“Goodwill” is the third Vacant Smiles album. Created to fill a gap left by our original third album—which will arrive sooner or later—and released only 27 days after our first recording session, it is an album that celebrates the glorious shining light of randomness, weirdness and wrongness that is so often trampled on by our 21st century lives. Especially in the face of the impending cyber-doom of the modern world, with the rise of smartphone abuse, addiction, egomania and shitty public transport, while monolithic companies tower over us with their supposed goodwill held close to themselves, Goodwill recognises that while cynicism may be increasingly becoming our default setting, we must open ourselves up to the imperfect mess that we’ve made and take time to rejoice in goodwill.
We’re so so happy to share another song + music video “When Am I Gonna Lose You” starring the wonderful Kate Mara Official.
Los Angeles indie harmonizers Local Natives have returned with two new songs “Café Amarillo,” is their first new song in two years. The song came with a fairly no-frills band-performance video from director Van Alpert. With more Local Natives. They’ve have just shared another new song, the lush and searching “When Am I Gonna Lose You.” This one also has a video, and Alpert once again directed. It also features the actress Kate Mara, star of House Of Cards and The Martian. there is an album on the way.
The new Local Natives album is called “Violet Street”, and it’s due next month. The band recorded the follow-up to 2016’s Sunlit Youth with producer Shawn Everett, who has worked with people like Kacey Musgraves and the War On Drugs.
In the “When Am I Gonna Lose You” clip, Kate Mara plays a Los Angeles woman who is rich, beautiful, glamorous, and profoundly alone. We see her wandering through a supermarket, a diner, and a well-appointed mansion, looking lost and lonely the whole time. The whole time, we’re not sure if she’s really by herself or if the camera is supposed to represent another person’s gaze.
Both “When Am I Gonna Lose You” & “Café Amarillo” are on our forthcoming album “Violet Street” due out April 26th.
Both “When Am I Gonna Lose You” & “Café Amarillo” are on our forthcoming album “Violet Street” due out April 26th.
Los Angeles trio Froth have placed some distance between their days of fake band hijinks (think staged publicity photos and blank vinyl pressings) and the present, announcing the due date of their forthcoming record, “Duress”, out everywhere via Wichita Recordings June 7th. Froth have also shared their first single and music video (dir. Courtney Gavin of The Courtneys) from the project—a grimy-meets-dreamy strummer that, in true prankster fashion, centers around the internet’s infamous Yanny vs. Laurel debate.
“This song is about a guy who listened to the Yanny/Laurel thing and he can only hear Laurel,” the band share in a statement. “He’s really passionate about Laurel being the correct pronunciation to the point where he will die before admitting otherwise. In the end, he reveals that he loves his girlfriend more than he loves the correct pronunciation of ‘Laurel/Yanny.’”
All jokes aside, “Laurel” is a lighthearted foray into shoegaze-soaked noise-rock, offering up the sort of dazed, nostalgic frivolity that reminds you of warming temperatures. Watch the music video for “Laurel”
“Laurel” is the first song shared from our forthcoming album. The title of that album is Duress
Katherine Paul’s Black Belt Eagle Scout has released a purposeful new track and corresponding video titled “Loss & Relax,” which will be released on a 7-inch vinyl alongside “Half Colored Hair” on April 26th from Saddle Creek records. Highlighted Black Belt Eagle Scout as one of 2018’s best new bands, praising Paul’s “knack for making very specific, personal anecdotes feel universal.”
Paul said of the prideful composition dedicated to her history in a statement: As I was writing the guitar line, I kept seeing the water of the Salish Sea and the local ferries drifting people in and out of place. Ferries are such a beautiful part of my childhood and served as a major form of transportation. Thinking about my home and how canoes have turned into ferries is a sad, but also beautiful thought. Nowadays with Canoe Journeys, canoes are alongside ferries, roaming our waters to lands, sharing customs and culture. That is what I think about now when I listen to the fully recorded version of the song. I see a strong and fierce community of my people continuing to thrive in whatever comes our way. That is how I feel about myself, a survivor and thriver of this land, a water protector, a woman, the future.
The video for “Loss & Relax,” was directed by Angel Two Bulls, it follows Paul on her journey home as she goes through the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and Samish Indian Nation.
Dutch indie rocker Pip Blom and her band are preparing to release their debut album Boat, out on May 31 via Heavenly Recordings / PIAS. After a searing showing at SXSW last month (their first set of U.S. dates), the band have shared the video for “Ruby,” premiering exclusively at Paste.
After 2018’s solid Paycheck EP and recent single “Daddy Issues,” the 22 year-old singer/songwriter’s new song “Ruby” is another rapturous gem of post-punk adjacent indie rock. With clamoring guitars and vocals that range from sassy to melancholic to euphoric, “Ruby” embodies the ephemeral rush of joy you get from a gentle beachside breeze.
Set on the seaside, the music video captures Blom visiting a UFO hypnotherapist after catching a glimpse of something eerie. The video’s director Raymond van Mil said of the cryptic clip, “We made a few jumps in our imagination, and we were explicitly not trying to explain or illustrate the lyrics. We started with flamingos. Apparently there are two distinct families standing some 20 meters apart on one exact place in Zeeland/the Netherlands. We went there and were in amazement, it looked so alien in the Dutch landscape. From there the UFO story unfolded and was fun. Was it a dream? A memory? A documentary? Only Pip knows.”
Ruby, Video by Raymond Van Mill. Shot on analog film, Super 8 – Kodak Ektachrome / Kodak TriX
‘Ruby’ taken from ‘Boat’ LP out 31st May on Heavenly Records.
Mitski has shared a new live video shot during her run of four sold-out shows at Brooklyn Steel in New York City last year. The video shows her passionate, emotive performance of the fan favorite “Drunk Walk Home” from her 2014 album Bury Me At Makeout Creek. The Brooklyn Steel shows were part of an ongoing series of tours behind her hit record Be the Cowboy, which was widely considered to be among the best albums of 2018.
“I asked filmmaker Derrick Belcham to film some of the four Brooklyn Steel dates we did at the end of last year’s U.S. tour, mostly to commemorate the first big Be The Cowboy tour, especially since I knew we wouldn’t repeat the same set again after that round of tours,” Mitski said in a statement. “Now that we’ve started to tour a new set this year, I wanted to put this video out as a goodbye to this old set, and a thank you to everyone who came to the shows last year.”
Belcham is a Canadian filmmaker based in Brooklyn, N.Y., who, prior to directing “Drunk Walk Home” for Mitski, has worked with artists like Philip Glass, Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson and Steve Reich.
“Drunk Walk Home” recorded live at Brooklyn Steel on December 1st, 2018. ‘Be The Cowboy’ Out Now on Dead Oceans.
Mitski is currently on tour in the American South with Bay Area songwriter Jay Som.
Record Store Day is quickly approaching and this Saturday brings goodness from Marty Willson-Piper, best known for his lengthy involvement with The Church and All About Eve and collaborations with Grace Slick, Aimee Mann, Susannah Hoffs and Linda Perry. This is a blue-tinged vinyl release (as a heavy-weight gatefold double LP) of his seminal album ‘Hanging Out In Heaven’. It includes 2 bonus tracks not included on the original edition – ‘Queen In Her Jeans’ and ‘Dressed Up As You’. Recorded around the same time, these were always intended for the vinyl version.
“At last, my fifth solo album, Hanging Out In Heaven, will be released through Schoolkids Records on Record Store Day. It’s been a long wait for one of my most well-received records. The album has new artwork and comes on blue double vinyl with two extra tracks. Recorded in sessions in L.A. and Sweden with the two added songs recorded in London, the album contains some of the most emotional and poignant songs I ever wrote,” says Marty Willson-Piper.
This album from Marty Willson-Piper follows up the success of last year’s Record Store Day vinyl release of ‘Spirit Level’also via Schoolkids Records, which was originally released in 1992.
hey how are you? Courtney Barnett here, i have a new song out today called ‘Everybody Here Hates You’. I started writing it in May 2017 at my freezing cold warehouse on an out-of-tune and unplugged Fender Stratocaster with rusty strings. It was from the paranoid pile of Tell Me How You Really Feel but the lyrics didn’t get finished in time to make the album. to be honest the words felt too vulnerable n I didn’t want anybody to hear them. When I finally found the chorus, I decided to record it with my band in September 2018. Bones Sloane played bass, Dave Mudie played drums, Dan Luscombe lay on the carpet and played the organ. They all sung wonderful backing vocals.
it’s available now in all the usual places, hope you like it and thank you for your support, love ya xo
ps. everybody here does not hate you. please reach out to somebody you trust or google your nearest mental health support lifeline if you need to talk to someone x
Barnett says she was inspired, in part, by the Jeff Buckley song “Everybody Here Wants You.”
Courtney Barnett: guitar, vocals
Bones Sloane: bass, vocals
Dave Mudie: drum, vocals
Dan Luscombe: keys, vocals
The Yawpers fourth album delivers more great rock ‘n’ roll. The Denver trio The Yawpers are blazing a trail of roots rock brought bang up to date with balls and panache that gives one hope for the current state of American rock. It ain’t dead yet. On their last album – 2017’s Boy In A Well – they veered off left field to deliver a concept album set during the First World War, but on “Human Question”, their fourth, they deliver ten songs that, whilst having an over-arching theme of redemption, self-destructiveness, and the healing that can come from unity – be that in a band or society in general – is a ride filled with great songs that raise you up, smash you to the ground, and drag you to your feet again, until your ears feel like they’ve been in the aural equivalent of a mosh pit. These guys do tension and changes in tempo with real finesse.
Opening track “Child Of Mercy” sets the scene with its discordant intro. There is a Doors-like guitar hovering lightly over the dark rhythm. The vocals are shamanic, the lyrics full of street shaman smarts over a heavy, tight blues beat. The drums pound. The guitar gets dirty. There is a heavy bridge, the guitars slicing through like power tools, building up into an explosion of sounds ravaging the streets.
Dancing On My Knees is more heavy blues with a 60s rock beat. The drums pound out the message hitting the beats on the vocal punches. The background vocals are like police sirens and a devil’s chorus. The bass veers off into demonic deepness. The violent chaos is controlled, brought back into subtle rhythm and a bottleneck guitar shrieks and howls like an animal in pain at the side of the road. There is more control on Human Question, a 70’s psychedelic rock infused song, but it’s a control filled with tension. It is the beauty of desperation and it builds up layer by layer. Man As Ghost is Americana tinged with folk music and displays a more contemplative side to The Yawpers. This is music played on a porch, staring across at a mountain sheathed in clouds, wondering about life.
Next up, Earn Your Heaven, is a raw slab of Stooges like rock ‘n’ roll mayhem. The drums pound and pound and hold it all together as the guitars strew the studio with mayhem. Time to take a breath with Reason To Believe – a delta blues number that resonates like a memory from some dim remembered past. It is elegiac and full of spirit. Carry Me is a gorgeous, slow-burn of a song that fuses gospel, soul and rock that starts slow and mournful as the singer lays out his sins and builds up into full throttle rock voiced fervour as he begs for salvation. Stunning. Forgiveness Through Pain is fuzz boogie woogie with Led Zep influences to the fore. It’s dirty blues, heavy with salaciousness. Can’t Wait returns to the laid-back folk tinged Americana sound, with a lighter touch that feels like the sun emerging after a storm. Album closer Where The Winters End has a 50’s ballad opening, followed by jangly 60’s rock. It’s a haunting rock prayer that is a perfect, thoughtful end to a great album.
It’s not always easy to say why a band sounds the real deal but these guys do. Part of it is due to it being so effortless, as though rock runs through their blood and into their muscles and straight into the instruments. This is roots rock at its basic level but so much more with complex shades that are revealed on repeated plays – that’s if you can switch off from the physical response your body has to the visceral blues rock hybrid. It has everything a good rock album should – rock out tunes with violent energy, nuanced moments of folk and blues, thoughtful lyrics and band members who all complement each other, each taking a moment in the spotlight but always remaining a band.
Recommended for people who like real rock ‘n’ roll music.
Foxygen are back with a new album called “Seeing Other People”. It is due out April 26th via Jagjaguwar Records, and its lead single “Livin’ a Lie” has been released today. The track comes with a music video directed by previous collaborator Alessandra Lichtenfeld. It was filmed in Calabasas and the band’s hometown of Westlake Village, California in the wake of the Woolsey wildfires.
Foxygen – “Livin’ A Lie,” taken from ’Seeing Other People,’ out April 26th, 2019 on Jagjaguwar Records.
Seeing Other People was produced by Foxygen, engineered and mixed by Shawn Everett, and features superstar drummer Jim Keltner. It follows 2017’s Hang. “I remember a quote from [Jonathan] Rado sticking with the press a few years ago about how we’d lived every rock’n’roll cliche in, about, one year,” Foxygen’s Sam France said in a statement. “Well, here’s the album about it. Another movie. I don’t know what’s next. But here’s a snapshot of it all.”
