Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Bezier returns to Dark Entries with Valencia, a six track rumination on memory, geography, and transmutation. Multi-instrumentalist Robert Yang's Bezier project has appeared on Dark Entries many times over the last decade, most recently with the 2018 LP Parler Musique. Says Yang, "What started as a project to investigate the love of the sound and scenery while living in San Francisco quickly developed into a passionate search for interlocking melodies and driving rhythms." On Valencia, Bezier invokes twinned places. The Valencia Street of San Francisco is channeled, which was the center of the city's vibrant new wave scene in the 1980s. But also echoed is Valencia, Spain, and La Ruta del Bakalao aka La Ruta Destroy, the Spanish clubbing scene throughout the 80s and 90s famed for its aggressive and synthetic sounds. Valencia is a darker record for Yang, exploring themes of submission and catharsis with nods to SF's gay leather bars of the 70s and 80s. The high BPM salvos of "Valencia" and "Scrupulous" capture the frantic energy of Bakalao and Valencian wave acts like Oltima Emocion. Elsewhere Yang mines the dreamy space disco and Hi-NRG sounds they're known for, like on the brooding "Past the Marshes" or the anthemic "Reservoir", which features their partner Len.Leo on vocals. Bezier deftly navigates past and present, light and dark, pain and pleasure, the stasis of memory and the flux of time. Valencia was mastered by Alex Michalski, with EQ for vinyl done by George Horn. Gwenael Rattke designed the sleeve, which features an 80's punk zine-esque geometric grid pattern mirroring San Francisco street maps. Also included is a 5x7 postcard with notes.

Review: Blues Lawyer returns to Dark Entries with a fresh new 7" that revives some late summer sun with lovely alt-pop grooves. This new one comes hot on the heels of their debut on this label and expands the Blues Lawyer universe across four tunes that were recorded in the final days before Elyse Schrock - the band's singer, songwriter, drummer, and music video creator - left her Bay Area home of ten years to head for somewhere cheaper to live. There are new songwriting styles evident here on tunes like 'True Love's Only Name' which guitarist Ellen Matthews developed with lyrics by Miller and singing from Schrock. It is one of a great mix of tracks that show real musical development from Blues Lawyer.

Review: In eleven years of deep digging, Dark Entries has uncovered many curiosities, lone exemplars of the scarsest breeds. They are lurking in Croatia, on the streets of New York, maybe in the back of your own dusty closet - these odd-ball Italo and synth-wave monsters are too rare to live, too divine to die. Once-lost creatures now have a home with Dark Entries' new Endangered Species series. The inaugural edition features five specimens previously deemed extinct, only mentioned passingly in lore and speculation, but now safely preserved on vinyl.

Review: Dark Entries have locked in Oakland band Blues Lawyer for a third full-length that offers plenty of big pop-roc moments. Like so much music out there right now, this record was put together during the pandemic and moves away from the handle pop of their earlier work towards a more 90s-infused alt-rock sound. It's an album built on breezy melodies and easy-going grooves that range from upbeat to laidback but are always smooth and enticing. The song craft is well-honed and the detail is tight as can be.

Review: Baby Buddha is the experimental new wave duo of Charles Hornaday (vocals, guitar, electronics, drums) and David Javelosa (vocals, electronics, clarinet). Born from late night improvisations of San Francisco synth-punks Los Microwaves with a rotating cast of musicians. Live shows would include music, projections, dance and performance art in both clubs and gallery spaces. In 1980, Howie Klein's 415 Records released their first single of Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man". In 1981, 'Music For Teenage Sex' was their first full length album released via Poshboy Records. It featured Los Microwaves' Meg Brazill, Poshboy boss Robbie Fields, and Kathy Peck as "Tammy Why-not", who later went on to found H.E.A.R (Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers). In January 1983 Kathy, Charles and David went into the studio with a couple of Kathy's original "country" songs and began working on a sophomore album. They also incorporated songs from a live multi-track recording of a concert at the Graffiti Club on June 6th 1984. The album titled 'Everyone Is My Age' sat unreleased until 1987 due to relocation to Los Angeles and eventually found a home on David's Hyperspace Communications, the original label for the first Los Microwaves singles. For this first time reissue we've added a previously unreleased bonus song "What's Going On," a Kathy Peck original. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The vinyl comes housed in the original jacket featuring a collage by David Javelosa and includes an insert with lyrics, photos and liner notes.