YEAR0001 Vinyl & CDs

Review: Benjamin Reichwald, better known as Bladee, rose to prominence as one of the intrinsic members of Drain Gang; the Swedish alternative hip-hop collective of outsider mega star Yung Lean. Eversince (stylised as 3V3R51NC3) served as the official debut LP from Bladee, originally released in 2022, and showcased a continuation of the vaporwave indebted stylings of the prolific artist's myriad of mixtapes while taking creative leaps in its expansion to encompass elements of new wave, synth-pop and even gothic post-punk, with Reichwald's hazy, xanned out deliver submerged under aquatic levels of reverb and auto-tune, bouncing from synth-laden trap textures to more stripped down, emotive, abstract minimalism.

Review: Amidst label Year0001's recent vinyl production scheme, tackling the domination of resellers and scalpers of the physical merch of Swedish music collective Drain Gang, comes the first wave of archival physical releases (predominantly Bladee, Thaiboy Digital and Yung Lean projects). '333' is just one of the heavily sought-after physical copies of Bladee's music, whose fanbase of drainers has become exceedingly cult-like in their fervour for the cloud rapper and peers. The album was a departure from Benjamin Reichwald's more sombre lyrical themes and grittier production, with the tonality being as bright and colourful as the hand-drawn album cover by artist Claire Burrow. The bubbly production on tracks like 'Reality Surf' and the pared-back acoustic cuts 'Wings in Motion' and 'Only One' make Bladee's fourth project stand out boldly and contain huge selection of Drain Gang fan favourites.

Review: First popping up on our radar in 2020 - or rather hurling itself onto it with all the subtlety punk can muster - Common Sense gets a reissue and not before time. Outspoken but never outgunned, Swedes Viagra Boys rightly courted some serious praise with 2022's album, Cave World, so it makes sense to revisit this epic EP in a bid to get newcomers acquainted with what came before. Opening on the title number, things may not sound quite as you'd expect. While known for their ability to wield bloody-lipped chargers, 'Common Sense' owes as much to shoegaze and synth rock as it does punk variants, immediately marking the outfit out as something not quite so easy to define. Nevertheless, 'Lick the Bang' is straight up topless sweatbox material, and 'Sentinel Island' centres our brains on wonderfully distorted and frayed riffs. Closing on the slow, nostalgia-hued 'Blue', it's quite the collection.

Review: Hot on the heels of their exceptional new third full-length, 'Cave World', Stockholm's post-punk prodigies, Viagra Boys, have unveiled a deluxe edition of last year's fence swinging sophomore triumph, 'Welfare Jazz'. With big name production help from the likes of Matt Sweeney (whose helmed releases from the likes of Iggy Pop and Queens of the Stone Age), as well as Yves Tumor/Charli XCX collaborator Justin Raisen, the band manage the seemingly impossible feat of combining their jagged edged anthems with a lush, serene approach that has bolstered their profile in the scene immensely. The final full-length to feature guitarist Benjamin Valle before his untimely passing, this expanded edition features seven new tracks, brimming with the unhinged sultry dynamics that continues to make their punk moniker more commonplace with each mention.