On June 15th, 2000, The White Stripes performed at Jay’s Upstairs in Missoula, MT, just five days before the release of De Stijl, the band’s second album. Today, June 20th, 2020, “De Stijl” celebrates its 20th birthday, and though The White Stripes are no longer together, the band has released footage of “Death Letter” from that Jay’s Upstairs concert, which will also appear in the Third Man Records Vault Package #44.
The 2000 Son House cover came before frontman Jack White would add a Big Muff to his pedalboard, and well ahead of its emergence as a fan-favorite live track, way back in the days of $1.25 pints of Pabst and Hi8 camcorders. This rendition of “Death Letter” featured Jack’s high-pitched vocals, percussive guitar picking, and Meg White‘s steady drumming, typical of the band’s minimalist garage rock and blues sound at the time. While not as extensive as later versions, which usually include an improvised intro and some segues, Jack took the solo to familiar places thanks to his trusty DigiTech Whammy pedal and high-gain tone.
Though the band had only been together for a couple of years at this point, Jack and Meg’s chemistry is palpable. A simple glance or an audible “Hey!” from Jack signals the changes, which sees Meg follow in lockstep. The crowd seems entranced throughout the grainy video too, and while there are not many people at the tiny venue, it certainly foreshadows the arenas that followed in later years.
In celebration of the 20th Anniversary of De Stijl, watch The White Stripes (Jack White & Meg White) perform “Death Letter” live at Jay’s Upstairs in Missoula, MT from June 15th, 2000! This performance took place during the peak of De Stijl touring, and was taken directly from the original tapes deep within the Third Man Records archives for the 20th anniversary of De Stijl Third Man Vault Package.
De Stijl, dutch for “the style”, is the second album released by The White Stripes on June 20th, 2000. Head to the Third Man Records website for more information on future vault releases.
Gum Country are a Canadian indie rock band brought to you by vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Courtney Garvin (The Courtneys) and multi-instrumentalist Connor Mayer. The project began in Vancouver, Canada as a series of lo-fi four track recordings made in an apartment, very quietly. These recordings were released as a self-titled cassette by Lolipop Records in 2017. After moving to Los Angeles where they currently reside, the pair recorded their debut full-length album Somewhere with Joo-Joo Ashworth at Studio 22, this time at full volume.
Duo Gum Country’s self-described “harsh twee” project began back in Vancouver . It draws on groups like Stereolab, Yo La Tengo, Meat Puppets, and The Magnetic Fields, and envelops and transforms these influences within the warm embrace of fuzzy open-tuned guitar tones, driving drums and melodic keyboard accompaniments.
After relocating to Los Angeles where they currently reside, the pair recorded their debut full-length album “Somewhere” and have self-released the album digitally on all streaming services.
All digital sales via Bandcamp today will be donated to the ACLU on Gum Country’s behalf. In addition, Bandcamp will be donating 100 percent of its own revenue to the NAACP in solidarity with recent protests against police racism and brutality.
The super track Tennis (I Feel OK) and the rest of this excellent album of hazy power-pop and woozy feedback meanders through the highs and lows of daily life, touching on subjects ranging from love, loss, and anxiety, to video games and gardening.
The songs on Somewhere meander through the highs and lows of daily life, touching on subjects ranging from love, loss, and anxiety, to tennis, video games, and gardening. Garvin navigates these topics with humor and sincerity, her unassuming delivery riding amidst the swirling instrumentals like a snowboarder shredding fresh pow.
The band performs live as a three piece, with Mayer on drums and keyboard at the same time. Halle Saxon Gaines usually plays bass, but there are occasional appearances from Lauren Early and Luna Nuhic. Somewhere will be released on June 19th, 2020 on vinyl via Kingfisher Bluez (Canada), cassette via Dinosaur City Records (Australia) and Burger Records (USA) .
released June 19th, 2020
All songs written by Gum Country
Courtney Garvin: guitar/vocals
Connor Mayer: drums/keyboard/bass
Recorded and Mixed by Joo-Joo Ashworth at Studio 22
Mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters
Cigarettes After Sex made a hushed and sensual splash with their 2017 self-titled debut, and the Greg Gonzalez-led indie-pop project are returning with their second record, “Cry”, out now on Partisan Records. The band recorded Cry during nighttime sessions at a mansion on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, with Gonzalez self-producing and engineering the album, and Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) mixing it. “The sound of this record is completely tied to the location for me,” says Gonzalez.
“Ultimately, I view this record as a film. It was shot in this stunning, exotic location, and it stitches all these different characters and scenes together, but in the end is really about romance, beauty & sexuality. It’s a very personal telling of what those things mean to me. Raunchier yet equally as romantic and sentimental, Cry doesn’t necessarily break new ground, but continues to explore the band’s noir atmosphere.
Cigarettes After Sex is an ambient pop collective led by songwriter Greg Gonzalez & is currently based out of Brooklyn, NY.
Signed copy of the 1995 album ‘Orange Crate Art’, by Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks. As singer & songwriter for The Beach Boys. Brian is ranked among the greatest American composers of popular music in the rock era thanks to his unorthodox approaches to song composition & arrangement & mastery of recording techniques – he was the first rock producer to use the studio as a discrete instrument; after signing with Capitol Records in 1962, he wrote or co-wrote more than two dozen Top 40 hits for the group; The Beach Boys were inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame in 1988; Brian was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of fame in 2000; Rolling Stone ranked him #52 on their 2008 list of ‘The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time’; UK music weekly NME ranked him #8 on their list of ‘The 50 Greatest Producers Ever. He released & toured his version of the ‘lost’ Beach Boys ‘Smile’ album in 2004, which also earned him a Grammy Award; Brian issued his latest (& 11th) solo album, ‘No Pier Pressure’, in 2015; to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ‘Pet Sounds’, Brian embarked on the ‘Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary World Tour’ in 2016; that same year saw publication of the autobiography, ‘I Am Brian Wilson’…
Van Dyke Parks – composer, lyricist, arranger, producer, and all-around iconoclast – found inspiration in those familiar fruit crates painted with lovely, bucolic images of the fantasyland known as California. Having crafted a relaxed, loping melody, he was determined to set lyrics to it. The story goes that the first word he thought of was “orange.” While it isn’t easy to rhyme, it does stir at least four of the five senses. Orange Crates spread a romanticized notion of a land of abundant sunshine and endless possibilities; perhaps Mississippi native Parks could ruminate on his adoptive state in song…or songs. Who possessed the quintessential California voice to bring them to life? The sonic auteur summoned his old friend and collaborator Brian Wilson to lend his voice and trademark harmonies. turned into “Orange Crate Art”.
Now, that 1995 album – Parks and Wilson’s first collaborative effort since 1967’s abortive SMiLE but happily not their last – has received a beautiful 25th anniversary expanded edition from Omnivore Recordings.
From the gentle opening title track, the album unfolds with cinematic flair as a series of musical vignettes or snapshots. Parks’ words – typically dense, filled with striking and sometimes free-associative imagery and interior rhymes – conjure a Golden State fantasia. His memorable if often unconventional melodies draw on many rich strains of American popular song. Robustly sung by Wilson with shimmering, stacked multi-part harmonies (other vocalists including Three Dog Night’s Danny Hutton and Lion King “Circle of Life” singer Carmen Twillie do appear on the backgrounds of a few songs), “Orange Crate Art” takes listeners to the heart of wine country in Sonoma…what better to rhyme with aroma? It’s nostalgic, sure, with references to rocking chairs and barnyard gates, but also immediate. You can smell the ripe oranges or the wine “from the vine of a vintage cru.”
A tropical, steel drum-flecked invitation to “Sail Away” (“You go and get the telephone/Give it a real good yank and thank God we’re all alone in a tropical zone”) is swathed in the splendour of strings even as it evokes a wistful counterpoint to Wilson and Parks’ rocking entreaty to “Sail on Sailor” from two decades earlier. (The instruments throughout are as colourful as the lyrics, with hammer dulcimer, harmonica, trumpets, and more adding vibrancy.) “Orange Crate Art” offered a plea to “Hear the lonesome locomotion roar/Hobo hop on if you dare.” That thread reaches fruition on “My Hobo Heart,” one of three songs featuring words by Albert Hammond’s old songwriting partner Mike Hazlewood. Over swooning, intricate harmonies and impressive falsetto, Wilson adopts the role of a travelin’ man who succumbs to true love. The arrangement is tight and bright with keyboards bringing a breezy air.
Orange Crate Art is at its most carnival-esque on the swirling “Wings of a Dove,” on which the wordsmith Parks playfully brings the listener in again with the onomatopoeia of “the din tin tin tabulation” (for “tintinnabulation”). Wilson has a stunning, wordless vocal interlude on the yearning “Palm Tree and Moon;” whereas that song found him dropping a letter in a bottle in the sea (“I don’t know where it went so I sent to Sacramento/Said you were meant for me”), “Summer in Monterey” landed him on California’s central coast. A reflection of first love, it’s cited by Wilson as one of his favourites on the album, and it’s not hard to see why. Parks’ music and Hazlewood’s lyrics are imbued with the innocence and childlike sweetness that defines much of Wilson’s finest work. “My Jeanine” is another remembrance of love with a delightful streak of whimsy.
Another of Brian’s favourites, “San Francisco,” seemingly returns to the western milieu of SMiLE‘s “Heroes and Villains” when it starts with the a cappella exclamation “Time to giddy up! Do wah diddy up!” Featuring one of Wilson’s toughest vocals (“It’s pretty rockin’, you know,” he offers in the liner notes, and indeed, he even snarls some of the lyrics), the ever-shifting, rhythmic mini-suite of a song is packed with cultural allusions as it paints a portrait of a rough-and-tumble San Francisco very different than the ones Tony Bennett or Scott McKenzie sang about.
Perhaps the song that best encapsulates Orange Crate Art is “Hold Back Time.” Its sentiment is straight out of Tin Pan Alley (“Hold back time/Don’t talk about tomorrow/Tell that old clock on the wall he’ll just have to call it a day/Hold back time when we’re in each other’s arms/We’re in each other’s arms, so hold back time…”) but as affectingly sung by Wilson – who has experienced his share of well-publicized ups and downs – it’s achingly poignant. So is the escapist paean “Movies Is Magic,” which proclaims, “Movies is magic/Real life is tragic/I regret I gotta say/It is time we get away/to the movies and magic.” The simple yet profound message has never felt so relevant. A full orchestra is deployed for a touch of Max Steiner or Alfred Newman-esque Hollywood grandeur.
Mike Hazlewood penned both music and lyrics for “This Town Goes Down at Sunset,” a pretty, low-key tune that brings Orange Crate Art full circle, from its earlier call of “Sun up!” on “Sail Away” to sundown. It’s followed by a gorgeous grace note, a fully-orchestrated rendition of George Gershwin’s 1919 “Lullaby.” The hypnotic work is considered one of the Broadway tunesmith’s first “serious” pieces of music and later formed the basis of an aria in his 1922 one-act jazz opera Blue Monday, a precursor to Porgy and Bess. It’s an unexpected if altogether appropriate finale.
However, there’s an encore on Omnivore’s reissue. Three previously unreleased bonus tracks have been rescued from the vaults including two more Gershwin compositions. Brian, who has long cited the legendary composer as an inspiration, adds layered, wordless voices to the famous “Rhapsody in Blue” and delivers Ira Gershwin’s lyrics on a smooth and dreamy rendition of “Love Is Here to Stay” recorded for Warner Bros. honcho Mo Ostin and his wife Evelyn. The final bonus is Bob Thiele and George David Weiss’ anthem of hope, “What a Wonderful World.” Singing over spare keyboard accompaniment, Brian movingly shapes it into a close cousin of his own perennial concert closer, “Love and Mercy.”
The 25th anniversary edition, produced by Omnivore’s Brad Rosenberger, also adds a second disc reprising the entire original album stripped of Wilson’s soaring vocals. This mix is beguiling in its own way, shining a spotlight on Parks’ elaborate and ever-inventive arrangements as well as the talented musicians involved. Previously buried or less prominent flourishes from steel drums, sleigh bells, accordion, or Wilson’s signature bass harmonica rise to the surface on this disc. There isn’t enough room here to name them all – they’re listed in the digipak – but mention should be made of such top-drawer session vets as Grant Geissman and Fred Tackett (guitar) as well as Tommy Morgan (harmonica) and Dennis Budimir (drums), both of whom played on countless records with The Wrecking Crew. Morgan has even been credited with introducing Brian to the bass harmonica.
Though Brian Wilson didn’t compose any of the music on Orange Crate Art, his imprint is deeply felt on the album as he brought pure warmth to Parks’ deliciously complex musical creations. The album “is a continuum of that which stood, freeze-frame, at the release of SMiLE,” Van Dyke writes in his new liner notes. It’s a key part of a vibrant tapestry of Americana that runs through both artists’ solo albums: whether Parks’ Song Cycle (1967) and Discover America (1972) or Wilson’s That Lucky Old Sun (2008) and Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (2010). That Lucky Old Sun revisited many of the themes on Orange Crate Art, and even features Parks’ spoken-word poetry interludes. On Reimagines Gershwin, Brian reinterpreted both “Rhapsody in Blue” and “Love Is Here to Stay.”
Shortly after the release of Orange Crate Art, Brian Wilson began working with Andy Paley on a group of songs that still haven’t yet been fully realized. (He tantalizingly admits in his liner notes, “I’d love to get back to those songs eventually, too.”) By 1998, he’d release the studio album Imagination with producer Joe Thomas and a new set of collaborators; within a couple of years he’d form the remarkable band with whom he’d triumphantly return to the concert stage. He and Parks would complete their long-lost masterpiece, SMiLE, in 2004.
Omnivore has afforded this grand, sweeping journey through the heart of both the Golden State and the United States the respect it deserves. Michael Graves’ subtle, quiet, and detailed remaster preserves all of the dynamics of the album while revealing nuances in vocals and instruments. The CD’s six-panel digipak and 16-page booklet designed by Greg Allen both honour the spirit of the original release. Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks’ Orange Crate Art is ripe for rediscovery.
“Orange Crate Art” is available now on CD and vinyl!
The Mike Flowers Pops (also known as MFP, The Pops or The Mike Flowers Pops Orchestra) are a British easy listening band fronted by Mike Flowers (real name Mike Roberts) and supported by the “Sounds Superb Singers” and “Super Stereo Brass”. Formed in 1993, there can be up to fourteen of them on stage at any time, and they are principally known for easy listening or lounge music covers of both ‘classic’ and contemporary pop music.
The Mike Flowers Pops quickly advanced from performing shows in nightclubs and small concert halls to touring festivals and larger venues across Britain and Europe. “A Groovy Place” was released on 24th June 1996. They played large venues including Wembley Arena and Birmingham NEC. Cover versions of The Doors’ “Light My Fire”, and “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” also reached the Top 40 of the UK chart.
Ride handed the entirety of their highly acclaimed 6th studio album, ‘This Is Not A Safe Place’, to mysterious London act Pêtr Aleksänder, who stripped the songs back to just the vocals and added their customarily beautiful string arrangements, keys and synth textures beneath them. The results take Ride deep into the neo-classical / ambient territory. Happy release day to ‘Clouds In The Mirror’, the classical rework of ‘This Is Not A Safe Place’ lovingly fashioned by Pêtr Aleksänder.
The concept for the collaboration was originally conceived in the early days of 2019 when members of Ride contacted Pêtr Aleksänder – AKA duo Tom Hobden (of Noah & The Whale) and producer Eliot James (Two Door Cinema Club) – after falling for the swelling strings, expansive sounds and gentle crescendos of their album, Closer, Still. A mutual appreciation of sweeping, cinematic post-rock was established and over a series of email exchanges a dialogue evolved around reinterpreting the tracks on This Is Not A Safe Space using only the vocals as a guide.
Andy Bell says: ‘Pêtr Aleksänder took our album’s vocal tracks and formed an entirely new album around them, and the results are inspired, often really beautiful, and at times, totally mental. They have crafted a delicate web of string and synthesiser arrangements which draws you into a whole other world than our version of the album. I love what they’ve created.’ Pêtr Aleksänder say: ‘Reimagining Ride’s album was a treat. We took a rather unusual approach: although fans of Ride in the first instance, we nevertheless resisted listening to anything other than each track’s main vocal before setting to work, beginning exclusively with string and piano arrangements inspired by the main vocal.
Focusing on the sentiment of the vocal and re-interpreting it with our own arrangements resulted in combinations of melody, harmony and emotion that would have been very hard to achieve via a more conventional song writing / composing approach. We even waited until the band had released the album before choosing to listen to the songs in their original state – a strange experience for us given that we knew our versions of the same songs so well by that point!’
Here’s the divine version of Jump Jet, as taken from the This Is Not A Safe Place rework by Pêtr Aleksänder.
‘This Is Not A Safe Place’ the new album from Ride out 16/8/19 on Wichita Recordings.
Zappa Records/UMe will next month issue “The Mothers 1970”, a four-CD Frank Zappa box set which features 70 unreleased tracks from the short-lived 1970 line-up of the Mothers of Invention.
The band during this period last around seven months and was Aynsley Dunbar, George Duke, Ian Underwood, Jeff Simmons, and Flo & Eddie (aka Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman).
This new box set features over four hours of unreleased music, with the first CD featuring unheard studio sessions from Trident Studios in London England (with engineer Roy Thomas Baker) and the remainder offering historical live performances mostly captured by Zappa’s own tape recorder (a UHER recorder).
All recordings were sourced from their original tapes discovered in The Vault and digitally transferred and compiled by Travers in 2020. Some tracks were mixed by Craig Parker Adams and the collection was mastered by John Polito at Audio Mechanics. The Mothers line-up that included Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, is one of my favourite periods in Frank Zappa’s musical history. Howard and Mark did some amazing vocals for their group, The Turtles, and as back-up singers for Marc Bolan & T. Rex, but really stole the show when doing lead vocal harmonies (and naughty satirical dialogues with Frank) as the reincarnation of The Mothers for the 1970-1972 live performances. I loved this stuff when I was in my early teens, plus the fact that my mom and dad really hated it made it even more alluring. Historical live performances mostly captured by Zappa’s own tape recorder.
The Mothers 1970 is presented in a clamshell box and includes a booklet and a button. It has been produced by Ahmet Zappa and Joe Travers and will be released on 26th June 2020.
British art-rockers Everything Everything are releasing a new album, “Re-Animator”, on August 21st via Infinity Industries/AWAL. On Thursday they shared another new song from the album, “Planets,” via a video directed by the band’s frontman Jonathan Higgs. The strange video centers on a monkey puppet and gets all spacey, befitting the song’s title.
In April the band shared the album’s “In Birdsong,” via a video for the track . Then when the album was announced they shared “Arch Enemy,” .
The album was recorded last December at RAK studios in London with producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Sharon Van Etten, David Byrne). Prior to that there was a year of writing and demoing. A press release points out that for this album the band wanted to focus “on harmonies and melodies over synths and programming.”
In terms of lyrical themes, the album tackles “wonderment at the wider world despite the horror of its politics; existentialism and the prolonged, if fading, youthfulness of being in a touring band; and the ominous threat of climate change. All things which contribute to a sense of one door closing while another awaits.”
Frontman Jonathan Higgs also became interested in the theory of the bicameral mind, as put together by psychologist Julian Jaynes. The press release explains the theory: “It argues that early in human evolution, the two sides of the brain were next to each other but functioned independently. In essence, one side would hear the other sending instructions via a disembodied voice—a zombie-like state of pre-consciousness.”
The band features Jonathan Higgs (vocals), Jeremy Pritchard (bass), Michael Spearman (drums), and Alex Robertshaw (guitar). Their last full-length was 2017’s Mercury Prize-nominated AFever Dream, although they released the Deeper Sea EP in 2018.
‘Planets’ is the new track from Everything Everything taken from the forthcoming album ‘RE-ANIMATOR’. Out on 21.08.20
On Tuesday Hannah Georgas announced a new album, the Aaron Dessner-produced “All That Emotion”, and shared a new song from it, “Dreams.” The album is due September 4th via Brassland and Arts & Crafts.
“Dreams” is the third collaborative single between Georgas and Dessner, after “That Emotion” and “Same Mistakes.” All three songs are featured on All That Emotion.
Georgas had this to say about “Dreams” in a press release: “In my past, I have let my insecurities play into relationships and have pushed people away because I have felt like I’m not deserving of love. This song explores the idea of breaking down those barriers of insecurity and being more open.”
Georgas began working on All That Emotion about a year after her 2016 album, For Evelyn.
She had this to say about the album in the press release: “I have been thinking about what this album represents to me and it is resilience. It’s about finding hope and a way out the other side of tough situations. The hardships we go through make us grow into stronger people. The album is about healing, self reflection and getting up again at the end of the day.”
Georgas wrote All That Emotion in 2017 in her Toronto apartment and during a “month-long retreat” in Los Angeles. She started recording the album in 2018 at Dessner’s upstate New York Studio.
“Before each session, I would make the long drive from Toronto to Hudson Valley in Upstate New York.” Georgas says in the press release. “It was really special getting the opportunity to work in such a remote space with Aaron and Jon and I was always itching to get back whenever we had breaks. At the same time, I appreciated the space in between and coming back with fresh ears…. Aaron and I agreed the production needed to bring out the truth in my voice. During these sessions we musically found a new depth and, vocally, a delivery that was more raw and expressive, allowing the emotional texture of each song to shine through.”
Order new album “All That Emotion” Produced by Aaron Dessner Out September 4th, 2020
A whole lot of great artists have contributed exclusive tracks to this new compilation that benefits Alzheimer’s research. Comps like this are by nature hit and miss, but this one has lots of hits. Among them: New Order resuscitate the ’80s “extended mix” for a nine-minute version of “Nothing But a Fool,” the best song on Music Complete; new Mute signing HAAi’s spooky, throbbing, sultry “Drumting”; Astronauts, Etc.‘s deep shag bachelor pad track “The Border” (shades of Air); and smoldering garage number “Friday the 13th” from Wolfmanhattan Project (aka Gories’Mick Collins, Kid Congo Powers and Sonic Youth’s Bob Bert).
There’s also Hayden Thorpe & Jon Hopkins‘ haunting cover of “Goodbye Horses” by enigmatic cult artist Q-Lazzarus, a song that Jonathan Demme used first in Married to the Mob and then again, to much more memorable effect, in Silence of the Lambs. This cover was originally released in 2013 on the b-side of a repress of Q-Lazzarus’ original, but hasn’t been available for five years. With used copies going for big bucks on Discogs, it’s reason enough to pick this up. There’s also tracks from Moby (an Eno-esque instrumental, very nice), Beach Slang (a nice if wrote cover of The Church’s “Under the Milky Way“), TR/ST, Anna Calvi, Daniel Avery, and more.
The Longest Day is a very personal project. Mona Dehghan, who runs Mon Amie Records, lost her grandmother to Alzheimer’s in 1998 and her father was diagnosed with dementia last year. The artwork and photography is by Brookyn Vegan contributor Ebru Yildiz who documented her mother’s journey with Alzheimer’s.
Those who preorder by July 7th will have the option to include a tribute name in the liner notes to honour a loved one affected by dementia. In any case, it’s not on streaming services, so pick this one up and support Alzheimer’s research.
Various Artists – The Longest Day – A Benefit for the Alzheimer’s Association(Mon Amie Records) Tracklist:
Anna Calvi – Adélaïde
Rituals of Mine – The Only Way Out Is Through
Daniel Avery – JXJ
Cold Specks – Turn To Stone
TR/ST – Destroyer
Shadowparty – Marigold
Beach Slang – Under the Milky Way
New Order – Nothing But A Fool (Extended Mix 2)
HAAi – Drumting
J. Laser – Dreamphone
Sad13 – Who Goes There
Algiers – There Is No Year (Remix)
Astronauts, Etc. – The Border
Wolfmanhattan Project – Friday the 13th
Hayden Thorpe & Jon Hopkins – Goodbye Horses
Moby – In Between Violence
Rhys Chatham – For Bob – In Memory (2014) for Flute Orchestra
A download will be emailed on June 19th, and the physical albums will be shipped by October 1st, 2020.
