7” vinyl from Mike Bernstein and Maya Miller of Double Leopards’ Heavy Tapes imprint bundles two ecstatic DIY drone shots from Religious Knives beamed straight from a windowless bunker. This whole current European/devotional/cult synth edge that the duo have developed is beautifully electric and extremely personal and these two tracks – chronologically their first experiments in this style - make for some of their best reconciliations with song form to date. Mike and Maya play bells, guitar, percussion, synth, and vocals. Limited edition, comes in screened hard card fold-around sleeves. Highly recommended.

“Maya Miller and Michael Bernstein met in New York a decade ago, and began making music together as half of sturm und drone quartet Double Leopards a few years after that. Religious Knives came later still, away from the road and the rehearsal space, borne and nurtured in cramped apartments throughout Kings County. Beginning in 2005, the pair released a string of CD-Rs and cassettes, both on their own Heavy Tapes imprint and through the labels of kindred spirits. Steadily moving away from the psychedelic tone baths and modern industrial scrape for which the Leopards had become known, Religious Knives coursed through minimal synth oscillations and spare Kraut repetition. Mouthus' Nate Nelson joined the pair in 2006, lending a powerful presence behind the drums that shaped Religious Knives' rudimentary jams into rough-hewn, long-form paeans to tar-blackened bummer psych. Soon after that, old friend Todd Cavallo completed the quartet on bass, adding a sturdy low end and dubwise groove that lifted Religious Knives from cellar murk to black cloud puffs of bone deep alarm. An active four-piece for a little more than a year now, Religious Knives have presided over a pair of twelve-inches, a couple of collections of out of print singles and long gone burns, and one full-length. All throughout, these four have traced a path away from the clamour they once knew, bathing slight guitars, interlocking vocals, and solemn basslines in reedy organs and recalcitrant modular synths. The seemingly tin eared would call it noise, but in these eight hands such a set plays as anything but, instead a (cough) syrupy stroll in search of the ghosts of rock's classicist past. With The Door, Religious Knives have not only found those bygone days, but broken them apart. There are bookmarks to be found here, pages creased in well-worn chapters. But make no mistake - theirs is a sound tied to the here and now, a summer record for those dread days when the heat holds low and skin sticks to cheap car seats and old patio furniture. These six songs are brighter, sharper than anything that has come before, locking in tight on jugular rhythms. It's the score for disappearing neighborhoods and crumbling buildings, a hope of holding onto the past as those around us move fast to forget it. It is scent as sound, the stench of smog and sickly smoke spiraling towards the sky. It is Brooklyn, July of 2008. The sun has left us in the East, disappearing somewhere behind Jersey, leaving our borough to find the pulse of another night deep with the city's streets.” – EP.

Limited edition of 150 copies, the first instalment in a series of releases documenting off-the-map live actions from Religious Knives. This one compiles action from four shows across 2008, with jams taken from WHOM, Hemlock, Death By Audio and Wierd. Anyone left unfazed with the production and pop stylings of the group’s Ecstatic Peace releases oughta find solace here, with some great lo-fi garage downs usurped by primitive delay and drugged keyboards. The Death By Audio set features a guest appearance from Pete Nolan of Magik Markers et al while the Wierd material matches that imprints ethos with some ginchy minimal synth/new wave settings of classic RK material including a take on “Basement Watch” that could almost be a reformed 1980s post-apocalyptic Music Machine. Or would that make em SPK? Either way, this is great.

Limited edition of 150 copies, the second instalment in a series of releases documenting off-the-map live actions from Religious Knives. This one compiles action from two shows across 2008, with a killer full band set live from 66 Hope and a weird RK2 style duo performance recorded at Big Jar Books in Philadelphia. Recommended.

Classic Americana underground rock moves from a new Baltimore-based project that features Lexie Mountain on vocals alongside Nate Nelson of Religious Knives/Mouthus, Nick Becker, Jake Freeman and Chiara Giovando. The sound is kinda like Royal Trux at their most FM-radio relevant, with huge blats of melodic moog defining the foreground while Lexie pulls out her best Jennifer Herema/Janis Joplin stylings (with occasional Meredith Monk-styled detours) and the songs work from a raggedy Suicide/Springsteen/Flesheaters/The Band base that would combine classic, iconoclastic melodies with weirdly deformed two-note keyboard drones and a fried hayseed basement style that is supremely beguiling. Can’t think of a recent release that so beautifully walks the line between classic rock and cultic underground confusion.

Very heavy Middle Eastern/Popol Vuh-vibe on this new LP from Religious Knives (Mike and Maya of Double Leopards further bolstered by the presence of Mouthus drummer Nate Nelson). A wash of ritual hand percussion vibrates beneath beautiful monolithic synth patterns from Maya that recall the tranquilised downriver grandeur of parts of the Aguirre soundtrack or the full fathom force of In Den Garten Pharaos as you feel the meat of your mind slowly part beneath the gush of extended time-warping drones. Mike's vocals sound as if they're being squoze through an outdoor tannoy system and his feedback guitar gives the whole piece a black, ominous aspect. Second side is even heavier, with Nate's thud-bobbing drums forcing the group into whole new vectors of damaged lurch. Mixed by Brian Sullivan of Mouthus. Comes packaged with white stuck-on sleeve art and fake liners, both of which give it that all-important ‘private' feel. Limited to only 300 copies and highly recommended.

Self-released album from this Mouthus/Double Leopards supergroup featuring botha Mouthus and Mike and Maya from Leopards. Sound is as beautifully Euro-fixated as the recent Religious Knives stuff, with soft oceans of glazed 1970s synth patterns washing across the backs of yr eyelids like the Cosmic Couriers play the brain scores of Terry Riley and Klaus Schulze. A beautifully pink stone and highly recommended for fans of soft dopey muzz.