The Fat Angel Sings

It’s been two decades since bluesman Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart stopped making records — but that hasn’t left dedicated fans empty-handed. Although every effort is made to convince consumers that Dust Sucker is the authorized release of Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band’s “lost” version of Bat Chain Puller, it is not. Likewise, the remaining seven tracks can be traced from various spurious releases. The full story of Captain Beefheart’s ill-fated “Bat Chain Puller” – potentially his greatest musical statement after “Trout Mask Replica“.

Several excellent archival releases have filled the gap, including the recent live set “I’m Going to Do What I Wanna Do” and “Grow Fins“, a huge five-CD box of unreleased fare.

Here’s another essential recording for the faithful from 2002 “Dust Sucker”, a set of long-lost studio tracks from 1975 and ’76. Originally recorded for release as “Bat Chain Puller“, these tapes ended up buried in a barrage of lawsuits, though similar-sounding new versions turned up on 1978’s aptly titled “Shiny Beast” (“Bat Chain Puller”) and later Beefheart albums.  This is The very Magic Band, running with inspiration as its fuel. By the time the legit “Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)” was issued some three years later and after several multi-million dollar lawsuits were settled, the songs had become notably tempered. “Dust Sucker” also includes the spoken word piece “Seam Crooked Sam,” which may have similar origins as “Sam with a Showing Scalp Flat-Top” — which surfaced around the same time and can be heard on the Frank Zappa collaboration “Bongo Fury“.

Finally hearing the original articles on this supposedly authorized (but bootleg-quality) release — augmented by a septet of live cuts from the same era is the equivalent of reading the first draft of a novel by one of your favourite writers: Technically, it may be a little rough around the edges at times, but the historical value and sheer creative energy on display more than make up for it. 

“Dust Sucker” probabaly isn’t the place to start your Captain Beefheart collection, but it is an indispensable addition to the catalogue of one of rock’s true innovators.

Hailing from Melbourne, 60’s tinged psych-rock punks The Murlocs release their brand new studio album, “Rapscallion”, on ATO Records. Strapped with fuzzy guitar licks, feverish bass and psychedelic brightness, the 12-track collection is a coming-of-age novel in an album form. The wildly squalid odyssey populated by an outrageous cast of misfit characters — teenage vagabonds and small-time criminals, junkyard dwellers and truck-stop transients — is partly inspired by frontman Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s own adolescence as a nomadic skate kid. Their most magnificently heavy work yet, the result is an endlessly enthralling album equally steeped in danger and delirium and the wide-eyed romanticism of youth.

“After a long day of truck stop fights, hitchhiking and getting kicked off trains, our beloved rapscallion protagonist decides to spend the night in an abandoned junkyard,” says Murlocs frontman Ambrose Kenny-Smith. “Finding peace within the garbage that surrounds him, he begins to question his purpose in life and whether or not he’s in control of his own mind.” The Murlocs’ Rapscallion LP is out September 16th via ATO Records.

The Murlocs Released16/09/22 through ATO Records

Grazer began life in a bare-brick basement in Melbourne, crafting propulsive dream-pop singles while recording vocals in an open wardrobe draped in blankets. But the band’s origins extend much further back, starting with bassist Mollie Wilson moving next door to bassist Matthew Spiller at age eight. Tethered by shared tastes in books and music while growing up in the rural New South Wales village of Uki, the pair became best friends and eventually romantic and creative partners.

You can hear that close bond in Grazer’s music, which entwines Wilson and Spiller’s vocals and artistic sensibilities alike. Their self-recorded songs also often arrive accompanied by videos that the pair make themselves. As painters who have also dabbled in photography and poetry, the two work incredibly well together, whether it’s making music, writing lyrics or filming and editing those videos.

“It’s all part of the same end,” Spiller tells us of that collaborative relationship across mediums. After enlisting friends to help make the Andy Warhol-inspired video for Grazer’s 2020 debut single ‘Fever Dream’, in which Wilson gets her hair cut in real time, the couple have since taught themselves how to do it all on their own. The same is basically true of their music, though NSW-based producer Rob Wolfe has mixed all of their self-produced material so far. “We’re quite fast people, and we do things quickly,” says Wilson. “I think when we delegate, we get impatient.” Spiller agrees: “What stops a lot of creatives is that they don’t know when to pull the trigger and get it out there.” Wilson adds: “There’s always much more to do. I don’t even know that we do that much.”

Grazer’s activity has certainly felt like a lot, especially when many bands were languishing during lockdown. Though their live performances were curtailed by COVID’s initial wave, Wilson and Spiller simply retreated to that makeshift basement studio and began releasing single after single of gorgeous, gauzy pop. It didn’t really matter that they couldn’t play to in-the-room audiences, because their songs found listeners around the world thanks to streaming: Their chiming 2021 single ‘Nostalgia Seed’ boasts more than 300,000 streams on Spotify alone.

Now with a firm five-person line-up and a strong debut album in ‘Melancholics Anonymous’ – not to mention a spot on the NME 100 2022 – Grazer are finally ready to take their intimately conceived sound on the road. “[Grazer has] always been a band, from the very beginning,” notes Wilson of their full line-up, rounded out by Thomas Lee (guitarist), Thomas McMullin (drummer) and Sam Knight (synth). “But in terms of how it’s been recorded and written, [the two of us have] had creative control. 

Signed to Los Angeles/New York label Cascine (also home to Banoffee and Yumi Zouma), the band cite the influence of soft-focus US bands like DIIV, Beach Fossils and Launder while continually circling back to the touchstone of Joy Division’s 1979 classic ‘Unknown Pleasures’. The pair points to that album’s unlikely combination of dark lyrics and resilient bass lines, which Wilson describes as creating “a depth to the music, but then a guiding light out of it”.

The band: Matthew Spiller, Mollie Wilson, Thomas McMullin, Thomas Lee

Grazer’s ‘Melancholics Anonymous’ is out August 12th on Cascine Records. 

Toronto’s Tallies have been perfecting their own shimmery, jangly take on ’80s and ’90s dream-pop”

Tallies have been honing their shimmering brand of dreampop for the last five years, drawing from a very specific place and time — I put it at England from 1987 to 1991 — when 4AD and Creation were the among the coolest labels around, and dorm rooms walls were decorated with posters of The Smiths, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, and The Stone Roses. Tallies proudly still have those posters on their walls and they aren’t shy about those influences (see below), but they’ve grown as songwriters, performers and arrangers, and use these shimmering sonic touchstones to their own means. Their just-released second album “Patina” is terrific, and you can listen to that below.

Tallies singer Sarah Cogan says the influences behind the album, which include The Sugarcubes, Saint Etienne, Ride, Cocteau Twins, The Sundays and more.

released July 29th, 2022

Courtney Barnett‘s massive summer continues with the announcement of a new compilation, to accompany her traveling Here and There festival. “Here And There: B-Sides, Live Tracks + Demos” features artists joining Courtney on the road this summer, and will be released on a limited run of 600 cassette tapes, with all funds raised benefiting the National Network of Abortion Funds and Advocates for Youth. 

Artists featured on “Here And There” include Julia Jacklin, Bedouine, The Beths, Faye Webster, Sleater-Kinney, Caroline Rose, Hana Vu, and Courtney herself. She’s shared her contribution, a demo of “If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight” off her most recent album “Things Take Time, Take Time”. 

releases August 19th, 2022

Dream shoegazer Winter (aka Samara Winter) has announced a new LP, “What Kind of Blue Are You?”, due October 14th via Bar/None Records. (It’s her first since 2020’s Endless Space.) The album was recorded and produced by Winter herself in collaboration with producer Joo Joo Ashworth at Studio 22 in Los Angeles, of which she says, “I felt like I was making music in a dark cave with an old friend and no one else existed.” She continues, “I feel like I’ve come full circle, making an album that my 22-year-old self who just started Winter would love. It’s my inner shadow girl, revealing herself in all her brokenness, despair and beauty.”

Winter has also shared new single “Atonement.” It’s infectiously cool and slightly grungy, with an awesome feature by Hatchie Harriette Pilbeam and Joe Agius. “Every time I hear this song a new version of the story plays out in my head – an escape, a mystery, a forbidden love,” Winter Says. “By the time it reaches full climax there is a big reveal – the secret is out, the we discover who committed the crime, the two lovers find each other.” Check out the retro, Matrix-looking music video for “atonement” below, plus the artwork and tracklist for “What Kind of Blue Are You?”.

Winter are to join Hatchie as a bandmate and opening act on a tour of Australia, and she’ll play a host of just-announced North American dates with Peel Dream Magazine.