Rad Releases 21 – a-tota-so
For the final week 2 weeks of the year, as the countdown to the end of 2021 approaches, we take a personal look back on familiar names, labels, promoters, and musicians’ most loved releases of the past 12 months. It’s a time we enjoy and look forward to, through the contributions we get to find new music discoveries, releases we may have missed throughout the year. When we handed the site over last year for the 2020 feature, our 10th year into our annual special, we loved the contributions and it became apparent that we all found ourselves reconnecting with music new and old. Following another challenging year, the one constant has been how artists and their labels have adapted and produced some of the best records of our time, it’s those releases that fans have depended on to get them through another year.
Now in its 11th year, we are delighted to hand the site over once more, as we let our favourites share more details about their year in music.
Our next feature comes from a-tota-so; the audacious math rock/ grunge band from the East Midlands. An outfit we’ve loved for a long time. In fact, we’ve deemed this trio as one of the hardest working outfits in the DIY community for some time. Last month the trio returned with details of their forthcoming album and their ferocious new single. The new single “I Am” dropped last month and is the first taste of the forthcoming release and a refreshing new single that showcases the power of the instrumentation from a-tota-so combined with the raw lyrics and harrowing vocal harmonies from Aisling Whiting (Sang Froid). We are very excited to see what the year ahead will be like for this outfit. For now we hand over to Marty to find out more about his year in music…
- Top Releases:
SUGAR HORSE – The Live Long After
The moment i first saw Sugar Horse Live i fell in love with them, they’re just creating the best noise at the moment and i can’t get enough of it.
THE HYENA KILL – A Disconnect
I was late to the party with this lot until i heard the album and its an absolute belter full of grunge vibes which are right up my street
IDLES – Crawler
Pushing new boundaries and making a big noise while they’re at it, IDLES are taking over at the moment and it’s great to see.
PAPER MICE – 1-800-MONDAYS
I can’t remember who put me on to these guys but the Chicago based band released this absolute banger and it’s had some heavy rotation since I heard them.
HAIKU SALUT – The Hill, The Light, The Ghost
The Derby electronic trio released this beautiful album about ghosts and memories and it’s one for the more stressful days when you really just wanna kick back and relax.
- The best show you have played this year / gig attended
Our single launch show at The Chameleon was awesome, it was amazing to pack the place and have Aisling from Sang Froid join us on vocals for the show too. We had the excellent Memory of Elephants and Sang Froid as support for the show too so it was a proper matesfest. It’s always a a pleasure playing at the chameleon, John, Lauren and Simon are the best team and Nottingham has never disappointed us. We can’t wait to be back for the album launch show in the spring.
- Your own highlight of the year
Just being able to get out to gigs again was great, we had some absolute belter bUTTONpUSHER shows this year including The St Pierre Snake invasion, God Alone, Big lad and InTechnicolour. More of this please! Also finishing up our new album “Lights out” was a big highlight. It was so good to get a fresh perspective on our music with all the additional guest vocalists involved. Very exciting times ahead 🙂
- Has there been any record that’s got you through this year?
I’ve listened to alot of IDLES since Covid began, absolutely love them now and can’t wait to see what they do next.
- How have you adapted with releasing/recording/promoting this year?
We just got our heads down and got all the album stuff sorted and ready, it’s been a bit shit not being able to gig as much as we used to but we have recorded something we’re super proud of and can’t wait for it to be released now. Promotion wise 8 just plowed on with bUTTONpUSHER stuff while we could and we went back to doing shows at The Chameleon as well as JT Soar and will be alternating between them for our monthly shows in 2022.
- Best discovery this year?
Samuel Organ – A Safe place in Cyberspace was such a banger record , i was already aware of Sam throgh his work with The Physics House band but this is just a great album which has been on repeat quite a lot in our house.
- Artist/Band to watch for 2022
GOD ALONE from Ireland and Eat your Own Head from Norwich are both ace bands that will be releasing new albums in 2022 – get to know them both!
- Plans for the New Year
We’ll have another Single out in January sometime and the album is set for release on the 11th March, you can pre-order the limited pressing vinyl over on our Bandcamp now. We have a couple of shows lined up but at the moment it’s hard to tell what’s going to go ahead and what isn’t so we’ll just take whatever comes our way and not stress about it too much.
Thank you Marty, so excited for the album to drop and can’t wait to hear more from a-tota-so next year!
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