Sado-vaudevillian punks Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat debut declares, Take That!; Marlene Deitrich, Dresden Dolls, Cramps fans take heed.

Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat is the naughty brainchild of Stephanie Stephens and Adam Sultan, two musicians and actors and from Austin, TX.

Initially a cabaret act influenced by Weimar Republic Berlin, Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat soon expanded into what one critic calls “Sado-vaudevillian punk.” Their diverse sound combines everything from classical music to classic rock, performed with outrageous style and irreverent humor that touches on half a century’s worth of history.

Their debut CD, Take That! (Pressing Records) ranges along the German countryside from Marlene Deitrich to Kraftwerk, then crosses the border into Eurotrash dance, punk rock theater, and even Texas swing. The CD’s dozen songs attack everything from synth pop to polka, without fraying the strands from Mistress Stephanie’s proud whip. The CD’s sound is brought to life in the band’s always memorable stage shows—in which the brazen Mistress humors and challenges the audience, while her “Kitty” contrasts with sneering insouciance and manic guitar slinging.

Adam Sultan began his musical career as a guitarist for Sony Recording artists Poi Dog Pondering, the eclectic folk dance group that currently resides in Chicago. Since then he has performed solo and with his own bands, while also working as an actor and composer in the Austin theater scene. He has ventured into several improvisational and jazz-tinged ensembles including Golden Arm Trio and Spank Dance Company.

Stephanie Stephens is a singer and an actress who has performed in numerous Austin plays, musicals and operas. She has produced avant-garde recitals and shows, and performed with various artists including Golden Arm Trio and The Walter Thompson Orchestra. Ultimately though, she is the Mistress – a sultry chanteuse with a punk rock heart and a guitar-slinging pussy. Meow.

Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat In The Press:
02/07 Austin, TX @ End of An Ear Record Release Show
02/11 Austin, TX @ Beauty Bar
02/21 Austin, TX @ Red 7

Artist: Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat
Title: Take That!
Label: Pressing Records
Release Date: February 10th, 2009

01. Weimar
02. Get Off My Chest
03. Shake Your Dance Stick
04. Too Hard
05. Heaven
06. I Hate Cabaret
07. Awfully Confusing
08. Grey
09. Little Death (MP3)
10. Down Boy
11. Johnny Gewürztraminer
12. You Say You Love Me

Tools and Hi-Res Photos:
www.fanaticpromotion.com/rosterdetails.php?indexkey=1440

On The Web:
www.mistressandkitty.com
www.mistressstephanieandhermelodiccat.com
www.myspace.com/mistressandcat

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Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat In The Press:

“Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat navigate the waters between cabaret and sadomasochistic pop candy.” – Greg Beets, Austin Chronicle

“When I saw Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat for the first time last summer at the Chain Drive, it was one of those right place, right time moments. The Mistress, with her jet-black bob and bustier, was Louise Brooks with Norma Desmond’s sense of dark comedy. She ignored, berated, and sung in perfect harmony with Her Melodic Cat, stage left with a guitar, baring ass cheek and wearing a half-interested sneer as their cabaret punk was thrown out with Weimar vitriol. I desperately wanted them to play a cover of The Doors’ “Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar),” which is actually a cover of a Kurt Weill song, which is appropriate, as some of the set was in German. And this was at a gay leather bar.” – Audra Schroeder, Austin Chronicle

“Mistress Stephanie succeeds in spicing everything-vaudeville, hard rock, holly-jolly-pop-with a dose of S&M.” – Dante, Austin.com

“They dress up in costume (Mistress Stephanie in lingerie, the guitarist/cat in cat ears) and play German Cabaret music. This, gentle readers, was spectacle… Definitely enjoyable in a very weird sort of way.” – Evil Sponge

“The local duo known as Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat takes Weimar-era cabaret and throws it down the velvet goldmine. The Cramps would be proud. There will be leather. There may be guns. You will submit.” – Audra Schroeder, Austin Chronicle

“The find of the night was Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat. They're a cross between Kraftwerk and Cabaret, which sounds weird, but works really well, especially in a live setting.” – Tim Trentham, Austin Metroblogs

Reigns deals in epic, daydream-dizzy atmospherics that send chills down the spine on debut album for Monotreme Records (65daysofstatic, Barzin).

“A treat of dirty surrealism and sumptuous coastal eccentricity.” – Plan B

“Sinister, yet sublime… Reigns are the soundtrack to inspiration. (4/5)” – Drowned In Sound

As with all Reigns recordings after listening please do not drive, exercise or operate heavy machinery.

Operatives A & B began recording for the Reigns organization in 2002. Their first album, We Lowered A Microphone Into The Ground, was a series of recordings made within a seemingly “bottomless” hole found upon the Somerset Downs. Their follow-up, Styne Vallis, was recorded in and around a submerged village that had been evacuated and strategically flooded in 1970 to make way for a new reservoir. The House On The Causeway is their third long player.

Between Black Ven and Golden Cap, a slim, man-made promontory of granite cobbles extends unnecessarily a half-mile out into the English Channel. Nothing of note lies at its end nor at any point along its length. This apparent futility has ensured that the causeway has, over the years, been excluded from all but the most painstaking of cartography. Even to the naked eye it seems to elude detection for the almost perpetual gathering of fog that seems to hover over its entire reach, and its brief moments out from under this oppressive vapor are instantly curtailed by the ravening attentions of the tides. Only the briefest window of opportunity arises to explore this altogether pointless finger of slimed and stinking rock.

It was during one of these rare moments that Reigns Operatives A & B came to record a perplexing audio phenomenon captured here on The House On The Causeway. It is said that the fog that so vigorously clings to the causeway has an inexplicable irregularity: that when it reaches a certain density, purportedly when light can no longer penetrate it, it emits a high pitched ringing similar to the onset of tinnitus. Apparently, it is this ringing that generates in the listener a temporary but profound befuddlement of the senses that has caused many an excursionist to wade, disorientated, into the sea.

Unfortunately, despite an abundance of fog, the Operatives heard nothing but the slow lapping of the glutinous, clotting water. Furthermore, due to the fog’s impenetrability and their vehicle’s inability to negotiate the cobbles, the Operatives tarried too long and were roughly ushered by the tide to the causeway’s furthest point. Stranded upon a raised and wooded tumulus they found themselves face to face with a most unexpected sight: a house; a house that had most assuredly not been visible from land. The house was unlocked and uninhabited, but in no way abandoned for its chambers were in a state of high expectancy, as if visitors had been, for a prolonged and industrious period, eagerly awaited. The Operatives, for want of anything better to do, entered the house and, for reasons that still seem to elude them, moved from room to room, taking photographs and recording the strange resonations that seemed to emanate from the walls.

They left the house almost two days later in a state of high distress and with the recordings you now have before you. It was only as they made their way back to the mainland and the house was out of sight that they were at last aware of an insistent high pitched ringing...

Artist: Reigns
Title: The House On The Causeway
Label: Monotreme Records
Release Date: March 17th, 2009

01. (Frontplate)
02. Bad Slate
03. Everything Beyond These Walls Has Been Razed (MP3)
04. Mirrors At Night
05. Crex, Crex, Crex
06. Vaulted
07. Mab Crease
08. Take It Down
09. Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen
10. The Black Cramp
11. (Endplate)

Tools and Hi-Res Photos:
www.fanaticpromotion.com/rosterdetails.php?indexkey=1438

On The Web:
www.reigns.net
www.myspace.com/reignsofwessex
www.monotremerecords.com
www.myspace.com/monotremerecords

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Reigns In The Press:
“Reigns describe their sound as ‘pastoral electronica,’ but it’s a whole lot more human based than that description lets on. ‘Corners & The Straights’ / ‘Recurring Attic Dream’ has one side that combines keys and strings in a semi gentle acoustic way that makes me think of the pastoral prog segments of Kevin Ayers’ Confessions of Dr. Dream. But instead of Nico’s voice rifling in through the hedges, what you hear is a loop of something sad and pre-literate. Very cool.” – The Wire

“Another masterpiece of eerie ambience and ghostly electronics… this record’s underlying majesty shines brilliantly. (8/10)”. – Rock Sound

“Now this is a real treasure chest, a glowing pastoral delight, and an album you must not miss out on…” – Organ Magazine

“Surely one of the most ‘complete’ albums I’ve come across this year…. Highly recommended. – Boomkat

“Really quite enchanting stuff.” – Rock-A-Rolla

“...a spellbinding mix of ethereal post-rock, combined with folk guitars, chiming glockenspiels, and fragile electronics, with spoken word and computer-manipulated vocals… This is a perfect winter album; engrossing and warm.” – White Noise Revisited

“Ultimately this is a highly intriguing concept for an album and strikingly the musical content is just as interesting, atmospheric and otherworldly throughout.” – Progressive Ears

“Exceptionally beautiful…The overall feeling is one of understated grandeur…Call this music folk, electronica, whatever you like – the fact of the matter is that there won’t be a better release of its kind all year, and that’s the opinion culled from many, many listens. If any of those envelopes prove me wrong, I shall publicly eat my words. Unless those ghosts take me first... (4.5 stars)” – Drowned In Sound

“[A] magnificent album … make sure to check this sublime release without delay. Beautiful music.” – Boomkat

“We Lowered A Microphone Into The Ground is a truly intriguing piece of work, so fragile and delicate it threatens to collapse at any time, but holds on with style. Reigns’ music feeds on dreams and illusions, and trying to rationalize it is pointless. This established, the bottomless hole becomes once again a very attractive reality. (4.6/5)” – The Milk Factory

“A brilliant debut single.” – Penny Black Music

Bruce La Bruce helmed gay zombie flick Otto; Or, Up With Dead People to be released on DVD next month following MOMA debut and national run.

Film’s co-star Gio Black Peter appears on cover of Italy’s HOT, requests remixes of title track from new It’s F**ked Up EP.

Download tracks from the Otto soundtrack, Black Peter Group EP, new Black Peter Group remixes and remix-ready acappella track now.

Canadian director Bruce LaBruce, the man behind such gay-themed, controversial films as Hustler White and The Raspberry Reich recently premiered his latest and most accomplished film to date, Otto; Or Up With Dead People (TRAILER) at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art in October, 2008. Obviously, John Waters was in attendance.

The film is a brand new, exceptional addition to the zombie genre that renounces the most obvious clichés, with LaBruce letting his protagonist – gay punk zombie Otto – ramble and roam the streets of Berlin until he finds himself cast for a low budget flick. Wrapping up a traveling nationwide theatrical run this month, Otto will make its debut on DVD in February.

While watching the film, music fans will notice more than 50 international tracks and sounds! After careful selection, Berlin-based label Crippled Dick Hot Wax presents the movie’s official soundtrack (featuring 14 tracks and available on CD or 2XLP), taking us on a truly crazy acoustic rollercoaster ride. Despite the artists glaring differences, the result is a surprisingly coherent, compact and homogeneous compilation.

Weaving classical, electronic, drone, avant-garde, pop and punk/disco into a well-balanced whole, the soundtrack introduces cinema and music lovers alike to the weirdly wonderful world of Bruce LaBruce.

Download two tracks from the Otto soundtrack below and click HERE for the rest of Bruce LaBruce’s story behind the music of Otto!

One musician that does not appear on the Otto soundtrack, but does appear in the film itself is co-star Gio Black Peter who plays the role of Otto’s boyfriend, Rudolph. Gio’s New York and London based band, Black Peter Group recently released its debut, the It’s F**ked Up! EP. Co-written and produced by Andrew “Friendly” Kornweibel, It’s F**ked Up! is a cornucopia of sonic delights, taking in influences from electro, rock, punk, rockabilly, country and funk. The EP features the addictive title track with its frenetic accompanying video (MP3 VIDEO) and “Goody Two Shoes” (MP3), a cover of the Adam Ant 50’s-inspired rockabilly pop tune, which suits Gio’s distinctive vocal perfectly.

Now, to celebrate the release of the EP and Gio Black Peter’s recent appearance on the cover of Italian magazine HOT (sporting a black eye thanks to an unfortunate encounter on the streets of Manhattan), Black Peter Group and Gulp Communications invite fans and producers alike to submit their own “It’s F*ked Up” remixes. Download Gio’s acappella vocal track HERE as well as two recently submitted interpretations of the track. When you’re finished, be sure to send your remix to mailto:mostlyfriendly@googlemail.com.

The Black Peter Group has been around the globe in 2008 with its “Flesh Show” tour – see a YouTube short documenting this HERE. From New York’s infamous Ruff Club, Miss Shapes, and Kill Whitey parties to London’s notorious All You Can Eat, Nuke Them All, Trailer Trash and Collapsing New People parties. In addition to Gio’s acting and music, the artist is an accomplished painter and philanthropist, as well. Best known for works produced on NYC subway maps (LINK), Gio’s paintings are currently being shown in Norway and Berlin with a show in NYC planned for the near future.

Gio also recently had the honor of participating in NOBODY WA S THIRSTY, a collaborative project created by Australian denim label NOBODY and Ivan Kane’s CAFE WA S in association with charity: water (LINK) with the goal of bringing clean water to the children of Africa. At the moment 4,500 children die every day due to the lack of clean water. Each NOBODY WAS S THIRSTY tee-shirt sold gives two African children clean water for 20 years. For more info and/or to purchase a NOBODY WA S THIRSTY tee-shirt, visit http://www.nobody.com.au/.

For additional info about the Black Peter Group, read an in-depth interview with Gio Black Peter at the East Village Boys website HERE. Black Peter Group has been featured in I.D. Magazine, Super Super Magazine, K48 Magazine, Pavement Magazine, Cake Magazine, TETU Magazine, BUTT, and Zoo. Download a full packet of Gio Black Peter press clippings HERE.

Artist: Various Artists
Title: Otto: Or, Up With Dead People Soundtrack
Label: Crippled Dick Hot Wax

01. Mikael Karlsson - Descent
02. Jean-Louis Huhta – Halfway Between The World And Death
03. 4th Sign Of The Apocalypse – Ascending The River
04. All My Friends – Theme From All My Friends
05. Pandas Of Black Metal – Kill Your Gods
06. Misty Roses – Mario And Dario
07. The Living Dead Boys – Discohell
08. No Bra – Doherfucker (MP3)
09. Brittle Stars – On The Cusp Of Infinity
10. Eyes And Teeth – Sonicize
11. Othon with Ernesto Tomasini – Metalipsis
12. La Jovenc – Going Home
13. Ultra Milkmaids + V – Load
14. The Homophones – Everyone’s Dead (MP3)

Artist: Black Peter Group
Title: Its F**cked Up EP
Label: Gulp Communications

01. Goody Two Shoes (MP3)
02. Its F**ked Up (MP3 VIDEO)
03. Kamakaze Kid
04. Its F**ked Up (12” Version)
05. Its F**ked Up (Humpday Project Remix)

Additional Remixes and Acappella Track:
01. Black Peter Group - It's Fuckt Up (The Johnnpluse Skinny Jeans Feck Off Mix) (MP3)
02. Black Peter Group vs. Mr. Oizo - This LFO Is Positifely Fucked Up (Tvyks Remix) (MP3)
03. Black Peter Group - It's Fucked Up (Accapella) (MP3)

“It’s F**ked Up” Hi-Res Video Embed Code:


Tools & Hi–Res Photos:
Otto: www.fanaticpromotion.com/rosterdetails.php?indexkey=1446
BPG: www.fanaticpromotion.com/rosterdetails.php?indexkey=1431

On The Web:
www.ottothezombie.de
www.myspace.com/brucelabruce
www.crippled.de
www.myspace.com/crippleddickhotwax
www.gioblackpeter.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/blackpetergroup
www.myspace.com/friendlybits
www.myspace.com/gulpcommunications

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