The Fat Angel Sings

Florida-born, Louisiana-based songwriter Thomas Dollbaum’s specific strain of heartland rock is all about place. He has the type of rich baritone that reverberates throughout a room, outlining its every identifying nook and cranny in the process. However, on his second album, he draws inspiration from the great American pastime of roaming, revisiting past relationships and old wounds like familiar haunts.

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Birds of Paradise

by Thomas Dollbaum

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	Rabbits 00:00 / 02:50

• Digital AlbumStreaming + DownloadIncludes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.Download available in 16-bit/44.1kHz.Buy Digital Album  $12 USD  or moreSend as Gift 
• Black Vinyl LPRecord/Vinyl + Digital Album
  Includes unlimited streaming of Birds of Paradise via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
  
  Includes unlimited streaming of Birds of Paradise via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.Download available in 16-bit/44.1kHz.shipping out on or around May 22, 2026Buy Vinyl  $21.98 USD or more Send as Gift 
• Roseate Spoonbill Pink Vinyl LPRecord/Vinyl + Digital Album
  Includes unlimited streaming of Birds of Paradise via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
  
  First 100 Purchasers get a limited “Thomas Dollbaum” carpenter pencil!
  
  Includes unlimited streaming of Birds of Paradise via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.Download available in 16-bit/44.1kHz.Sold Out
• Compact DiscCompact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
  Includes unlimited streaming of Birds of Paradise via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
  
  Includes unlimited streaming of Birds of Paradise via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.Download available in 16-bit/44.1kHz.Sold Out

	1.	Visitation 02:10
	2.	Dozen Roses 05:24
	3.	Rabbits 02:50
	4.	Coyote 03:57
	5.	Waterbirds 04:34
	6.	Big Boi 04:56
	7.	Pulverize 03:52 video
	8.	King’s Landing 02:58
	9.	Scrub Jay 03:57
	10.	Blue Meets Blue 03:04

about

The realest-deal storyteller in indie-rock today is the Tampa-born, New Orleans-based singer/songwriter Thomas Dollbaum, and “Birds of Paradise” is his most powerful and dynamic work yet. Following up his critically acclaimed “Wellswood” (Big Legal Mess, 2022) and “Drive All Night” EP (Dear Life Records, 2025), “Birds of Paradise” is a goodbye letter to lost loved ones and former selves. These songs find Dollbaum searching for acceptance in the transient in-between places: Florida’s pine flatwoods, backroads leading to I-95, where birds fly across the water. And even though the ghosts of his alt-county predecessors Townes and Molina are definitely present, on “Birds of Paradise”, Dollbaum emerges from their shadows–waving to the past, sounding all the more like himself.

Recorded in Oxford, Mississippi over the course of a week, the record features a backing band of Josh Halper, Nick Corson, and MJ Lenderman, the latter of whom tackles drums, guitar, and backing vocals.

“Dozen Roses” is from “Birds of Paradise” by Thomas Dollbaum, out May 22nd, 2026 via Dear Life Records

Future Islands can still swell and surge, but this release turns toward something quieter and more reflective. “This is for everyone who has carried these songs with them,” Cashion explains, “from the first house parties to the rooms we’re playing today.”

Over the past 20 years Future Islands have travelled a rare arc, from promising newcomers to best-kept secret, from cult favourites to heroes of the genre. As they reach this remarkable milestone, they resist the obvious move. Instead of a ‘best-of’ compilation victory lap, Future Islands present “From A Hole In The Floor To A Fountain Of Youth”, an immediate and accessible collection — half of which has never appeared on streaming services — comprising alternate hits, rarities, and fan favourites that showcase the band’s palette and bring further colour to their uniquely universal appeal.

As the title suggests, this double-LP traces the group’s journey from humble origins toward ever-widening horizons. It has 20 songs for 20 years, from four members of the band, on four sides of vinyl. Future Islands have always been more than a viral moment; their career contains extraordinary depth and nuance, often overshadowed by louder peaks. These songs reveal a band comfortable with subtlety, grace, and emotional endurance – and they have never sounded more eternal.”

The songs were first gathered into a playlist by bass lynchpin William Cashion, who also chose the title – “I’ve always loved the imagery of that lyric,” he makes clear, “The hole in the floor is the everyday, but the fountain is the magic that happens when the life you dreamed about actually becomes the one you’re living. It’s the dream and the reality existing in the same room.” A well-known Tennessee Williams quote talks of this kind of duration – “time is the longest distance between two places.” It is time that really separates the floor from the fountain.

Coinciding with both the album and their 20^th anniversary, Future Islands is also in the midst of a run of hometown shows across North Carolina (Wilmington, Carrboro, Asheville, and Greenville) and Baltimore — the ‘Fountain of Youth Tour’ — with support from friends and collaborators including Dan Deacon, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Lonnie Walker, and more. Tonight, they perform in Asheville at The Orange Peel. 

Grateful Dead are taking it back to their early career with their latest live release.

“Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA (7/3/66)” will be released on July 3rd, on the 60th anniversary of the concert, which took place seven months after the band changed their name from the Warlocks. The performance was part of legendary promoter Bill Graham’s Independence Ball, with the band at the time made up of Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Bob Weir.

The concert features some of the earliest known recordings of songs like “Tastebud,” “You Don’t Have To Ask” and “Cardboard Cowboy,” which the band would stop playing by the end of that summer. It also includes “Cold Rain and Snow,” which would go on to be a Dead staple.

The performance of “Cold Rain and Snow” is available now . “One of the Grateful Dead’s longest-tenured songs in their repertoire, “Cold Rain & Snow” was around from 1965 to 1995, played every year of the Dead’s performing career aside from 1968 and 1975. This was played when it was still in its peppier arrangement.” – David Lemieux

“Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA (7/3/66)”, which was previously available in 2015 as part of the 50th anniversary boxed set “30 Trips Around the Sun“, will be released digitally and as a two-CD set. It will also be released as a three-LP set, its first time ever on vinyl, limited to 6,600 copies. The vinyl release is available exclusively at Dead.net.

Yes has released the second single from their upcoming album, Aurora. “Turnaround Situation” follows “Aurora,” which came out in April.

“‘Turnaround Situation’ came from realizing that every time I ignored my conscience, life seemed to fall apart in one way or another,” singer Jon Davison said in a press release announcing the song. “I’ve taken the wrong road before. Most people have. There’s always a temporary thrill in it, but eventually it catches up with you.

“Writing this song was part confession, part redemption. Ultimately, the song is meant to capture that feeling of finally being at peace with yourself, when, by choosing the high road, you stop fighting what you know deep down is right.

“The strange thing is, the right road is usually the harder one,” he concluded. “It demands more from you. But in the end, it gives something back too: clarity, self-respect, and a kind of inner freedom. I think that’s what everyone’s really chasing underneath it all.” “Making this record was joyful, a chance to play, explore and give everything to the music,” noted guitarist Steve Howe. “It’s always been about collaboration; somebody can write a song, but until everybody puts their contribution in, it isn’t really a Yes song.

“We’re not trying to echo the past; we’re carrying the spirit of Yes forward and turning it into something new.”

“Aurora“, which will be released on June 12th, will be the 24th album by prog legends Yes. The album follows the release of “The Quest” in 2021 and “Mirror to the Sky” in 2023.

Among my favourite debuts last year came from an Australian band The Gnomes. This young band had a indelible ability to channel the seeds of punk that trickled through garage a decade prior, evoking the bands who failed to fit into the mould of dapper down Beatle-boot nice boys.

With The Kinks’ fuzz tone as their compass rose, the band’s debut was full of snarl and strum, a bounty of hooks with hidden knives. They follow up quickly with a digital EP that pushes their sound even further. With a few nods back to the debut’s rave up rippers, they also push further into a heaviness that was only hinted at before. The EP opens up with the thunder and sneer of “Thinking of Me,” a song that’s battered with bluster and ready to burst. Previous peek into the EP, “Magic Man” is in the running, already as a tune of the year. “Don’t Worry” hews closest to the record, the kind of ‘60s romper that’s always ready to tear a bit more tumultuous on stage.

Then they close out the record with a little smoke and seethe that feels like it would fit right in with the California contingent swirling around Segall / Primitive Ring / Hooveriiii. A nice hint of things to come and an essential companion to their record from last year.

Hailing from Melbourne’s bayside suburb of Frankston, The Gnomes are a teenage/early-20s four-piece delivering a feral, hook-heavy take on ‘60s beat, garage and power pop. Formed by singer-guitarist Jay Millar from a prolific Bandcamp bedroom project, the band quickly built local heat before their November 2025 self-titled debut drew international acclaim, earning 4-star reviews in Mojo, Shindig! and Vive Le Rock.

It’s “High-octane, harmony-laden jangle rock nectar…absolutely everything Oasis could have been but for the addition of a single ounce of unguarded joy.” – Classic Rock
“Garage rock magic… the possibilities are endless.” – Mojo

Kate Bush, Cream – Band, a free Robert Fripp CD, R.E.M., The Specials, Boards Of Canada, Elvis Costello, Tyler Ballgame, Peter Hammill, Jim O’Rourke and more in the new Uncut Magazine. In shops Friday

Our free CD features 15 tracks of Frippertronics, collaborations and rarities from Robert Fripp’s archive — compiled by the man himself!

Inside the issue: after the imperial success of “Hounds Of Love”, Kate Bush pushes into bolder, stranger territory… collaborators and eyewitnesses revisit Cream’s explosive masterpiece… R.E.M., intimate and unseen from 1986… at home with Robert Fripp… The Specials guide us around Coventry’s hot spots… Tyler Ballgame finds redemption through music…

Plus: Elvis Costello on the making of “Shipbuilding”… post-rock polymath Jim O’Rourke on his pioneering run… Peter Hammill on Italian riots, Shirley Bassey and out-punking The Stranglers… and a new Ian Curtis exhibition unveiled…

Also featuring Boards Of Canada, Paul McCartney, Dave Mason and Beverley Martyn RIP, Beth Orton, Graham Coxon, Deep Purple, Greensleeves label art, Jeff Goldblum, Tucker Zimmerman, Horse Lords, This Heat, Big Thief, Leonard Cohen, Clem Burke, Zoh Amba and more. In shops Friday

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Alela Diane is keenly aware of time passing, the unrelenting flow of seasons, the flower’s fleeting bloom — but what she cares about most deeply, is now. More than a decade into one of contemporary folk’s most quietly extraordinary careers, and emerging from her own kind of artistic winter, Alela returns rich with fruit. The Portland songwriter’s seventh album Who’s Keeping Time? came as the consequence of intuition, coincidence, and community. “I came to the end of a season last year,”

Alela shares. “My daughters had grown a bit. I no longer had babies waking me in the middle of the night. I could hear myself think again.” More and more, those thoughts circled music.

Alela Diane: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Danny Austin-Manning: Drums
Sebastian Owens: Electric Bass
Luke Ydstie: Wurlitzer
Sam Weber: Electric Guitar
Kati Claborn: Background Vocals
Anna Tivel: Violin
AC Sapphire: Background Vocals

This collection draws from the neo psychedelic movement that took hold in California during the early to mid 80’s, one that melded the psychedelia, country, garage rock, avant-garde and pop of the 60’s with the DIY ethos of the then burgeoning punk scene, a hypnotic amalgamation of sound that came in staunch contrast to the blown out sonic excesses of the time.

Futurismo proudly present a celebration of the Paisley Underground scene with “Twisted Dream Machine – The Paisley Underground / California’s Psychedelic Renaissance: 1982-1986“, the next volume in their Altered Vision compilation series.

“Twisted Dream Machine” takes you on a trip from the city to the desert, as the kaleidoscope of noise drifts from the The Dream Syndicate’s Velvet Underground inspired take on Crazy Horse and The Three O’Clock’s chiming baroque powerpop, to Rain Parade’s dreamy Beatlesesque melodies and the Bangles hook-laden Love inspired pop.

Also featured are the wondrous sounds of Green On Red, The Long Ryder’s, Game Theory, True West, Thin White Rope and others highly worth your attention. If you are not familiar with some of the bands here, you will surely question how that is possible. The Paisley Underground, if anything, encapsulated a certain musical mindset, an outlook where the past and the future would collide in the moment. This thread would bond the bands, yet each honed it’s own sound in a twisted incarnation of the seeds planted two decades earlier. Whilst the ‘scene’ did remain contained, its influence did in fact spread throughout mainstream culture as the Bangles stuck a chord into the heart of MTV, whilst Prince took inspiration from the movement in his own songwriting and the naming of Paisley Park, as well as signing The Three O’Clock to his label and writing one of the Bangles biggest hits.

As you listen to the tracks on “Twisted Dream Machine” you will be reminded that there is still music left to discover and inspire, this compilation is aimed to hopefully delight longtime fans, as well as ignite a passion for those new to the bands. The Paisley Underground was the sound of neo psychedelic rock, it was subterranean pop…in the classic sense, it was alternative rock before the term existed, a distillation of the fundamentals present at the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll, with a twist. The bands of the Paisley Underground may have been writing out of their own time, but as you listen to them in today’s context these songs should be heard as landmarks, rather than throwbacks. After all, nothing this good should stay underground.

1. The Three ‘O’ Clock – Jet Fighter, 2.   The Rain Parade – Don’t Feel Bad, True West – Lucifer Sam, 4.   Bangles – Going Down To Liverpool, 5.   Thin White Rope – Down In The Desert, 6.   Game Theory – 24 , 7.   The Dream Syndicate – Definitely Clean, 8.   The Long Ryders – Too Close To The Light, 9.   Green On Red – Illustrated Crawling, 10.  28th Day – Pages Turn, 11.  The Dream Syndicate – That’s What You Always Say, 12.  The Pandoras – In And Out Of My Life (In A Day), 13.  The Long Ryders – Ivory Tower, 14.  The Three ‘O’ Clock – With A Cantaloupe Girlfriend, 15.  Bangles – All About You, 16.  The Rain Parade – Talking In My Sleep, 17.  The Three ‘O’ Clock – Her Heads Revolving, 18.  True West – Shot You Down, 19.  Wednesday Week – If Only, 20.  Thin White Rope – Exploring The Axis, 21.  The Rain Parade – Mystic Green, 22.  Green On Red – Lost World

After four years of work, we’re thrilled to announce that our new album, The New World, will be released worldwide on July 31st.  It’s a globe-spanning adventure for your ears, made with the wildest ensemble we’ve ever assembled.  

To whet your appetite, we’re releasing two tracks today: the grand “Daydream Unbeliever,” and the ethereal “More and More.” They were recorded in Dripping Springs, Brooklyn, London, and Berlin by Dan Duszynski, with additional engineering by Leo Abrahams and Boris Wilsdorf, and mixed by Danny Reisch. 

“Daydream Unbeliever”, from the upcoming album “The New World”, out July 31st