“Eel Drip” is a 4 track EP on digital and solid white 12″ vinyl https://hth.lnk.to/eeldrip“‘Eel Drip’ Is about honouring the dead, the passing of lives within you and beyond you” Trappes explains. “It’s about physical or emotional change, acknowledging fears, and being true to yourself… reaching your full potential.” Eel Drip sees fragile arpeggiated electronics and hazy vocals swell to a celestial hallow. It sets a delicate, unhurried sense of peace that flows throughout the EP’s four tracks – both sparse and gentle, yet rushing with light and emotion. The accompanying video was directed by Agnes Haus and inspired by artist Francesca Woodman’s 1970s series of nude self-portraits with Eels.
Of the video, Trappes comments: “In the process of changing and shedding past notions of myself, there is another world between the past and the future. An eternal state, unknown, warped, slippery, free. Submitting to change, dying… being reborn.”
‘Eel Drip” sees fragile arpeggiated electronics and hazy vocals swell to a celestial hallow. It sets a delicate, unhurried sense of peace that flows throughout the EP’s four tracks – both sparse and gentle, yet rushing with light and emotion. She is a shapeshifter known for being a goddess of war and battle, the cycle of life and death, and is also associated with wisdom and prophecy, magic and the land. Often portrayed as a trio of sisters who appeared as a crow, she was the keeper of fate, teller of secrets and purveyor of prophecy.
Of the video, Penelope comments: “In the process of changing and shedding past notions of myself, there is another world between the past and the future. An eternal state, unknown, warped, slippery, free. Submitting to change, dying… being reborn.”
if this were any further up our street, it’d be in our living room! Trappes‘ brooding dreamscapes are just impossible to resist.
summoning the great ghosts of vintage 4ad and kranky, the Australian singer and producer makes inky dream pop that’s as heavy and welcoming as a weighted blanket in winter. ‘Eel Drip’ is referencing the celtic goddess of war and death, Morrigan, the phantom queen. she is a shapeshifter known for being a goddess of war and battle, the cycle of life and death, and is also associated with wisdom and prophecy, magic and the land. often portrayed as a trio of sisters who appeared as a crow, she was the keeper of fate, teller of secrets and purveyor of prophecy. …in her tales and prophecies there were crows, ravens, wolves, vultures, eels and cows. fans of grouper, Hilary Woods and Cross Record will love this.
Helen Ballentine’s emotional folk reveries will delight fans of Phoebe Bridgers, Tomberlin and Dana Gavanski – it’s an absolute free for all of lush melodies. Skullcrusher is, by all accounts, an exploration of the ways you become yourself when you aren’t looking – and how that feels once you start paying attention. It’s a quiet power; a hushed celebration of the tiny, understated subtleties that culminate into knowing yourself. On her debut EP, songwriter Helen Ballentine offers an airy, intense, and unflinchingly open collection of songs written about – and from – one of life’s in-between gray areas, a stretch of uncertainty and unemployment, and the subsequent search for identity. Here, as Skullcrusher, Ballentine grapples with how to communicate her private self to an audience.
The four dark, dreamy songs on her debut EP were influenced by a strange-but-fitting amalgamation of media consumed in the immediate aftermath of quitting her 9-5. There’s Valerie and her Week of Wonders, the Czech new-wave film that went on to inform Skullcrusher’s aesthetic. There’s Ballentine’s love of fantasy and surrealism, her appreciation of the way fantasy novels juxtapose beauty and violence.
Skullcrusher’s understated energy radiates with the atmosphere of waking up to the quiet terror of shapeless, structureless days, but it finds power in eschewing the pressures of careerism and a vapid culture of productivity. Instead, as Skullcrusher, Ballentine has the audacity to be comfortable enough with herself, and to simply accept the unknown as her life.
“Lift” the new Radiohead cover by Skullcrusher, out October 19th on Secretly Canadian.
On her debut ep, songwriter Helen Ballentine offers an airy, intense, and unflinchingly open collection of songs. the four dark, dreamy numbers were influenced by a strange-but-fitting amalgamation of media consumed in the immediate aftermath of quitting her 9-5. Skullcrusher’s understated energy radiates with the atmosphere of waking up to the quiet terror of shapeless, structureless days, but it finds power in eschewing the pressures of careerism and a vapid culture of productivity. instead, as Skullcrusher, Ballentine has the audacity to be comfortable enough with herself, and to simply accept the unknown as her life. “forget the name, the la artist’s debut ep is a welcome, tender collection” 4/5 – nme.
Loma’s “Don’t Shy Away”, their incredible and absorbing second album, will be available Friday, October 23rd worldwide through Sub Pop Records. The eleven-track effort, which features lyric videos for “Homing” and “Ocotillo” and official videos for “Half Silences,” “Don’t Shy Away,” “I Fix My Gaze,” and “Elliptical Days,” was produced and recorded by the band at Dandysounds in Dripping Strings, Texas—except for “Homing” , which was produced by Brian Eno. MOJO says of Don’t Shy Away, “Loma’s music unspools in vivid panoramas – sometimes downbeat and rainy, sometimes splashy and urgent, reminiscent of the mid-‘90s school of Bowery Electric post-rock. Yet the trio ensure all the glitches and layers (clarinet, brass, guitar) add bright pin-sharp accents not blurry textural flab, Cross’s voice glinting through ‘Blue Rainbow’s’ electro-cabaret judder or the Morphine-like rumble of ‘Ocotillo’ (4/5).” Exclaim! says: “Don’t Shy Away is ultimately as gratifying as it is ambitious. Brian Eno was right: Loma are the real deal (8/10).
Uncut praises the album’s’ “Atmospheric melodies” and how “Cross’ otherworldly vocals blend to absorbing effect (8/10,” while Secret Meeting raves, “Bigger in scope than the three piece’s self titled debut, “Don’t Shy Away” is on a whole other sonic level. It encourages us to not just exist in the spaces that we inhabit, but to find every possibility they could offer. As second records go, they don’t come much more mesmerically splendorous than this.” And Stereogum, in a glowing track review of “Elliptical Days,” says “Loma are making some gorgeous, otherworldly music.”
And today, BBC’s “6 Music” has made Don’t Shy Away its “Album of the Day.”
In celebration of the album’s release, Loma is presenting the “Don’t Shy Away” Sessions, a week-long series of live performances of songs from the album (and an interview with the band). The sessions via IGTV and Loma’s YouTube channel and were recorded in June 2020 in Dripping Springs, Texas.
Loma was conceived on the road, but the band was born in Dripping Springs, a slice of Texas Hill Country outside Austin with a population just shy of 5,000. Cross and Duszynski landed there seven years ago, when Cross happened upon an 18-acre ranch on Craigslist. Although Cross recently moved to the southern coast of England, the Dripping Springs locale still functions as a fully-outfitted recording studio and a home to Duszynski, Meiburg, and a brood of furry friends.
The ranch is situated next to an aviary, and the squawking birds who live there have offered uncredited contributors to both of Loma’s albums for Sub Pop: 2018’s self-titled debut and its recent follow-up, Don’t Shy Away. “You wake up to the sound of hundreds of parrots and macaws screaming their heads off,” Meiburg says, adding that the yelps and clucks of donkeys, peacocks, and chickens round out the ranch’s layered sonic character. Don’t Shy Away feels dark and warm and teeming with life, as if it were exclusively made in the hours when humans are quiet and wildlife chatters on. “The album is a lot about the beauty and the force of nature,” Cross says “That never loses relevance, no matter what’s happening, and maybe it is more relevant now.”
Emily Cross is the voice of Loma, but the group’s mercurial sound is a product of her work with recording engineer Dan Duszynski and Jonathan Meiburg of indie vets Shearwater. Cross and Duszynski, who used to be married, previously recorded experimental folk under the name Cross Record, and the duo opened up for Shearwater on tour in 2016. “I just never got tired of watching them,” Meiburg tells me. “I had this super music crush on them, so I said, ‘What if we made a baby together?’”
On Don’t Shy Away, elements of ambient, folk, free jazz, and pop dissolve into a singular sound that is deeply collaborative. Each member of Loma collectively shapes its songs; Meiburg writes the majority of the lyrics, but their delivery is molded by Cross and Duszynski. If Meiburg and Duszynski compose a melody, it is often Cross who contorts it into something grimier and more shadowy.
It’s a decade since The Staves self-released their first EP and a lot has happened since then. Their third album “Good Woman” was written and recorded amid major upheaval, heartbreak and bereavement. The new-found boldness, loudness and lyrical directness on this record are indicative of lives forced to become a serious concern. In early 2020 the band resumed touring, unveiling their expansive and exhilaratingly powerful new sound, and previewing these emotionally affecting songs in intimate venues across the country; with tickets selling out in seconds. They ended the tour with a triumphant homecoming appearance at the BBC6 Music Festival.
The Staves’ first album in five years is an accumulation of everything that life has thrown at them in that time. Emily: “You find strength in the vulnerability and you find beauty in the sadness and magic in the despair. We lost so much, but we found so much. And while the album is not all about mum, something shifted in us when she died that made us make the record in the way that we made it. We became more fearless.” Camilla: “It feels more about trying to take ownership of these events and not letting sadness or trauma rule you.” Jessica: “It’s a record about sisterhood, motherhood and daughterhood; love, loss, change and trying to be a good person, a good woman.
The Staves have their first new album in six years, “Good Woman”, which will arrive on February. 5th via Nonesuch Records. Following the release of “Nazareth” and “Trying,” the trio shared the album’s title track.
Our new album ‘Good Woman’ released 5th February 2021.
Following his spiritual and artistic rebirth, and hot on the heels of his incredibly well received release, ‘Mona Bone Jakon’, Cat Stevens unveiled his second album of the year in November 1970 … and it was to become one of the defining musical statements of the new decade. ‘Tea For The Tillerman’, not only consolidated Cat’s success in the UK and forged him a glittering new career in the USA, it also set him on the road to global superstardom and gave the world songs like ‘Wild World’, ‘Father & Son’, ‘Where Do The Children Play?’ and many more.
To commemorate the album’s 50th anniversary comes this definitive super deluxe box set of Tea For The Tillerman’. With the songs’ messages as powerfully relevant today as they were in 1970, the original album is represented here on CD by a brand new 2020 remaster at Abbey Road Studios by Geoff Pesche, overseen by original producer Paul Samwell-Smith, as well as a new 2020 Mix on CD by David Hefti. It also includes, in full, Yusuf’s September 2020 reimagined ‘Tea For The Tillerman 2’ album featuring new interpretations of the classic originals. The box also includes an exclusive fourth CD of outtakes, alternate versions and demos, and a fifth featuring 25 live performances from 1971 including some recorded at the legendary LA music venue The Troubadour.
Alongside the 5CDs and gatefold vinyl LP the box also comes with a live 12” vinyl E.P. of the Troubadour recordings and, on BluRay, the original promo video of ‘Father & Son’, plus live performances, and the HD audio of the new ‘Tea For The Tillerman’ 2020 Mix. Also included is a 98-page beautifully illustrated hardcover book with extensive new sleeve notes. Finally housed in a card envelope within the box is a ‘Pick Up A Good Book’ bookmark, a Yusuf / Cat Stevens designed ‘Miles From Nowhere’ print, a reproduction handwritten lyric sheet for ‘Miles From Nowhere’, a fold-out ‘Live From The Troubadour 1970’ poster, and a ‘Tea For The Tillerman’ sticker.
Seven months after Mona Bone Jakon, Stevens released Tea For The Tillerman. The multiplatinum album cemented the artist’s reputation and included some of his best-known hits, including “Wild World,” “Father and Son,” and timeless classics like “Where Do the Children Play” and “On the Road To Find Out.” The deluxe 50th anniversary box packs in 5 CDs, a Blu-ray, an LP, and an etched 12″. CD 1 includes the 2020 remaster of the original album mix, while CD 2 houses the 2020 remix (also on LP). The recent album “Tea For The Tillerman 2″ is reprised on CD 3, while CD 4 contains demos, alternate versions, and unreleased tracks. Among them are “Can This Be Love?” “It’s So Good,” “Love Lives in the Sky,” “The Joke,” and “Honey Man,” a duet with Elton John. Also featured are “If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out” and “Don’t Be Shy” from the still-absent-from-CD soundtrack to Harold and Maude. CD 5 is filled with 25 live recordings from The Troubadour in L.A. (also on an etched 12″), KCET also in L.A., the BBC In Concert performance, Beat Club, various French TV appearances, and four songs recorded at New York’s Fillmore East. The BluRay includes the promo video for “Father and Son,” TV appearances on KCET, a trio of songs from the BBC, and performances on Beat Club and French television. If that weren’t enough, there’s also high-res audio of the 2020 remix of Tea For The Tillerman.
Slimmer editions include a 1-CD standard edition book set with the 2020 remaster of the original album mix and a 2-CD deluxe edition with the remaster and a selection of demos and live recordings.
In all it’s a fitting celebration for these landmark albums that not only brought Cat Stevens/Yusuf newfound attention worldwide, but also cemented a sound that would take hold in the ’70s and continue to influence musicians to this day. The 50th anniversary editions of Mona Bone Jakon and Tea For The Tillerman are available for pre-order now, due to ship close to the December 4th release date. You can peruse the track listings and place your orders below! And check out the new singles, “I Want Some Sun” and “Can This Be Love,” to whet your appetite.
Back in 1970 and following a period of illness and recuperation, singer-songwriting troubadour Cat Stevens re-emerged with a new record deal with Island Records and a spiritual and artistic rebirth. ‘Mona Bone Jakon’, his first album for Island, showcased a markedly different change in direction for Cat, unveiling with it a remarkable set of new compositions that included classics like ‘Trouble’, ‘Maybe You’re Right’ and the UK hit single ‘Lady D’Arbanville’.
To commemorate the album’s 50th anniversary comes this definitive super deluxe box set of ‘Mona Bone Jakon’. Sounding as fresh as the day it was recorded, the original album is represented here by a brand new 2020 remaster of ‘Mona Bone Jakon’ by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road, overseen by original producer Paul Samwell-Smith 2020 on CD, as well as a new 2020 Mix by David Hefti on both CD and LP. The set also includes an exclusive third CD of previously unreleased demos, and a fourth featuring 18 live performances from 1970/71.
This box is rounded out with a live 12” etched vinyl E.P. of a rare audience recording of ‘Live At Plumpton Jazz & Blues Festival’ from August 1970, and with a BluRay disc featuring the original promo video of ‘Lady D’Arbanville’, plus eight live TV performances, and the HD audio of the new Mona Bone Jakon 2020 Mix. Also included is a 98-page beautifully illustrated hardcover book with extensive new sleeve notes. Finally there’s also a selection of memorabilia including Island Records press kit, two Island press photos, a replica 1970 Plumpton Jaxx and Blues flyer, a Cat Stevens tour sticker and ‘dustbin’ greetings card and pop art print in a card envelope.
Hitting shelves that day will be 50th anniversary editions of Mona Bone Jakon and Tea For The Tillerman. Released within 7 months in 1970, these albums saw Stevens redefining his sound. Following a battle with tuberculosis and a lengthy stay at in the hospital, Stevens had begun looking inward, exploring literature and meditation, and reflecting on who he was as an artist. Beginning on these two albums, he stripped away many of the production excesses of his late-’60s Deram albums in favour of a more soulful, introspective sound that would dovetail with the burgeoning singer-songwriter movement. This metamorphosis began with Mona Bone Jakon, produced by ex-Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith and featuring long time collaborator Alun Davies on guitar along with John Ryan on bass and Harvey Burns on drums.
The 4-CD/Blu-ray/LP 50th anniversary box set edition of Mona Bone Jakon features a new remaster of the original mix (overseen by Paul Samwell-Smith) on CD 1, a 2020 remix by David Hefti on CD 2, and on LP, unreleased demos on CD 3 (including the new single “I Want Some Sun”), and 18 live performances on CD 4. Among the live performances are legendary television appearances on French TV, Beat Club in Germany, and two different BBC sessions. Another highlight is a 6-song set from the Plumpton Jazz and Blues Festival in August 1970 which sees Stevens tackling songs from Mona Bone Jakon, the as-yet-released Tea For The Tillerman, and even “Changes IV,” which would appear on Teaser and the Firecat in 1971. The Plumpton set is also featured on an etched LP in the set. Rounding out the Mona Bone Jakon box is a Blu-ray disc featuring high-resolution audio of the 2020 mix, plus the original promotional video for “Lady D’Arbanville,” television appearances on Pop Deux and other French TV programs, as well as “Maybe You’re Right” from BBC’s In Concert series and “Lady D’Arbanville” on Beat Club.
Finally, it wouldn’t be a deluxe box set without some memorabilia. Inside the Mona Bone Jakon box you’ll find a replica Island Records press kit, two Cat Stevens press photos, a replica flier for the 1970 Plumpton Jazz and Blues Festival, a tour sticker, greeting card, and a pop art-inspired dustbin print.
Slimmer editions of Mona Bone Jakon will also be available. The 1-CD standard edition will feature the 2020 remaster of the original album mix housed in a book set. A similarly presented 2-CD deluxe edition pairs this remaster with a disc of studio demos and live highlights.
In celebration of Record Store Day , Keith Richards has released a new video for “Hate It When You Leave,” a track on his second solo album “Main Offender” which was first released in 1992.
“The video portrays that the simplicity of life is what is most beautiful about the world and pays homage to people and places one loves, particularly at a time when family, friends and lovers have been kept apart,“ stated a press release. Directed by Jacques Naudé, the video begins with an empty road which leads into a collection of different moments of people working, at play, and interacting with one another.
On Record Store Day, June 12th, 2021, Keith Richards will release a limited edition (3500 units) red vinyl 7″ single ‘Wicked As It Seems‘, including two previously unreleased live tracks from Keith Richards & The X-Pensive Winos.
Recorded in December 1995 at the Town & Country Club, Kentish Town, London, as part of the Main Offender Tour, are a live version of ‘Wicked As It Seems‘, plus a live version of the Rolling Stones classic ‘Gimme Shelter‘. This specially curated single also includes newly created sleeve artwork based on the Main Offender album art.
Richards is also releasing a limited quantity vinyl on Record Store Day which according to a press release includes “track ‘Key To The Highway’ which only ever saw release on the Japanese version of the album Main Offender, along with ‘Hate It When You Leave.’”
Get ‘Hate It When You Leave’ and the rare Keith Richards track “Key To The Highway” (which only ever saw release on the Japanese version of the album Main Offender) on a red vinyl 7” single on Record Store Day.
The Besnard Lakes have passed through death and they’re here to tell the tale. Nearly five years after their last lightning-tinted volley, the magisterial Montreal psych-rock band have sworn off compromise, split with their long-standing label, and completed a searing, 72-minute suite about the darkness of dying and the light on the other side.
The Besnard Lakes Are “The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings” is the group’s sixth album and the first in more than 15 years to be released away from a certain midwestern American indie record company. After 2016’s A Coliseum Complex Museum – which saw Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas attempting shorter, less sprawling songs – the Besnards and their label decided it was time to go their separate ways; with that decision came a question of whether to even continue the project at all. What use is a band with an instinct for long, tectonic tunes – rock songs with chthonic heft and ethereal grace, five or 10 or 18 minutes long? How do you sell that in an age of bite-sized streaming? How do you make it relevant? “Who gives a shit!” the Besnard Lakes realized. Ignited by their love for each other, for playing music together, the sextet found themselves unspooling the most uncompromising recording of their career. Despite all its grandeur, ...The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings honours the very essence of punk rock: the notion that a band need only be relevant to itself.
At last the Besnard Lakes have crafted a continuous long-form suite: nine tracks that could be listened together as one, like Spiritualized’s Lazer Guided Melodies or even Dark Side of the Moon, overflowing with melody and harmony, drone and dazzle, the group’s own unique weather.
Here now, the Besnard Lakes finally dispensed with the two/three-year album cycle, taking all the time they needed to conceive, compose, record and mix their opus. Some of its songs were old, resurrected from demos cast aside years ago. Others were literally woodshedded in the cabanon behind Lasek and Goreas’s “Rigaud Ranch” – invented and reinvented, relishing this rougher sound. Some of that distortion makes its way into the final mix: an incandescent crackle that had receded from the Besnards‘ more recent output. Rightly – nay, definitively! – The Besnard Lakes Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings is a double LP. “Near Death” is the title of the first side. “Death,” “After Death,” and “Life” follow next. It’s literally a journey into (and back from) the brink: the story of the Besnard Lakes’ own odyssey but also a remembrance of others’, especially the death of Lasek’s father in 2019. Being on your deathbed is perhaps the most psychedelic trip you can go on: in Lasek’s father’s case, he surfaced from a morphine dream to talk about “a window” on his blanket, with “a carpenter inside, making intricate objects.”
That experience pervades the album, catching fire on the song “Christmas Can Wait”; elsewhere the band pays tribute to the late Mark Hollis and, on “The Father of Time Wakes Up,” they mourn the death of Prince. Here are a couple of outtakes from the video shoot for “Raindrops”. This song and video details a psychedelic flight through the mind while deep in an altered state.
The song lyrically references the death of Mark Hollis from Talk Talk (“Garden of Eden spirited”) and also describes the idea of evolution determining the story of the Garden of Eden. In these scorched and pitted times, as the world smoulders, there might be nothing less trendy than an hour-long psych-rock epic by a band of Canadian grandmasters. Then again, there might be nothing we need more. ...The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings is a bright-blazing requiem: nine tunes that are one tune and six musicians who make one band – unleashed and unconstrained, piercing and technicolour.
At the end of the golden day, the Besnard Lakes are right where they should be. Just announced,
Dinked Edition No.77 is the thrilling and quite epic new LP from The Besnard Lakes+ Dinked Edition No. 77 + Double 140g orange / red splatter vinyl + One-sided orange flexi disc featuring exclusive track ‘Superego’ + Hand-numbered sleeve+ Limited edition of 500
The Besnard Lakes have passed through death and they’re here to tell the tale. Nearly five years after their last lightning-tinted volley, the magisterial Montreal psych-rock band have sworn off compromise, split with their long-standing label, and completed a searing, 72-minute suite about the darkness of dying and the light on the other side.
Kate Stables has released her next album under the This Is The Kit alias “Off Off On” with lead single “This Is What You Did,” which features Stables’ signature upbeat banjo, top-knotch vocals and restless, stream-of-consciousness lyrics. Stables describes it as “A bit of a panic attack song,” adding, “The negative voices of other people that are your own voice. Or are they? Hard to say when you’re in this kind of a place. How to get out of this place? Needing to get outside more.
Since 2008’s debut album Krülle Bol, This Is The Kit (lead by Kate Stables) have unpicked emotional knots and woven remarkable stories, but even by their high standards, “Off Off On” is a beautifully clear distillation of Stables’ song-writing gifts. By the end of 2018, the band had finished touring their last album, the talismanic “Moonshine Freeze” – leading to Kate’s Ivor Novello nomination, but when it came to Stables’ natural impulse to start the next record, her efforts were diverted by an invitation to join The National on the road for multiple tours and TV appearances – a continuation of the role she took on their album I Am Easy To Find. “It was so brilliant when I was writing to be away from my songs and the responsibility of being in charge of a band or a project – I think it really helped my writing and my getting through whatever I needed to get through.” Richly illuminating and acutely sensitive to the pulses and currents of life, Off Off On shows This Is The Kit overflowing with ideas.
In difficult times, it’s a record that feels like a lifeline, moving against the tide, standing against the storm. Keep going.
Taken from This Is The Kit’s new album ‘Off Off On’ out October 23rd,
Announcing McCartney III, to be released December 11th on Capitol Records across digital platforms, on CD, and on LP manufactured by Third Man Pressing. Vinyl configurations will include Third Man Edition of 3000 hand-numbered red vinyl copies sold on the Paul McCartney webstore, a ‘333’ Edition sold only via ThirdManRecords online store and limited to 333 copies on yellow-with-black-dots vinyl composed from a “regrind” of 33 McCartney & McCartney II records.
2020 marks 50 years since Paul McCartney released his self-titled first solo album. Featuring Paul playing every instrument and writing and recording every song, McCartney’s effortless charms have only grown in stature and influence over time. The chart-topping album would signify not only a creative rebirth for Paul, but also as a template for generations of indie and lo-fi musicians seeking to emulate its warm homespun vibe and timeless tunes including “Maybe I’m Amazed”, “Every Night” and “The Lovely Linda”.
The 1970s saw Paul forming his second band Wings and dominating the charts, stages and airwaves of the world, with multiple #1 singles, sold-out world tours, multi-million-selling albums including Band on the Run, Venus and Mars, Wings at the Speed of Sound, London Town and more. In 1980, 10 years from the release of McCartney, Paul wrapped up the decade of Wings with the surprise release of his second solo album, the electronic-tinged McCartney II. Once again featuring Paul entirely on his own, McCartney II would come to be regarded as a leftfield classic, with classic cuts such as “Coming Up”, “Temporary Secretary” and “Waterfalls”.
The 1980s saw Paul start again, this time kicking off an unprecedented solo run. The following four decades would see Paul’s iconic and legendary status grow exponentially, with solo masterpieces including Tug of War, Flowers in the Dirt, Pipes of Peace, Flaming Pie, Memory Almost Full and New, and massive live shows the world over — actually setting the World Record for the largest attendance at a concert. In 2018, 54 years since The Beatles first hit #1 on the Billboard Album Charts – Paul’s Egypt Station would be yet another historic #1 McCartney album.
Hard as it is to believe, it’s only been two years since Egypt Station went #1–and it was only last year that Paul’s Freshen Up tour played its last show before Covid hit pause on live music, a legendary blowout at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
Paul hadn’t planned to release an album in 2020, but in the isolation of “Rockdown,” he soon found himself fleshing out some existing musical sketches and creating even more new ones. Before long an eclectic collection of spontaneous songs would become McCartney III: a stripped back, self-produced and, quite literally, solo work marking the opening of a new decade, in the tradition of 1970’s McCartney and 1980’s McCartney II.
Recorded earlier this year in Sussex, McCartney III is mostly built from live takes of Paul on vocals and guitar or piano, overdubbing his bass playing, drumming, etc. atop that foundation. The process first sparked when Paul returned to an unreleased track from the early 90s, When Winter Comes (produced by George Martin). Paul crafted a new passage for the song, giving rise to album opener Long Tailed Winter Bird—while When Winter Comes, featuring its new 2020 intro Winter Bird, became the new album’s grand finale.
Speaking about III, Paul said: “I was living lockdown life on my farm with my family and I would go to my studio every day. I had to do a little bit of work on some film music and that turned into the opening track and then when it was done I thought what will I do next? I had some stuff I’d worked on over the years but sometimes time would run out and it would be left half-finished so I started thinking about what I had. Each day I’d start recording with the instrument I wrote the song on and then gradually layer it all up, it was a lot of fun. It was about making music for yourself rather than making music that has to do a job. So, I just did stuff I fancied doing. I had no idea this would end up as an album.”
Long Tailed Winter Bird and Winter Bird/When Winter Comes bookend McCartney III’s vast and intimate range of modes and moods, from soul searching to wistful, from playful to raucous and all points between — captured with some of the same gear from Paul’s Rude Studio used as far back as 1971 Wings sessions. And Paul’s array of vintage instruments he played on the new album have an even more storied history, including Bill Black of Elvis Presley’s original trio’s double bass alongside Paul’s own iconic Hofner violin bass, and a mellotron from Abbey RoadStudios used on Beatles recordings, to name but a few.
In keeping with McCartney & McCartney II’s photography by Linda McCartney, the principal photos for III were shot by Paul’s daughter Mary McCartney—with additional photography by Paul’s nephew Sonny McCartney as well as photos Paul took on his phone (it’s a family affair). The cover art and typography is by celebrated American artist Ed Ruscha.
McCartney and McCartney II each saw Paul open up a new decade with reinvention, both personal and musical. Just as McCartney’s 1970 release marked Paul’s return to basics in the wake of the biggest band break-up in musical history, and the 1980 avant-garde masterpiece McCartney II rose from the ashes of Wings, McCartney III finds Paul back on his own, turning unexpected circumstances into a personal snapshot of a timeless artist at a unique point in history.
McCartney III will be released December 11th on Capitol Records manufactured by Third Man Pressing. Vinyl configurations will range from standard 180g to a Third Man Edition of 3,333 hand-numbered red vinyl copies, a‘333’ Edition sold only via Third Man Records online store and limited to 333 copies on yellow-with-black-dots vinyl created using 33 recycled vinyl copies of McCartney and McCartney II, a U.S. indie retail exclusive pressing of 4000 hand-numbered white vinyl LPs, and more.
The Fat Angel Sings 