Freya Josephine Hollick has just dropped “Nobody’s No Better Than No One”, the first taste from her upcoming 2020 album The Real World. The track features Hollick confidently swaggering her way through a bluesy, country-rock piece of art that feels like it could have been ripped from the 70s or 80s. Freya Josephine Hollick’s is absolutely on point and her ability to leave space for the driving melody is inspired. Great stuff.
Shot in Ballarat, Australia The latest clip from Freya Josephine Hollick for her new single Nobody’s No Better Than No One is a menacing testament to female strength. Directed and filmed by Gareth Harrison, the clip is Hollick at her most raw and honest yet. Shot in the freezing cold, she huffs out breaths from the shadows, alone. “We just wanted to make something dark, that wouldn’t distract from the message of the song. And man, I was mad as hell when I wrote that song, and I think the clip is mad as hell”
Twin Peaks blend 60’s garage rock swagger with something of the skater slacker cool added to it. Their live performances reveal the band’s staggering amounts of energy. The rock band from Chicago, Illinois, is comprised of guitarists and vocalists Clay Frankel and Caiden Lake James, drummer Connor Brodner, backing vocalist Colin Croom on keys and Jack Dolan providing vocals and bass.
The band formed whilst all the members were still in high school during 2009. They recorded their debut album in James; basement during 2012. The stunning scuzzy album thriller named Sunken was released the following year through the independent label Autumn Tone Records. their fourth album, Lookout Low, Twin Peaks sound like they’re having a ball. The Chicago quintet formed in the early 2010’s as a precocious group of teenage garage-rock disciples, and their first few records fit snugly alongside the San Francisco garage revival of the time.
Their second album Wild Onion was released in 2014. Recorded in their hometown of Chicago, the album features the song Making Breakfast which has had well over 300,000 hits on YouTube.
Their new album Down In Heaven is out now. Wowing audiences around the world, this band certainly has a bright future ahead of it. Recorded in Massachusetts, the record contains the singles Walk To The One You Love, Butterfly and Holding Roses.
The Chicago-based indie-rock outfit Twin Peaks have unveiled the details of their newest studio effort Lookout Low. Described as their most deliberate and seamless record yet, the follow-up to 2016’s Down In Heaven was pieced together with the intent of capturing the raucous energy of the band’s live shows. Prolific alternative producer Ethan Johns helmed the project to help refine and solidify the band’s live recordings. The announcement arrived with the album’s first cut, and the band’s first track since wrapping their Sweet ‘17 Singles series in 2018: a lounge-lizardy groove set ablaze by heavy bass, swelling horns and warm organ tones titled “Dance Through It.” “Writing and arranging ‘Dance Through It’ felt like a dive into and embrace of experimenting with a new palette for us,” guitarist Cadien Lake James said in a statement. “After having been directly involved in the creation and direction of all of our videos, it felt fitting to allow this song the breath of collaboration in having Ariel Fisher take the helm and run with it.”
Standouts like the breezy “Better Than Stoned” and the funky “Dance Through It” lock into grooves that gradually crescendo into hearty group choruses, surrounded by plunky keyboard solos and warm trumpet gusts, respectively. “Ferry Song” recalls the uplifting tempo and sweet melody of Hall and Oates’ “Rich Girl,” and co-vocalist Colin Croom pays obvious homage to The Band in the folk-rockin’ “Laid In Gold.” But Twin Peaks sound the most comfortable and the most themselves on the album’s title track, a bombastic sing-along that’s speckled with Clay Frankel’s charming “oh’s” and “ow’s” during the song’s generous climax.
This latest iteration of the band sounds virtually unrecognizable from their early work, and that may be a turn-off for longtime fans. But Twin Peaks have never sounded as joyfully in the moment as they do on Lookout Low, and hearing them let it rip in real-time almost makes you feel like you’re up there with them.
“Acts like Twin Peaks are a revelation … an outfit in it for all the right reasons. ” – NME
“A delight … A prime contender for mainstream success. ” – The Independent
“Twin Peaks are masters of their craft. ” – DIY
“… their best LP to date. ” – The 405
“ Twin Peaks have become not just one of the most exciting young bands in the Chicago music scene, but in the entire rock landscape. ” – The Line of Best Fit
Enamored with both shoegazers of the ’90s and new wave revivalists from the ’00s, Crescendo are perhaps best described as a cross between Lush and The Strokes. Their second album, 2016’s Unless, is shimmery and upbeat, yet it’s also somewhat soporific, driven by the subtle push-pull of jabbing guitars and chiming riffs atop a bed of insistent, electronic drums, galactic keyboards and understated male/female vocals. “Being labeled ‘dreamgaze’ has been consistent,” frontman Gregory Cole told the music blog When the Sun Hits. “However, based on the beats per minute in our songs, including the drum parts, we certainly make it a goal to inspire listeners to dance and disappear from reality via space travel.” While Crescendo continue to generate a buzz in the indie community, members Olive Kimoto and Jess Rojas split their time between the group and their electronic-based project Unbloom.
Crescendo’s music grows with intensity: the sounds swell, the emphasis moves to the heart, and then resonates throughout the rest of the body. It feels unstoppable, endless. Crescendo is a young quintet from Los Angeles: their sound is bright, clear shoegaze. To be more precise—it’s the most dreamy and ethereal of this genre. The most striking thing about the band’s second work, “Unless,” is the seamless collide of heavenly melodies and tight rhythm: an urgency that pervades every song on the album. The guitars are crisp, the drums are pushed to the max, the synths are engulfed in layers, and the voices of Gregory Cole and Olive Kimoto explode in some distant galaxy. The quintet declares bands like the Radio Dept. and Smiths as their inspirations, but it’s easy to find affinities with bands like DIIV, Craft Spells, and Wild Nothing as well. Definitely the feature that most distinguishes Crescendo is their brightness, an idea of music that travels beyond light, fast and relaxed, while explosions and flashes rumble and shudder all around it. The center of this album can be found in the title: “Unless”—a word which sums up the band’s attitude about this project: “Unless is the word you use to start the conversations that change obstacles or impossible feats, and that word connects sci-fi space romance and our music together.”
In 2011, Vivian Girls were written off by the only indie music outlet that mattered. Of their third and thought-to-be final album Share the Joy (the band officially broke up in January 2014), Pitchfork wrote that it was “more admirable for its willingness to stretch than its execution.” They called singer and guitarist Cassie Ramone’s riffs “flat and stiff as dry spaghetti,” and declared that “there are an increasing number of bands beating Vivian Girls at their own game.” Prior to that dissertation, Pitchfork had awarded Vivian Girls’ self-titled debut album Best New Music and ranked it sixteenth on their 50 Best Albums of 2008 list.
Now, after a five-year break, Vivian Girls are back with one of this year’s most consistent rock records. From the opening bars on “Most of All,” the first track on new album Memory, it’s clear the band had nothing to prove at all. Memory picks up where the trio left off in 2011, drenching sweet, bubblegum melodies in distortion and reverb. This time, though, the band is tighter than ever. The lo-fi quality of their early records has been replaced by a slick studio polish. Bassist Katy Goodman says they wanted Memory to sound like “three people playing the songs as hard and fast as they could together, like a tight power trio.”
The dream-pop heavyweights Vivian Girls came out of the woodwork earlier this summer to announce their first new album in eight years. Memory marks the band’s first return to performing as a trio since parting ways in 2014, and welcomes back their core lineup of vocalist-bassist Katy Goodman, vocalist-guitarist Cassie Ramone and drummer Ali Koehler. Described as an album filled with personal reflections on toxic relationships, mental health struggles and accepting oneself, Memory captures a sense of desperation and longing and the “trademark mystery that set the band apart during its first incarnation,” per a press release.
The new album from Vivian Girls’ new full length album, Memory, out September 20th, 2019.
Moral Fibre and Hollow Thing the first two singles taken from the new album are out now! with a further single scheduled from album #2 – produced by Luke Smith (Foals, Everything Everything, Depeche Mode) and mixed by Claudius Mettendorfer (Parquet Courts, Yak, Weezer). A follow-up to LIFE’s successful, self-released debut ‘Popular Music’ which was included in Radio 1’s best albums of 2017.
A Picture Of Good Health’ – will be with you on the 20th of September & released on own label Afghan Moon in partnership with PIAS.
“this record is indispensable” – DIY (4.5/5)
“tightly wound guitars and lyrical zingers combine for maximum ’80s Peel session effect” – MOJO (4/5)
“it’s the album the Hull punks deserve” – Upset (4/5)
“a thunderous reminder of why guitar music is mankind’s greatest creation” – Dork (4/5)
“One of the only saving graces of the omnishambles of a time we live in is the emergence of bands that have something to be genuinely angry about. Few bands better epitomise that than LIFE” – NARC (4.5/5)
Molly Sarlé is one-third of the folk trio Mountain Man, but she steps into the spotlight on her first solo album, Karaoke Angel. Across its 10 tracks, she explores sexuality, vulnerability, self-determination, and the cathartic power of karaoke. She recorded the album with Sam Evian, who also produced the record, in Woodstock, New York.
Mountain Man are a very special band because not only are Molly Sarlé, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Meath great as a group, but they’re also all creators of other accomplished projects. Meath is one-half of synth-pop duo Sylvan Esso, Sauser-Monnig makes thoughtful folk music under the alias Daughter of Swords, and Sarlé writes stunning, roomy songs under her own name. Sarlé’s new album Karaoke Angel was written and recorded over the span of three years and as many places, from a trailer in Big Sur to home in North Carolina to a studio in Woodstock, N.Y.
The debut solo album from Sarlé (1/3 of Mountain Man) is finally here! Karaoke Angel is a cathartic intimate record with melodies that will stick in your head for days.Sarlé explores heavy topics like addiction, suicide, and sexuality with touches of humor and droves of empathy.
“Twisted” is from Molly Sarlé’s new album, Karaoke Angel, out 9.20.19 on Partisan Records.
Sub Pop Records is releasing “Morning in America”, a new 7-song EP of tracks recorded during the sessions for Mudhoney’s 2018 album, Digital Garbage (“…an astute, politically relevant and commendably fired-up garage punk belter of an LP,” – The Quietus). The tracks include “Let’s Kill Yourself Live Again” (an alternate version of the Digital Garbage stand-out “Kill Yourself Live,” and the bonus track for the Japanese CD version of that album), “One Bad Actor” (a new version of Mudhoney’s track on the limited-edition, and now very sold-out, SPF30 split 7” single w Hot Snakes), album outtakes “Snake Oil Charmer,” “Morning in America” and “Creeps Are Everywhere,” plus “Ensam I Natt” (“So Lonely Tonight,” a Leather Nun cover) and “Vortex of Lies” from a very limited EU tour 7″.
The songs were mixed at Johnny Sangster’s studio Crackle & Pop! The release of this EP coincides with Mudhoney’s fall 2019 US tour which finds the band playing the Ohana Festival in Dana Point, CA, and then Boston, Philadelphia, Durham, Atlanta, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and several other cities, ending on Oct 19th in Brooklyn, NY. See below for a full list of dates and supporting artists.
“Yeah, the world sucks. But 30 years in, Mudhoney does not.” [Digital Garbage] – Seattle Times
“They simply sound like a better, defter, maybe even snottier version of their younger selves on their 10th album.” [Digital Garbage] – Rolling Stone
“The Seattle scuzz-punk pioneers deliver a grave diagnosis of a festering societal condition.” [Digital Garbage] – Pitchfork
One Eleven Heavy’s brilliant second album “Desire Path” is a wry, occasionally biting, but always joyful celebration of human endurance and the ability to overcome. Nick Mitchell Maiato’s album opener, “Chickenshit”, deals with lazy acquiescence to attention-seekers. Pianist-cum-drummer Hans Chew’s first songwriting contribution to the band, “Fickle Wind”, externalizes the band’s raison d’etre by questioning society’s drive toward constant change. Meanwhile James Toth fires off image-laden witticisms about the unnecessary difficulty of human interaction in “Too Much, Too Much”, mocking fashion-conscious Marxists at the same time as he laughs at his own ‘cacti-withering row(s) with (his) old man.’ The musicianship is a step up from their raggedy, but already accomplished, debut, too. Desire Path is laced with lush three-part vocal harmonies and two-part harmonized guitar licks, recalling those classic Allman Bros runs at the same time as it recalls timeless classics by Hendrix, The Stones and, of course, The Dead. Second effort from this combo delivers bigger and better than the first. Great choogle-rock vibes built on great songs!
Sony’s Legacy Recordings continues the long running Bob Dylan‘Bootleg Series’ as they announce “Travelin’ Thru 1967-1969: The Bootleg Series vol 15” which revisits Dylan’s musical journeys to Nashville from 1967-1969, focusing on previously unavailable recordings session made with Johnny Cash and unreleased tracks from the John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and Self Portrait sessions.
Travelin’ Thru is simpler and more affordable than previous sets as it comes as a three disc package for both CD and vinyl.
Disc one of this set offers alternate versions of tracks from “John Wesley Harding”, the album Dylan recorded as a trio (himself, Charlie McCoy on bass and Kenneth Buttrey on drums) in late 1967 after his infamous motorcycle accident of the previous year. Amongst the unreleased material is a different version of All Along The Watch Tower. Nashville Skyline sessions offer an alternate of ‘Lay Lady Lay’ and a new song ‘Western Road’.
Discs two and three are centred around Dylan’s work with Johnny Cash, including Columbia Studio A sessions and on-stage performances at the Ryman Auditorium (May 1st, 1969) for the recording of the premiere episode of The Johnny Cash Show (originally broadcast on ABC-TV on June 7, 1969).
Disc Three features Self Portrait outtakes, including ‘Ring of Fire’ and ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ (recorded with guitarist Fred Cartertwo days after the Johnny Cash Show on 3 May) and closes with tracks recorded on 17th May 1970 with bluegrass banjo legend Earl Scruggsfor the PBS television special, “Earl Scruggs: His Family and Friends” (originally aired January 1971).
‘John Wesley Harding’ is still among my top two or three best Dylan albums. The album is so rich with imagery that each song feels like a little screenplay. This just might be the release that leads me to re-evaluate ‘Nashville Skyline’, I feel drawn to Dylan’s music during all its ‘phases’ I think that the whole Bootleg series has done more to elucidate Dylan’s genius than most of the original releases in their original form and time. When you consider albums like ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, ‘Blonde on Blonde’ or ‘Blood on The Tracks’, that says a lot about what he’s contributed and what’s still to be heard.
Travelin’ Thru 1967-1969: The Bootleg Series vol 15 will be released on 1st November 2019.
If you’re not sold based on album title alone allow us a moment to convince you of the genius of Howe Gelb’s latest. And indeed his work to date. Never a dull moment, in this lifetime he has flirted with flamenco, adventured into Americana and gone for it with gospel choirs. The result is a back catalogue packed with great ideas, and inspiration for more great ideas. Enter Giant Sand, where artist dons disguise and revisits his old classics to make them fresh and different. Here Gelb, or Giant Sand, takes on the second Gelb album, “The Ballad Of Thin Line Man”. First released in 1986, when New Hollywood was kicking Reaganite attitudes to the curb in favour of modern high plains drifters influenced by the preceding LSD decades, that same ethic is here, only louder and more urgent. A strange but familiar and abstract Americana, with roughness turned up to 11.
it’s a re recording of a 1986 album that never saw the light of day in USA distribution. here now entitled “Recounting the Ballads ( of Thin Line Men) “ with original drummer(s) Tommy Larkins for a most of it and Winston A Watson Jr. for a minute too. ( just the opposite of their involvement of the previous re recording on last year’s re do of “Returns to Valley of Rain”. This album also features good ol’ Thøger Tetens Lund on low frequency ( as he has provided for the last 15 years ) and Annie Dolan for a minute too. Plus special visitation by Paula Jean Brown. The album was co produced by Gabriel Sullivan and the beautiful cover is by Rosson Crow.
We will be touring on it in Europe ‘tween Nov. 9th – Dec. 8th. .. a kind of fare-thee-well escapade. hind sight being 2020, am looking forward to something else next year. Thank you all so severely mucho. – howe
