Boston-based Palehound have returned with a brand new observe known as “Killer,” which we known as one in all the most effective songs of the year. It was a welcome comeback, and it continued final month with the discharge of the track“Aaron” and information of a brand new album known as Black Friday.
Right now, Ellen Kempner’s band is again with one other new track and video for “Worthy.” In a press launch, Kempner says the observe is “about feeling unworthy of affection even inside a relationship. It’s about years of being conditioned to hate my physique and the shock of discovering somebody who isn’t telling me to vary. Selecting to consider the one that believes in you is a wild journey particularly when it correlates with ebb and stream of a partnership.”
The “Worthy” video was directed by Home Of Nod’s Robert Kolodny, who additionally helmed the “Aaron” video, and touches on comparable themes and imagery. Kempner confirms that this one is a continuation: “It’s the identical characters however on this one I’m mask-less and speaking my approach in direction of my companion, our shrinking distance represented by a string that ties us collectively.”
Howdy everyone!
Hope y’all are enjoying “Aaron.” It’s been really special for me to put that song out into the world. I was having anxiety about it but y’all put that to rest with your overwhelmingly kind response. Also the video by House of Nod is the best music video we’ve ever had!! Makes me feel excited about doing/ releasing more.
The full album, Black Friday, will be out on 6/7 on Polyvinyl Records who have been ultra amazing. I feel the proudest of this record of all the things I’ve done. Gabe Wax was my co-producer again and he’s a magician. We’re also gearin’ up to take these songs to a city near you with our favorite band Big Thief in October. Counting down the days!!
Thanks so much for everything, love y’all can’t wait to see you on the road
Penelope Isles are a Brighton-based indie rock quartet centered across the songwriting chemistry of siblings Jack and Lily Wolter. After signing to Bella Union Records and impressing at this years SXSW with their searing reside present, they’re on the point of put out their debut album, “Till The Tide Creeps In”, later this summer.
Bella Union are thrilled to introduce new signings Penelope Isles, Between its chiming dream-pop, fuzz-noise waves, indie-psych currents and lustrous melodies, the album is a transporting show of expansive DIY vision, its elemental metaphors a fertile backdrop for the band’s innate inner chemistry and acute grasp of contrast.
Crisp and woozy, blissful and biting, it’s also an album powerful enough to sweep you away live.
We’ve already heard two songs thus far, the fuzzily psych-rocking lead single “Chlorine” and a reside recording of the layered nine-minute available Live At Bella Studios opus “Gnarbone.”
“Chlorine” “It’s a song we often open our shows with, so it felt right to have it as the first single off the record,” say Penelope Isles. Bright and brisk, wide-eyed and wistful, ‘Chlorine’ is a dreamy introduction to the instinctive charms and alt-rock chops of the Isle of Man-via-Brighton quartet, ‘Chlorine’ harbours a tale of what the band call “a heart-breaking family divide”. Its potency heightened by the juxtaposition between the band’s fiery lead-guitar sorcery and sailing three-part harmonies, it’s a song of tremendous melodic calm and emotional rip tides, inviting and immersive.
Self-produced by Jack and recorded in Brighton’s Bella Studios, ‘Chlorine’ is a hypnotic teaser for Penelope Isles’ debut LP, And now they’re sharing one other new monitor, a dreamy old-school rock ‘n’ roll sway known as “Round”
“It’s a love music — a set of moments and ideas of what it’s wish to be in love,” Jack Wolter explains. “All the gorgeous moments and all of the troublesome occasions too. Going spherical full circle. The verses are like the gorgeous occasions that we’ll at all times keep in mind the place the refrain is the reality of the way it’s not at all times that simple.”
‘Round’ is taken from the debut album by Penelope Isles.
With the release of the second track, “Midnight Sun,” from the new collaborative album between Calexico and Iron and Wine “Years to Burn” comes a new video featuring animation by Jonny Sanders and illustrations by Sam Beam. The illustrations came out of over 100 paintings Beam did while creating the album cover.
Calexico’s lead singer Joey Burns said of the process behind the new song:
Sam sent some demos the week before we met to record the album. Based on the feel of those demos I wrote the song “Midnight Sun” the day I got to Nashville. I arrived at our rental house the day before everyone else and was happy to find a piano, old pump organ and guitar to do some writing. I was up late and came up with a tune that would bridge both bands’ worlds. I started with a drone in F# and was curious as to where it would take me.
Wand’s music lets the soul wander their fifth full-length “Laughing Matter” is another worthy side-by-side . Laughing Matter follows the Los Angeles rock outfit’s sky-high 2017 LP Plum and shapeshifting 2018 EP Perfume. While early releases from these Drag City Records mainstays were characterized by sludgy neo-garage and fuzzy stoner psych, their latest offerings conjure far too much slippery wonder to warrant concise categorization. Wand take risks and thrive on contradiction—their heady guitar embellishments keep you on your toes, and their surreal imagery simultaneously makes you feel insignificant and a pivotal part of the cosmos.
Laughing Matter is a intoxicating listen for a number of reasons. Their often opaque lyrics are a strangely touching and immersive experience, and lead vocalist Cory Hanson delivers them with a benevolence that will allow you to trust fall into his snug, fluttering coo. Wand’s affection for nature is evident, and there’s both a foreboding sense that something is slipping from grasp and a blissful acceptance of its fleeting or cyclical existence. “Rio Grande” captures a grand trek with breathtaking vistas (“Rivers twist like spider’s silk around the stolen land”) and their evocative descriptions are filtered through Hanson’s warm vocal eccentricities. “Lucky’s Sight” is an abstract, sensory collage with one of the record’s most exhilarating outros and most dramatically vivid lines (“a bag of pollinated daydreams smeared across an empty street”).
Amidst reverberating guitars and raining cymbals, “Scarecrow” expresses in the most tragically sublime terms, the plight of a straw-filled scarecrow standing guard in a field of grain as the scarecrow falls victim to the very crows it’s meant to spook. “Walkie Talkie” sees Wand at their sunniest peak as Hanson sings about the blurring of senses, “I’m kissed by the sight and I’m struck by the sound / My heart blinks like a light as I hitch into town.”
The outro is another highlight with booming, coiled drums and Hanson’s enchanting backing vocals that weave in and out of the foreground. “High Planes Drifter” recalls the compassionate acoustics of Hanson’s solo effort The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo, if you swapped heavenly strings for intergalactic synths, and the instrumental “Hare” gently bubbles below the surface with pirouetting keys and eerie violin screeches. “Wonder” may be the record’s finest offering with its juxtaposition of ballsy, overdriven guitars and sweet, blissful vocal melodies.
The first disc of this double album release is more immediately gratifying, in part because of the track lengths on the second. You might find songs like “Evening Star,” “Airplane” and “Lucky’s Sight” a bit lengthy or decadent after a few listens, but the more you return to these longer cuts, the more melodic Easter eggs you’ll uncover.
Side two opens with the sound of instruments aimlessly plucking as if they’ve just plugged in and tuned up following the album’s implied intermission, and the eventual meandering piano lines and propulsive guitars create a paradoxical tornado of immense sonic weight. Tracks like “xoxo” and “Airplane” exhibit how quickly and smoothly Wand can transition from chill soundscapes to blustery musical tangents. Their extended, contorted guitar jams range from prog to kraut to psych, their keyboards are both familiar yet elusive and their percussion swings from machine-like to completely off-the-cuff. Keyboardist Sofia Arreguin’s occasional lead and backing vocals are straightforward yet consolatory, and drummer Evan Burrows’ candid, Lou Reed-indebted vocals on “Jennifer’s Gone” enhance the frank, depressing quality of the track’s mourning lines.
ThroughoutLaughing Matter, Hanson and Burrows’ lyrics take everything known about defined forms and senses and turn them on their head—sounds can be swallowed, the future’s neck can be cut and life can eat into life—and the album’s improvisational jams, winding outros and emotionally crushing melodies result in perhaps Wand’s most realized release yet.
In their early years, Atlanta trio The Coathangers were very much of the classic punk ethos—the band was a live entity, and the records were a document of the charisma and chaos projected from stage. But after 12 years of relentlessly touring on a steady flow of EPs and LPs, The Coathangers finally took a moment to recalibrate before diving into the creation of their sixth studio album The Devil You Know. The band regrouped to make an album that captures all the vitality of their early years while honing their individual strengths into new communal achievements. It’s a record that takes their established takes on vitriolic punk, playful house-party anthems, and heartworn ballads and melds them into a new sound that retains all their former live show glories while revealing a new level of songwriting and nuance. “The writing process was done with an open heart,” says guitarist/vocalist Julia Kugel. “Everything that came before had to go away. And we started there, at ground zero.” With each album, you could hear the individual songwriters honing their style. But with The Devil You Know, it feels like we’re hearing the first Coathangers record written as a true unit.
“The Devil You Know is a collection of glorious cassette-tape jams with unfussy production, tight melodies, and precise vocal harmonies.” – Pitchfork
“The Devil You Know is a vital and exciting record – one which gathers up the past and pointedly thrusts it into the present. Topics like institutionalised evil, war and greed are always valid targets and The Coathangers go for the throat – and draw blood – pleasingly and memorably at every opportunity. This should be their moment of glory.” – Drowned in Sound
“The Coathangers infuse every note they play with an intense energy that bristles with anger, attitude, and snarky humor.” – New Noise
The Coathangers new studio album, The Devil You Know, out now on Suicide Squeeze Records.
The Coathangers’ repress of The Devil You Know is out now on limited-edition color-in-color-out variant of coke bottle green (out) and magenta (in) vinyl. Limited edition of 500 copies.
Seattle band Tacocat will release “This Mess Is a Place”, their new full-length album on LP/CD/Digital and Cassette tomorrow, Friday, May 3rd. The album is their first for Sub Pop Records, and heralds a more pop-driven and ebullient direction in their sound. Critics are calling it “as effervescent as ever”and “the band’s most polished record to date” ( The Seattle Times). Checkout the band’s trippy music video for “New World”.
This Mess is a Place (release date: May 3rd, 2019)
It’s been just under three years since the last album from The Felice Brothers. It was the end, in a lot of ways, of their under-the-radar career. They’ve been dragged into the mainstream, somewhat, by their musical collaborations with Conor Oberst. On Salutations they beefed up the solo piano tunes from Conor’s Ruminations while bringing the heat on songs like “Napalm.” Their fanbase opened up after people saw them opening for and backing up Oberst at shows.
Internally a lot has changed as well. Ian put out a great solo record in 2017 and played some solo shows. Jimmy has lost a lot of weight and looks healthier than ever. The biggest change might be their surrounding cast, which has completely changed. Greg Farley and Josh Rawson are gone, replaced by drummer Will Lawrence and bassist Jesske Hume. This change has come with a fresh take on their musical style that finds its home on Undress.
A couple things stand out right away, even if you’ve only heard the singles that have been released over the past couple months. One, this is their most overtly political album to date. And two, Undress is easily their most accessible record, attracting new fans that haven’t heard of them previously. Some of their weirdness has been set aside to coax the most emotional and intellectual resonance from the tracks. For better or worse, this is their shot at making a record that sells as well as they’ve deserved for a long time.
The production on Undress, done with the help of Jeremy Backofen, is pristine. The harmonies soar and the instruments, from accordion to piano to guitar, all come through perfectly. You can feel the passion and intensity moving from song to song through the album even on the first listen, which isn’t always true on Felice Brothers records.
The singles released really push the new sound, but deeper cuts on the album show that they haven’t totally left the old ways behind. On “Days Of The Years” Ian reminds us of what brought people into their fan base many years ago. It’s his sincere delivery that first made me take a harder listen when their self-titled record came out over a decade ago, and it keeps me interested here.
Despite a new sound, new members, and loftier goals, The Felice Brothers are still the same band at it’s core. Ian and Jimmy are making music for the lost and the forgotten, but that music is reaching more people than ever. In this age of disconnection I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise. And despite Undress featuring a lot about the horrible place we find ourselves in as a society, I think it is also the most hopeful thing they’ve put out so far in their career.
We are big fans of Country singers with the surname Rose, and this week we were delighted to find it wasn’t just Caitlin we had to be excited about. Hailing from New Orleans, Esther Rose, no relation as far as we know, has actually been quietly gaining fans since the release of her 2017 record, “This Time Last Night”, which Jack White liked so much he invited Esther to come and sing with him on his Boarding House Reach album. This week, Esther has not only shared a brand new single, “Handyman”, but also confirmed her upcoming release of the second album, “You Made It This Far”, out in August on Father/Daughter Records.
Listening to Handyman, what instantly grabbed us was the integrity of it all; there’s a purity to both the unpolished playing and the effortless, dripping emotion of the vocal delivery. We’re put in mind of the first time we heard Hurray For The Riff Raff; the way from barely a single phrase we wanted to know everything about the person singing it, sometimes a song just grabs you, just demands your uninterrupted attention, Handyman does just that. There’s a winning simplicity to the instrumentation; the gentle drive of a snare drum, the meandering weave of the fiddle, the minimal pulse of upright bass, all serve to give a platform to Esther’s tale of an affection still burning, despite the quiet questioning, “I hope you change your mind, won’t you try?” Timeless, beautiful, and quite, quite brilliant, we might just have found our new favourite songwriter.
You Made It This Far is out August 23rd via Father/Daughter Records.
Frankie and the Witch Fingers’ latest LP, “ZAM”, bleeds beyond borders and boundaries. Its opening preternatural sounds bubble up out of the primordial soup, spilling into our world, invading the inner recesses of the listener’s mind. Like a two-headed snake wrapped around the skull, the album pendulates between winding instrumentals and dancey riffs that pop like supernovas out of the black void. Just when a song goes one way, it propels another through long stretches of a cosmic inferno.
Bringing glimmers of krautrock and funk, its eleven tracks unleash a versatile and tenacious weight, slithering between the sexy, the aggressive, the vivacious, and the disorienting—until the living invasion is felt—”ZAM”—a supernatural entity summoned by four madmen obsessed with tearing open a gateway to dark space. After being pulled apart atom-by-atom, the listener is reconfigured on the other side, born unto starry wasteland.
Where head is separated from body. Where music is seen and apocalyptic soundscapes flow to revelation. A funhouse undercurrent pulses through the album’s epoch, reflecting a carnival mosaic shrewdly lulling and doggedly brutal. As one track bleeds into the next, that hour of running time becomes wormhole travel, until the listener returns earthbound, transmuted, craving more odyssey.
Hollow Hand is the psych-folk project of Brighton, UK-based Max Kinghorn-Mills. Working with fellow band members and co-producers Pan Andrs and Atlas Shrugs in a rehearsal space-studio called “Cosmic Ocean,”Kinghorn-Mills and co. recorded the endearingly lo-fi full-length Star Chamber, released on Talkshow Records last October. The songs cover themes both cosmic and earthly: like what matters most at the end of the world (“End of Everything”) or the ineffable pleasure and sweet pain of love (“Blackberry Wine”). Kinghorn-Mills’ sound evokes luminaries like Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt, Emmit Rhodes and Something Else to Lola-era Kinks.
“A World Outside”opens with natural sounds that conjure a walk down a country lane—complete with a cheery voice saying “Good morning!”—while a nylon-stringed guitar plays a gently descending line and we ease into the sun-dappled, pastoral universe of Hollow Hand. The song breezes along on jangly guitars and buoyant harmonies, occasionally kicking into a higher gear with crunchy, fuzz-toned chords but always coming back—albeit briefly—to the wistful guitar line that opened the track. Slight shifts along the way are never jarring but do keep one guessing: like momentarily losing one’s way down a wooded path only to emerge into the light again.
