Archive for the ‘CLASSIC ALBUMS’ Category

RICHARD REED PARRY – ” ‘Quiet River of Dust Vol 1 “

Posted: April 25, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Attempting to guess where Richard Reed Parry might go with a solo album is a nigh on impossible task. He can play just about anything, as his work with Arcade Fire demonstrates, and he’s worked with many artists over his career. The multi-instrumentalist released a new solo album, “Quiet River of Dust Vol. 1”, last September via ANTI-Records , his first for the label.

Seven tracks long, only two of which last less than six minutes, it’s music crying out for careful attention. Songs ebb and flow, and then ebb some more, teasing beauty from Parry’s quietly rich, complex compositions. Birds chirps, doors close in the background, guitars are handled delicately, and vocals drift out. Lying underneath, Parry adds gently glitching synths, neon city meets sunrise in the cornfield.

It makes for ravishing music. “Gentle Pulsing Dust” builds and builds into a sound dizzy with intimacy. “On the Ground” echoes vocals back hauntingly. Each track pulls off similar tricks, each comes packed with flourishes and swerves, begging for repeat listens.

Now he has announced its follow-up album, “Quiet River of Dust Vol. 2″, and shared its first single, “Long Way Back,” via a video for the song. Quiet River of Dust Vol. 2 is due out June 21st. Quiet River of Dust Vol. 1 was released during the autumn equinox and Quiet River of Dust Vol. 2 is being released during the summer solstice.

In a press release Parry says “Long Way Back” is “a song about remembering everything you’ve ever lived. Your childhood home, the happy or heavy or beautiful or miserable feelings you ever lived with, the fleeting and pristine random moments of perfection, the infinitely complex tapestry of emotions you feel towards your parents; anything that resides anywhere in those floating worlds that exist inside your mind and your heart, holding all these things up to the light of memory, embracing it all and then letting it go.”

Nothing is as good as “Song of Wood.” After a deliberately stuttering start, a soft trilling combines with lush vocals, growing into a final minute that is utterly gorgeous, as beautiful as anything released this year.

The most spectacular thing here is that “Song of Wood” isn’t an outlier. It’s merely the shiniest treasure on an album full of them. Vol. 2 has a lot to live up to.

Parry says the album is about “memory and the unconscious mind.”

“What separates us from dissolving into the experience around us?” he further explains in the press release. “It’s a feeling I’ve definitely had many times, where the boundaries of self and world are permeable to the point of disorientation. So much of this record is about being this young person in an older people’s world of music and song, this folk music community where the torch is passed, and losing my father at a young age, and being completely disoriented by that. This record, the songs are also referencing that nebulous psychic territory when you lose your most familiar world, when the village of your childhood disappears and you try to relocate yourself in a different one.”

“Long Way Back” by Richard Reed Parry from the album ‘Quiet River of Dust Vol. 2: That Side of the River,’ available June 21st

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SONS OF AN ILLUSTRIOUS FATHER – ” Sons of An Illustrious Father “

Posted: April 25, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Sons of An Illustrious Father are a trio comprised of Josh Aubin, Lilah Larson, and the acclaimed actor Ezra Miller. They self-released their last album, “Deus Sex Machina: Or, Moving Slowly Beyond Nikola Tesla”, back in June 2018. Now they have shared a new song, simply titled “Sons of An Illustrious Father.” It features string arrangements from Murray A. Lightburn, frontman of Montréal’s The Dears.

Ezra Miller played Barry Allen (aka The Flash) in 2017’s Justice League movie (as well as more briefly in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad). Miller also starred in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. But Sons of An Illustrious Father is no casual side-project for Miller, he’s known Lilah Larson since high school and the band has been active for several years.

A previous press release described the band as such: “Sons of An Illustrious Father were born from an inherent need to represent Otherness within personal identity, continuing the astounding lineage of punk rock icons before them who pushed the boundaries of popular culture via explorations of gender definition and sexual fluidity.

Band Members
JOSH AUBIN ~ vocals, bass, keyboards, guitars, percussion
LILAH LARSON ~ vocals, guitars, bass, drums, percussion
EZRA MILLER ~ vocals, drums, percussion, keyboards

The BLACK KEYS – ” Eagle Birds “

Posted: April 25, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The Black Keys have announced a new album, “Let’s Rock”, and shared a new song from it, “Eagle Birds.” Let’s Rock is due out June 28th via Easy Eye Sound/Nonesuch Records. Listen to “Eagle Birds” below. The album includes “Lo/Hi,” a song they shared back in March . It’s been five years since The Black Keys last released an album, 2014’s Turn Blue. A press release says Let’s Rock”is a return to the straightforward rock of the singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney’s early days as a band.” Auerbach adds: “When we’re together we are The Black Keys, that’s where that real magic is, and always has been since we were 16.”

Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have kept busy in the last half a decade. In 2015 Auerbach released Yours, Dreamily, the debut album by side-project The Arcs, and in 2017 then he released his second solo album, Waiting on a Song. He also started a record label, Easy Eye Sound, named after his recording studio in Nashville, and recorded other artists at the studio. Carney also produced and collaborated with other artists, including Tennis and Tobias Jesso Jr., and recently released a debut album from his side band Sad Planets (which is a collaboration with John Petkovic).

The Black Keys “Eagle Birds” from album “Let’s Rock”, coming June 28th:

MARIKA HACKMAN – ” I’m Not Where You Are “

Posted: April 25, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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British singer/songwriter Marika Hackman has shared a new song, “I’m Not Where You Are” . It’s the first single from her upcoming new album on Sub Pop Records (details are still forthcoming). The album will be the follow-up to her 2017-released breakthrough release, sophomore release I’m Not Your Man. Hackman co-produced the song with David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, Let’s Eat Grandma).

In a press release Hackman says the song “is about breaking up with people, or self-sabotaging relationships. That feeling of not trusting one’s emotions because you can’t seem to get to the same place as the other person. On the surface, it seems like an arrogant ‘everybody falls in love with me’ kind of song but its actually incredibly lonely, introspective, and self-deprecating.”

“i’m not where you are” from Marika’s forthcoming new album,

KYLE CRAFT and SHOWBOAT HONEY – ” 2 Ugly 4 NY “

Posted: April 25, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Kyle Craft, along with his now solidified backing band dubbed Showboat Honey, release their self-titled album, the contemplative yet restless Showboat Honey (Sub Pop Records, July 12th, 2019) This is basically an album centered around bad luck and good fortune hitting at the same time, Craft explains “Then, out of nowhere, I find love. Everything went to shit except that. I guess that’s how life works.”

No track better captures this duality than the sweeping “Sunday Driver,” about sticking to your guns, despite a universe of blowback. “At this point, you get baptized by certain fires and start to walk with the dead a little bit, like nothing can harm you anymore,” says the Portland-based musician. “That’s what self-love sounds like to me, as aggressive as that sounds.”

The sticky-sweet title of the album is lifted from the brightly choral “Buzzkill Caterwaul” (“Once you were the showboat honey/ But your ship sailed out”). “I wanted to make something that sounded like a raucous collision of Leon Russell and Patti Smith,” he says, “But ‘Buzzkill Caterwaul’ was the only tune that ended up showcasing that vision.”

Though aesthetics veer from song to song, Showboat Honey’s steadfast formula remains the same. Drummer Haven Mutlz holds down the machine with a ’60s/’70s fast-molasses groove that locks in with the slinky rolling bass of Billy Slater. When Kevin Clark isn’t bouncing across the piano, his mellotron strings swell in and out of frame. Jack of all trades Ben Steinmetz’s organ parts well up from the deep of the songs, while lead guitarist Jeremy Kale’s solos rip through them like electricity. On top of it all, sits the tongue-in-cheek phantasmagoria created by Craft’s lyrics.

Lyrically, perspectives shift to imbue life into a cast of intriguing, mysterious characters, à la Bob Dylan. (“There is not a single thing in my life that has affected me more than the first time I heard Dylan,” says Craft. “It immediately changed my life.”) “Johnny (Free & Easy)” is seemingly about a date gone awry at a swinger’s party in the Hollywood Hills. And the twangy pop of “O! Lucky Hand” appears to shadow a poor sod desperate to elude a hex. Its antidote is the stunning, cinematic “Deathwish Blue,” which sounds like a deep cut from the book of John Lennon, about the lovesick salvation found in his bride to be, Lydia.

If that’s not head-trippy enough, the carefree sing-along “2 Ugly 4 NY” features a lyrical reference to a previous incarnation of Craft. Its lyrics—“Don’t wanna see Death strum for cash downtown/ Or the look on his face when the change hits the case on the ground”—call out his early days in Portland when he went by the moniker of Hobo Grim. Busking downtown, he’d cover country tunes while dressed as the Grim Reaper so as to conceal his true identity.

Craft started writing about as soon as he could play the guitar at the age of 15. He grew up in the isolated Mississippi River town of Vidalia, Louisiana where his chops weren’t honed in a woodshed, but rather an old, dingy meat freezer that was out of commission.  When asked about the first song he’d ever written, he laughs, saying it was an “angsty-rock tune” and “a rare bird of how bad a song could be.”

After years of touring, two LPs with Sub Pop Records, and solidifying the band, he’s since grown into a prodigious songwriter, to say the least. The band recorded Showboat Honey—co-produced by Craft, Clark, and Slater—at their own Moonbase Studios in Portland over 2018. “We approached this record differently for sure,” Craft says. “I’d make a demo, and after putting the songs together, shoot it to the band for ideas.” Tracks such as “Broken Mirror Pose” ended up being highly collaborative, while others settled into Craft’s original vision. “Deathwish Blue,” for instance, was tracked in a similar fashion to his solo debut, Dolls of Highland, with Craft tracking every instrument by himself.

Kyle and the members of Showboat Honey worked at such a feverish wine-fueled pace that they actually ended up with two completely different albums. But at the end of the day, they decided to combine the two into what is now Showboat Honey, a moonstruck rock ’n’ roll record teeming with reckless abandon.

“We thought we had the album done at one point. But at the last minute, I was like, ‘Shit, this isn’t the album. This isn’t it,’” Kyle says. “It was just a gut feeling. I’m glad for that because I feel like I ended up writing some of the best songs I’ve ever written.”

‘Showboat Honey’ (Release Date: July 12th, 2019)

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KING GIZZARD and the LIZARD WIZARD – ” Fishing For Fishes “

Posted: April 25, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Sit back and strap yourself in as the seven-headed Aussie rock beast King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard return with “Fishing for Fishies”, perhaps their most perfectly-realised album to date. Here is a world where the organic meets the automated; where the rustic meets the robotic. Where the past and future collide in the beautiful present.

The thirteenth album since their 2012 debut – and their first following the release of five vastly different albums in 2017 – Fishing for Fishies is a blues-infused blast of sonic boogie that struts and shimmies through several moods and terrains. From the soft shuffle Outback country of the opening title track through the sunny easy listening of ‘The Bird Song’ (think the lysergically-soaked Laurel Canyon circa 1973) and on through the party funk of ‘Plastic Boogie’ (which somehow summons the spirit of Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions) the road-trucking, Doors-like highway rock of ‘The Cruel Millennial’ and ‘Real Is Real’ – what The Carpenters might have sounded like had they existed entirely on vegemite and weed – it’s a dizzying, dazzling display.

Hell, The Gizz make it look so easy.

And that’s all before we even get to ‘Acarine’, a futurist blues tune which heads off into previously unchartered territories of shimmering Eno-esque ambient and dark John Carpenter-style electro, and the electro squelch of album-closing single ‘Cyboogie’, on which five of the seven King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard members play synths. It’s a stomping vocoder-lead anthem akin to Georgio Moroder or Trans-era Neil Young and a triumphant conclusion to an album that is as surprising as it is thrilling, as unexpected as it is effortless.

“We tried to make a blues record,” says frontman Stu Mackenzie. “A blues-boogie-shuffle-kinda-thing, but the songs kept fighting it – or maybe it was us fighting them. Ultimately though we let the songs guide us this time; we let them have their own personalities and forge their own path. Paths of light, paths of darkness. This is a collection of songs that went on wild journeys of transformation.”

“I didn’t really know who I was by the end of 2017,” continues Stu, of the band’s never-to-be-repeated year, which concluded with the fifth album being released on New Years Eve 2017. “It was a good kind of spent feeling though, as I like being busy. For most of the holiday period I was in the studio doing the last of the recording and mixing on Gumboot Soup. And as soon as it clicked over to 2018 I stopped worrying about recording for a while and started living instead.”

Out of this period came Fishing for Fishies, an album in which musical motifs recur: lush piano, mellotron and synth flourishes (the bulk of the album was written on piano); Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s distinctive harmonica, which brings to mind sidewinders crossing dusty widescreen vistas; a generous dose of vocoder; and a plethora of creative U-turns that conspire to create a general overall sense of man and machine melding together in a thrilling chrome-covered hybrid.

Because Fishing for Fishies is an album looking out across the horizon through mirrored sunglasses while twenty-tonne juggernauts thunder past. Here, perhaps, is a place where the spirit of two key songs released in the same year – Ram Jam’s ‘Black Betty’ and Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans-Europe Express’ – linger somewhere in the mix. And what may sound absurd on paper is actually the genius work of a band of musicians entirely simpatico with one another after nearly a decade of constant evolution.

“We have travelled a lot – we’ve seen the world – but it all still feels like discovery,” says Stu, in trademark self-effacing style. “We’re still essentially naive kids tinkering around with toys we don’t know how to use in the studio.”

Newcomers to King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard will find an entire self-contained universe awaits them in a thrilling body of work. Here are grand concepts where albums overlap, riffs resurface, circular songs chase their own tails, grand narratives are told, cryptic lyrics endlessly analysed and a whole army of fans regurgitate the band’s output via a deluge of remixes, memes, visual loops, mind-melting cut-ups and just generally pontificate wildly about everything in The Gizzverse, much of it available on Youtube and internet forums.

“I am aware that it exists,” laughs Stu, of the alternative world that exists in their honour. “But I’m completely social media-less and pretty stone-age really. Good on ‘em for digging deep though.”

Because King Gizzard are no longer a band, they are a cult, a youth movement, an exploration, a double-drumming trip, a cottage industry centred around their own Flightless Records. Many milestones have been ticked off along the way: a headline slot at the UK’s Green Man Festival; a huge sold-out US tour; playing to five thousand people at a sold-out Brixton Academy one day…and then 100 people in the Yorkshire hill town of Hebden Bridge the next. Meanwhile their Gizzfest gathering in Melbourne is now in its fourth year. They are a band to give your life to. Perhaps more than anything they provide transportive fun, a valuable and often-overlooked commodity in an increasingly fraught world.

Best of all, anyone can step into The Gizzverse – anytime, anywhere. No prior understanding is necessary. So whether it’s psyche rock played with breakneck precision (2014’s I’m In Your Mind Fuzz), life-giving acoustic folk and Tropicalia (2015’s Paper Mâché Dream Balloon), a three-part sci-fi/prog album (2017’s Murder Of The Universe) or an album uploaded on an open license so that budding labels worldwide could press their own copies, which they duly did, currently 240 different pressings according to Discogs (2017’s, Polygondwanaland), King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard provide it. As Pitchfork noted, they have waged war against two tired clichés: “One, that rock is dead; and two, that the album is dead.” More than that, they have staked their claim as one of the most innovative, exciting and productive bands of the 21st century.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are: Stu Mackenzie (vocals/guitar/flute), Ambrose Kenny-Smith (harmonica/vocals), Cook Craig (guitar/vocals), Joey Walker (guitar), Lucas Skinner (bass), Eric Moore (drums) and Michael Cavanagh (drums).

KEVIN MORBY – ” Oh My God ” Best Albums Of 2019

Posted: April 25, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Oh My God

Kevin Morby has been thinking about God. If you’re a fan of the Kansas City-raised songwriter, you’re probably already aware of this. On his first four solo LPs, Morby has riddled his lyrics with allusions and questions, never quite discovering what sort of universal presence he’s engaging with. On his latest album, “Oh My God”, Morby presents the logical conclusion of this investigation. Not only it is his deepest dive into a metaphysical pulse, but it’s also his most stunning and brilliant record. With Oh My God , Morby swings for the fences with abandon and excitement.

The album begins with the title track, and after a brief word of encouragement from co-producer Sam Cohen, Morby begins. We get ragtime piano, heavy chords, and church choir backing vocals. Immediately, this is something new. Morby’s always been a fantastic songwriter, but this is something big, something different. When we ask the guitarist about these heightened goals, his answer is simple: “We wanted this one to feature music that could fit inside of a cathedral.”Even though Morby isn’t religious, he’s fascinated by the way it shapes our lives.

As a young Midwesterner, he witnessed it all around him. Whether he’s a believer or not is far from the point. This is the world he’s grown up with and it constantly invades his vernacular. Whether intentionally or not, Morby conflates politics with religion and, as such, this record is interested in the world we live in. But, Oh My God is more ambitious than its era.

It’s an album for all-time, not just 2019. When Morby turns this world inward, Oh My God is at its best. Kevin Morby is a growing spirit, a disciple for the Godless. And yet, there’s something here for everyone. Morby is confident without becoming preachy, questioning without being faithless. It’s a tightrope and Morby’s learned how to cross it blindfolded. I wonder what his next trick will be.

This is Kevin Morby’s defining album to date, that sounds as celestially enlightened as the themes it tackles, balancing sonic depth with a masterful lightness of touch and a painterly vision of the complete picture. “this one feels full circle, my most realised record yet,” he says. “it’s a cohesive piece; all the songs fit under the umbrella of this weird religious theme.” this is Kevin’s opus – a double concept album on spirituality and religion, for fans of Steve Gunn, Conor Oberst, Waxahatchee, Woods, and Kurt Vile .

Kevin Morby “Nothing Sacred / All Things Wild” from “Oh My God” out April 26th on Dead Oceans Records.

L7 – ” Stadium West “

Posted: April 25, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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After hinting at a new album L7 confirmed recently confirmed their first LP in two decades, “Scatter the Rats”. Due out on May 3rd, the forthcoming collection is being previewed with a new track, “Stadium West”.

Following up lead single “Burn Baby”, the new release finds the grunge veterans in proper form, offering up a high-octane composition that falls in line with the best of L7’s ’90s heyday. In your face and unabashedly catchy, the song is highlighted by its delightful lyrical turns-of-phrase, rapid-fire riffs, and energetic backing howls and growls.

L7 has also released a new music video to complement “Stadium West”. Directed by Rob Sheridan, the visual throws it back, crafting a lo-fi, technicolor romp through the band’s home of Los Angeles. “Stadium West” is the second single from the band’s first album in 20 years, to be released on Joan Jett’s Blackhearts Records on May 3rd. Following the album’s lead single “Burn Baby,” “Stadium West” is propelled by winding, distorted guitars that have a certain surf-rock flair. Behind the drum kit, Dee Plakas powers it all with an unbeatable tempo that imbues this ride-along with high stakes and verve

Chock full of the unconscious bravado of a bygone punk era, the clip pairs this energy with old-school production featuring gritty low-resolution frames, inverted and primary color palettes, and, of course, choppy editing.

L7 will support Scatter the Rats on a summer tour. In addition to sets like a “very special intimate show” at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere, they’ll join Rancid’s The Bash Music & Craft Beer touring festival. prep for the experience by picking up L7’s past releases on vinyl. Two of L7’s albums were recently included on Rolling Stone‘s 50 Greatest Grunge Albums list: Smell the Magic (No. 37) and Bricks Are Heavy (No. 15).

The BEVERLEYS – ” Brutal “

Posted: April 25, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Three girls, three instruments and one hell of an awesome and brutal energy. That’s how we describe in few words our new favorite Toronto’s band, The Beverleys. They play fast, loud and with no bullshit. Brutal was their debut album and is literally how that word sounds. We all have very different influences… Susan loves Nirvana, it’s her favorite band of all time and so she loves the heavy grunge stuff. Steph is more of a Britpop and hip-hop kind of fan and Joanna loves all sorts of classic rock music, Britpop and shoegaze. It was just sort of all those things coming together and that’s just what made what you hear today. Nothing purposely influenced what we did.

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Originally released November 6th, 2015

Susie – Lead Guitar, Vocals
Jo – Guitar, Vocals
Stephanie/Audrey – Drumz

Written and Performed by The Beverleys 

SACRED PAWS – ” Run Around The Sun “

Posted: April 24, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Shady Cow is proud to present this very special band on their ‘Run Around The Sun’ album tour. The band are super proud to announce that their second record “Run Around The Sun” will be out May 31st on Rock Action Recordsand Merge Records. Even more excited to release the new song ‘The Conversation’ into the world! Watch the video here.

The band are to play Rough Trade Records on Saturday 8TH June, promoted by Fan Club Records. Pre-order an Album/ Ticket and collect your copy on the day of this live show for FREE ENTRY.

“Sacred Paws have a natural inclination not to take things too seriously. You can hear it all the way through a conversation with its two members, guitarist Rachel Aggs and drummer Eilidh Rodgers, punctuated by rolls of giggles and thoughtful pauses, and you can hear it in the light touch they bring to their music, a jangly blend of indie-pop full of fizzing world rhythms and bright horns.”

Taken from the new album Run Around The Sun out 31st May 2019 via Rock Action Records and Merge Records.

Fan Club’s focus is to promote women-identifying and non-binary artists, designers, musicians and creatives, whilst hanging out and making friends in a safe space, whilst dancing and drinking to a genre-clashing soundtrack of women and non-binary musicians.

They will be selling their ‘zines and other fabulous wares on the night!

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