2022: A Year In Fuzz

That’s another year down, and what a wild one it’s been! 2022 marked the tenth anniversary of Fuzz Club and it brought with it a tonne of amazing records from our artists and plenty of new additions to the label family. In spite of the challenges faced, it's been a great year for the label and we’re really proud of all the artists we got to work with across the 31 (!!) releases we put out.

However, to say it’s been a tough year for the independent music community would be something of an understatement. A world already on its knees in the wake of the pandemic met (as appears to be an annual tradition these days) with a whole new wave of compounding geopolitical, economic and environmental crises, all with knock-on effects for the music industry.

For independent labels, record stores, and artists like ours: the cost of vinyl increased on account of energy prices and raw material shortages; turnaround times continued to grow to ridiculous lengths with frequent delays along the way; the convoluted nightmare of international shipping post-Brexit worsened abroad and at home, with even greater backlogs and delays on top of a wave of strike action by UK postal workers in recent months (solidarity to all of those striking right now!). Not to mention the spiralling cost-of-living crisis and its understandable impact on record and ticket sales against a backdrop of soaring bills and declining wages.

It’s a tough and uncertain time for everyone right now so we’re super grateful for all of those who have supported the label and our artists in any way – not just this year but over the course of the last decade. We wouldn't still be doing it without you. 

You can read all about this year’s releases and stream our official end-of-year playlist below.

Thanks for everything, we’ll see you in 2023 👋

Casper, Jack & Mathieu

In January 2022 we kicked things off with a bang, announcing [finally!] that the mighty Jesus and Mary Chain had signed to Fuzz Club, a band whose pioneering noise-pop belligerence paved the way for all we love here at FC. With a new album in the works, we started proceedings this year with deluxe reissues of the Mary Chain’s latest album ‘Damage And Joy’ and their ‘Psychocandy’ live album, ‘Live At Barrowland'.

January also saw a Fuzz Club Session LP from Mexican post-punk band Sei Still, the King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard ‘Live In Melbourne’ bootleg and a Flying Moon In Space remix EP, featuring remixes by A Place To Bury Strangers, Minami Deutsch, Suuns, Xiu Xiu and more. Later in the Summer, Flying Moon In Space would also release their second full-length ‘ZWEI’, which saw their experimental psych-pop hedonism heading in a more poppy direction.

Then came the ‘Ease’ double LP from Leipzig producer/composer Warm Graves, the debut album ‘Dead Awake’ from London shoegaze/post-punk trio Black Doldrums (the 'Dreamcatcher' track later remixed by The KVB) and Ashinoa's ritualistic electronics on their debut, ‘L’Orée’. Veik would also draft in Vanishing Twin for a remix of their single ‘Honesty (I Don’t Wanna Know)’ and Ukrainian krautrock bank Sherpa The Tiger released their expansive second album ‘Ithkuil’.

Summer was a big one! Canadian psych-pop artist Tess Parks joined the Fuzz Club family for the release of her long-awaited and critically acclaimed second album ‘And Those Who Were Seen Dancing’. It was Parks’ first solo record in nearly a decade, following on from 2013’s ‘Blood Hot’ and her subsequent collaborations with Brian Jonestown Massacre / Anton Newcombe. Night Beats’ Danny Lee Blackwell then returned with the ‘Live at Valentine’ LP – a live album released as part of this year’s Record Store Day, with tracks from ‘Outlaw R&B’, ‘Who Sold My Generation’, ‘Sonic Bloom’ and ‘H-Bomb’ performed with a band at LA's Valentine Recording Studios. 

Los Angeles electronic producer/DJ Al Lover also signed to Fuzz Club and dropped ‘Cosmic Joke’, a 13-track collection of mind-expanding psychedelic dub. Following its release, Peaking Lights would serve up a blissfully spaced-out remix of the title track. Later in the Summer, post-Lumerians ‘kosmische tropicale’ project Wet Satin released their self-titled debut album, Helsinki garage-rockers Black Lizard unleashed their fourth album ‘Heads’ and Southampton neo-psych outfit Dead Rabbits took us to ‘A Different Place’ on their first album in nearly six years.

2022 also saw the launch of a new Fuzz Club imprint in partnership with our mates at Bad Vibrations, the London promoters responsible for some of the best shows in the capital as well as the new Wide Awake festival. The first release on Bad Vibrations Records came in April in the shape of ‘Beware Believers’, the second album from London punk/noise-rock heavyweights Crows. Dark, cathartic and abrasive, it captured the sound of a band hardened by years of notoriously rowdy live shows.

Also released on the Bad Vibes label this year was Luton trio Regressive Left, who traded in sardonic, politically-charged dance-punk on their debut EP ‘On The Wrong Side of History’, and French post-punk/no wave upstarts Unschooling, who released the ‘Shopping On The Left Bank’ single and vinyl reissues of their ‘Random Acts of Total Control’ and ‘Defensive Designs’ EPs. Brisbane psych-pop artist Baby Cool (aka Nice Biscuits co-frontwoman Grace Cuell) would also sign to the imprint and revealed her sublime debut single ‘Magic’.

Late September saw Fuzz Club team up with Brooklyn, NY post-punk/synth pop duo The Vacant Lots again for the release their fourth album ‘Closure’, packing 8 minimal is maximal salvos into a 23 minutes stun-blast soundtrack for today’s shattered society. The following month, fellow New Yorker Breanna Barbara joined the fam and released her amazing second album ‘Nothin’ But Time’, a raw and immersive trip through the sounds of psychedelic rock and blues anchored by her powerful vocals and unforgettable songwriting.

At the end of November new Fuzz Club recruits Los Palms released ‘Skeleton Ranch’, the Adelaide, Australia garage-rock band’s debut album and the perfect introduction to their “desert jangle” sound. And then, over December, our final releases of the year arrived in the shape of a discography-spanning Fuzz Club Session from Berlin psychedelic post-punk band The Third Sound (led by BJM guitarist Hákon Aðalsteinsson), and a mono bootleg of King Gizzard’s ‘Polygondwanaland’ album. 31 releases later and that was a wrap!

As well as all of these records actually released through Fuzz Club and the Bad Vibrations imprint, throughout the year we were also stoked to team up with some of our favourite labels and artists to bring you Fuzz Club store exclusive vinyl editions of new albums from Psychic Ills, The Black Angels, Slift, The Soft Moon, Fuzz, Moon Duo, Night Beats, Babe Rainbow, La Femme, Mint Field, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Hooveriii and Elephant Stone.

As you can see from the calibre of releases listed here, it’s been a great year for Fuzz Club and here's to the next! We can’t wait to share what we’re cooking up for 2023, with releases already announced and up for pre-order from from NYC punk institution The Men, the return of Throw Down Bones, Baby Cool and 6 new King Gizzard bootlegs! And that’s just the start…

If anything slipped under your radar then you can browse and pick up all of this year's records here. And if you’ve found yourself digging a lot of what we’ve been putting out as of late then consider signing up for our Fuzz Club Membership subscription to receive a limited/exclusive new record a month, store-wide discounts, free shipping and exclusive members-only sales.