Brighton Quartet School Disco Bring Psychedelic Prog Vibrancy On New Album SDIV via Krautpop!

Brighton’s genre-defying quartet School Disco have released their striking new album, SDIV, on the Krautpop! label, marking the band’s most ambitious and expansive work to date.

A brooding and hypnotic journey across seven tracks, SDIV captures the band’s unique fusion of progressive rock, psychedelic textures, and krautrock experimentation. Known for their high-octane live shows across the UK and Europe, School Disco translate their stage energy into a texturally rich recording that’s as immersive as it is intense.

Recorded primarily live at Farm Road Studios, with engineering by Jake Smallwood alongside vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Rory Lethbridge, and mastered by Harry Hayes (who has previously worked with School Disco and Roebucks), the album leans into raw performance while layering inventive sonic textures. Minimal overdubs allow the natural musical flow to shine through, resulting in a sound that is simultaneously meditative, dark, and tender a departure from previous records.

The album draws inspiration from a wide spectrum of influences, from the heavy riffing of Black Sabbath and the experimental rhythms of CAN, to the sprawling atmospherics of sci-fi and horror soundscapes. Its distant vocals, extended psychedelic jams, fuzz-heavy guitars, and dappled electronics create a kaleidoscopic listening experience. At times reminiscent of Meddle-era Pink Floyd, yet equally aligned with the modern psych-rock of Psychedelic Porn Crumpets and the complexity of King Crimson, SDIV demonstrates the band’s restless creativity and musical versatility.

The band explains:

“We always want to step up the quality of our recording work, and as a live band that played a lot in support of our last album, Denton Rock, it was hard to figure out what direction to go in with the extended jams we had been playing. We decided to just record quickly what we had with an experienced engineer focusing on the performances but not dwelling on it too hard. We feel like we now have an album that has a solid live performance at its base but with interesting textures, sounds, synths, and production built on top of it, which helped us build some of the most expressive and textural work to date.”

The release comes on the back of strong support from tastemaker outlets including BBC Radio 6 Music (New Music Fix), Radio X (X-Posure) and caross music press. Their reputation has been further cemented by sharing stages with Wolf Alice, Froth, Lime Garden, Population II, Bo Ningen, Dr. Feelgood, and Frankie and the Witch Fingers, solidifying School Disco as one of Brighton’s most compelling underground acts.

With SDIV, School Disco continue to push the boundaries of psychedelic and progressive rock, delivering an album that is both texturally adventurous and deeply grounded in the live energy that has made them a cult favourite.