Archive for the ‘CLASSIC ALBUMS’ Category

LITTLE BARRIE – ” Quatermass Seven “

Posted: December 6, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Little Barrie are a London Based Trio. Emerging in 2000 “with Can and The Meters in my head” but wanting “more Chuck Berry thrown in”. Little Barrie have released 5 albums.
Following the passing of Virgil Howe in 2017, The band underwent a healing process in the studio.
With Malcolm Catto, sticksman for The Heliocentrics, the new album ‘Quatermass Seven’ emerged from this emotional exile. 

Born in a Dalston basement, Quatermass Seven by Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto could only have been produced in the colourful streets of sprawling London. Driven by the three contributing musicians’ 25-year plus journey through multiple genres and inspirations, what you hear within its seven tracks is the ‘60s British blues explosion colliding with a mid ‘70s Bronx block party; Haight Ashbury acid rock mashed up with Manchester’s summer of love circa ’88; or a prime slice of UK freakbeat broadcast from New York’s jazz underground, emerging kicking and screaming above London city tower blocks.

This meeting of minds between guitarist Barrie Cadogan, bassist Lewis Wharton and drummer Malcolm Catto represents a re-birth of sorts for Little Barrie, with these their first recordings since 2017’s critically received Death Express album, and the sad and untimely passing of friend and drummer Virgil Howe. Following a difficult period of soul searching for both Barrie and Lewis, they made the decision to record again: knowing they weren’t looking for a replacement for Virgil, or to replicate past glories, alleviated some of this inherent pressure. “I’ve never seen the point in making ‘Death Express’ or ‘Surf Hell’ again, and we said quite clearly to Malcolm that we wanted to do something different”, states Lewis. “I just saw it as me, Barrie and Malcolm running through some ideas – as the mixes evolved and shaped up, it made sense that it became the next Little Barrie record.”

With most tracks recorded live with minimal overdubs, produced by Malcolm at his Quatermass studios in Hackney, The Heliocentrics’ main man brings new flavour to the band’s rhythm section by blending his power behind the drums and his expansive mixing desk skills to take Little Barrie’s music into new territories. Joined by old friend and engineer Seb Lewesly on the boards, you can hear seasoned musicians Cadogan and Wharton more than rise to the challenge, producing something familiar yet unchartered – head music for breakbeat disciples and guitar lovers alike. “Let’s just go in and do some playing and see what happens”, mottos Barrie – “and we ended up with more than we ever intended.”

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As upfront as it is subtle, Quatermass Seven pushes past influences towards the contemporary. Telepathy bears ‘After After’, eight minutes of instrumental improvisation, cut live to tape and seeing Barrie’s guitar snake and weave, Catto going deep in the pocket and Wharton deploying a bassline to die for. The multi-layered, defiantly lyrical ‘Steel Drum’ is a gonzo earworm you’ll find hard to shake. Also see the moody bounce of ‘You’re Only You‘, the late night strut of ‘Repeater #2’, or the downbeat, hazy opening verse of ‘Repeater #1’ which suddenly explodes into heavy funk and acid-fried guitar work. Recorded on Catto’s treasure trove of analogue gear, and mastered onto ¼” tape, the overall effect is guitar, bass and drums finding the sweet spot where genres collide.

What Quatermass Seven delivers is a darker, deeper and more expansive set of grooves, layered with frazzled and flawless guitar lines and flowing melodies, as well as pointing toward a future of exciting new musical opportunities. “Still here, so fine, just a little darker state of mind” sings Cadogan on ‘Steel Drum’: words which sum up hope in times of uncertainty, whilst (maybe) unintentionally offering a perfect description of the music contained herein. 

Released October 16th, 2020

LOW CUT CONNIE – ” Wild Ride “

Posted: December 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Low Cut Connie have released a new video for “Wild Ride,” a track off their latest album, Private Lives. The clip was directed by Sara Fox and pairs the slow-burning song with a sequence of equally smouldering and mysterious visuals. Throughout the clip, Low Cut Connie frontman Adam Weiner roams the streets of New York City while an unnamed woman waits at an empty bar, stares through stained glass at a subway stop, and then, at the end of the clip, lets out an anguished scream in the middle of a street. These sequences are interspersed with shots of grandiose platters of food and items (like telephones and sports trophies) lit on fire.

Adam Weiner, Philly’s patron saint of ass-shakers, let his ambitions run wild on his band’s Private Lives, a 17-song double album that somehow doesn’t drag. Like Low Cut Connie‘s live shows, it’s a sweaty — Weiner would say “schvitzin’” — listen, full of cathartic anthems (“Help Me”), gritty character studies (“Charyse”), and red-faced songs about fucking (“The Fuckin You Get for the Fuckin You Got”). The title track, a raucous collection of dirty secrets, and the piano ballad “Look What They Did” stand as the record’s yin and yang, with Weiner celebrating lovable freaks in the former and lamenting the abandonment of kids in the latter

“We shot this in Brooklyn. It was in the weeks just before quarantine began,” Weiner said in a statement. “There was a dark energy all around us. Sara Fox, the director, put together some fabulous imagery here.”

Low Cut Connie released Private Lives in October, marking the group’s sixth album and first double LP. “I’m obsessed with understanding people’s interior lives,” Weiner said of the record in a statement. “In order to explore that idea, I had to create a flow that went in and out of these characters’ private spheres. There had to be a push and pull between their external and internal worlds. I knew if I was going to pull that off, I was going to have to make a big album.”

“Wild Ride” by Low Cut Connie Music and lyrics by Adam Weiner From the double LP ‘Private Lives’

PERFUME GENIUS – ” Without You” (Jim-E Stack Remix) “

Posted: December 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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This morning we’re releasing the Jim-E Stack remix of Perfume Genius’ “Without You,” taken from the critically acclaimed album ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’. Stack had previously collaborated with Perfume Genius and Empress Of on the single “When I’m With Him,” and also worked with artists including Bon Iver, Caroline Polachek, Haim and more. Stack said of the “Without You” remix, “to my ears a Perfume Genius album always embodies excellence, from the song-writing to the production to the mixing. Every word, note, and sound feels so purposeful while playing its role in each song and in the greater context of the album. I chose to remix ‘Without You,’ because something about it felt timeless and familiar but also grounded and confident. That gave me room to make a completely new instrumental around the vocal.” He went on to say, “even though Mike and I are friends and we’ve worked together in the past, I was admittedly intimidated by the task of remixing ‘Without You.’ Once I found a way to bring the song into my world, I started listening to the remix outside the studio and I knew I had done my thing. I just hoped Mike would want to listen to it too.

Perfume Genius’ new album ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately” is out now:

STEPHEN J MALKMUS – ” Traditional Techniques ” Best Albums Of 2020

Posted: December 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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When Stephen Malkmus first arrived on the scene in the early Nineties, as frontman and prime creative force in Pavement, the area of music with which he was associated couldn’t really have been further from the techno-rave sounds of the day. Electronic dance music, then as now, was about posthuman precision, inorganic textures, and hyper-digital clarity. Whereas the lo-fi movement in underground rock championed a messthetic of sloppiness, rough edges, and raw warmth – a hundred exquisitely subtle shades of distortion and abrasion. “Imperfect sound forever” was the rallying cry for a micro-generation of slacker-minded dreamers and misfits.

For his third record in as many years, the sometimes Pavement frontman chills out, unplugs and delivers a record of stoner folk-inspired songs that are among his most direct, affecting to date. For a guy who’s been known for 30 years primarily as a musician who is, at times, too clever for his own good, Malkmus shows real heart here.

While associated with staunch indie rock snobbery, Stephen Malkmus has long dabbled in jam band territory, all the way back to Pavement’s final album, Terror Twilight. (Before? Maybe.) So when he announced Traditional Techniques, his third album in three years, as “stoner folk” it wasn’t really as much of a stretch as Matador may have wanted you to believe. At least not in that way. It is, however, his quietest, most introspective and straight-from-the-heart record he’s ever made.

To call Stephen Malkmus’ Traditional Techniques an “acoustic record” wouldn’t be inaccurate, but it doesn’t quite capture the sonic expanse of this midcareer gem. “ACC Kirtan,” “Xian Man,” and “Brainwashed” unfurl into psychedelic sprawl, while elsewhere Malkmus takes his 12-string toward country-rock, or classic folk, or surrounds it with woodwinds, drums, and string instruments from Africa and the Middle East. Traditional Techniques revels in the gray space between frank and enigmatic, whether exploring love and friendship, or in yarns about propane smugglers or the extremely online. “May the word be spread via cracked emoji,” Malkmus sings on “Shadowbanned” — it’s unclear what exactly that may mean, but like the best, inscrutable Malkmus lines, it rings true.

Stephen presents “Juliefuckingette,” an A-side-worthy B-side off of Traditional Techniques. Additionally, he announces a rescheduled North American tour (See below for the full dates).
As with Traditional Techniques, “Juliefuckingette” is new phase folk music for new phase folks. Malkmus’ wry lyricism unwinds over his 12-string acoustic guitar: “Abolish the fanfiction set // I don’t wanna clean up the logorrhea mess // It’s the last brand standing // You know you wanna kill it but you can’t kill that quite yet.”

SON LUX – ” Prophecy “

Posted: December 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Video of the day: Son Lux - Change Is Everything

Even for a band dedicated to surprise, Son Lux‘s new single “Prophecy“ represents a notable departure from their usual fare. Yet the song’s bright energy and lilting feel bloom like an outgrowth of their ever-expanding practice, providing the clearest evidence to date of the band’s indebtedness to the J Dilla–D’Angelo nexus. The track is from ‘Tomorrows II,’ out December 4th via City Slang, the second album in a far-reaching three-volume body of work culminating in physical editions of all three volumes to be released together in 2021.

Featured on the track is vocalist Nina Moffitt, whose upbringing in church and gospel music instilled a fascination with the timbral range of layered voices. Inspired by electronic manipulation, she employs rounded whistle tones, fraying choral hums, and more to conjure a world of sound largely unexplored by the band until now.

On ‘Tomorrows’, Ryan Lott, Rafiq Bhatia, and Ian Chang train their sights on volatile principles: imbalance, disruption, collision, redefinition. But for all of its instability, ‘Tomorrows’ exploration of breaking points and sustained frictional places is ultimately in service of something rewarding and necessary: the act of questioning, challenging, tearing down and actively rebuilding one’s own identity. 

Arriving at a time of considerable uncertainty in the world, ‘Tomorrows’is ambitious in scope and intent. Born of an active, intentional approach to shaping sound, the music reminds us of the necessity of questioning assumptions, and of sitting with the tension. 

From the start, Son Lux has operated as something akin to a sonic test kitchen. The band strives to question deeply held assumptions about how music is made and re-construct it from a molecular level. What began as a solo project for founder Ryan Lott expanded in 2014, thanks to a kinship with Ian Chang and Rafiq Bhatia too strong to ignore. The trio strengthened their chemistry and honed their collective intuition while creating, releasing, and touring five recordings. A carefully cultivated musical language rooted in curiosity and balancing opposites largely eschews genre and structural conventions. And yet, the band remains audibly indebted to iconoclastic artists in soul, hip-hop, and experimental improvisation who themselves carved new paths forward. Distilling these varied influences, Son Lux searches for equilibrium of raw emotional intimacy and meticulous electronic constructions.

Taken from Son Lux – “Tomorrows II” – Available to stream and download December 4th via City Slang Records

The NOTWIST – ” Where You Find Me “

Posted: December 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The Notwist is returning with “Vertigo Days”, their first album in six years out January 29th on Morr Music. Markus Archer & co. has long been open-minded and exploratory, but their return marks a distinct combination of melancholy pop, clangorous electronics, hypnotic Krautrock and drift work ballads, highlighted by international musical guests like Argentinian songwriter Juana Molina, American jazz artist Angel Bat Dawid, American multi-instrumentalist Ben LaMar Gay, and Saya of Japanese pop duo Tenniscoats.

Archer offers additional insight into the new album: “we wanted to question the concept of a band by adding other voices and ideas, other languages, and also question or blur the idea of national identity.”

The Notwist has shared its experimental new single, “Where You Find Me,” a hypnotic keyboard intro sets the tone as a groovy and polished bassline pushes the song forward. Blanketed in restrained synth accompaniment, Archer croons with confident and persuasive inflection. Here, The Notwist dazzles as an indie rock architect bridging sonic qualities from indie scenes past and present mirroring Yo La Tengo to Stereolab.

Taken from “Vertigo Days” out on Morr Music January. 29th, 2021

CATHERINE DAVIES & BERNARD BUTLER – ” In Memory of My Feelings “

Posted: December 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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With nearly five decades and a wealth of recording experience between them, talk of a collaboration between Catherine Anne Davies and Bernard Butler is a mouth watering prospect to say the least.  Indeed, their coming together didn’t just happen overnight. It’s actually been in the offing for a good 10 years now, but rather than just rush into things, they’ve taken their time and gradually honed, then built a collection of songs worthy of any great debut album. Which essentially this is, as pairings go.   

Ironically, despite being conceived in 2010 then completed in 2014, “In Memory of My Feelings” only took 15 days to make. The biggest battle facing its creators was finding someone to release it, where music journalist cum label owner Pete Paphides duly obliged in making it the first “new” release on his Needle Mythology imprint, which up until now has solely put out reissues.

In Memory of My Feelings is a very personal record, particularly for Davies, who wrote all of the lyrics. Nevertheless, the meeting of minds between two very talented individuals means the arrangements veer from sparse, such as on opener and lead single “The Breakdown,” or the exquisitely tender “I Know” and despondent penultimate number “The Patron Saint of the Lost Cause,” to the more upbeat and up-tempo, rockier pieces like “Sabotage (Looks So Easy)” and “Judas,” where Butler’s signature guitar sound rises to the fore.   

The sparse but stately opener, ‘The Breakdown’, explores the impact and aftershocks of the aggressive pursuit of wealth, reflecting on the life of a banker post-crash: “Do you make the money, or is the money making you?” Other destructive impulses, including the pressure to adhere to performative behaviours, are explored on the wonderfully energised ‘Sabotage (Looks So Easy)’. ‘The Patron Saint Of The Lost Cause’ fondly evokes some of the similarly alchemical results witnessed when Davies worked with the Manics on ‘Dylan And Caitlin’ for 2018’s ‘Resistance Is Futile’.

“Sabotage (Looks So Easy)” is the second single from the album ‘In Memory Of My Feelings’ which is released on September 18th, the album is the result of a one-off collaboration between Catherine Anne Davies (The Anchoress) and Bernard Butler. In contrast to the piano led end-of-days address The Breakdown, Sabotage is album’s emphatic guitar driven moment of celebratory catharsis. Of the song Catherine says, “Some people lift others up. They’re altruistic and constructive. Then there are the energy vampires who have perfected the art of destruction. It’s about toxic masculinity and I’m channelling my inner Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde here to raise a middle finger to every man who played the victim when they were called out.”

Bernard Butler “Sabotage” was written when we reconvened a few years after anxiously writing the first set of songs, by which time I think we had both been trampled on a little … as is our style, without talking about it to each other, we consequently wanted to smash the room up a little and say ‘that’s enough now thanks.’’

Elsewhere, “The Waiting Game” could be a Manic Street Preachers outtake from the Resistance Is Futile sessions (if you’ve heard Davies’ contributions to that record you’ll understand where I’m coming from), while closer “F.O.H.” could be a distant relative of “P.S. Fuck You” off Davies’ alter ego The Anchoress’ 2016 long player Confessions of a Romance Novelist.

I’d also recommend the bonus seven-inch, which comes with the vinyl edition, if only for the heartfelt cover of Madonna’s “Live to Tell” that rivals the original for delivery and execution.

‘In Memory Of My Feelings’ is released on Needle Mythology; the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides and is the very first release of brand new music on the label. Limited edition formats include 2LP +7” w/ signed lyric sheet and gatefold replica CD with signed postcard available for a limited period exclusively via the Official store.

ANDY SHAUF – ” You Slipped Away “

Posted: December 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Andy Shauf Shares New Song "You Slipped Away"

Andy Shauf has shared a new song “You Slipped Away,” It was a demo recorded during the sessions for his 2020 album The Neon Skyline. “You Slipped Away” is a sombre song filled with Shauf’s subtle-but-stunning layered harmonies.

“You Slipped Away’ was a song that I wrote shortly after moving to Toronto, right after I’d just moved into an apartment and had acquired an 80s Yamaha CP60 stage piano,” Shauf says. “This song was an attempt to write something that sounded like an old standard, using big general metaphors and universal themes.”

Few artists are storytellers as deft and disarmingly observational as Andy Shauf. The Toronto-based, Saskatchewan-raised musician’s songs unfold like short fiction: they’re densely layered with colourful characters and a rich emotional depth. The The Neon Skyline 11 interconnected tracks follow a simple plot: the narrator goes to his neighbourhood dive, finds out his ex is back in town, and she eventually shows up. While its overarching narrative is riveting, the real thrill of the album comes from how Shauf finds the humanity and humour in a typical night out and the ashes of a past relationship. For The Neon Skyline, Shauf chose to start each composition on guitar instead of his usual piano. Happy accidents like Shauf testing out a new spring reverb pedal and experimenting with tape machines forced him to simplify how he’d arrange the tracks. Over the course of a year-and-a-half, Shauf had ended up with almost 50 songs all about the same night at the bar. 

“You Slipped Away” by Andy Shauf, available now Through Anti Records

FLYTE – ” Never Get To Heaven “

Posted: December 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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A new song for December. Just a guitar and our three voices this time. Will wrote this as a wee 14 year old boy but somehow it only made sense to release it now, at the end of this truly bizarre year.

Flyte have returned with yet another new song with “Never Get To Heaven” and no surprise, it’s another stunning listen. The track is the latest song shared from their next body of work, which we should be getting sometime early in the new year that we all want to desperately get to as soon as possible. “Never Get To Heaven” sounds like a classic song that has been with you all of your life and for frontman Will Taylor, in some ways, it has. He actually penned this track when he was just 14-years-old, replicating a chant from his stint in the scouts as an 8 year old. He reworked it again when he was 14 and then discovering its potential as an adult in today’s world, realizing its perfect use as an eulogy to the end of his adult relationship.

It’s Flyte at their most stripped down and vulnerable, with their three voices sharing the stage as a sad acoustic guitar guides them home. But it’s all they need to send the message home and they nail it, as always. Find the full quote from Taylor about the song below, along with a stream of the track as well as a great live performance that the band did in the forest at Blenheim Palace. “Funnily enough, I wrote this song aged only 14. I remember thinking it would be a very clever and grown up exercise to re-appropriate a chant from my stint in the scouts as an 8 year old. My 14 year old self, then advanced in years and wisdom, putting a post modern spin on a childish relic. Using it as a vehicle for all my pain and suffering.

Strangely, so very many years later, it had achieved it’s depth. It had become the perfect eulogy to the end of my adult relationship. An adolescent attempt at world weariness had become meaningful. For an album based entirely around a break up, it’s a god’s-eye view, nursery rhyme that closes the album with the perfect quiet defiance The post Flyte share new song “Never Get To Heaven” first appeared on We All Want Someone To Shout For music blog.

ALEX MAAS (The Black Angels) – ” Luca “

Posted: December 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The music of Alex Maas has always mesmerised. Now, on his soul-baring solo debut “Luca”, the Texan and The Black Angel’s singer journey is taking an equally hypnotic detour along the wild trails of his indigenous homestead. Driven by the force of nature, each phase of life is celebrated through songs of love, hope, human connection whilst navigating perils of modern society and tentatively facing the darkness. As the shamanic vocalist and bass player of The Black Angels, Alex Maas knows neo-psych-rock well; yet its menace is barely noticeable across his masterfully crafted soul-baring debut solo album. Named for Maas’ firstborn, whose name means “bringer of light,” Luca was a long time coming, with some of its songs dating back almost a decade, put together piece-by-piece over the course of a couple years. The record began its transformation from loner folk leanings to a worldlier embrace of gentle psychedelia.

It’s a record fuelled by memories of an upbringing in the strange, unique paradise of his father’s plant nursery in Seabrook, Texas by the waterfront of the Gulf of Mexico, and the Native American sounds that would drift through the garden’s hidden speakers, ricocheting off multi-coloured pottery mazes of curiosities from across the world.

Casting shades of deeply personal wide-eyed innocence and the darker realms of paranoia, Luca has its sights set on the near and distant future. Subtle psychedelic flourishes and instrumentation come from a cast of expert players in Austin but this is a deeply personal endeavour.

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 It’s been a while since the Black Angels released an album and I’m happy to hear Alex’ Voice again, Driven by the force of nature, The Black Angels singer’s solo journey takes an hypnotic detour along the wild trails of his indigenous homestead with songs of love, hope, human connection whilst navigating perils of modern society and tentatively facing the darkness.

released December 4th, 2020

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