“Stand Up” Brand new sonic firepower from The Atlas Underground universe out now, I grew up in the tiny lily white, archly conservative town of Libertyville, Illinois. When I was a kid, someone hung a noose in my family’s garage, there was occasional N-word calling, etc, etc. On June 6 of this year, there was a Black Lives Matter rally and march in that same town that drew over 1,000 people.
It seems that the times, they are a’changin’. I was so inspired that night, I reached out to Dan from Imagine Dragons. The Bloody Beetroots and I had conjured a slamming track and within 24 hours Dan had sent back a completed vocal. We got Shea Diamond, a Black transgender woman with a long history of activism, on the track and the coalition was complete.
Legendary musician Tom Morello – co-founder of Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave and Prophets of Rage releases the most ambitious artistic effort of his storied career yet. Throughout his remarkable career, Morello has collaborated with everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Johnny Cash. On The Atlas Underground, he paves a path into new sonic territory with the project’s breadth of talented collaborators – Marcus Mumford, Portugal. The Man, Bassnectar, the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and GZA, Vic Mensa, K.Flay, Big Boi, Gary Clark Jr., Pretty Lights, Killer Mike, Steve Aoki and Whethan among others – transforming his sound into something even he could not have anticipated, blending Marshall stack riff-rock with the digital wizardry of EDM and hip-hop. Morello served as chief curator for the record, hand-picking and personally reaching out to the involved artists to recruit their efforts to the project.
100% of artist proceeds from “Stand Up” will be donated to the following organizations: NAACP, Know Your Rights Camp, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Marsha P. Johnson Institute. KIDinaKORNER/Interscope will additionally donate an amount equal to the artists’ record royalties derived from streams of the track for a 3-year period.
Ellis (aka Hamilton, Ontario dream pop artist Linnea Siggelkow) is released her debut album, Born Again, via Fat Possum. On Wednesday she shared another song from it, “Saturn Return,” via a Michael Pugacewicz-video for the track. The full-length debut from Ellis, “Born Again” takes place in spaces both intimate and vast, ordinary and near-mythic: warm beds and lonely church pews, restless cities and desolate forests and the furthest reaches of the cosmos. Produced by Jake Aron (Snail Mail, Solange, Grizzly Bear) and recorded partly at Aron’s Brooklyn studio, Born Again arrives as the follow- up to Ellis’s debut EP The Fuzz—a self-released, self-produced effort that promptly led to a deal with Fat Possum Records. In a departure from the viscerally charged dream-pop of The Fuzz, Born Again unfolds with a mesmerizing subtlety, gracefully spotlighting Ellis’s unhurried melodies, starkly confessional lyrics, and the luminous vocal work she’s shown in opening for artists like Soccer Mommy and Alvvays.
Siggelkow had this to say about “Saturn Return” in a press release: “‘Saturn Return’ is an astrological term for the time in your life where Saturn literally returns to the same place in it’s orbit that it was the moment you were born. The first one happens in your late twenties, and it’s a time of radical transformation. I am in mine now and have been feeling it big time! I wrote this record while reflecting on all the ways my life is changing, reconciling things from the past and making space to move forward.”
Previously Ellis shared Born Again’s first single, “Fall Apart,” via a video for the track. Then she shared another song from it, “Embarrassing,” via a video for the short track. Then she shared another new Born Again song, “March 13,”
Jake Aron (Snail Mail, Solange, Grizzly Bear) produced the album, which was partly recorded at his Brooklyn studio. Born Again follows Ellis’s debut EP The Fuzz, which she self-produced and self-released in 2018.
As Born Again’s title suggests, the album partly deals with questions of faith. Siggelkow is the daughter of a traveling book salesman and a piano teacher. “I grew up Christian and was quite devoted to faith up through my late teens, but I started challenging that once I got to university,” said Siggelkow in a previous press release announcing the album. “Since then I’ve been trying to redefine who I am and where I stand and what I think about these things on my own, and that journey very much played into the songwriting on this record.”
“Saturn Return” from Ellis’s debut album ‘Born Again’
Losing someone close to you creates an almost phantom limb-like effect. Often, it feels like they’re a phone call away. But that instant between when you reach for the phone and when your brain delivers the new reality to you is a strange, momentary eternity. It’s both an uncompromising void and maybe as close as you’ll ever come to communing with that loved one again.
Gordi wrote Sandwiches as a tribute to the matriarch of her family. Her late grandmother was, in Gordi’s words, “a great feeder of people.” So when she fell ill, Gordi and her mother took it upon themselves to nourish the visitors gathered around her hospital bed. As they passed around sandwiches, “someone called out that she was gone.”
Sydney-based singer-songwriter Gordi announced her sophomore album with a brand-new single, ‘Aeroplane Bathroom’, which has arrived with a music video.
Gordi – real name Sophie Payten – told NME Australia that the music video is “the visual centrepiece” of her upcoming album, ‘Our Two Skins’, due for release on June 19th on Liberation Records.
“Aeroplane Bathroom” by Gordi, the new song off ‘Our Two Skins,’ out June 26 on Jagjaguwar Records.
A new nineteen-minute journey that continues on from their debut track, ‘Helios Hyperion’, written and recorded in 2014. A regular feature of their live shows, ‘Sun of Hyperion’ was recorded at the same time as their last album, ‘Mydriasis’ and therefore sees them operating as a four-piece once again. This track will take you exactly where you need to go, this time in the comfort of your own home – perfect for the current climate!
Side A
01. SUN OF HYPERION – COMACOZER (19:03) Side B
01. HEX IV: CASSINI’S LAST BREATH – VINNUM SABBATHI (06:50)
02. HEX V: X-15 RESEARCH PROJECT – VINNUM SABBATHI (09:55)
Instrumental heavy psych space rock with a slither of doom from Sydney, Australia.. The Band
Rick – Guitars
Rich – Bass
Andrew – Percussion
Jabs – Synth/Keys
Birthed in the weird waters of Philadelphia & revitalized in the even weirder smog of Los Angeles, Man Man is an acclaimed experimental rock band trafficking in multi-genre ear worms. Unique, beautiful, undefinable. Man Man, the project led by Honus Honus (aka Ryan Kattner), have shared a new song, “Dig Deep.” It was posted to Bandcamp on a day where revenue shares are being waived. Any downloads of the song today (July 3rd) will benefit the NAACP and Know Your Rights Campaign and you can pay what you’d like, starting at $1.00.
Man Man released their first album in almost seven years, Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between, in May via Sub Pop, Man Man’s first album for the label.
Previously Man Man shared the album’s first single, “Cloud Nein,” via a Kattner-directed lyric video for the new song. “Cloud Nein”. Then they shared another song from it, “Future Peg,” via a strange Stephanie Ward-directed video for the song. Then they shared another song “On the Mend,” that featured backing vocals from Dre Babinski (aka Steady Holiday) and Rebecca Black ,
Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between was the follow-up to 2013’s On Oni Pond. Since then Kattner has released a solo album, a children’s music album, and an album as a member of Mister Heavenly. But it took him a long time to get back to Man Man. Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between was written over a three-and-a-half-year period while Kattner lived in a friend’s guest house in Los Angeles. Kattner pointed out in a previous press release that it was more of shack than a fancy guest house and had “an old upright piano, a thrift store lamp, and nothing else.”
“I had chord progression notes that looked like chicken scratch and lyrics on pieces of paper stuck all over the walls. It looked like I was about to break the big case, catch the killer,” Kattner said of the period. “One of the best things about this time, in these ‘lost in the wilderness/surreal exile from my own band’ years, was that I finally found players who believed in me, trusted my vision, respected my songwriting. It was rejuvenating.”
Peel Dream Magazine is the musical vehicle for NYC’s Joe Stevens, who launched the band in 2018 with the critically acclaimed debut album “Modern Meta Physic,” a mysterious, liminal tribute to the hazy end of ‘90s dream-pop that found its place on numerous “Best of 2018” lists. Now Peel Dream Magazine are back with “Agitprop Alterna,” an album that pays homage to sonic and spiritual influences ranging from early Stereolab and Broadcast through stateside groups like Lilys and Yo La Tengo.. “Agitprop Alterna” finds Stevens channeling the collaborative spirit of the band’s live incarnation in the studio, deepening the connection between the existential and the interpretive first explored on “Modern Meta Physic.” It is a rejection of manipulation in all its forms and a buzz-saw against complacency; it’s a rare trick to agitate without being obvious, and perhaps that makes “Agitprop Alterna” the most Peel Dream Magazine-like statement yet.
A best of 2020! An Amazing blend of My Bloody Valentine, Stereolab, and Broadcast influences strewn across a collection of songs full of beautiful harmonies, organ loops, and distorted shoegazy chords. A wonderous effort from Peel Dream Magazine.From the first guttural guitar haze of “Pill,” you think you know what you’re getting. There have been lots of bands with that one perfect song capturing the bygone heyday of dream-pop and shoegaze. But across Peel Dream Magazine’s sophomore outing, the hits keep coming and the reference points keep collapsing in on each other. “Emotional Devotion Creator,” “Do It,” “Too Dumb” — each song finds the Peel Dream exploring different iterations of psychedelic music and blurring the boundaries between them. The hooks, history, and philosophy all become detritus swirling together into a kaleidoscopic reinterpretation you can’t look away from.
released April 3rd 2020
Joe Stevens – Vocals, Guitars, Organ, Synth, Drones, Drum Machine Jo-Anne Hyun – Vocals Brian Alvarez – Drums on Pill, Escalator Ism, Too Dumb, Do It, and Eyeballs Kelly Winrich – Drums on Emotional Devotion Creator, Brief Inner Mission, NYC Illuminati, and Up and Up
Over the past couple of years while making their new album, Deerhoof have been asking themselves if there was any music they could create that expressed how our rapidly emerging future might actually feel. The band envisioned an album about people haunted by memory of a lost world and of every failed attempt to save it. People already living outside the system, already having practiced new ways of life required for survival – these hopeful heroes are Deerhoof’s inspiration. These are the Future Teenage Cave Artists. Faithful listeners will recognize a certain alienated but transformational figure who shows up in Deerhoof songs going back to their earliest days. Take the narrator of The Perfect Me from 2007’s Friend Opportunity: an orphaned but eager soul attempting to entice other wounded wanderers who might lack a home, a clan, a family, a history. But on FTCA our protagonist is threatened by terror lurking around every corner. Add to that the fact that our ‘cast-off queen,’ our ‘maniac,’ our ‘terrible daughter’ is watching themselves get orphaned in real time, by an older generation in power that would seemingly rather see life on Earth destroyed than let go of archaic systems of capital.
Like a lot of the music they have released over the last quarter-century, the Deerhoof of Future Teenage Cave Artists (Satomi Matsuzaki on bass and vocals, Ed Rodriguez and John Dieterich on guitars, and Greg Saunier on drums, vocals and piano) stitches together fragments of ‘r&b’ and ‘classic rock’ and transforms them into a new language of revolution, forgoing verse-chorus structures for dream logic and blind intuition. But what makes this album different is its intimacy, the blues riffs and slide guitars are joined by rusty pianos and whispered three-part harmonies.
In this sense, Future Teenage Cave Artists inverts the formula of Deerhoof’s last album, Mountain Moves, which invited a wide community of collaborators to band together in an open celebration of solidarity. The new one, on the other hand, is borne of self-isolation and deprivation. It’s the sound of a sparkling, manic musical intelligence being disconnected from a nourishing public and devouring itself inside its own cocoon, attempting metamorphosis. Guitar pedals malfunction mid-take, reverbs chop off mid-tail, drum fills get abandoned mid-phrase. Some musical moments, as gorgeous and touching as anything Deerhoof has ever written, stop short for no apparent reason, giving way to queasy smudges of sound. Many of the instruments and voices were recorded with nothing more than the built-in mic of a laptop. Harsh splices make no effort to hide the seams. In this way Future Teenage Cave Artists joins a long and storied lineage of pop records that expose the insular and reclusive nature of the recording process itself.
Like Let It Be, There’s a Riot Goin’ On, or Sister Lovers, this record is its own “making-of.” Absence is a central character in the drama. For every heartwarming melody or pile-up of parade drums or shard of loopy guitar noise, there is musical acknowledgement of the toll that constant threat of cataclysm takes on mental health. All funerals remind us that life goes on, somehow. In that time after the end times, it’s not only the food systems, energy systems, and political systems that will have to be rebuilt. Myths, stories, and rituals we use to make sense of the world are up for revision, too. This is a record about resilience and the persistence of hope in a future beyond any reasonable justification for it. Like so many young people today, Deerhoof seems to be already living in that future.
Future Teenage Cave Artists is due out May 29th via Joyful Noise. “Future Teenager Cave Artists” .
Deerhoof is Satomi Matsuzaki on bass and vocals, Ed Rodriguez and John Dieterich on guitars, and Greg Saunier on drums, vocals and piano. Future Teenage Cave Artistsis the follow-up to 2017’s Mountain Moves.
The Bay-area’s own formidable Dark Anarcho post-punk act Ötzi are riding out these tenebrous times with a whirling tempest of their own, in their new album aptly titled Storm.
This, the band’s sophomore album, is unrelenting in its sonic deluge of captivating melodies led by K. Dylan Edrich”s guitars cutting the air with her punk driven riffs like the cold fingers of the band’s titular mummified human, coupled with the flawless efforts of drummer Gina Marie, and bassist Akiko Sampson, whose rhythm section marches forward against the elements, driven by fervent emotions of anger and sorrow that are channel Sampson’s stalwart vocals.
Oakland punk outfit Ötzi’s recent single “Hold Still,” taken from their new album “Storm”, out now via Artoffact Records. “Hold Still” is a snappy marriage of classic punk-pop and gothic post-punk as their effervescent pop chorus melodies co-exist beautifully with their moody guitar echo. “I see the ocean in your eyes / I’m reaching for you / Tears reflecting darker skies / I’m all around you,” their dual vocalists sing, reflecting the inseparable bond between interpersonal and political despair with poetic grace.
“We’re so overwhelmed by the awful things happening in the world, that sometimes it’s hard to see the good that exists right in front of us,” says drummer and vocalist Gina Marie. “The song was written to express love and appreciation for that one person who gets you through the day.”
Watch the video for “Hold Still”, which features new member, and multi-instrumentalist Winter Zora on keys, below:
On the records ardent resolve, that pushes ever onward with defiant optimism, Bassist/vocalist Akiko Sampson explains further: “The darkness of our sound doesn’t come from existential dread or moroseness, it’s a reflection of the lives we’ve lived as femmes in an often hostile world. We express all this mourning and anger through our music, so playing is always cathartic for us. But afterwards, what we’re left with is a sense of hope and a vision for what can be. So in this album, we wanted to incorporate all of those dimensions. Because that’s what ‘Storm’ is about – huge, violent life changes that leave you transformed forever.”
Not to be stifled by tour cancellations in wake of the current global pandemic, Otzi have been undaunted in promotion of their new record, unleashed a series of song premieres for the tracks such “Moths”, “Ballad of Oiwa”, and “Eight Cups” that have aptly taken the worldwide dark post-punk scene by storm.
One of these premieres was for a music video for the album track “Hold Still”, which features footage of the band right before lockdown having fun at the boardwalk—an activity steeped in childlike joy spun in a wonderful reverie of cotton candy, Ferris wheels, and merry-go-rounds.
Knaresborough-raised troubadour Bill Callahan returns with “Gold Record” – an album made whilst he was preparing to tour his previous album Shepherd In A Sheep’s Vest. A lot of the album is culled from tracks he’d written over the years for other artists to sing – all recorded on the hoof in an intuitive and creative burst with some good friends helping flesh the sounds around that rich, warm baritone vocal. Called Gold Record and it’s out September 4th via Drag City Records. The 10-song album features a new version of “Let’s Move to the Country,” from Smog’s 1999 album Knock Knock, and a track named after Ry Cooder.
It’s the Gold Record we always knew Bill Callahan had in him! Last summer, he returned from a silence of years – now, he’s raring to go with another new one already. The abiding humanity of latter-day Callahan is highlighted by dark plumes of caustic wit upending standards of our everyday life and the songs that celebrate it: the job, the wife, the TV, the neighbors. Bill slips easily into his characters, whether they’re easy people or not – and the cross-hatch of their light and shadow is unpredictably entertaining in the manner that belongs only one singer in this whole wide world: we’re still talking about Bill Callahan.
His first record in….uh, well, just over a year, Bill Callahan gives us a Gold Record. They might not all be gold, and fortunately, they’re not all six years apart either. You could probably ALSO call it “Gold Records”: the songs all have a stand-alone feel, the way singles do, for you to have a deep encounter with ’em all of a sudden, a whole relationship, from the start of the song to the finish. And what do you got when you have a record full of singles – and let’s face it, hit singles, at that?.
For Bill, preparing to tour for Shepherd In a Sheepskin Vest meant considering being away from home for long stretches of time – months, seasons, maybe as much as a year, who knew? Feeling his oats, Bill pulled out a few sketches from the notebooks and finished them up some. Before he knew it, he was recording them, and in the shuffle, new songs started popping up too.
It happened fast. Basics were recorded live, with Matt Kinsey playing guitars, guitars, guitars and Jaime Zurverza holding it down (then letting it go) on bass. Drums and horns were brought in for a couple songs. Spirits were high! Six out of the ten tunes were done first take; overdubs, when needed, came equally quickly. Listening, one hears the intuitive cohesion coming together richly, back of Bill’s titanic voice spread across the stereo spectrum: the gentle-yet-spirited conversation of Bill and Matt’s guitars, the subtle percussing of bass and drums and oddments of trumpet, woodwind and synth, striking notes decorous and discordant, sounding for all the world like the naturally occurring sound meant to accompany and express lives lived everywhere.
We know how you feel right about now, over midway through this tumultuous year: another week, another…. oh hold up, wait – it’s another Bill Callahan song! With 2020 chock-full of unprecedented, fundamental shifts, it’s only fitting that modern day Bill C would tackle the Gold Record reveal with a similarly conceptual yet seriously positive approach!. Bill’s latest offering, “Protest Song” details a singer-songwriter aghast at the unreality of the musical guest’s cartoonish protest POV on late night TV, leading to a protest song of its own kind. An apex of faux-noir, brooding in bluesy atmosphere up to his armpits, Bill flies in a touch of Bowery Boys-style comedic elevation to let everyone in on the joke, through song.
Releases September 4th, 2020 , Drag City Inc
Gold Record is the follow-up to last year’s Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, which marked Callahan’s first album in six years. He recorded Gold Record with guitarist Matt Kinsey and bassist Jamie Zurverza.
Bill Callahan will share a new song every week leading up to the full album’s release. The tracks arrive on Mondays, starting on June 29th.
The latest album from the veteran singer-songwriter and style icon is an eclectic mix of electronica, psychedelia, pop, balladry and orchestral music. On the album, Paul Weller is aided by his regular cohorts Ben Gordelier, Andy Croft’s and Steve Cradock as well as his old Style Council partner, Mick Talbot, who contributes his Hammond organ mastery to three songs. Singer songwriter Hannah Peel did the string arrangements for the album, and The Paraorchestra perform on four tracks. In addition, other guests perform on individual songs. The album opens with the experimental “Mirror Ball,” a track recorded during the sessions for True Meanings, Weller’s previous studio album. It sounds like bits of different songs pieced together but is quite effective. It is followed by “Baptiste,” a smooth and soulful tune with a strong vocal by Weller. The strings and organ add a great deal to it.
Some of the tracks on the album have Weller looking back on the past with the wisdom and insight of his six decades. “Old Father Tyme” is one of those songs. It’s quite delightful, and Weller sounds like he’s having a blast singing it. The title track is another of the songs that takes a glance to the past. Weller was inspired to write the song when visiting his son in Los Angeles and spending some time on Sunset Boulevard, where he had stayed when he first came to the City of Angels in 1977 on The Jam’s first American tour. It’s an easy going song that flows quite nicely. “More” is something of an off -kilter track that features a verse sung by the French singer Julie Gros of the band Le Superhomard as well as guitar work from Josh McClorey from Irish rockers The Strypes. The strings, flute and horns add lushness to it.
The jaunty “Equanimity” sounds like it could be a Madness song. It includes a measured vocal by Weller and violin by Jim Lea, formerly of Slade. The album’s lead single, “Earth Beat,” looks forward and not to the past. The American singer Coltrane, who Weller met through his daughter, is a guest vocalist on the track. On Sunset is a solid and fascinating piece of work, particularly for an artist 43 years into his recording career. Weller has delivered an interesting and enjoyable album with quite a few standout tracks.
Paul Weller shows few signs of slowing down, fewer still of resorting to lazy repetition. A staggering 43 years since The Jam‘s In The City heralded the beginning of a career that now spans 15 widely diverse solo albums, he retains a restlessness that has seen recent outings make forays into acoustic folk, krautrock, exploratory electronica and music concrete.
Yet a new unlikely theme is beginning to cement itself in Weller’s work, one of mindful domestic contentment. On Sunset witnesses a man who has over the past decade given up the booze and drugs casting a misty eye over one of the most illustrious and varied careers in the British music history. Reflections on his past aren’t new to the 62-year-old, of course. There was much of that on the sonically varied pairing of Saturns Pattern and A Kind Revolution and 2018’s acoustic folk collection True Meanings. What is new is how irrepressibly upbeat, at peace and downright happy the famously spiky one-time king of mod sounds here.
“A lot of the lyrics are about looking back, from the point of view of a 60-something man, not with regret or sadness, but with huge optimism,” Weller explains.
Opening track Mirror Ball has a hopelessly romantic sentiment. It’s Weller’s ode to the timeless joy of the dancefloor, from 1920s ballrooms through Wigan Casino and the Twisted Wheel to present-day techno clubs. It also underlines emphatically Weller’s commitment to experimentation across nearly eight minutes, with a full minute of ambient instrumental sound-scaping housed in its mid-section.
Originally destined to be a B-side for True Meanings, Weller included the song here after friends advised him it was too strong to be thrown away. His weathered voice resembles, not for the last time on this record, David Bowie’s as pulsing synths and a snatch of Spanish guitar open out into a shimmering disco groove, with a devilish octaved guitar riff making ostentatious interjections.
There are more familiar moments to be found, with “soulful” the predominant mood. Several of the songs on Weller’s 15th solo album were written with a diverse set of singers in mind – notably Bobby Womack and Pharrell Williams.
On Baptiste, a song Weller calls “a celebration of soul music’s universality” the inspiration is Bobby Bland. The New Orleans-style stomp positively glows with analogue warmth, Weller and Steve Cradock’s rootsy playing backed up by parping horns as the singer emotes “from the mountains high to the valleys low”.
Across On Sunset‘s 10 tracks, the palette is fuller and more colourful than on True Meanings – Games Of Thrones composer Hannah Peel’s orchestrations melding with Weller’s regular sidemen Cradock, bassist Andy Crofts, Tom Van Heel on keys and drummer and additional guitarist Steve Pilgrim. Indie-folk trio The Staves also contribute backing vocals.
On Old Father Tyme, the air is thick with nostalgia and fond reflection. “Time will become you, you will become time,” Weller acknowledges, piano chords, horns and acoustic guitar fusing with electronic percussion and gurgling synth textures, Weller at once glancing in his rear-view mirror and striding into the future.
Style Council mate Mick Talbot adds Hammond organ to the wistful Village, co-written with producer Jan ‘Stan’ Kybert. With an ample dose of wah in the mix, Weller brims with contentment, “heaven in my sights”, recognising that utopia can be the people and places closest to home. He sighs blithely, “Not a thing I’d change if I could/ I’m happy here in my neighbourhood.” It is ever so slightly cloying.
The silky tones of French singer Julie Gros from space-pop touring partners Le Superhomard are a pleasing counterpart to Weller’s oaky timbre on the lovely, cinematic More, the sweeping strings adding drama to an arrangement that sparkles with flute, sax and Weller and Cradock’s darting guitar runs. Lyrically, it’s a rare deviation from the convivial mood, Weller critiquing avaricious consumer culture before cutting loose on a wanton solo in the final moments.
The jaunty music hall of Equanimity is the most eye-opening moment. In Weller’s words, it’s “a bit Berlin cabaret, a bit Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band” if that’s something you can imagine, Slade’s Jim Lea contributing a sweet violin solo. Town Called Malice it ain’t.
Just as far out of Weller’s existing wheelhouse is the future-gazing funk of Earth Beat. His admirable appetite to remain current sees emerging British R&B artist Col3trane adding his hushed vocals to an upbeat electro-pop romp co-written with Jim Jupp, founder of Ghost Box Records.
On Sunset‘s high point, though, is the closing Rockets, a Bowie-esque acoustic ballad with strings and sax rising tastefully into the picture, and a stately Weller reminding us he maintains some punk fury as he rails against social injustice, poverty and corrupt power structures. “All our lives, the system all decides/ The institutions old but still in control,” he rages. It’s really rather beautiful, an affecting end that shows Weller wearing his 62 years well.
Yet it’s notable that amid all the reflective serenity and happiness this impressively multifarious album is bathed in, it’s when Paul Weller gets angry again that On Sunset is most incisive.
The bonus tracks for the deluxe CD edition of Paul Weller‘s new album On Sunset have been confirmed. The deluxe CD (which comes in hardcover book packaging rather than jewel case) will actually have FIVE bonus tracks, not three as originally thought. That takes the track count from 10 to 15. The songs are as follows: 4th Dimension, Ploughman, I’ll think of Something, On Sunset (Orchestral mix), Baptiste (instrumental version)
The Japanese version of the deluxe CD is a 16-track edition. It features the five tracks above, plus a Japan-only bonus track called ‘Failed’.
