This is exciting sound. Dublin four-piece Sprints continue their burst out of the starter blocks with their debut EP, ’Manifesto’. Produced by Girl Band’s Daniel Fox, it is a thrilling ride that more than lives up to the band’s name and threatens to rip up the new punk landscape once again.
The more the opening track ‘Drones’ builds and builds in rage and self-doubt, the more it is inescapable. Packed full of interesting textures, the Girl Band influence is strong with clangs and yes, drones dropped in throughout but that is to take nothing away from Sprints themselves. “You’re getting better and I’m getting bitter” spits Karla Chubb from the depths of imposter syndrome. Pumped up and bristling with rage at a world where pleasure pursuits are prioritised for funding over critical social issues, ‘Swimming’ flirts with IDLES’ thunderstorm style before soaring off in a different direction while the previously unheard ‘Ashley’ roars along an untethered Marmozets. It’s a thrilling, exciting glimpse into the future.
Every time it feels like saturation point has been reached within the scene, someone new comes along to tear all that up. Sure, we’ve heard three-quarters of this EP already but when you slot it together like this, Sprints feel like they could very well be the next band that reshapes the landscape.
Last year was certainly busy for the singing sensation James Vincent McMorrow, having already collaborated with Kygo on his single “I’m In Love”, had his music been streamed over 100 million times and had his cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” used on the trailer for hit HBO series Game Of Thrones.
The Irish musician’s career first started whilst working in partnership with fellow talent Aisling Fagan before striking out as a solo artist.
His first album Early In The Morning was released in 2011 and drew comparisons with Bon Ivor for both its style and the recording techniques implemented in its making. He also made an appearance on Later… With Jools Holland in the same year.
McMorrow drew on wider inspiration for his second album Post Tropical which moved in more of a soulful direction. The 2014 record was influenced by hip hop beats rather than indie folk and made use of electronic instruments and drum machines. It included the songs Glacier and Cavalier.
The expansion into new sounds certainly went down well with audiences and critics as it shot to #2 in the Irish Album Charts, #3 in the UK Independent Album Charts and won him the Choice Music Prize. He also played to sold out shows across the world while promoting the album.
This last year has been a massive lesson in patience for all of us. I had this album finished last year and then the world stopped and I had to stop. Then I wrote ‘Waiting.’ It’s a song about feeling sorry for myself, and then going home and talking to the one person in my life who understands just how awkward a fit all of this is for me, and who loves me for the actual human I am and not what I curate in order to feel like the person I need to be.
‘Grapefruit Season’ is about embracing the idea nothing makes sense. Music isn’t some holy grail to a greater meaning, it’s supposed to remove you from where you are for a moment and take you somewhere else. And I believe/hope I have done it well with this album.
Los Angeles-based quartet Milly have shared their second EP via Dangerbird Records, following their 2019 debut “Our First Four Songs”, whichwas hailed as one of that year’s best EPs. “Wish Goes On’s” five tracks include October 2020’s Star Thistle Blossom and February 2021’s “Denial.” Milly make gauzy slowcore that vacillates between guitar-rock crunch and emotive dream pop, and on Wish Goes On, they do with it a noticeable new cohesion, as principal songwriter and guitarist Brendan Dyer is now joined by Spencer Light on guitar, Yarden Erez on bass and Zach Capitti Fenton on drums. Their new songs reckon with change, assuming perspectives both collective (“Star Spangled Banner”) and individual (“Denial”), and changing themselves, shifting instrumental gears with newfound fluidity. Ultimately, Wish Goes On is about finding a flicker of hope to light the way, like when Dyer sings on the EP’s closer, “When her birds fly free / This life goes on / Could it be all you want?”
Milly is a rock band from Los Angeles fronted by songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Brendan Dyer. Their sound melds together elements of classic shoegaze, slowcore, and lo-fi indie rock, coalescing into an intense, singular musical impression. Milly began as Dyer’s home recording project in his hometown of Bristol, Connecticut before finally taking its current formation as a live band in Los Angeles.
TRACKLISTING:
1. Star Spangled Banner 2. Denial 3. Star Thistle Blossom 4. Teach Old Dogs New Tricks 5. Birds Fly Free
As if the ever evolving style and sprawling narratives of Creeper didn’t already keep him busy enough, Will Gould reacted to last year’s initial lockdown by delving into the archives to complete the debut ep from his side project Salem.
Now the second chapter in the Salem story emerges from the underworld with the news that they’ll release their new ep ‘Salem II’ on May 7th and now share the first taste of the ep in the shape of the new single ‘Draculads’.
‘Draculads’ opens with the kind of larger-than-life b-movie horror love letter that can only come from Gould’s poison pen: “maybe the blood of jesus christ is laced upon your lips / i get a little closer to god and too drunk each time we kiss.” it sets the tone for a blitzkrieg rush of melodic punk and raucous rock ‘n’ roll that only stops for breath for the song’s cabaret croon breakdown. elsewhere, the EP builds upon the style that Salem established with their debut. from the tongue-in-cheek reference to the Smiths on the opening track ‘William“, it was really something’ to the closing ‘Heaven Help Me’, Salem play it fast, frenetic and fun. as with the best old school punk eps, ‘Salem II’ is an escapist rush of attention that commands your attention for 15 minutes before it’s time to drop the needle back to the start.
Expected release: 7th may 2021 On Roadrunner Records
Hailing from Scotland, DreamKids is a husband and wife duo which has just fully introduced themselves to the world with a self-titled EP. It is a release which quickly courted attention and a wish to know more, both we can only see being richly satisfied ahead going by the potential and already potent enterprise the release offers.
Kilmarnock’s DreamKids is the creation of Dawn and Murray Baxter and springs a sound described as dream pop emo but soon proves within the EP as a far richer and intense fusion of sound and flavours. It has a raw edge bred of grunge meets noise rock essences and a fiery glaze which is indie/alternative rock nurtured not ignoring a more post punk seeded chill factor to its tempestuous drama. With Kieran Robertson providing bass for the release, it is an encounter which can be an infectious manipulation or an emotively intense trespass, at times a merger of the two.
Recorded at Chem 19 with Jamie Savage (Twilight Sad, King Creosote, Miaoux Miaoux), the EP opens up with “Only God Knows If My God Is Real“, a song “inspired by the bush fires in Australia and the way the human race does not preserve the world the way it should, while also referencing how people lean on “God” in times of crisis without believing in any God.” Immediately a surge of guitar courses through ears, its riffs instantly infectious but with a snarl which is matched in directness by the rapier swing of rhythms and the earnest power in Dawn’s voice. The infectiousness of the song though is as hungry as the rawer textures around it, the song a volatile almost clamorous slice of indie pop and a striking start to the release.
The equally compelling “Stay Safe With Me” tempts with a gentler coaxing next, a guitar melody courting the senses as again Dawn’s vocals provide a potent temptation. The inherent catchiness the song bears is in full swing within its lively chorus though again throughout the track there is an air of tempestuousness which enriches the drama before “I C U” erupts with punk rock confrontation and alt rock ferocity. With lyrical themes across the EP exploring the likes of the painful truth of life, lost relationships, global crises and addiction, each track has intensity seeded in its heart. That is in turn ignited by the sounds the pair not so much conjure as unleash and as here it makes for a stirring proposition.
Child calmly but evocatively entices ears next, rhythms soon adding more volatile dynamics before it all boils up into an intense but skilfully controlled unrest. The instrumental never quite turns to a storm and that just adds to the provocative edge of the turbulence stirring the imagination before “Mother” brings the EP to a fine close with a compelling seduction of tumultuous balladry and equally explosive creative drama.
As with all songs, the unpredictable nature of the songwriting is as enticing as the mercurial and impassioned sounds which surge and often rage through ears, the EP closer epitomising the impressive qualities making DreamKids, the band and EP, easy to suggest all go explore for themselves.
Available for the first time, the full length concert at the Channel in Boston on 7/19/88. Package includes, OBI strip, Gatefold jacket and special printed inner sleeves with photos from the concert at The Channel in Boston.
Recorded at the Channel in Boston on his 1988 “Instinct” tour, Iggy Pop had cranked it back up again for this LP and concert trek, after cutting a relatively mellow previous album with David Bowie. For Instinct, Iggy Pop, recognized as bona fide Godfather of Punk since his days with The Stooges, decided to move deep into hard rock and metal. For the trip, Pop brought along Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and producer Bill Laswell (whose studio work ranged from Nona Hendryx to Johnny Lydon and Public Image).
Featuring the most radio friendly metal heard in a long time, Instinct was the record A&M Records, his label, thought would exploit the momentum built with 1987’s Blah Blah Blah, his acclaimed comeback record and collaboration with Bowie (who had enjoyed huge success with the Bowie/Pop co-authored hit, “China Girl.”) Iggy Pop and David Bowie’s relationship had gone back many years. Iggy (whose real name is James Osterberg) was even busted once with Bowie for drug possession in Rochester, N.Y., while they traveled together on Bowie’s Station to Station tour in 1976. Bowie has often mentioned the profound influence Iggy has had on him, even going as far as to write “Jean Genie” as a tribute.
While Bowie was just making his start in the music business in the late-1960s, Iggy was making rock ‘n’ roll headlines for himself by smashing broken glass into his chest and bleeding profusely onstage with his band, The Stooges. By 1972, Iggy and The Stooges, and their form of primitive punk, were close to collapse, when Bowie, now enjoying a period of commercial and critical prosperity, decided to help out. He brought the wildly unpredictable Mr. Pop to the attention of his then manager, Tony DeFries and his Mainman Organization. Although Mainman had done wonders for Bowie (the two would later split in a bitter dispute), they had no idea what to do with this spunky Detroit kid who seemed the greatest outrage rock had ever seen.
“It was a real nightmare; a real mess,” says Pop of his association with Mainman, “though that had nothing to do with David.” Bowie, and his guitarist Mick Ronson, helped Pop and a new version of The Stooges record a now classic rock LP called Raw Power. With its razor sharp guitar riffs and pulsating rhythms, it was not only The Stooges finest effort, but also their swansong.
“I loved that album, but Mainman didn’t and I had to fight real hard just to get it out. It was not the kind of record a Mainman artist should put out, so they kind of were determined to bury me fairly early on. I got involved with them because I desperately needed someone to back a Stooges project and it didn’t look like anyone was going to be nuts enough to do so,” says Pop, breaking into a laugh. “They had been hoping to pick up this colourful American artist and re-package me into their image, which was sort of a sophisticated Euro-New York thing. They weren’t sophisticated at all; they were just a bunch of superficial, silly people.”
It took years for Pop to settle with Mainman and gain some artistic freedom. In 1977, Bowie and Pop reunited and began working together in Berlin. The two of them collaborated on each other’s albums and Bowie got Pop a deal with RCA, with whom he produced his two subsequent albums. One of those contained the original version of “China Girl,” a song which, in 1983, would become Bowie’s biggest hit. Bowie even toured as keyboard player for Pop during his ’77 tour, of which a recording is available at the Wolfgang’s.
By the early 1980s, Pop had hit rock bottom. Years of abuse had taken its toll on his health, his personal life was in disarray, and professionally he was being buried in a mess of legal and financial problems. It was then that Iggy Pop decided it was time to grow up. “Right around that time things were bottoming out. I was forced to come to grips with how unhappy I had become and how near I was to being programmed into one of those people I had always despised. I was becoming one more cliche. I was determined that I had to change, and I began to take steps to do so. Sometimes you get in a rut and sometimes you get out. I got out.”
After cleaning himself up, Pop dropped out of music for a while and began taking acting lessons. The road that followed was not an easy one, but it did teach him self-discipline and responsibility. “I learned how to stand in line at the bank and how to keep the landlady happy. I learned to vacuum the house and take the garbage out. All stuff that I never use to do. I used to think that was not what an artist did, but it is what an artist does if he wants to keep his feet on the ground.”
Bowie again intervened, and helped get Pop signed to A&M. For Instinct, he moved over to collaborate with Jones. This show, recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour, also features a healthy dose of songs from his Iggy and The Stooges period, including “1969,” “Search and Destroy” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”
Iggy Pop – vocals, guitar; Seamus Beachen – keyboards; Alvin Gibbs – bass; Paul Garisto – drums; Andy McCoy – guitar
Available Saturday, June 12th at your local record store! Strictly Limited Edition: 5,000 Copies Worldwide
Cult of Dom Keller have today announced their fifth album “They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O.” and shared the first single, ‘Last King of Hell’.
Cult of Dom Keller will release their fifth album, “They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O”, on May 21st via Fuzz Club Records. Since 2007 the British band have been leaving a trail of sonic fever dreams, dark psychedelia and experimentalism that beats with a heavy industrial heart and the forthcoming LP sees them conjuring their heaviest and most adventurous work to date.
Since 2007 the UK group have been leaving a trail of sonic fever dreams, dark psychedelia and experimentalism that beats with a heavy industrial heart. Talking about the track, they said “The Last King of Hell is a big, big track. What begins with almost a Western sci-fi vibe builds over 7 minutes into a monster of sound. Lyrically it’s about a protagonist who – no matter how hard he tries, and how in harmony he thinks he is with the world – fails to see that he is actually part of the problem. As the track builds and spirals out of control so does our protagonist. Singles shouldn’t be 7-minutes long but who gives a sh*t when it ain’t gonna be played on the radio anyway.”
They’re probably not wrong in that line of thinking, but that makes the track no less enchanting, with a motorik beat driving from the core with organised chaos reigning elsewhere.
We’re thrilled to announce that Cult of Dom Keller are back with their fourth album, ‘They Carried The Dead In A UFO’ – due for release May 21st on Fuzz Club
“We managed to create our most experimental and exciting album to date without being in the same room together. U.F.O. was recorded, mixed and produced by ourselves, meaning we had total control over every noise on the record. This was the exact record we wanted to make: Experimental and playful; moments of light and pure dark… we wanted to f*ck with the listener and pull them in with moments of beauty and chaos. We hope you enjoy the trip!”
The new album ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’, is released May 21st via Fuzz Club Records. Promo video created by Jason Holt
Katie Frank has been writing songs since she was 15 years old. But, crumbling under the all-too-familiar generational pressure, the small-town Pennsylvania native sought a degree, landing a role as a recreational therapist. The only problem was she couldn’t shake the songwriter within her. The kind souls within the dementia ward became a wellspring inspiration for the artist who would piece together the gaping holes in their memories with stories from family members.
“As time went on, it grew harder and harder to find a balance between working full time and creating music,” says Frank. “I ended up having to put music on the back burner. Though I found my work to be rewarding, I still wasn’t fulfilled. It was always this nagging feeling, and I knew deep down that I wasn’t aligned to my purpose and needed to make a change.”
It was a trip to Nashville to visit a friend that shifted her direction. After just a few writing sessions in town, it became apparent she needed to pivot. The full-time healthcare professional and part-time Philly music scene connoisseur headed south in 2019 to make a name for herself in Music City. Then, a tornado tore through town just days before a global pandemic hit, suffocating the music industry. COVID has occupied more than half of her short amount of time in Nashville, to which she says, “It definitely put a damper on things.” Optimistically, she continues, “but everyone had to stop doing what they were doing. I’m so thankful I could still record new music. That has been my biggest motivator and my light at the end of the tunnel.”
A new track, “Dark Cloud.” The moody track, penned from a third-party perspective—Frank’s favourite way to write—details the entrapment of toxic codependency within a romantic relationship. “This was a couple that was together on and off since high school,” she explains. “They’d break up, get back together, and break each other down to a point where they both were stuck in this pattern of emotional immaturity. Toxic patterns are tough to break, but it’s impossible to grow if we keep allowing this kind of dynamic to go on in our lives.”
An all-star line-up supports Frank’s second track since moving to Nashville. With Matt Pynn on pedal steel (Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, Nikki Lane, Post Malone), Billy Justineau on keys (Brothers Osborne, Eric Church), and Justin Ostrander on lead guitar (studio musician for Billy Ray Cyrus, Toby Keith, Sam Hunt), the artist boasts brazen vocal talent overtop a full-bodied traditional country track with a borrowed twang that feels native.
Her new tune follows her January release of “Politician.”Given the current context, the song serves a purposeful role with its eye-catching titular misnomer. Despite the current political climate, the song isn’t about our current government. Katie clarifies, “I actually wrote it about one of my least favourite coworkers while working in memory care in a nursing home. This co-worker was not a team player. Much like a politician, she only cared about promoting herself and making herself look like the hero while we did all the dirty work.”
On “Giver Taker”, the gorgeous debut album by Anjimile, death and life are always entwined, wrapping around each other in a dance of reverence, reciprocity, and, ultimately, rebirth.
Giver Taker is a confident, intentional and introspective. Anjimile Chithambo (they/them, he/him) wrote much of the album while in treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, as well as while in the process of living more fully as a nonbinary trans person. Loss hovers over the album, whose songs grieve for lost friends (“Giver Taker”) and family members (“1978”) along with lost selves (“Maker,” “Baby No More,” “In Your Eyes.”) But here, grief yields an opening: a chance for new growth. “A lot of the album was written when I was literally in the process of improving my mental health, so there’s a lot of hopefulness and wonder at the fact that I was able to survive,” says Chithambo. “Not only survive but restart my life and work towards becoming the person I was meant to be.”
Each song on the album is its own micro-journey, adding up to a transformative epic cycle created in collaboration with bandmate Justine Bowe of Photocomfort and New-York based artist/producer Gabe Goodman. “1978” and “Maker” both begin as Sufjan Stevens-esque pastoral ballads with Chithambo’s mesmerizing voice foregrounded against minimal instrumentation and swell into the realm of the majestic through the addition of warm, steady instrumentation (informed by the mix of 80’s pop and African music Chithambo’s Malawi-born parents played around the house) and harmonies by Bowe. “In Your Eyes” starts out hushed and builds to a crescendo via a mighty chorus inspired by none other than The Lion King. The allusion is fitting: each song encapsulates a heroic voyage, walked alone until accompanied by kindred souls. The choirs present throughout are equally deliberate. Chithambo grew up as a choir boy himself, and several songs (notably “Maker”) grasp not only towards reconciliation between his trans identity and his parents’ strong religious beliefs, but towards reclaiming his trans identity as an essential part of his own spirituality. (“[Less] Judeo-Christian, more ‘Colors of the Wind.’”) There is a boldness to this borrowing and shaping, a resoluteness that results from passing through hardship and emerging brighter, steadier. As a closing refrain on “To Meet You There” might sum it up: “Catalyst light of mine / now is your time.”
Giver Taker was recorded in Brooklyn, Boston, and New Hampshire by Goodman, thanks in part to the Live Arts Boston Grant by the Boston Foundation.
Anna McClellan began performing original songs in her hometown of Omaha, NE at the age of seventeen and has been actively recording and touring ever since. Her debut, Fire Flames, earned her an opening slot on a Frankie Cosmos tour. Through the doors that tour opened, McClellan eventually met Father/Daughter Records which led to the release of her second full-length record, Yes and No, in 2018. After a stint in NYC, several subsequent tours and meandering, Anna returned to Omaha and recorded “I Saw First Light“, her latest effort for Father/Daughter.
The album was recorded over two weeks with a multitude of local cohorts, and it documents Anna’s journey from the Midwest to the east coast and back again, probing both the roots of her creative impetus and her ongoing commitment to social issues. The process of composing and recording I saw first light has both reformed and renewed her dedication to exploration, be it inward or external, and to her own boundless creative energy.
Watch the beautifully animated visual companion to Anna McClellan’s single “Raisin” directed. by Thalia Rodgers. Her highly anticipated third full-length, “I Saw First Light“, is out now.
Anna says the following about the track:
“I have long romanticized the idea of jumping off a cliff, and categorized it as the perfect metaphor for letting go. If I could only take that leap of faith, I’d awaken. I’d been wanting to capture the idea in song for a while and thought it would be a longer and more epic endeavor. And I’m sure there is still much more to say about it. In Raisin though, upon jumping, the subject appears to float and become weightless. Never actually landing at all.”
“I Saw First Light” available on Father Daughter Records.
