Modesto, CA’s influential indie-rock group Grandaddy celebrates the 20th-anniversary of their classic second LP, 2000’s “The Sophtware Slump” with a brand-new solo piano recording of the album by principal songwriter Jason Lytle. The candid arrangements reveal new layers of meaning embedded in The Sophtware Slump’s melancholy and touching vision of the future. With a meticulous yet scruffy sound that continues to draw comparisons to a post-millennial OK Computer – and which Pitchfork called a “sad, quaint, low-key Y2K-era classic” – The Sophtware Slump, now heard as a solo piano album, is a chance to let the song writing shine.
This is not a record made up of demos or rough sketches; it is a shadow sibling to a record that inspired a generation in the earliest days of the 21st century.
Its safe to say there that now is a good time for music to feel brutal, full-on and foundation-shaking, and one of the most anticipated debut albums of the year for this is without a doubt Girls In Synthesis’Now Here’s An Echo From Your Future, released later this month.
I won’t give away too many spoilers, but I can safely say that the album does not disappoint. (Previous EPs, projects and of course their well-noted live show make expectations high.) While you are waiting in anticipation, they’ve already given us a well-representative taste of what’s to come with the freshly-announced release of a dizzyingly brutal new track and video, They’re Not Listening.
They’re Not Listening is brimming with political charge and dissent. There is, of course, obviously no question of who the “they’re” of the title is – the trio reflect the anger of a nation. Lyrics about the games they play as a distraction burn with Situationist ideology; the band breaks through barriers through of spectacle both with their politics of their lyrics and the blunt straightforward drive and their sound and aesthetic. The pounding, absorbing sound and feel of the record is a short, sharp blast of ire. This is something enhanced by the pared-down monochrome and heady lighting of the accompanying video. But don’t just take my word for it. Go watch and listen now…
‘They’re Not Listening’ taken from the forthcoming debut album ‘Now Here’s An Echo From Your Future’ released 28/8/20. Harbinger Sound
[Prev. Blank Editions/Louder Than War]
October 16th – The Chameleon Arts Café, Nottingham
Strum & Thrum: The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987 is the first volume of Captured Tracks‘ new venture into compilations – Excavations.
Inspired by Pebbles, Killed By Death, Soul Jazz and Numero Group compilations, Excavations is a series dedicated to compiling forgotten music from the 1970s – 1990s that has a connection to Captured Tracks’ sound and aesthetic. Much like the Cleaners from Venus, the Wake, and Saäda Bonaire reissues we’ve put out, Excavations releases will bridge the past to our current roster and showcase the kinds of sounds that inspire us.
Record label Captured Tracks has announced a new compilation called Strum & Thrum: The American Jangle Underground 1983 – 1987. An orange vinyl edition of the new 28-track collection arrives on Record Store Day’s “Day Drop” on October 24th; standard black vinyl, as well as digital and CD editions will be out November 13th.
Strum & Thrum is the inaugural volume of Captured Tracks’ new Excavations compilation series. It chronicles the roots of melodic indie rock in the early-to-mid 1980s. Listen to theReverbs’ “Trusted Woods” from the compilation below, and scroll down to watch a trailer for the release.
Strum & Thrum includes music from the Strand, Salem 66, Vandykes, the Ferrets, and others. The release also features a booklet with an oral history of the ’80s indie scene, an introduction by Captured Tracks label head Mike Sniper, archival images, and more. Strum & Thrum will be available on vinyl, CD, and digitally
“Strum & Thrum seems like the right fit for the first reissue compilation for Captured Tracks,” Mike Sniper said in a press release. He continued:
I’m happy that the first compilation I’ve ever produced features overlooked records that are still affordable—anyone who enjoys this comp can dive deeper into this scene without having to take out a loan. People nowadays sometimes say that guitar music is dead. Strum & Thrum is certainly against that notion. Listening to it and reading the oral history sheds a light on a largely forgotten scene full of great bands with some really great songs. I’m glad to be able to help share this story and get the bands some of the recognition they’ve deserved all along.
Record Store Day founder Michael Kurtz added:
It’s ironic that Strum & Thrum is coming out on Record Store Day’s October Drop Date, as the reason Sheila and I started Three Hits is directly related to discovering R.E.M.’s Hib-Tone single “Radio Free Europe” in a Boone, NC record store in 1981. The look was handmade, the sound was raw and honest, and the 7″ record was limited and special—you could only find it in a record store.
Owning a copy of that single allowed us fans to have a connection to the band, and that personal experience directly influenced the creation of Record Store Day itself. At the time, hearing “Radio Free Europe” and it’s “Sitting Still” B-side changed a lot of people’s lives. Dozens of other southeastern US bands, including One Plus Two, set out to write and perform songs because of it. It was an incredibly exciting time and it’s fantastic to hear bands from around the US who all had similar epiphanies and made a lot of noise together on this compilation.
Formed in the aftermath of punk’s descent on Kansas in the late 70s, Start’s jangly melodies felt distinct from the local scene, with contemporaries only to be found across the Atlantic. Despite this sense of isolation, they went on to play alongside seminal midwest groups including Get Smart and the Embarrassment, recorded the protest song “Little Fish Big Fish” with Allen Ginsberg, and released a full-length album that included “Where I Want To Be”.
Spread across two LPs, Strum & Thrum includes an 80+ page booklet with an extensive oral history of the ‘80s indie scene, an introduction by Captured Tracks label head Mike Sniper, and tons of archival images and ephemera. Long live the jangle underground!
Initially I just wanted to record a version of Brooklyn Gurls after it being requested a lot during my livestreams b/c a definitive version didn’t exist. So it’s a new version of the song, it’s called Brooklyn Gurls. though technically, it’s old. it was one of the first ‘Francis Lung’ songs – it’s debut was live on BBC Radio 1 during a somewhat infamous session WU LYF did for Huw Stephens in 2011. We were so rude and disrespectful to Huw during our interview and I still feel bad about it. We didn’t really mention that it was a Francis Lung song so this live version of it has existed on Youtube as a WU LYF song since then. During lockdown I played some streaming ‘concerts’ and people started requesting it, which inspired me to record a definitive version of it, which in turn inspired me to record some of the other songs played during the ‘concerts’ in this stripped back way. ‘Songs From A Living Room’ is a sort of memento of this bizarre, singular moment in our lifetime When I’d finished I asked fans on Instagram which other songs/versions they’d enjoyed and I half listened/half did what I wanted and thusly the track listing was born. I hadn’t recorded anything completely alone at home since my Vol I EP (2015) so I wanted to dust off my engineering chops. It was recorded on a Yamaha MT8X Cassette 8 track & Logic, and features vinyl samples of various classical records (which may or may not be in the public domain), and I also stole an intro from a punk compilation featuring my English teacher’s old band.
There are mellow versions of Up & Down & Unnecessary Love from A Dream Is U for sad people who hate drums, an electric cover of J Mascis’ acoustic guitar bummer ‘Several Shades of Why’, completely undanceable versions of Dance 4 Sorrow & A Selfish Man and a bluegrass cover of Paul Westerbergs ‘Androgynous’ dedicated to every non-binary kid out there struggling, growing up in a world that doesn’t want them to have rights. I guess that for better or worse, this is a pivotal time and I wanted to put out a record that was a snapshot of this moment, like a piece of wedding cake that sits in the freezer for 30 years and ends up lasting longer than your marriage.
Steve Wynn first gained fame as lead singer and songwriter for the legendary Paisley Underground outfit The Dream Syndicate. But his post-Dream Syndicate solo career is the equal of any indie-rock singer-songwriter you’d care to name. Now, Real Gone Music and Steve Wynn have joined forces to release “Decade” (yup, the Neil Young reference is deliberate), an 11-CD set that chronicles, with lavish deluxe editions, the guitar-driven albums Wynn recorded between 1995 and 2005, most of which have been long out-of-print.
The statistics on this box set are mind-blowing: 166 tracks, 57 of them totally unreleased, plus 31 other rarities! That’s right’over half of this 11-CD set consists of either hitherto unknown recordings or tracks that have been almost impossible to find! As for the other tracks, they hail from the following albums: the American releases Melting In The Dark, Sweetness and Light, My Midnight, Here Come The Miracles, Static Transmission, and ‘Tick’Tick’Tick, and the German-only compilation entitled The Emusic Singles Collection (rare tracks from another European-only release, a collection of rarities entitled Pick of the Litter, appear here as well).
So where do all the unreleased tracks come from? Well, during this 10-year period, Steve Wynn recorded dozens of songs ‘ sometimes at home and occasionally in a proper studio. Many of those songs got re-recorded and revamped and became key memorable parts of his catalogue. Other songs got tossed away and forgotten. For Decade, long-time Steve Wynn (and Dream Syndicate) archivist Pat Thomas in cooperation with Steve Wynn listened to about a hundred hours of unreleased tapes and compiled this amazing box set that not only includes remastered (by Mike Milchner of SonicVision) versions of some of Steve Wynn’s best albums but also the first American release of the two rare European only titles. And ‘ it bears saying again ‘ 57 previously unreleased recordings that not even hardcore tape traders have heard!
Several of these albums were recorded with Steve Wynn’s core band of Linda Pitmon on drums, Dream Syndicate guitarist Jason Victor, and long-time Miracle 3 bass player Dave DeCastro. Along the way, there are appearances from Green On Red keyboardist Chris Cacavas, Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb, indie chanteuse Barbara Manning, Chris Brokaw & Thalia Zedek of Come, Tony Maimone of Pere Ubu, John Convertino of Calexico, Rich Gilbert and many others. With so much material, you need a program’and so Steve Wynn himself has penned very detailed notes that tell the stories behind the origins of all 57 previously unreleased songs! Plus essays from box set producer Pat Thomas and several of Wynn’s long time bandmates. And a pile of previously unseen photos…all inside a mammoth, full-colour 48-page book!.
On October. 9th, Yo La Tengo will release “Sleepless Night” a new EP featuring a slew of covers, including a newly released version of The Byrds’ “Wasn’t Born To Follow. The project arrives after Yo La Tengo originally collaborated with Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara to create these tracks for a recent retrospective.“ We met Yoshitomo Nara in 2003, would see him at his art shows and our concerts,” explained YLT’s Ira Kaplan via press release. “…To make the catalogue of his 2020 exhibit at LACMA more personal, the idea came up to include an LP of some of Nara’s favourite songs as part of a deluxe edition. We were asked to provide one side of the LP (and that one track be a new composition), with the other side being another six songs selected by Nara, in their original versions. Here are the six songs we contributed to the LACMA record, chosen in collaboration with Nara.”Other selections include work by The Delmore Brothers, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Lane, and The Flying Machine.
The Matador version of the EP is a single-sided 12” with original cover art by Nara, a drawing of the band by Hubley, and an illustration by McNew etched on the record’s flip.
Ira Kaplan on ‘Sleepless Night’:
We met Yoshitomo Nara in 2003, would see him at his art shows and our concerts. We dj’d at an opening at the Asia Society, and on another occasion he drew a picture of Georgia strangling me on a Gloomy pencil case that became one of Georgia’s prized possessions until it was stolen from her at the bar at the K-West hotel in Shepherd’s Bush. To make the catalogue of his 2020 exhibit at LACMA more personal, the idea came up to include an LP of some of Nara’s favorite songs as part of a deluxe edition. We were asked to provide one side of the LP (and that one track be a new composition), with the other side being another six songs selected by Nara, in their original versions. Here are the six songs we contributed to the LACMA record, chosen in collaboration with Nara.
I probably was introduced to “Blues Stay Away from Me” on NRBQ’s Workshop lp, working backwards to the Louvin Brothers and the Delmore Brothers (with a detour to Doug Sahm and Band). Our version was recorded by Mark Nevers in February 2011. Charlie Louvin had died just a couple of days before. We were on a tour with William Tyler that came to an end in Nashville. The three of us and William and Kurt Wagner threw together an arrangement of “Blues Stay Away from Me” as a tribute and closed our show at the Exit/In with it. Since we were hanging around Nashville for a few days before going home, we went to Mark’s studio and recorded it.
“Wasn’t Born to Follow” was recorded by Gene Holder as part of the sessions that resulted in Stuff Like That There. Dave Schramm on lead guitar. I’m sure I heard the Byrds’ song for the first time when my mom took me and a bunch of my friends to see Easy Rider. (One kid was forbidden by his parents from joining us, as was my younger brother. My dad took my brother to see Butch Cassidy instead, and I’m guessing my friend stayed home and did homework.)
Ronnie Lane didn’t write “Roll On Babe,” but his is the version we’re covering. James recorded it in Hoboken. (And that song was among the songs Georgia played when we dj’d at the Asia Society.)
While making ‘And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out’ in Nashville, Roger Moutenot recorded Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” for a John Peel birthday show. As best as we can tell, we sent the one and only copy of the master to England. Yes, we’re as dumbfounded as you are, if not more so. After a lot of sleuthing, we came up with this.
“Bleeding” was written by us, recorded in Hoboken by James.
James also recorded The Flying Machine’s “Smile a Little Smile for Me” for Michael Shelley’s Super Hit Tsunami!, available to people who pledged to WFMU’s 2019 fundraising marathon.
Track List:
Blues Stay Away
Wasn’t Born to Follow
Roll On Babe
It Takes a Lot to Laugh
Bleeding
Smile a Little Smile for Me
‘Sleepless Night’ is the new EP from Yo La Tengo, out October 9th on Matador Records.
A new best-of box set of John Lennon’s solo work will arrive on October. 9th, which would have been the Beatle’s 80th birthday. The new set, titled ‘Gimme Some Truth. The Ultimate Mixes‘ was executive produced by Yoko Ono Lennon and produced by Sean Ono Lennon. The two handpicked 36 of Lennon’s solo tracks, which “have all been completely remixed from scratch, radically upgrading their sonic quality and presenting them as a never-before-heard Ultimate Listening Experience.” (Quote via press release.)“John was a brilliant man with a great sense of humour and understanding,” wrote Yoko Ono Lennon in the preface of a 124-page book included in the Deluxe Edition (quote obtained via press release). “He believed in being truthful and that the power of the people will change the world. And it will. All of us have the responsibility to visualize a better world for ourselves and our children.
Unearthed, never-before-seen 8mm footage filmed in John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s home features in the new video for “Look at Me,” from the upcoming John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band-The Ultimate Collection reissue, due out April 16th.
The video — which also utilizes the “Ultimate Mix” of “Look at Me” — boasts between-takes footage from a pair of the couple’s short films,Film No. 5 (“Smile”) and Two Virgins, both filmed by camera operator William Wareing at Lennon’s Kenwood home in 1968.
The intimate side-by-side footage — unseen by the public before its release Thursday by the John Lennon Estate — offers a glimpse into Lennon and Ono’s domestic life, as well as shots of Lennon strumming an acoustic guitar and his drum skin from the Sgt. Pepper’s album cover.
Capitol/UMe and the Lennon estate previously shared an updated video for “Mother” from the massive John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band 50th anniversary reissue, which features 87 never-before-heard recordings, including 14 “Ultimate Mixes” of the album’s tracks that strip off producer Phil Spector’s effects, tape delays, and reverbs.
The truth is what we create. It’s in our hands.”The box set will come in various forms, including the Deluxe Edition, which will come along with the book, postcards, a fold-out poster and a bumper sticker. For more information on the various packages, head to johnlennon.com. In addition to the box set announcement, the Lennon estate also shared one of the tracks from Gimme Some Truth: a remixed edition of “Instant Karma (We All Shine On).”
Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) · John Lennon · Yoko Ono
As part of the celebrations for John Lennon’s 80th birthday, his most vital and best loved solo recordings have been completely remixed from scratch for a new collection:
“Interzone” is the third full-length album by New York’s electro post-punk duo The Vacant Lots, to be released on Fuzz Club, Friday, June 26th, 2020. A genre-blending synthesis of dance and psych, Interzone is made for secluded listeners and all night partygoers, meant for headphones and the club.
Uninhibited by the limitations of two people and continuing their mission of “minimal means maximum effect,” The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud and Brian MacFadyen create an industrial amalgam of icy electronics and cold beats with detached vocals and hard hitting guitars. Interzone’s trance-like opener ‘Endless Rain’ and the kinetic krautrock stomper ‘Into The Depths’ are followed by scintillating dark disco anthems ‘Rescue’ and ‘Exit’. Side 2 kicks off with 80’s synth-pop track ‘Fracture’ and haunting after-hours minimal wave ‘Payoff,’ while ‘Station’ and album closer ‘Party’s Over’ deal with disillusionment and conquering one’s indifference to make real change.
The album creates order from chaos and delves into escapism, isolation, relationship conflicts, and decay. With nods to William S. Burroughs and Joy Division’s song of the same name, “Interzone is like existing between two zones,” Jared says. “Interzone doesn’t mean one thing. It can mean different things to different people depending on their interpretation. Working on this album was a constant struggle reconciling internal conflicts with all that’s going on externally in the world. Interzone in one word is duality.”
“Jared and I bounced ideas back and forth while working in seclusion on opposite coasts. We would just send files to each other until the songs were arranged. Then we met up at the studio in Brooklyn where we were fortunate enough to borrow Alan Vega’s Arp synth and finished recording with engineer Ted Young. We then worked with Maurizio Baggio to mix it,” recalls Brian. After the band finished producing Interzone, long term visual collaborator Ivan Liechti designed the album artwork.
The Vacant Lots have released singles with Mexican Summer and Reverberation Appreciation Society, collaborated on their debut album Departure with Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom, their second album Endless Night with Alan Vega, and most recently on their two EPs, Berlin and Exit, with Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe at his studio in Berlin. The group has toured with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Suicide, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Growlers, Dean Wareham, The Dandy Warhols, and Spectrum.
Reflecting on the new album, Jared says, “We don’t want to waste people’s time and we want people to play it over and over. Our mantra is ‘is it bulletproof? 8 songs. 30 minutes. It’s about intention and vision.”
Released June 26th, 2020
All Songs & Music Produced by the Vacant Lots, Are Jared Artaud & Brian Macfayden
Pop singer Troye Sivan is back with his highly anticipated new EP “In A Dream”, which he only just announced last month. The record features previously released singles “Easy” and “Rager teengager!” (listen below). Sivan recorded most of the album alongside producer Oscar Görres (The Weeknd, MARINA, Tove Lo) between Stockholm and Los Angeles just before the pandemic caused everything to shut down. “A story that’s still unfolding, this small collection of songs explores an emotional rollercoaster period in my life when the feelings and thoughts were most shockingly fresh,” Sivan said in a press statement. “Revisiting these songs and moments is tough, but I’m proud of this music and excited to have it out in the world.”
For the first time in years, Troye Sivan is bored. When the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to loom earlier in 2020, Sivan retreated from his Los Angeles home to spend time with his family in Melbourne – only to find himself subject to the city’s restrictive lockdown, stuck inside for longer than he could have imagined.
Not since Sivan was a teenager has he been so removed from the head rush of life as a global pop star. “It’s crazy to be doing this again at 25… I slipped back into old habits so quickly. It’s funny – give me three months, six months, however long it’s been to do absolutely nothing, and I completely regressed back to 17-year-old Troye, lying in my bed, just watching dumb shit on YouTube.”
Sivan was widely expected to release his third album this year, but instead returned from stints in LA and Sweden with the six-track, 19-minute ‘In A Dream’, a record he describes as “this very intense, potent little thing”. So why release an EP, and not an album?
‘Easy’ is shockingly intimate even by Sivan’s standards, with a chorus that drops us into the fire of a lovers’ reunion: “What the hell did we do? / Tell me we’ll make it through / ’Cause he made it easy / Please don’t leave me…” It’s so raw that it’s almost uncomfortable to listen to, if not for the song’s warm synths: ’80s-styled yet utterly timeless. “There’s a lot of different sonic moods on this EP, and I truly think the only throughline is that they’re all extremely personal, and precise in their emotion,” he says. It’s true: on ‘In A Dream’, his perspective is sharper, more cutting than before, with a hint of gentle self-deprecation – even when he’s singing in metaphor.
Troye Sivan’s music palette and reference points are so tasteful that it’s easy to discredit what the 25-year-old pop prodigy has to say. He sidesteps the crowd-pleasing ‘80s-indebted synth-pop of 2018’s Bloom for an EP that’s more contemporary and intimate, even claustrophobic. He’s at his most heartbroken on the restrained ballad “Easy” while elsewhere he uses harsh electronic dissonance (the experimental “Stud” and “Rager Teenager!”) to work through the push and pull of his more aggressive sexual and emotional fantasies. Finally, no one can say he’s just a twink with a good ear.
“Easy” and “Rager teenager!” available now: ‘In A Dream’ EP:
While drumming for Ottawa, Canada pop punk trio White Wires in the early 2010s, Allie Hanlon began a side project for her songs. Taking the name of the band from a Redd Kross track, Peach Kelli Pop’s tunes were short, sticky pop songs about made-up dances, summertime, and having fun in the cutest way possible. Hanlon played all the instruments herself, recording them in time-honored lo-fi fashion. She made a series of records for Burger, moved to Los Angeles when White Wires ended, and with a live band bringing her songs to life, became a fixture on stages around the world. With each album, Hanlon expanded the band’s sound a little, even bringing in other musicians to help out, and by the time of her 2018 record Gentle Leader, Peach Kelli Pop had moved to Mint Records (once the home of the band’s spiritual forebears Cub) and established themselves as a first-rate punk pop band.
![Image 1 - JOHN LENNON PLASTIC ONO BAND (Ultimate Mixes) [2-LP VINYL] (PRE-ORDER 23/4/2021)](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ZAgAAOSwEm1gR7eq/s-l1600.jpg)
The Fat Angel Sings 