Irish rockers The Murder Capital have been building quite a bit of momentum overseas both back at home in Ireland and in the U.K. as well. They released their debut album “When I Have Fears” last year to mass critical acclaim (it was one of our best-albums-of-2019>favourites of the year and now it’s time for the band to have their moment here in the U.S., where they are about to embark on their first-ever North American tour. The Murder Capital released their debut album When I Have Fears on their own label Human Season Records to much critical claim in August of 2019.The band played a string of headlining shows around Europe and the UK and this 45rpm 12″ highlights the broody “Love, Love, Love” and “On Twisted Ground” from their show at The Dome, Tufnell Park in London from October 2019.
The band’s drummer Diarmuid Brennan told us one day before they played their biggest hometown show to date. We talked about the early days of the band, their process, how they bring it live every night, and how grief helped shaped their debut album. You guys are currently in Dublin preparing for your biggest headlining show to date. How are you feeling before the show?
Yeah that’s right. Good! Just landed back in Dublin, we flew over from the U.K. So we are just at Grogans now on South William Street, just meeting up with some mates. But yeah, just staying relaxing about it to be honest. It’s obviously a big one as it’s a Dublin show, Dublin shows are always big, they get us very excited. But yeah I’ll get excited maybe a couple of minutes before we go on.
Based out of the indie-pop heartland of Olympia, Washington, Joshua Hoey has been working on his, “lo-fi, small-scale cultural production”, under a variety of guises for the best part of two-decades. Joshua’s latest project is the, “open-source DIY rock band”, Special Moves, a sort of intriguing middle ground between a solo-project and a collective, where anyone is encouraged to turn up at any given moment and do their thing. After a string of cassingles released over the course of 2018 (which were subsequently compiled the following year on Jigsaw’s “Everything Is Free” cd), this is the proper debut full length from Special Moves, an Olympia-based project led by Josh Hoey with ample accompaniment from a large number of friends. Like the earlier stuff, these recordings are a bit rough around the edges, but both the sound quality and overall flow of this album is a marked improvement over the compilation, giving this a much more consistent feel. Musically, this is still perfectly in line with Tall Dwarfs and early Portastatic, but with a slightly mellower, poppier aesthetic. Heck, even his cover of the Boyracer classic “I’ve Got It + It’s Not Worth Having” is a friendlier, more melodic take on the original! And at under 20 minutes, this is a great album to quickly listen to when you’re getting ready to run out the door…
“If you want something done right, do it yourself” may not be an entirely accurate translation from the original French, but it’s proven to be a powerful strategy over the last forty years of American underground rock music. Special Moves is the latest name Olympia’s Joshua Hoey has applied to their lifelong project of lo-fi, small-scale cultural production. Josh has played fuzzy, energetic rock music in living rooms and basements – even the occasional rock club – for almost two decades. The rough outlines of their sound are SUPERCHUNK, ARCHERS OF LOAF, BUTTERGLORY, GUIDED BY VOICES, SUGAR, and early 90’s indie rock generally.
Somehow that has resulted in not just a thrillingly varied live show, but also an upcoming album, Little Help, released on Joshua’s own Reflective Tapes label, in collaboration with both Jigsaw Records and Solidarity Club.
The specific sparks that have fed the drive to write, record and travel were generated by random short-run seven-inches, cassingles, and one-off tracks on tape comps. Special Moves is an attempt to continue the proud legacy created by folks with talented friends and an uncontrollable urge to document the creativity and vibrancy that would otherwise fade from view. SpecialMoves is an open-source rock band. Lineups and instrumentation vary from gig to gig, one recording to the next. Collaborators are encouraged to bring their unique stylistic choices to bear.
As you’d expect for someone so rooted in the DIY-world, the Special Moves sound is something of an archive of the great and good of bands who never really made it.
Bananagun follow up the release of their wonderfully received debut album “The True Story of Bananagun” with a remix from Maston. The band gave Frank free reign to turn the track inside out, and boy did he deliver!
Maston’s mix of “Out of Reach” slows things down to an easy pace, enabling the original’s rich melodies to sit at the forefront, resulting in an endless earworm. Band leader Nick Van Bakel told us a bit more about why they decided to work with Frank Maston:
“We thought Frank would be good for the job because we liked his albums and you can tell from listening to them he knows his way around a mix, and also I like his style, seemed like a like-minded fellow. “We weren’t expecting it to sound so sexy, in a mellow Stax / Motown way I like it. We’ve heard that song so much now so it’s cool having this new sensual spin. “I’m sure we’ve never met but have mutual friends. I got in touch via email, it was all easy going. Frank’s real enthusiastic and into it, it’s always such a pleasure working with people like that!
“We hope you enjoy!” Watch the band-made accompanying video here:
The band will be coming over to the UK to play their first shows next May. Tickets are on sale now with more to be announced soon – full dates & info are available soon
The True Story of Bananagun is now available to buy
Metz shared the video for the second single off Atlas Vending, “Hail Taxi.” If Metz’s current mission is to mirror the inevitable struggles of adulthood, they’ve successfully managed to tap into the conflicted relationship between rebellion and revelry with the song’s tactics of offsetting their signature bombast with anthemic melodic resolutions. “‘Hail Taxi’ is about looking back. The lyrics deal with the idea of reconciling or coming to terms with who you were and who you’ve become,” shares frontman Alex Edkins. The stunning video, directed by A.F. Cortes, heightens these themes and expertly captures the same intensity as the alternately brutal verses and beguiling choruses of “Hail Taxi.” Of the video, Cortes says, “I wanted to tell a simple story that captures the song’s overarching theme. The idea of longing for the past creates many visual motifs and I wanted to create a piece that feels timeless and conveys a sense of isolation, highlighting that while we can hide our feelings, we can’t run from them.”
Check out the stunning video for “Blind Youth Industrial Park,” the latest track from Atlas Vending. The beautifully dystopian video depicts a woman dragging an injured companion on a stretcher through an alien landscape as the pair are tracked by a squad of armed soldiers, and provides sharp contrast to the song, which is an ode to the naivety of youth and the freedom of being unburdened by the world around you.
Shot in Queenstown, on the South Island of New Zealand, “Blind Youth Industrial Park” was directed by Dylan Pharazyn. Here’s Pharazyn on his inspiration for the video: “I started thinking of the feeling of war or samurai films, beautiful but dark and violent… but then I had this idea to work up a more unique world… I started to think of a more futuristic setting — more unusual and dream-like with the story set on a distant planet where there is future technology and some kind of alien magic… like a futuristic fable. I loved the idea of the hero Ayeth on this nomadic walk through an epic landscape… I loved the strength in her and the pairing of her with a wounded companion, something really human and vulnerable… I wanted that emotive warmth countering the cold military images.”
Atlas Vending, the band’s most dynamic, dimensional, and compelling work of their career will be released on October 9th. Bolstered by the co-production of Ben Greenberg (Uniform) and the engineering and mixing skills of Seth Manchester (Daughters, Lingua Ignota, The Body) at Machines with Magnets in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Atlas Vending, the band’s fourth full-length album, sounds massive, articulate, and earnest.
Preorders of Atlas Vending are now available from Sub Pop Records.
“Hail Taxi” by METZ from their album Atlas Vending (Release Date: 10/09/2020)
“Change is inevitable if you’re lucky,” according to Metz frontman and principal songwriter Alex Edkins. And there’s no doubt that the music composed by the Toronto trio is difficult to pin to a specific genre, constantly moving, growing and changing with each album.
“I think what I was trying to say is when you’ve been working with the same people for as long as we have and you’ve been doing music together, it’s easy to get stuck in conventions and ruts and not progress,” he reveals. “I think this record, more than any for us, is something that feels like a really nice progression into new territory. It’s still very much us. We didn’t intentionally set out to change who we are or what we sound like, but I think the production and the songwriting have taken it to a new spot that we’re really proud of.”
Despite being written and recorded prior to the global pandemic, Atlas Vending feels immediate in its response to 2020, clearly poised to attack its themes of social anxiety, isolation and paranoia caused by modern media head on. “Songs like Pulse, and songs like The Mirror, are just so connected to how I’m feeling right now,” Edkins admits, coyly. “It’s [COVID-19] truly shifting the meaning of a lot of the songs for me at least, and I don’t know how people will perceive it. But that’s kind of all you hope, that people take it in, they work it through their situation and maybe it will connect to where they’re at.”
One of Bert Jansch’s later recordings, ‘Crimson Moon’ is some of his finest work and sees the musician at the top of his game, with appearances from Johnny Marr, Bernard Butler and many more. Earth Recordings revisits the album on its 20th Anniversary with its first standalone cut to vinyl.
Originally released in 2000, there is a brooding resonance in ‘Crimson Moon’ centred around his accomplished guitar style that brings his contemplative song writing to the fore. Traditional ballads have touches of jazz and blues adorned by contributions from guitarists Johnny Marr, Bernard Butler and Johnny “Guitar” Hodge along with guest vocals from Bert’s wife Loren Auerbach(‘My Donald’).
The addition of electric guitar subtly compliments Bert’s percussive fingerpicking bringing new depth to his compositions.
Title track ‘Crimson Moon’ is a take on traditional song ‘Omie Wise’ and was written about his wife Loren, ‘Caledonia’ conjures pastoral images of Scotland alongside covers of The Incredible String Band’s ‘October Song’, Guy Mitchell’s ‘Singing The Blues’ and Owen Hand’s ‘My Donald’. Otherworldly tale ‘Neptune’s Daughter’ sees a mermaid-like creature recount the death of her relatives from a poison in the sea. Passionate about nature, the song carries an underlying ecological message.
Released in his 60s, ‘Crimson Moon’ proves Bert Jansch to still be an innovator and a unique talent.
Cardiff five-piece Rosehip Teahouse (Faye, Tony, Will, Josh and Teddy), will capture your heart and set it free. The band’s music emanates and fluctuates, between feelings of sadness and happiness, with a hint of sparkle thrown in. The bands single ‘Same Sky’ is a track that sits quietly between the coexisting realms of happy and sad, with gorgeous, heart breaking vocal harmonies, swirling, twinkly guitars, while been driven by a head- bobbing bass line. Leading you though a journey of intricacy, complexity, and all with beautifully subtle tones. All neatly woven together, to build a tender, tear jerking atmosphere. Arriving via Sad Club Records, the latest single from Rosehip Teahouse is one hell of a charmer. Lilting melodies and glittering bells give ‘Thought Number 3’ an almost transcendental melancholia, as singer Faye Rogers vocals echo atop the band’s crystal horizons.
Of the track, Rogers says: “I wrote this song a couple of years back now. I was really struggling with my mental health, and this song was my expression of feeling as if my problems were stopping me from being able to live my life in the way I wanted to.
“The version of this song on the EP is the one I recorded the day I finished writing the song in 2017, miserable in my room at my parents’ house using a cheap microphone and garage-band on an old macbook that I was putting off returning to my ex. It feels like a long time ago now, but every time I hear it, it feels like 3am in that room that was too warm again.”. Faye from Cardiff-based group Rosehip Teahouse talks about their upcoming EP and what inspires their wonderfully ethereal indie-pop.
Chillin in the Void by Rosehip Teahouse The new Rosehip Teahouse single is out on 31st August ahead of the EPs September release via Sad Club Records.
Bruce Hornsby has released his latest studio album, “Non-Secure Connection”, out today via Zappo Production/Thirty Tigers. The 10-track album from the acclaimed pianist and singer acts as Hornsby’s second full-length studio effort in as many years following 2019’s Absolute Zero.
“Non-Secure Connection” features guest appearances from artists including James Mercer (The Shins), Justin Vernon and Wayne Pooley (Bon Iver), Jamila Woods, Vernon Reid, and even a posthumous cameo from the late Leon Russell on the song “Anything Can Happen“, which was shared earlier this week.
Bruce Hornsby shared the new song which will appear on the veteran musician and songwriter’s forthcoming studio album, Non-Secure Connection, due out this Friday (August 14th). Entitled, “Anything Can Happen”, the optimistic, sitar-filled song is that of a duet with the late Leon Russell, who died in November 2016.
“Anything Can Happen” follows “My Resolve” and “Bright Star Cast” as the third single from the forthcoming studio album. Amazingly, Russell recorded his vocal contributions for the song almost 30 years ago, with Hornsby finally getting around to completing the recording featuring his old friend.
As Hornsby explains,
I was able to get Leon Russell a record deal with Virgin in 1990, and we made a record called ‘Anything Can Happen.’ I always felt that the title song wasn’t produced as well as it could have been (I’ll take the blame), and always wanted to re-cut it. Leon asked me to ‘write me a Barry White track,’ which is how the song started. His vocal from the original demo ghosts mine for a lot of the song, and then he emerges at the end to join me in harmony. My time with Leon was extremely memorable and deserves its own article; too much amazing and funny, classic stuff.
Other previously-released singles included on Non-Secure Connection include “Bright Star Cast” and “My Resolve”.
“The new album’s chromaticism and dissonance quotient is exactly twice as high (three songs featuring that language compared to one and a half on the last record),” Hornsby mentioned with Non-Secure Connection‘s announcement back in June. “I feel like my music has never been a part of any trend that defined any era of music during my 34 years of doing this. I may be wrong, but that’s how it feels to me.”
Hornsby recently shared a trio of 2019 performances for fans to download or stream for free as the live events industry remains on indefinite hiatus. Hornsby has since been forced to postpone the final remaining dates of his 2020 spring tour.
iconic Irish Psychedelic rock band Andwella’s Dream (later changed to Andwella). This site is hosted by the band‘s founder, songwriter and frontman Dave Lewis. Over the coming weeks Dave will be sharing his memories, photos and favourite music from that era with old friends and new. Please drop by and say hello.
“People’s People” finds David Lewis and his band of freewheelers stripping their sound down to the essentials. Emerging from the psychedelic haze, the trio find themselves at a crossroads of American southern rock and a pastoral English countryside and deliver an album with booming harmonies and transcendental hooks that could go head-to-head with The Band or The Allman Brothers. The final chapter in the “Andwella” story has all the makings of a classic LP, and if not for the Reflection label’s own chaotic dissolution around the time of the release, it probably would have been.
That kinetic rush of the record’s creation can be felt in first single ‘As Many Candles as Possible,’ which features Al Green’s organist Charles Hodges. On the first of March, 2020, John Darnielle, Peter Hughes, Matt Douglas, and Jon Wurster, aka the Mountain Goats band, visited legendary studio Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis, TN. Darnielle armed his band with new songs and reunited with producer Matt Ross-Spang who engineered last year’s In League with Dragons. In the same room where the Cramps tracked their 1980 debut album, the Mountain Goats spent a week capturing the magic of a band at the top of its game. The result is Getting Into Knives, the perfect album for the millions of us who have spent many idle hours contemplating whether we ought to be honest with ourselves and just get massively into knives.
Getting Into Knives includes guest performance on Hammond B-3 organ by Charles Hodges (of numerous Al Green records) and guest performance on guitar by Chris Boerner (of the Hiss Golden Messenger band). “The track opens with a bristling twist of guitars and rumbling drums before settling into a steady groove. A distorted crunch underpins the primarily acoustic proceedings, helping the song build to a pitch-perfect freakout, featuring Al Green’s organist Charles Hodges.” – Rolling Stone
“The album news arrives with the release of dark, squally lead single “As Many Candles As Possible,” which features Al Green organist Charles Hodges and builds to a churning catharsis.” – Indy Week
“Recorded across a single week in Memphis, the album trades between piano-driven intimacy and stormy bombast, the latter of which is on display in its lead single, ‘As Many Candles As Possible.’ Featuring Al Green’s organist Charles Hodges, the dark and swampy track reflects the Deep South milieu in which it was recorded.” – A.V. Club
“As Many Candles As Possible” by the Mountain Goats from their album ‘Getting Into Knives’ coming October 23, 2020 on Merge Records.
Recorded across the year 2010 at Mana Recording Studios, St. Petersburg, Florida; Fidelitorium, Kernersville, North Carolina; Q Division, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Mission Sound, Brooklyn, New York
with: Bob Barrone – steel guitar / Yuval Semo – organ; piano on outer Scorpion Squadron / Yoed Nir – cello / Gillian Rivers – violin / all string arrangements by Yuval Semo / vocals on High Hawk Season arranged by Daniel Perry and performed by the North Mountain Singers: Daniel Roihl, Daniel Perry, and Darrick Yee
Damn The Vampires, Prowl Great Cain, For Charles Bronson, and Never Quite Free produced and mixed by John Congleton; High Hawk Season produced and mixed by Brandon Eggleston; Birth of Serpents, The Autopsy Garland, Beautiful Gas Mask, and Sourdoire Valley Song produced by Erik Rutan and mixed by Brandon Eggleston; Estate Sale Sign, Age of Kings, Outer Scorpion Squadron, and Liza Forever Minnelli produced and mixed by Scott Solter
all song lyrics and music by John Darnielle
The Mountain Goats:
John Darnielle, Peter Hughes, Jon Wurster
The Fat Angel Sings 