their third album, Al Karpenter merges its singular vision with a host of collaborators. In synchronicity with a recent CIA Debutante team-up, the Berlin-based group rises to the challenge of expanding its parameters. As Al Karpenter’s resident theoretician Mattin explains, “The last record was a result of the pandemic, introverted and low energy. The Forthcoming is a result of the possibilities of making music and touring again. We had such an amazing time on tour with Sunik Kim, Dominic Coles and Triple Negative, that at the end of our concert at Cafe Oto, we all played together.” Whether delving into manic plunderphonics with Sunik Kim on “A Brand New Brontophobia” [an intense fear of extremely loud, natural noises in the environment - dict. ed.] or accessing the hidden burrows that tunnel beneath polite society with anarchic rock-folk deconstructionists Triple Negative on the title track, Al Karpenter is revolving around its own matrix. “Poison Sun” throws the New York-based Coles into the mix and you feel as if you are seesawing between competing parties, attempting to soak up their atmospheres during each pass through. Mattin again: “The feeling of exuberance, chaos and fragmentation is confronted with the pleasures of collective music making. This record is outwards, full on and complex. Tiktok attention span meets electroacoustic and concrete techniques. This record is of today.” It’s about time—The Forthcoming is here, for ever more.
LP $35.50
08/11/2023
***A collaboration between the Spanish Cabalists, Al Karpenter & French Rosicruanists, CIA Debutante, was not specifically foretold in the Fama Fraternitatis, but read between the lines, friend. That is where the truth lurks. The bilious Marxist splatter of the former, coursing alongside the dystopian surrealism of the latter, is a nefarious seance gambit born in the ether. Many voices are heard-fractious, cryptic, suffused, fading one into the other, the results often as hazy as the most bewitching pastis. Don't look now, but all the tables are levitating. Is that a spirit trumpet in the distance? Am I hearing the channeled moans of a ghost, or did someone miss last call (so eerily similar in their discontent)? The plachette is moving so fast across the ouija board, it's making a blabber-mouth out of my fingers. I had no idea anyone spilled this much verbiage in the afterlife. The crackle & whoosh of electronics fill the air. A cape is not required, but considering these Mandrake-like shenanigans, it couldn’t hurt. But then I am the one being charmed. Al Karpenter / CIA Debutante are the beguilers. Trance-medium discourse never sounded so preposterously spot on. File alongside fabled, like minded alliances such as; Ash Ra Temple & Timothy Leary, ‘Seven Up’, Brigitte & The Hansen Experience, ‘Frau Hansen Am Bass’, the Shadow Ring, ‘Lighthouse’.—Tom Lax (siltbreeze)
LP $35.50
08/11/2023
***"Recording the Strapping Fieldhands at Bernie's was our (Tommy Jay & Myself) first rewarding attempt at recording a band live in a club setting that i can recall. It was great fun working with this crew of magical musical misfits in what now seems a long passed epoch ago. I'm very happy they chose to use a bit of said endeavor for this record and will always cherish the memories of my times both here in mythical Harrisburg Ohio and Olde Philadelphius with these wandering minstrels in perilous search of the Golden Fleece while enduring the ensuing trials by fire water & the fickle nature of fame. Long passed perhaps are the days when rose petals were scattered at their feet, but these petrified remains of their copious output will baffle marveling aural anthropologists for millenniums to come! Zeus Bless the Strapping Field Hand & all who sail with them! May we once again share quahogs amid peatbogs somewhere down the sandy path to netherness."—mRep
LP $26.95
06/09/2023
***"All the way from Sydney ever/never presents you with a masterpiece for our current times. It has the aura of a great classic record, avant-garde meets melodic intensities and contemporary poetry while inviting the listener to the urgent need for collective reflection. A fantastic array of players with complex instrumentation offer us intricate narratives and multilayered soundscapes: Maeve Parker (flute, poetry, xylophone, and keys), Lyn Heazlewood (guitar, fan, vocals, and accordion) Sabina Rysnik (guitar, vocals, and keys), and Andrew McLellan (bass, vocals, electronics, and piano). Marcus Whale plays saxophone guest on 'Fantasy in Facsimile'. I was already incredibly excited about this record since Andrew McLellan's Cured Pink album Current Climate (also published on CD by ever/never) is for me, one of the best records of the last decade. Experimental no-wave dub as its best. The expectations have not only been met but astoundingly exceeded. Witness K, is a different affair altogether from Current Climate. Sparse but thoughtful. Recitations punctuated by sparks of shoegaze interventions make the mood serene but with a constantly menacing undercurrent. The compositions, the playing, and the production are masterfully accomplished; clear, precise, and beautifully executed. Think if the Shadow Ring finally play with their idols ZNR, and together they invite Florence Shaw and Roland S. Howard to do a non-commercial city pop record to be produced by Mica Levi. This album cuts through the confusing digital entropic reality, in order to give you the necessary space to reflect while wandering subtly through field recordings, poetry, and...
LP $31.95
03/03/2023
***Composer and singer Donna (née Parker) Allen is prolific, and fast. Music pours out of her, and vinyl is unequal to capturing the flow. Accordingly, ever/never is honored to present Parker's First Song Diary as a limited-edition cassette. We first encountered Donna’s work through Chronophage, one of the defining guitar bands of the past decade and a rare bulwark of political radicalism and artistic independence in the U.S. underground. As singer and songwriter for that band, Donna favors an accomplished fingerstyle technique on guitar, unpredictable changes, and a winding melodicism with few parallels in contemporary rock music. The ’Phage suggests a great, lost band of the high SST era, restless and open and committed to its personal vision. Since moving to New York in 2021, Donna has linked arms with the city’s anarcho-punk scene, written about avant-garde and dissident art of the late 20th century, and produced reams of solo piano music. Her song diary is a return to the intense, personal songwriting she practices with her main band. True to its title, it reminds us of the intimacy and spontaneity of an earlier home-recording era, when the cassette was an easy and immediate way of sharing ideas with kindred spirits. One is a blend of spare solo pieces for guitars, keyboards, and vocals and fully arranged band pieces. At times, its instrumental sections recall Neil Young and Richard Thompson, Lou Barlow and the Harrisburg Players. At others, these tracks hint at Donna’s love of ‘80s UK pop, which her...
MC $9.75
03/03/2023
***Philadelphia’s Kilynn Lunsford had been conceiving her first solo album since she was a young teen. Growing up through the MTV era of Missy Elliot, Timbaland and the Swing Mob collective, and drawn towards its “sometimes ridiculous, but overloaded” qualities, she found herself returning to that state of emerging adulthood when the moment for a solo record finally arose. The image of Britney Spears being recorded in an empty field somewhere in her native West-Philly—“like Alan Lomax recording Betty Boop near the Delaware water gap”—provided a key 'mental mood image’ for what would eventually become Custodians of Human Succession. As if Blackout was re-imagined by Throbbing Gristle, Lunsford’s debut straddles unclear boundaries between electro-pop, post-punk and the avant-garde; it delves into those liminal spaces between pop culture and experimentalism, between city and country, between verse and chorus. Written over four years, drafted during long car rides from work, hewn out first thing in the morning or last thing at night Custodians…is Lunsford’s first work since the dissolution of her former project, noise-punk outfit Taiwan Housing Project in 2021. Being now uninhibited by the democratic needs of a band writing and jamming in the practise-room, choosing to ‘go solo’ liberated her songbuilding process. While some arrangements would be hammered out for weeks, sometimes it was a loose, “off-the-cuff” take that could make the final cut: “Wanting to combine irreconcilable elements”, Lunsford explains, “we would set up for hours and then do one take, always allowing for the aleatoric to come through”.
LP $26.95
11/18/2022
One hundred miles north of New York City is a post-industrial hardscrabble up-and-down town called Kingston that currently lies somewhere in-between. Kingston is where Rider/Horse came to exist, and where they now call home. Before the Rider/Horse team-up, Cory played guitar and sang in Spray Paint, while Chris was a hired gun for the likes of Trans Am, Les Savy Fav and Scene Creamers.
LP $26.95
11/18/2022
***BACK IN PRINT!!! Final limited pressing. "Murk and mystery are the keys to MOSQUITOES’ unique ability to suck the listener into a wormhole that pulses with menace. Little is known about this new-ish UK unit, but all signs point to an intriguing future. The proof resides within the grooves of Drip Water Hollow Out Stone, Mosquitoes’ 5-song 12” EP on New York City’s fearless Ever/Never Records. Yes, the record’s title functions as a concise explanation of a timeless natural process—but it also reveals the name of each track, small gestures that gradually erode the listener’s sense of physical bearing. The murk radiates and pervades. 'Drip' tosses you into the deep end and taunts you to try to swim. Strangled vocal cries and seemingly random guitar/drum patterns suggest the disorienting tactics of avant-rock legends US Maple. There is a disturbing logic afoot, even as the sounds seem to disappear into a maelstrom of their own making. 'Water' quite literally buzzes with a malevolent grace as rhythms click and sounds reverberate like deep-sea sonar. 'Hollow' channels the throbbing and whirring anxiety of latter-day Sightings, an all-too-rarely seen influence on contemporary noisemakers. It’s a testament to Mosquitoes’ peculiar aesthetics that they can hold their own in such rarefied company. On the flip, Mosquitoes’ put their heads down and burrow deep into into the listener’s skin. 'Out' is an amorphous mass of distended sonics featuring short-circuiting guitars, unpredictable sound-swells and stuttering vocals attempting to communicate in an unspoken language. A perfect place-setting then, for the molten...
12" $26.95
07/29/2022
***BACK IN PRINT!!! Final limited pressing. MOSQUITOES are back and they are deadlier than ever. On Minus Objects, their second 12” EP for Ever/Never Records, Mosquitoes challenge the abyss to a staring contest. Utilizing deep-sixed static dub imperatives over postpunk’s skeletal remains, the enigmatic trio feint & parry, duck & weave, zig & zag like they were born to slip out of your grasp and into your bloodstream. Within Mosquitoes’ all-encompassing buzz, we find a distant link to Mars’ furious caterwaul, a direct connection to the frizzle-fried no wave of Sightings, and a tense granularity that recalls Radian’s studies of disintegration. As the title implies, Mosquitoes create entrancing music using methods of subtraction. Paradox runs rampant over these nine tracks as Mosquitoes gesture towards the intimate, while retaining their forbiddingly alien textures. “Minus Object Four” overwhelms with resonant vocal hum, while “Minus Object Eight” is as desolate and haunted as any Burial track. Few bands can be convincingly accused of pushing the decrepit body of rock music into the future. Mosquitoes do so by hiding the corpse in a deep chamber where shadows lurk and mysteries abound. Elusive, unnerving, sense-scrambling—this is Mosquitoes’ modus operandi. They are a short-circuit made manifest, a cipher without decryption, a riddle without words. Mosquitoes transform the incidental movements of playing electric music (amp hum, string contact, cymbal brushes, ambient clatter) to conjure beguiling rhythmic structures. The initial impression is haphazard, but soon the mastery, and the majesty, become glaringly obvious. Mosquitoes have so thoroughly harnessed control of their...
12" $26.95
07/29/2022
***"The Ruby double 7” was made in loving commemoration of Carl Robert Talbot who was murdered by corrections officers inside the Whalley Avenue jail in New Haven, CT on March 21, 2019 around 7AM. Rob was a magnificently special person, which anyone who knew him knew plainly as fact. The conditions that he was forced to live under and the circumstances in which he died speak volumes to the degradation and humiliation all of us must endure in our current state of affairs. I wish I could say that this record is a celebration of Rob's life but that would be a lie; it is full of heartache, suffering, bitterness and hostility towards a system that dehumanizes even the gentlest among us. Ruby was culled together over a few months entirely from initially improvised tracks made on a variety of second rate guitars—a cheap plastic parlor guitar, a broken banjo, an upside down Strat and the Cowboy Guitar. Most of the rest of the instruments and amplifiers used in overdubbing were thrift store finds and roadside junk. It seemed the only way to honor a man who lived a life almost entirely pieced together from the odds and ends the rest of us left behind. Though the recording process was mostly filled with sadness, a bit of joy peeked in every now and again. At times it seemed like every time I worked another marvelous oddity would occur—an unintended yet wonderful sound would find its way to the tape, never...
2X7" $18.50
07/29/2022
***Fresh off scoring the Sundance nominated short film, The Rifleman (2021), Los Lichis confidently stumble back with their most recent sojourn into the sub underground popular culture milieu with a new 12’’ EP for ever/never records. Enigmatic only because the world is blind and deaf to certain wave lengths, Los Lichis, one of Monterrey, Mexico’s proudest exports bring to you their latest transmission Small Mole & The Flavor Trio. Like a train lurching out the station that can’t decide if it wants to leave or maybe just sit at home and watch the world crumble on television. Providing a perfect soundtrack for transiting to funerals or weddings or birthdays or really anywhere at all, this strain of Raga (Mexican) will surely bring you back home feeling lighter and brighter than when you left.
LP $30.45
03/04/2022
***"Hello, friend. I hope all is well with you. I am writing to let you know that my new album, Reunion, is now available in a limited vinyl edition on the ever/never label. After working with a backing band for the last two records, I decided to return to writing and recording alone in the studio, the way I made A Sudden Shift ten years ago, and the way I did for nearly 20 years before that. I started tracking for Reunion at the tail end of 2019 with my engineer, Gregg, at a beautifully appointed studio in Connecticut. That proved a slow and expensive process, and of course it ground to a halt when the pandemic struck in March 2020. I thought I’d make the best of it, start over and try fleshing out the songs at home on the Mac, so that when the world opened up again I would have a detailed blueprint for the album, and I could go back to the studio and track all of it quickly and methodically. Instead, I wound up making the entire record at home. Gregg’s mix and mastering job made these homemade tracks go bang, and thanks to his finesse, it is the best-sounding record I’ve made so far. Last night when we listened to the test pressing of the album at e/n’s offices, a friend remarked that 'Anita, Sing' is an adult contemporary track. I winced, reflexively, but of course, she was right: the song is based on...
LP $26.95
03/04/2022
***Tiptoeing in, stealth-like, CIA Debutante’s Music For Small Rooms 12” on Ever/Never Records tempts the listener with secrets and their inevitable spilling out into the open. Over the course of several releases, the France-based duo has shown a real gift for delving into the particulars of paranoia, seeding their songs with threats disguised as hooks. On its perfectly succinct new EP, CIA Debutante refines this method, as each of the six tracks plays like dystopian theme songs for closed-circuit television dramas. From the gradually increasing disquiet of “Nuclear Holiday” to the full-on terror of “The Face” (“There’s a blank spot/where the face should be”), CIA Debutante are well-versed in navigating the eternal eddies of existential doubt. With molten electronics accompanying a resigned vocal, “Sinkhole” really does feel like the planet is opening up beneath you, but perhaps you don’t mind as much as you’d have expected. “Faulty Appliances” is a kitchen sink nightmare and even elicits a couple chuckles as it wraps up the leftovers. If you find yourself routinely menaced by everyday objects, then you are primed and ready for the sounds that CIA Debutante pipes into Music For Small Rooms.
LP $26.95
11/19/2021
***Brisbane-born, everywhere raised, Cured Pink have released their fourth and likely final full length album ‘Current Climate’, an album eight years in the making, compiling recordings from 2012-2020. Between 2008 and 2016, Brisbane's Cured Pink rounded a few orbits to make "strangeness that you’ll have to hear a few times before boxing." (Dusted Magazine, 2016). Once the solo exhibition of Andrew McLellan (Enderie, Soft Power, Greg Boring, Witness K) Cured Pink changed pipes with the addition of Glen Schenau (Per Purpose, Bent, Sky Needle), Mitchel Perkins (Per Purpose, Guppy, Psy Ants) and Stuart Busby (the Deadnotes, Threads) to become "a Rube Goldberg machine, primitive industrial vibes of the wondrous kind” (Terminal Boredom, 2013).
CD $6.00
10/22/2021
***CYANIDE TOOTH is back. We don’t know what transpired since he was last picked up on radar, but Tentative Identity is a whole new ballgame in an entirely different arena. After upgrading in the afterlife, Mr. Tooth (aka Creamo Coyl of Spin Age Blasters on WFMU) expands his parameters and takes aim at the fences. As the album opens, we seem to be in familiar territory as a curious transmission comes beaming in from a distant land (New Jersey), but then a jackhammer beat drops in like a flaming hot meteor and all of a sudden—we ain’t in Kansas no more. Someone keeps trying to interrupt, but once the slice/dice session is concluded, we’re trapped in the library and all of the synth manuals are checked out. Is the window smashed, or has it been lifted slightly to let the air in?
MC $7.50
10/22/2021
***The worm never stops turning at MaxE HQ, so as we make another trip thru the solar system on Spacefish Mirth, Ever/Never presents Perfect Mixer/Matchless Pair. Before you ask—Yes, it’s good. Yes, you will enjoy this ravishing ear-tickle of a release. Past meets future. Beats in space. Time falls fast and twists into a funnel cloud of distortion. Perfect Mixer/Matchless Pair is a funhouse reflection in an abandoned amusement park. Perfect Mixer/Matchless Pair is a suicide ride into the vanity mirror universe. Perfect Mixer/Matchless Pair is a cassette and digital download available on Ever/Never Records in the year 2021 and beyond.
MC $7.50
10/22/2021
***One hundred miles north of New York City is a post-industrial hardscrabble up-and-down town called Kingston that currently lies somewhere in-between. Kingston is where Rider/Horse came to exist, and where they now call home. Before the Rider/Horse team-up, Cory played guitar and sang in Spray Paint, while Chris was a hired gun for the likes of Trans Am, Les Savy Fav and Scene Creamers. When normal life forced them to press pause, the construction of Select Trials became an almost daily obsession/meditation for the duo. Recorded, assembled and mixed by Chris, with sounds from a makeshift dub zone set up in the (shuttered-at-the-time) venue Cory owns, Select Trials is a pitch-perfect distillation of C & C’s mithering. “Tremolo Harm” is a high-tension wire that leads into the horizon-vanishing tones of “Chime Inn.” Other tracks, like “Guns In The Snow” and “Prawn Ranch,” radiate with drum-driven menace, echoing Big Black’s foreboding clang. “Sleeping In The Box” drills deep into the salt of the earth, searching vainly for sustenance, while “Today’s Gains” hurts like a weary back after a long shift. Finally, “Nitetime White” pulls down the shades and blots out the sun. With Select Trials—the debut album from Rider/Horse—Ever/Never Records brings you a doozy for the ages.
LP $30.45
10/22/2021
***"You’re an artist. You find yourself a refugee in Boise, Idaho. What do you do? Certainly not stew about. You make music. You paint. You make connections. You translate. At least that is what Huma Aatifi has done. Recording as Unda Fluxit for the second time and hopefully not last on this here cassette. Unda Fluxit is exactly what it sounds like. Incomprehensible but familiar. A translation, not of words, but of feelings. In motion. Always on the go. Trust your gut and move when & where it tells you. Fluxus. Fluxit. Fuck it. Armed with a dangerous curiosity and fealty to no person, place, band or scene, Huma and her guitar, guided by her voice shed light upon the lands over the course of 8 tracks recorded in early January, 2021 that make up ‘Stone Ringing Sorrows.’ Frustration meets liberation on downtown folk opener ‘Callous Umbrella’, “is that a bongo?” Second track ‘Chance Of The Towel’ doesn’t travel too far uptown but a little VU-influenced strum peeks into the drawn shades. ‘Sunset Rain’ sounds like a song passed down from mother to daughter. A whispered lullaby of the sadness brought to life here. ‘The Airplane, Sky, Ocean, Pane’ with its detuned guitars and flat line vocals bring to mind the (non)-placed musing of Jandek. Side 2 opens with the mysterious words & soft strum of ‘Well Now What’. No answers are given. Nor should they be. ‘AghaAsman’ & ‘Two Drunken Dollars’ follow down the path of dissonance, longing for...
MC $7.50
10/22/2021
***Four years into PREENING's existence and the Bay Area trio hasn’t shown any signs of stagnation–they remain committed to the urge to move forward, to push themselves and their audience. Thus, the restless and relentless motion of Preening’s new 12” EP on Ever/Never Records, who also released 2018’s excellent Greasetrap Frisbee 7”. Preening sounds more than ever like no one but themselves–MAX and ALEJANDRA's duel (sic) vocals and sax/bass interplay is masterfully augmented and driven by SAM's all-hands-ondeck drumming. “Twinning” exemplifies all of these aspects, achieving a head-spinning velocity occasionally interrupted by sections that mimic drips and chimes amidst the cacophony. This is dance music for sleep-deprived geniuses and those who love them. “Rapt Fashions” demands to know “Whose body is this anyway?” And then, to drive the theme of dislocation home, the EP ends with a wigged-out “Extortion” dub mix by ANDY HUMAN (of The World / Naked Roommate / Reptoids) & BRETT EASTMAN (Reptoids). Dragged Through The Garden proves that Preening and Ever / Never continue to deliver the goods, and then some.
12" $24.95
02/05/2021
***"I met Elin Engstrom and JJ Ulius in February this year. They had played in London the night before and I had really enjoyed the gig. The following day I decided to go out and maybe buy some records. It was in Low Company (a now defunct and much missed record shop in Hackney Downs) that I met them preparing to head for the airport and back home to Gothenburg. We were introduced and I said how much I had liked the show, and straight back, almost without blinking, JJ Ulius said, ’What did you like about it?’ I wasn’t simply being polite; I did really enjoy what they did. But I guess I was blithely expecting the conversation to follow the path of least resistance, and all of a sudden it wasn’t. He had a look in his eye like the question was serious but also not, teasing me slightly, but also wanting more than a platitude in reply. At the time I think I half-arsed something about Elin’s use of contact mics and the way the songs seemed to appear out of noise and clatter when you weren’t expecting it. This seemed to serve as a place-holder and the conversation petered out in a friendly way. Then they went home and so did I. So what do I really think? I’ve been lucky enough to live with this new LP for a couple of weeks now and it’s still unpacking itself, revealing new angles and facets all...
LP $24.95
02/05/2021
***The world may have shifted in significant ways since 2018, but Patois Counselors remain one of the finest bands plying their trade since Proper Release, their debut album, was lavished with all manner of year-end praise from such respected sources as YellowGreenRed and the Bandcamp editorial staff. Recording once again for Ever/Never Records, The Optimal Seat doesn’t alter the formula, but throws enough curveballs at the listener to keep them on their toes. Patois Counselors are specialists, and their expertise lies in the ability to craft a perfect nervous hook, to sculpt their anxious music into addictive hybrids of post-punk pop. Patois Counselors songs overflow with so many winning ideas that it can be easy to gloss over just how succinct and satisfying the end result is. Following that logic, The Optimal Seat is a proper release that delivers what an album once promised—twelve songs of tense songcraft stuffed with enough flavor to keep your lips smacking, and your fingers snapping, long into the night. Head Counselor Bo White leads his band through a tangle of needling guitar lines, deft rhythms and adroit synthesizer flourishes like a wellseasoned vet. All of these elements are present and accounted for in the confident kicker “Realities/Series Of Viceroys.” “Don’t Stop The Rattle” flirts with the anthemic while establishing the push-pull dynamics of Patois Counselors. Alternating frantic verses with moments of lucidity, “Probably No One” highlights a compelling undertow that continues throughout the album. “Let Beauty Be” effortlessly executes the kind of rousing...
LP $23.25
11/06/2020
***“Following up their initial cassette release ‘Tropical Income Tax’, Providence/NYC based holiday hypnotherapists Hand Of Food have returned and invite you to luxuriate in a perverted idea of paradise with their debut LP, ‘Swimming Mindlessly’. Despite coming from noise rock and damaged electronic backgrounds, the band sits in an odd nether region somewhere between a brutalized ambience or conceptual exotica, while at times dipping a toe into the self-help section. The record plays like the warped audio brochure for a struggling resort town, luring you in with motivational rhetoric and a transparent facade of tranquility. Although your instincts tell you something is off and the regional jokes are all lost on you, an all-inclusive vacation deal this good hasn’t landed in your inbox in a while so you go ahead and book the trip anyways. The opening track Sign Of The Lemon would have you believe everything is fine—lush pads, chimes, and 100% real flutes commingle harmoniously—you made the right choice. As your stay progresses similar instrumentation takes a more anxious turn. A professional voice-over artist or possibly the cruise captain interjects to insist that everything is ok, but hazy ambient atmospheres lead to reflection on the flight over, to all the decisions that led you here, and ultimately, regret. Doing your best to keep those spirits high, Chelo’s By The Sea whisks you away to the on-site cocktail lounge for some of the resort's complimentary entertainment, an evening with ‘legendary’ resident crooner Publicity Dave. But by the...
LP $23.25
11/06/2020
***"When Budokan Boys (Jeff T Byrd and Michael Jeffrey Lee) reunited in 2019 to record their new album, they were in bad shape. Byrd had recently lost his father, and Lee his brother. They decided the new album would need to address these losses—that it would be a 'death record'—but that it might explode the satire of their previous releases and move toward something heavier, more cosmic and more mysterious. The resulting album, So Broken Up About You Dying, is part danse macabre, part grotesque séance, and 100% manic memorial. The program boasts a dreamy, saxophone-spiked overture, a weeping-and-wailing Greek chorus, soliloquies by a number of unstable characters, an absurd, murderous climax, and a mind-bending denouement (featuring guest vocals by Lenka Soukupová). The dearly departed would be proud. So Broken Up About You Dying is the third full-length from expat duo Budokan Boys. Currently ensconced in Europe, Byrd and Lee follow up their previous albums (Dad Is Bad and That’s How You Become A Clown) with their vinyl (and CD) debut, courtesy of NYC’s Ever/Never Records. On ...Dying, Budokan Boys hold your hand and hit your funnybone with a hammer while you prepare to face the uncertain future. Come come, the Magic Mountainawaits…"— e/n
CD $7.75
10/02/2020
***Five years into their long strange drip, the duo of Maximum Ernst continues to confound, perplex, confuse and refract. Foetal returns yielded guitar/drum scramble in service of improvisational incongruity and radical reimaginings of alt-world smash hits by Faust, Snatch and Easy Cure. A link with Old Master horn maestro and official NYC gem Daniel Carter emerged and soon thereafter a CD and live cassette popped a few eardrums just right, so tight. Further uncharted territories were conquered and liberated as Maximum Ernst furiously and fitfully would-shedded. Woodn’t you? Quit playing. That was the advice of one medical doctor and also a licensed quantum mathematician; but still the daft, disappearing duo of Maximum Ernst gestured, rudely, NAY and thus, this newest release finds itself in your hands, begging for a vigorous clean. “Un Menace Natural” welds together extra-dimensional birdsong, soothing bursts of noise, the timbre of waves on a nonexistent beach and uncanny, unnerving shrieks smeared into beguiling patterns. It builds, it ebbs, it flows, it knows. It knows everything. It’s like if Jon fucking Hassell and Black fucking Dice had a fucking Baby. “Hallmark Of A Crisis Period” is a cut-up tour de force that shivers with unhinged delirium and barely-concealed malice. Imagine William S. Burroughs interpreting a Whitehouse “banger” as being live-mixed by Nurse With Wound. Imagine it, you fool! Despair not, heathen, as Maximum Ernst has imagined it for you.And it is as glorious as a sunset must be to a hanged man.Rejoice, for you have entered the...
12" $21.50
10/02/2020
***Strange connections—Bilbao meets Japan via Berlin on a record that will put you in a constant state of WTF. ASMR rock? Post-internet punk? A political manifesto in times of generalized madness? After his acclaimed 2017 destructo-punk single on Munster Records, AL KARPENTER now delivers his mature, complex debut LP on the world's premier record label for adults, New York City's Ever / Never. Al Karpenter is an elusive figure. On this record, he comes off like "Che" Guevara fronting Suicide in the year 2020: In halting, quivering tones, he warns us not to fall asleep, even as he slips into a dream state; he reminds us that we must not give up hope even in these times of collective self-destruction; then he shakes our very core with an agonizing scream. There is no resignation, no giving-up, and no mourning for a lost future in his work. Instead, Al Karpenter pits the burning energy of the present moment against older underground musical forms, playing things "wrong" as a technique for exposing the fundamental wrongness of consensus reality. His record is a puzzle, a conundrum, at once conflictive and erotic, violent and beautiful. Yellow Green Red's Matt Korvette described Al's debut single as ”Very deconstructed and cuckoo, as if one of Fushitsusha’s psychic jams was condensed into a couple minutes of indigestion"—a perceptive appraisal, seeing as Al is now joined by time-bending drummer and percussionist SEIJIRO MURAYAMA, whose early credits include Fushitsusha’s Double Live. Further strange connections include key players from Bilbao's...
LP $21.75
07/10/2020
***Just when you thought that the density of his discography couldn’t possibly accrue any more weight, Ever/Never Records drops the latest OBNOX magnum opus on your dome like a two-ton wrecking ball. A sprawling double LP, Savage Raygun distills everything Obnox excels at into a potent potable and even adds some new spirits to the concoction. As always, Obnox (aka LAMONT THOMAS) supplies a heavy brew smoky with an intense flavor and bright with a zest you can’t forget. Obnox’s fourth full-length for Ever/Never, Savage Raygun is twenty songs thick, and each one is primed for maximum damage. This double-shot is a veritable Whitman’s Sampler of multiple methods to slay the discerning listener. Soulful cuts such as “Supernatural” and “Blessed Black Soldier” are like ‘90s R&B turned on its head and spun til it can’t tell down from up. “How To Build A Bum” is a hip-hop slammer, a golden age throwback, a basketball jersey that gives you confidence when you sport it. “Return Fire” utilizes scratchy funk to approximate the aftermath to a shoot-out, blazing towards the state line. “Misery” continues with the ‘70s vibe, sounding like the lull between disco bangers. “Hawkwindian Summer” is more than yet another award-winning pun by Thomas as it cruises by like a Ford Escort blasting psych rock from in-the-red and shredded speakers. “She (Was About That Life)” adds a vintage sheen to Obnox’s trademark lo-fi scorch and throws an extra dollop of swing on top. “Cut Me A Switch” is another hip-hop...
2XLP $35.25
07/10/2020
***It only took 23 years but the first long-playing record by THE CHINESE RESTAURANTS is finally here. The Chinese Restaurants is the long-term partnership founded in 1996 by artists LF RESTAURANT (aka RICHARD PAPIERCUTS) and KEITH RESTAURANT. The duo follows three core principles: (1) Never rehearse; (2) Never discuss what you do; (3) Never do the same thing twice. Over the years, LF and Keith have performed with a revolving cast of friends and fellow players, including erstwhile members of BROKEN TALENT, COUNTRY TEASERS, BILLY BAO and ROCKET NO. 9. Instant Music is a concise monograph of the project’s many facets and contradictions, spanning free improvisation, reductionism, Third Stream, primitive rock, punk aesthetics, non-cochlear sound, plastic soul, and ASMR hypnotics in just under 30 minutes. The six-song LP was conceived, recorded, and mixed over three days in the group's spiritual home of Bridgeport, Connecticut, where they were joined by longtime friend and associate MALCOLM RESTAURANT and jazz reedsman ERIK ELLIGERS. The tracks apparently consist of spontaneously composed first takes, overlaid with improvised overdubs and mixed in a single afternoon. The only previously performed song on the record is "LFO," a rudimentary blues that first entered the band's repertoire in 1997 and is here given an expansive treatment in the style of Philip Cohran or the 1970s Arkestra. The record comes packaged is an exquisite gatefold that offers clues to the Restaurants' process and their queasy, unsublimated relationship with visual art. Limited edition, one-time pressing of 200 copies.
LP $31.95
11/01/2019
***BACK IN STOCK!!! "When Charles and Josh tapped me to spill some ink for this project, I couldn’t say yes fast enough. Culled from Charles’s vast personal collection, the contents herein abide no formality and as such, ushers forth an insider’s take into Jim’s frantic, restless genius you’ll not likely find again. Timelines? What are you, some kinda cop? It’s fresh ears all around on this one, folks, none of this material has seen the light of day till now. It twitches, it grunts, it flares, and it soars. It ain’t no one type’ve nothin’, unless that’s Loaded. In my king fu village, this pivotal document to the blood spilt across the floor of an iconoclastic career is right up there with the Velvets, Caught Between The Twisted Stars, Beefheart’s, Grow Fins & those Blorp Essette comps. Who knows if the official vaults will ever be opened? And even if, what you’d likely get is the known entities anyway, trussed up in new boots ’n’ panties. This is mud fresh from the private swamp. And as you’ll soon find out, Jim could make it crackle."—Tom Lax, Philadelphia, PA 3/15/19
2XLP+12 $43.75
10/04/2019
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Fiercely independent and furiously articulate, TAIWAN HOUSING PROJECT is the kind of band they don’t make anymore. Whether sweating it out in a dark basement with tomorrow’s noise-rock elite or tearing up the stage opening for yesterday’s no wave heroes, Taiwan Housing Project exude confidence, purpose and poise. But the dominant theme for THP is fire—the kind that burns deep in the gut; the kind that burns the dead growth gone; the kind that sparks violent and necessary change. Singer/guitarist KILYNN LUNSFORD is the kind of hellraiser that your momma warned you about. Leading her band into the fray, Lunsford wields her voice like a dagger and her guitar like a broadsword. Her trusty lieutenant is guitarist MARK FEEHAN, who once drew serious blood in ‘90s attack unit HARRY PUSSY. Feehan coaxes sounds from his guitar that veer from eerie vines of feedback to gutbucket wah-wah stomp, perfectly complimenting the rhythm section’s slam and throb. Live, the four members of Taiwan Housing Project engage in a ritualistic frenzy that borders on the hypnotic.
LP $17.75
07/19/2019