English electronic producer Kelly Lee Owens will return with her sophomore album “Inner Song” on Smalltown Supersound. Convention-blurring techno producer/musician Kelly Lee Owens will release her second album, Inner Song, on May 1st viaSmalltown Supersound. Inner Song follows the 2017 release of her much lauded self-titled debut, as well as remixes of St. Vincent and by Björk, last year’s “Let It Go / Omen” 12”, and her recent collaboration with Jon Hopkins on the one-off “Luminous Spaces.
She’s returned with the latest single, “On,” another expansive and atmosphere-heavy electro-pop gem from her, the sort of song that she seems to have mastered already at such an early stage of her career. Find a bit about the track from Owens:
This is perhaps the most intimate and personal song I’ve written so far – the two halves of the track reflect upon sad acceptances of the truth and then the joyous aftermath of liberation that can come from that. This can definitely be heard in the production and arrangement of the track – the first half sonically connecting to the inner revelations and the second half, the liberation in action, the forward motion.
New album “Inner Song” out August 28th on Smalltown Supersound
Cut Copy have announced that they will return with their new album “Freeze, Melt” on August 21st via Cutters Records/The Orchard.
The announcement comes with the release of their brand new single “Cold Water.” It’s an atmospheric electronic journey, the sort of stuff you do somewhat expect from these guys at this point but in a more contemplative and reflective manner that was found on their debut album and earlier work.
The track follows the release of single “Love Is All We Share” from earlier in the year – which actually isn’t including on the album.
Find a bit about “Cold Water” from singer Dan Whitford below:
“After extensive touring on our last album, “Cold Water” was one of the first new songs to appear. I’d moved to Copenhagen and had been listening to a lot more ambient and instrumental electronic music and as a result “Cold Water” felt quite different to songs we’d made in the past. It was less dance, but more atmospheric. Also the subject matter explores love in today’s context, where the climate and fate of the planet are becoming increasingly uncertain. Once we’d finished it, it felt like we’d placed a marker in the ground, guiding us in a new musical direction.”
Enjoy the music video for “Cold Water” ‘Freeze, Melt’ now via Cutters Records
‘Interludes: The Complete Set-Break Recordings’ presents the nearly five hours of music recorded for the intermission at Levi’s Stadium and Soldier Field in 2015. These sessions represent the birth of Circles Around the Sun and would ultimately become the band’s debut album, ‘Interludes for the Dead.’ The collection includes never before released tracks, previously unheard music, alternate and extended mixes and studio banter. Available now on Bandcamp, the collection includes never before released tracks,
The Flaming Lips have announced a new album called “American Head”. The King’s Mouth follow-up arrives September 11th via Warner Bros Records. With (A double colored vinyl follows on October 2nd, along with limited edition art prints.) It’s produced by long time collaborator Dave Fridmann and features the Kacey Musgraves collaboration “Flowers of Neptune 6.”
In a story Wayne Coyne wrote, excerpted in the press release, he said, “The music and songs that make up the American Head album are based in a feeling. A feeling that, I think, can only be expressed through music and songs. We were, while creating it, trying to NOT hear it as sounds… but to feel it. Mother’s sacrifice, Father’s intensity, Brother’s insanity, Sister’s rebellion…. I can’t quite put it into words.”
Earlier this year, the Flaming Lips released a collaborative LP with Deap Valley, as Deap Lips. Coyne and co. recently stopped by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, where they performed “Race for the Prize” with an actual audience, from the socially distanced confines of giant bubbles.
The Flaming Lips Announce New Album American Head Share the first song off the new album.
‘My Religion Is You’ from the upcoming album ‘American Head’ Out 9/11.
This incarnation of Fairport Convention comprising lead vocalist Sandy Denny and newcomers Dave Swarbrick and Dave Mattacks, together with founder members Richard Thompson on lead guitar and some vocals, Simon Nicol on rhythm guitar and Ashley Hutchings on electric bass, rehearsed and put together the album “Liege & Lief” over the summer of 1969 at a house in Farley Chamberlayne, near Braishfield, Winchester, launching its material with a sold-out concert in London’s Royal Festival Hall on 24th September that year. Liege & Lief was the fourth album by the English folk rock band . It is often credited, though the claim is sometimes disputed, as the first major “British folk rock” album, It is the third album the group released in the UK during 1969, all of which prominently featured Sandy Denny as lead female vocalist (Denny did not appear on the group’s 1968 debut album).
Gone were the covers of songs by Bob Dylan and others, replaced by electrified versions of traditional English folksongs (“Reynardine”, “Matty Groves”, “The Deserter”, “Tam Lin”), new compositions by band members but with a “traditional” feel (“Come All Ye”, “Farewell, Farewell”, “Crazy Man Michael”), and the first of a long line of instrumental medleys of folk dance tunes driven by Dave Swarbrick’s violin playing. The virtuoso fiddle and mandolin player Swarbrick, was a little older than the rest of the band, had already been in a successful duo with guitarist Martin Carthy. After his appearance on Unhalfbricking, he joined Fairport full-time. Much of the traditional material had been found by Hutchings in Cecil Sharp’s collection, maintained by the English Folk Dance and Song Society, although Swarbrick has elsewhere claimed credit as the source of the traditional material used.
Also rehearsed and/or recorded, but omitted from the final album, were versions of The Byrds’ “Ballad of Easy Rider”, the traditional ballad “Sir Patrick Spens” with Sandy Denny on lead vocals, and “The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood”, a Richard Fariña lyric he had set to a traditional Irish melody, the last two of which were to appear in different arrangements on later albums by Fairport Convention and Sandy Denny, respectively.
Liege & Lief is composed of two Middle English words: liege meaning loyal and lief meaning ready. The cover, a gatefold in grey and purple, featured cameo images of the band along with track listing and credits. On the inside of the original gatefold cover, a set of illustrated vignettes told the story of ten different aspects of English traditional music and folklore, including notes on customs such as pace-eggers and the Padstow hobby-horse, as well as collectors such as Francis James Child (of “Child Ballads” fame) and Cecil Sharp.
The band toured the UK for several months, also visiting Denmark, performing the Liege & Lief material before recording it in the studio (also including a performance recorded for BBC radio’s Top Gear). However, in November 1969, even before the album was released on 2nd December, both Hutchings and Denny quit the band: Hutchings to further pursue traditional music in a new band Steeleye Span, and Denny to form her new venture Fotheringay, with more emphasis on her own original compositions.
“Liege and Lief” won the award for Most influential Folk Album of all time.
In 2007 a double album “Liege and Lief Deluxe Edition” was released; the second album consisted mainly of BBC radio live performances and two stylistically uncharacteristic outtakes, the great American songbooks standards “The Lady Is a Tramp” and “Fly Me to the Moon”.
The Band:
Sandy Denny – vocals
Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, viola
Richard Thompson – electric & acoustic guitars, backing vocals
Simon Nicol – electric, 6-string & 12-string acoustic guitars, backing vocals
Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar, backing vocals
Dave Mattacks – drums, percussion
I often found Bob Dylan songs that no-one else had, like “Percy’s Song”, which is a fabulous song. Fairport Convention got a reputation for doing unreleased Dylan songs, but we never knew if Dylan heard about us. The years rolled by – and then, unbeknownst to me, a friend who does some work over here for Bob’s management sent me a quote he’d got for my website from Bob: “Ashley Hutchings is the single most important figure in English folk-rock. Before that, his group Fairport Convention recorded some of the best versions of my unreleased songs.” What I now discover is, he’s known about us right from the beginning! He loved “Liege & Lief”, he thought Sandy Denny was the best singer he’d heard. He turns out to be lovely, very considerate, very funny and very, very knowledgeable about all kinds of things» – Ashley Hutchings, 2022
Influenced by primal garage-rock and the hypnotic grooves of African and South American music, Melbourne’sBananagun have evolved from the home-made ideas of guitarist, vocalist and flautist Nick van Bakel to a full five-piece set-up. Their new debut album, “The True Story of Bananagun”, was born from extended jam sessions and presents a grand vision for their self-professed ‘global tropicalia’.
There’s an enticing lost world exoticism to the music of Bananagun. It’s the sort of stuff that could’ve come from a dusty record crate of hidden gems; yet as the punchy, colourfully vibrant pair of singles Do Yeah and Out of Reach have proven over the past 12 months, the band are no revivalists. On debut album The True Story of Bananagun, they make a giant leap forward with their outward-looking blend of global tropicalia.
The True Story of Bananagun marks Bananagun’s first full foray into writing and recording as a complete band, having originally germinated in the bedroom ideas and demos of guitarist, vocalist and flautist Nick van Bakel. The multi-instrumentalist grew up on skate videos, absorbing the hip-hop beats that sound-tracked them – taking on touchstones like Self Core label founder Mr. Dibbs and other early 90’s turntablists.
That love of the groove underpins Bananagun – even if the rhythms now traverse far beyond those fledgling influences. “We didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing,” the band’s founder says. “We wanted it to be vibrant, colourful and have depth like the jungle. Like an ode to nature.”
Van Bakel was joined first by cousin Jimi Gregg on drums – the pair’s shared love of the Jungle Book apparently made him a natural fit – and the rest of the group are friends first and foremost, put together as a band because of a shared emphasis on keeping things fun. Jack Crook (guitar/vocals), Charlotte Tobin (djembe/percussion) and Josh Dans (bass) complete the five-piece and between them there’s a freshness and playful spontaneity to The True Story of Bananagun, borne out of late night practice jams and hangs at producer John Lee’s Phaedra Studios.
“We were playing a lot leading up to recording so we’re all over it live”, van Bakel fondly recalls of the sessions that became more like a communal hang out, with Zoe Fox and Miles Bedford there too to add extra vocals and saxophone. “It was a good time, meeting there every night, using proper gear [rather than my bedroom setups.] It felt like everyone had a bit of a buzz going on.”
Tracks like The Master and People Talk Too Much bounce around atop hybrid percussion that fuses West African high life with Brazilian tropicalia; the likes of She Now hark to a more westernised early rhythm ‘n’ blues beat, remoulded and refreshed in the group’s own inimitable summery style. Freak Machine is perhaps the closest to those early 90’s beats, but even then the group add layers and layers of bright guitars, harmonic flower-pop vocals and other sounds to transmute the source material to an entirely new plain. Elsewhere there’s a 90 second track called Bird Up! that cut and pastes kookaburra and parrot calls as an homage to the wildlife surrounding van Bakel’s home 80 kilometres from Melbourne.
Oh, and there are hooks galore too – try and stop yourself from humming along to Out of Reach’s swooping vocal melody.
Bananagun are first and foremost a band enthused with the joy of living and The True Story of Bananagun is a ebullient listen; van Bakel – as the main songwriter – is keen not to let any lyrical themes overpower that. There’s more to this record than blissed out grooves and tripped out fuzz though: The Master is about learning to be your own master and resisting the urge to compare yourself to others; She Now addresses gender identity and extolls the importance of people being able to identify how they feel. Then there’s closing track Taking The Present For Granted, which perhaps sums up the band’s ethos on life, trying to take in the world around you and appreciating the here and now.
A keen meditator, van Bakel says of the track: “so often people are having a shit time stuck in their own existential crisis, but if you get outside you head and participate in life and appreciate how beautiful it all is you can have a better time.”
Even the band’s seemingly innocuous name has an underlying message of connectivity that matches the universality of the music. “It’s like non-violent combat! Or the guy who does a stick up, but it’s just a banana, not a gun, and he tells the authorities not to take themselves too seriously.”
The True Story of Bananagun then is perhaps a tale of finding beauty in even these most turbulent of times.
The Band:
Nick Van Bakel – guitar, voice, flute, trumpet, harpsichord, percussion
Jack Crook – guitar, voice
Charlotte Tobin – percussion
Josh Dans – bass guitar
Jimi Gregg – drums
Pierce Morton – alto saxophone
Miles Bedford – tenor saxophone
Zoe Fox – voice
Songs written by Nick Van Bakel.
The Lemon Twigs have been kicking around for a few years now and have made themselves one of the best knowingly retro bands to watch. Their sound is immediately recognisable yet hard to pinpoint, likely because it draws from a smorgasbord of 70s influences. The touchstone is power pop, but the Twigs throw large dollops of glam and art rock into the mix, as well as a sense of Broadway-style bombast. Their songs often play like mini-symphonies, throwing in various musical styles and sections within the confines of a pop-length number.
With latest singles The One and now Moon released, the Twigs look to be stripping down their sound and focusing on one genre at once. Thankfully they’ve always had a great ear for a tune, so this is no complaint.
Moonis a brilliant rock and roll number driven by harmonica and piano, sounding like the bastard offspring of David Bowie and Billy Joel. With its raucous, singalong chorus and harmonised vocals, this is a bombastic pop rock number that isn’t afraid to wear its cheesy heart on its sleeve.
This is a must if you’re a fan of any and all 70s rock. If this is anything to go by, their latest album Songs for the General Public(Due out August 21st) should be a cult hit.
This Special Edition of “Songs From Tsongas” contains the whole of the concert from the Tsongas Arena in Lowell, Massachusetts. Features tracks from across the band’s career including an extensive acoustic section and some tracks that have rarely been performed live.Also featured are 70 minutes of highlights from a very different concert on the same tour filmed at Estival in Lugano, Switzerland. This outdoor concert sees a stripped down stage and full on rock versions of the acoustic tracks from Tsongas. The band was epic moment, knit, and rely on the genius of great musicians like Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire and Rick Wakeman, supplementing with AlanWhite on drums. The best line-up. The repertoire very well chosen reviving great classics in more acoustic versions and other latest music of excellent quality as well. Who likes progressive rock can not do without this work and even for those who enjoy a good band with elaborate songs, quality musicians and the wonderful voice of Jon Anderson with the proper intensity. In addition, there is a part of the show made the Lugano Festival which continues with the same quality and the nearest versions of those studio. It is more than three-hour show.
Disc One of the DVD (the single Blu-ray contains all the same material as the double DVD set) contains the whole of the concert from the Tsongas Arena in Lowell, Massachusetts, previously spread across two discs. This epic show features tracks from across the band’s career including an extensive acoustic section and some tracks that have rarely been performed live.
Disc Two contains 70 minutes of highlights from a very different concert on the same tour filmed at Estival in Lugano, Switzerland. This outdoor concert sees a stripped down stage and full on rock versions of the acoustic tracks from Tsongas whilst the crowd wield a multitude of umbrellas against the pouring rain, which is clearly not preventing them having a great time!
Included as bonus material on the Blu-ray and DVD are the track “Ritual – Nous Sommes Du Soleil”, from “Tales From Topographic Oceans also filmed at the Tsongas Arena, and an insightful interview with legendary designer and Yes collaborator Roger Dean who created the brand new stage set for the shows.
“Songs From Tsongas” contains the concert from Yes’ 35th Anniversary Tour in 2004, the last tour by the band to feature the classic line-up of Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman and Alan White.
This legendary show at a festival for the “National Socialist Party” ,the Socialist Party in Paris France took place alongside other bands such as “Gong” and “Buffy Sante Marie” in front of 10,000 listeners in the rain. It was the only show in Europe in 1977 and is therefore an important document for the collector and fan. Beefheart himself was very fond of his band and the show, which he called “Greatest Hits” set. During the show, songs like “Bat Chain Puller” and “Floopy Boot Stomp” are played, although the album “Bat Chain Puller- Shiny Beast” had not yet been released, but as you know it had been waiting for its release since 1976.
The music. With compositions from several of the band’s albums, this version of the Magic Band is in great form–unfettered but holding everything together–with The Captain Beefheart’s visceral vocals over everything the band is churning out. From the start there’s an intensity that comes only from a band like this-good players with Beefheart in charge.
The show has 26 tracks is probably complete. The sound is perfectly fine, if not pretty good, for a bootleg. You can clearly separate the instruments, understand the announcements and the lyrics, and the live breathers with the audience reactions are part of a live concert for me. In the poems “One Nest Rolls After Another” and “The Dust Blows Forward N’ The Dust Blows Back” performed directly one after the other, the listeners are restless and disturb the lecture by the screams and whistles, they prefer to hear the band play again.
There are many hard-to-reach pieces of “Trout Mask Replica” and one of “Lick Me Decals off Baby” and the captain is thrilled that people dance in the rain. Songs such as “Click Clack”, “Golden Birdies”, “Grow Fins” and “Bigeyed Beans from Venus” are already more accessible and rather “Crowdpleaser”. The “pop-phase albums” such as “Bluejeans and Moonbeams” are completely omitted for the shows.
For me this is a great and important show, which you can also listen to completely .
The recording may seem a little “flat”, without the certain spark or the dymamic’s is in some respects not the best live show available from Captain Beefheart, but for collectors a “compulsory purchase”.
The band is: Beefheart-vocals/sax/gong, Robert Williams-drums/percussion, Eric Feldman-bass/keyboards/synth, Denny Walley and Jeff Morris-guitars/slide guitars, with occasional harmonica from Harry Duncan.
Even in an era of fetish reissue projects, this LP-only box set compiling Country Joe & the Fish’s first two albums is an outlier. Arriving a few months after the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, Craft Recordings, a label devoted solely to deluxe reissues — R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, John Lee Hooker’s King of the Boogie honouring his centennial, and The Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings of Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane — has assembled a package worthy of the excess of the historic period it depicts. While most know Country Joe & the Fish for their performances on the Woodstock soundtrack — “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” and “Fish Cheer” (“Gimme an F!…”) — their first two recordings for Vanguard, Electric Music for the Mindand Body and I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die, remain seminal tracts of 1960s counterculture music. With its marriage of folk, early psychedelic rock, jazz, bluegrass, and even jazz, the former has weathered the passage of time remarkably well.
This limited-edition package includes both 1967 albums in mono and stereo versions on 180-gram vinyl in tip-on jackets. (Yes, there are two copies of each album.) The mono version of Electric Music for the Mind and Body boasts rare alternate cover art, while the remaining discs have standard issue covers. Fans can debate all day long about the merits of which mix is better — for our money the stereo LPs win hands down given the claustrophobic, eight-track, live-in-studio sound of the originals.
The Wave of Electrical Sound box also contains a plentiful amount of ephemera, including replicas of The Fish Game, a Fish Fan Club book, and a Fish calendar designed by artist Tom Weller. Also included is a DVD of How We Stopped the War, a 30-minute documentary, filming the band on its way to an anti-Vietnam War rally, directed by David Peoples (screenwriter for Blade Runner, Twelve Monkeys, and Unforgiven). Also included are a 24-page book comprising rare photos, artwork, and a stellar liner essay from writer, producer, and musician Alec Palao. The stereo mixes of these albums are available separately, making the decision to purchase the box one for hardcore fans, or collectors with a fetish for unusual packages.
