The Dodo’s have shared a brand new song, “The Surface.” The stand alone single is out today via Polyvinyl Records. Singer/guitarist Meric Long had this to say about the song in a press release: “Back in the fall after finishing our first tour in what seemed like ages, a bunch of ideas that were floating around seemed to converge, and this song ‘The Surface’ is the first result of that. For those guitar nerds out there, I recently acquired a Recording King parlor guitar, it doesn’t look like much on paper but it is magical and I am squeezing it like a life raft through the next batch of songs. Perhaps it is age, or just compounded cynicism, but there is an overwhelming gratitude that I feel when any small bit of inspiration sheds it’s light, and the path ahead seems relatively clear.”
Band Members
Meric Long, Logan Kroeber
The Dodos released a new album, Certainty Waves, last year via Polyvinyl. The band also features percussionist Logan Kroeber.
“The Surface” is the new single from The Dodos, out everywhere March 29th, 2019.
When Julia Shapiro flew home from a cancelled Chastity Belt tour in April 2018, everything in her life felt out of control. Dealing with health issues, freshly out of a relationship, and in the middle of an existential crisis, she realized halfway through a tour supporting her band’s third album I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone that she was going through too much to continue. “I was really struggling; I was really depressed. I felt like I couldn’t sing or be a person,” Shapiro recalls. “At that point I couldn’t even imagine playing a show again, I was so over it.”
Returning home to a newly empty Seattle one-bedroom apartment, Shapiro had wanted for a long time to learn how to record and mix her own music, and out of the uncertainty of the future of her music career and her health, she began to record the songs that would become Perfect Version, her solo debut for Hardly Art Records. What she created in the space of ten songs is an intimate and beautifully self-aware examination of feeling lost in the life you’ve created for yourself. It’s an album of shimmering guitars and layered vocals that feels vast in the emotional depth it conveys and masterful in the way each song is intentionally crafted and recorded.
Throughout the record Shapiro tries on different ways of living, all thematically centered around the idea of what it would be like to be a perfect version of yourself. “How can someone be so blindly confident/I wanna know that trick,” she wonders on “Natural,” the opening track that begins using another person as a mirror and then pans back to a bigger picture: what would it take to really love yourself? The album is peppered with ideas of what self-improvement could look like—whether it’s learning a skill and living out in the woods, going to bed at a reasonable hour, or even more playful, deeply relatable lines like “I should really delete my Instagram.”
Shapiro has a knack for turning simple images into something profound, drawing influence from songwriters like Elliott Smith to capture complicated moods. The everyday act of circling the block trying to find a parking spot becomes a metaphor for trying and feeling like you can’t quite get anything done. “All my problems feel like paper/I can finally rip them up,” she sings on the title track, describing a moment of lightness in hanging out with friends who can find humor in your failure “at least I have my friends to laugh at what I’ve done.”
Over the course of a tumultuous year of trying to find stability amidst depression and surgery, Shapiro ultimately rediscovered the parts of music that she loved through the process. Her perfectionist qualities create an album that shines in tiny lyrical moments and meticulous guitar parts. “When the rest of my life felt out of control, I felt like this was my chance to be in control of everything,” says Shapiro. She plays all the instruments (save for a mouth trumpet solo by Darren Hanlon and guest violin by Annie Truscott) and after recording and mixing the first batch of four songs at the Vault studio with Ian LeSage decided to record the final six tracks alone in her apartment, adding drums in the studio later and learning to mix them with the help of her friend David Hrivnak. Perfect Version is a fully realized vision from a gifted songwriter finding a more intimate voice. “So what comes next?” she questions on the album closer “Empty Cup” which explores the quiet satisfaction of being alone with yourself and creating a blank slate. “A lasting sense of self,” she concludes.
Julia Shapiro from Chastity Belt makes her solo debut on the intimate, deeply personal Perfect Version, out June 16th.
“Natural” is the lead single from Perfect Version, the solo debut of Julia Shapiro, singer/guitarist of Chastity Belt and Childbirth. Perfect Version is out Friday, June 14th.
“This album is representative of my life over the past couple years, so it’s a statement of who I am as a songwriter,” says Molly Tuttle. “I love songwriting and I love listening to songwriters and I love singing, so I think this album puts those two — singing and songwriting — in the forefront more than what I’ve done in the past.”
For someone with her serenely disciplined, inquisitive intellect, it probably worked to Tuttle’s advantage that she was schooled from a young age, as many bluegrass prodigies are, in family-band, fiddle-camp and communal-jam environments, receiving one-on-one instruction from her Bay Area music-teacher father. Tuttle was encouraged to pore over the sophisticated techniques of flatpicking legends Clarence White, Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and also grew fascinated with the riveting, spindly lead lines that David Rawlings has played in his old-timey singer-songwriter duo with Gillian Welch. A few years at Berklee College of Music further expanded Tuttle’s horizons with extensive studies of theory and contemporary songwriting, as well as encounters with other virtuosic, broad-minded young musicians. In Nashville, she wound her way through bluegrass, progressive acoustic, singer-songwriter, Americana and folk-pop circles, picking up collaborators and recognition in each.
Tuttle wrote or co-wrote every song on “When You’re Ready”, including “Million Miles,” an unfinished song started by Steve Poltz and Jewel in the 1990s that Poltz mentioned in a songwriting session with Tuttle. Her most personal songs, Tuttle says, usually flow out when she’s alone. But she’s also learned a lot about the writing process by working with others, she says. And there’s nothing like a set time and place, and someone else’s presence, to get things moving.
“I think usually when I get writer’s block it’s because I’m just vetoing my own ideas,” she explains, “so that’s when co-writing really helps me break out of my headspace that I’m in and start writing and become less precious with the writing.”
A number of other accomplished female writer-instrumentalists with expansive sensibilities emerged just a few years ahead of her — among them Abigail Washburn, Sierra Hull, Aoife O’Donovan, Sarah Jarosz and Sara Watkins, the last three collectively known as I’m With Her. But Tuttle has had to flesh out for herself what it looks like to do the thing that she alone does: shaping tuneful introspection around her flatpicking abilities on the guitar, a lead instrument that’s still strongly male-identified. (She was the first woman to even be nominated as the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitarist of the Year, and has won the category two years in a row.)
Most of the coverage rightfully focuses on her precise and skillful playing, not her gender. But out in the world, the ghosts of “pretty good for a girl” still linger. Tuttle’s had a few “uncomfortable moments,” she says, like being skipped over in jams when she was younger or encountering teachers who “just didn’t know what to do with having a female guitar student.”
“I think what I mostly get sometimes from people is surprise or, ‘Oh, I feel extra attention on me because I’m a woman playing guitar,’” she says. “People definitely still focus on the fact that I’m a woman, which, in a perfect world I’d like to just be seen as a guitar player, not a woman guitar player.”
On When You’re Ready, Tuttle applies remarkable precision to her pursuit of clarity. That’s even a central theme of her lyrics: consciously reckoning with indecision or intuition, honestly acknowledging incompatibility, cultivating intimacy based on people seeing each other for who they are. With handsomely crafted melodies that gently insinuate themselves into the memory, she wrote some of the 11 songs alone and others in collaboration with kindred spirits like Sarah Siskind, Maya de Vitry and Kai Welch. (Tuttle’s choice of producer, Ryan Hewitt, has worked on rootsy pop projects by The Lumineers and The Avett Brothers, and her cast of guest pickers and vocalists includes Hull, Jason Isbell, Billy Strings, Nat Smith and Butterfly Boucher, all of whom speak to the flexibility she’s cultivating.)
There are moments when Tuttle bends ancient-sounding modal, Appalachian scales to her ideas, like during the slow-burning folk-rocker “Sit Back and Watch It Roll” and “Take the Journey,” a tune percussively propelled by her innovative use of frailing banjo techniques on guitar. She’s made her playing just as much a point of interest as her breathy singing. During the wistful “Make My Mind Up,” she takes liberties with both her vocal and guitar phrasing, singing dreamy curlicues that give way to cascading, bluesy six-string runs. In “Sleepwalking,” which features a cursive, atmospheric string arrangement, she exhales long, lilting lines over her crisp, rolling, arpeggiated guitar pattern.
Tuttle’s quivering, staccato delivery of the winsome hook in “Don’t Let Go” showcases her affinities for folk-pop. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call “Light Came In (Power Went Out)” the album’s power-pop track, thanks to her sly, sticky vocal syncopation over the simple, driving groove. Though she cedes the foreground to an electric guitarist for most of it, her precise acoustic notes burst through during an instrumental vamp, hurtling forward in a startlingly different rhythmic cadence. As with all of Tuttle’s licks, every imaginative note rings clear.
new album ‘When You’re Ready’ out April 5, 2019 on Compass Records
Jenny Lewis looked around Room D of the storied Village Recording Studios taking it all in, as she and Jason Bentley reminisced on its rock & roll lore. “Tusk” by Fleetwood Mac was recorded right in that same room, as was “Angie” by the Rolling Stones… and on and on.
For Jenny Lewis to record a live session behind her fourth solo album “On the Line” here made great sense. Her status in LA music history has certainly solidified, as she’s crafted an adored catalogue of music (both solo and work with her former band Rilo Kiley), while carrying the banner of Laurel Canyon artists before her. Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, CSN and others would be proud.
Further cementing her place within the hierarchy of the LA music scene, the players on her new album probably only answer the phone for a select few who call. Ringo Starr, Benmont Tench (founding member of the Heartbreakers), Beck, Don Was, and THE session drummer of all drummers Jim Keltner all contributed their talents for the recording of “On the Line”. The new album definitely has a pedigree that shines, and that magic transcended to her performance in the legendary studio.
On the Line was recorded over a couple years, with the beginning stages going down at another LA music landmark: Capitol Studios. Beck helped out, and producer-of-the-moment Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes, The War on Drugs, Kacey Musgraves) also put his golden touch to it. The result is a big, warm rock album. Lewis’ signature wit and thoughtful songwriting about love and excess is sharp throughout, and perfectly exemplified in the catchy, confident chill of “Wasted Youth.” A song that carefully balances pop against a backdrop of heavy themes.
Though her illustrious pals didn’t join her at the Village, her band elevated every track, sounding wire tight and ready for the road. Speaking of, they’ll be touring for the next few months, including a sold out stop at the Hollywood Palladium, May 11th. She told Jason that the Palladium is the last original LA room she has yet to play (her excitement is beyond), continuing in a pattern of performing at LA staples, like the Fonda and Echo. Just another well deserved accomplishment for one of our local indie-rock heroes.
Jenny Lewis‘ voice is as alluring as her lyrics. At times punchy and defiant, but always warm and honest. On her new album “On The Line”, she delivers piano-driven songs with hints of country under tones.
Shana Cleveland has long been beguiling listeners as the front-woman for elastic surf rockers La Luz. Inspired in part by one of her musical idols, the Afro-futurist visionary Sun Ra (the album’s title is a tip of the hat to his 1970 release Night of the Purple Moon), Night of the Worm Moon blends pastoral folk with cosmic concerns, including alternate realities to divine celestial bodies. Cleveland first came up through the Seattle music scene as the front woman of surf-rock quartet La Luz. This isn’t her first solo project, but so far, it feels like her most daring. She concocted Night of the Worm Moon while living in Los Angeles,
Shana Cleveland will be hitting the road in support of the new solo record on April 5th, headlining in the west and supporting the Mountain Goats in the east!! These’ll be real special spacey sets and I can’t wait to share this record with y’all!
“Night of the Worm Moon” is the title track from the new solo album by La Luz’s Shana Cleveland, out 4/5/19
“Dreaming The Dark”; the long anticipated follow up to 2017’s “Cranekiss” isn’t exactly what I thought it would be, but that might be a good thing. Tamaryn has continued to change her sound throughout her career, exploring new territory as she goes; which has made her an artist to stay connected with and to watch. I tend to get bored with artists who don’t somehow grow and change. Some listeners want that “standard” band sound, but I appreciate never quite knowing what to expect.
This album is even more firmly synthpop than “Cranekiss” was; which teetered on the genre as well as dreampop. There are still many dreamy elements presents in “Dreaming The Dark” but it has an overall more 80’s throwback and dance vibe. This album also seems much more personal, delving into Tamaryn’s psyche with different topics for each song. “Cranekiss” seemed to be a sexy, romantic album overall; at times seeming like a very steamy love letter. “Dreaming The Dark” covers more territory and is done in a very calculated way, making those different threads still weave themselves into a cohesive complete set; a solid album in it’s entirety.
The early released singles, “Fits of Rage” and “Angels of Sweat” seem to have lots of nods to strong female indie rock vocalists who came before. I got impressions of Tori Amos, Kate Bush, and even Bjork upon listening, given the certain ways in which Tamaryn chose to deliver her vocals. Regardless of if you hear those echoes or not, there is a fierceness and tenacity that has not been as present in Tamaryn’s prior work. There are some great collaborative moments here as well, as The Horrors worked with her on “Path to Love”; as well as provided a remix to that song, and Jorge Elbrecht is still very much involved and helped to produce the album.
Other stand-out tracks include “You’re Adored” which Tamaryn shared via her Instagram page is an ode to her beloved dog, Tennessee; who had been struggling with cancer and sadly now has passed away. It’s a forelorn lovesong asking someone to stay when you know that they are fading away. The closing title track also stands strong and is the perfect summary of “Dreaming The Dark” as a whole.
As I mentioned above, this album wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be, and upon initial listening, didn’t strike me a hard as “Cranekiss” did. However, I am finding the more time I spent listening, the more I appreciate it and it’s absolutely growing on me. Maybe I’m not quite ready to move away from those beautiful, yet frivolous love songs and dig a little deeper.
A swirly cocktail of new wave and dreampop. Tamaryn’s new album pushes her into the kinds of territory I’d like to hear more artists exploring. A perfect album to kick off spring! Love the New Wave vibe it’s got. Catchy songs, crafty songwriting with hypnotic vocals.
One of our top acts at this year’s SXSW, Washington D.C.’s Priests are making socially conscious music that’s nothing short of essential. We need bands like Priests right now, who question the American establishment from a well-read and pointed perspective, in tightly wrapped rock songs that both sear and satisfy. Led by herculean singer Katie Alice Greer, The Seduction of Kansas arrives on the band’s own Sister Polygon Records label (and is produced by John Congleton, no less).
The title track “The Seduction of Kansas,” as well as second single, “Good Time Charlie,” sound incredibly different from each other, but much like on their debut LP, Nothing Feels Natural,Priests is a band that always keeps you guessing. It’s much appreciated.
The long-awaited sophomore album from Washington D.C. rock outfit Priests is finally here. The Seduction of Kansas is a gorgeously produced post-punk opus that’s as sharp as it is infectious. Vocalist Katie Alice Greer’s scathing political jabs are in full force here, and not a moment too soon.
“In League With Dragons” is the upcoming seventeenth studio album by the Mountain Goats, scheduled to be released on April 26th, 2019, on Merge Records. Inspired by tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, the album has been described as a “partial rock opera” with influences from noir literature.
The album was announced on January 28th, 2019. The announcement was accompanied by a live streaming event on Facebook and Twitch.tv, hosted by Wizards of the Coast. The band also released the first single from the album, “Younger”.
“In League With Dragons“ surges with wild tales of revenge and redemption, heroes at a crossroads and great figures in decline” over its dozen new, John Darnielle-penned tracks, which “luxuriate in a wide swath of sounds, from shades of the ‘80s Athens scene to swathes of outlaw country and a few motorik meditations,” per a press release. “Younger” is telling evidence of the album’s eclectic genre-hopping, foregrounding the guitars that 2017’s Goths eschewed entirely and ending with a sax solo, of all things. The Mountain Goats frontman opined on the band’s latest in a characteristically sprawling statement, describing its rock opera-meets-high fantasy style as “dragon noir.”
The Mountain Goats are JOHN DARNIELLE, PETER HUGHES, JON WURSTER, and MATT DOUGLAS. They have been making music Together as a quartet for several years. Three of them live in North Carolina and one has moved to Rochester. Their songs often seek out dark lairs within which terrible monsters dwell, But thier mission to retrieve treasure from the dark lair and persuade the monsters inside to seek out the path to redemption. As Axl Rose once memorably asked in the son “Terrible Monster”: “Whats so terrible about monsters anyway” This is the question the Mountain Goats have been asking and pursuing since 1991.
Available as a limited edition 12″ vinyl featuring cover versions of a number of rain–themed songs by the likes of Eurythmics, Ann Peebles, Scott Walker and The Cure. a collection of covers of songs by some of my favourite artists……. and it’s all about the rain. Scott Walker’s ‘It’s Raining Today,’ which I hope will be a fitting tribute.
In 2017, Bella Union boss Simon Raymonde said this of Moss: “Outrageously talented as she is, I still think her best is yet to come.” Offering full affirmation on both fronts, My Name Is Safe in Your Mouth is a haunting snapshot of an intuitive artist seeking new ways to work without safety nets, a quest spurred forwards by her move to Somerset in 2014. As Moss puts it, “Whilst the tentacles of city started to loosen their grip, I began amassing vocals that I felt cut a stark silhouette, and I didn’t want to share with big drums and distorted guitars. I work on a few projects at a time, and the contrast of having disparate musical worlds to step into makes me feel more satisfied. But with this record, I’d gone way deeper than anything merely gratifying.
As well as my new EP, this beast came out on Friday. The new UNKLE album, The Road pt2, which I’m super excited to be a part of once again. It’s an epic listen, and some great collaborations. Particularly proud of Sun (The).
Most alternative music lived underground. It made a lot of noise, but no-one in the mainstream could hear it…. The nineties would see it go so much further than many of us expected. It wasn’t just the popularity of alternative music which would change; the music was constantly reinventing itself too, sucking in influences from different genres and different eras.
And that brings us to this compilation…Create a compilation which tries to dig a little deeper; which attempts to give another side of the nineties, which wasn’t Cool Britannia, Laddism, and Blur Vs Oasis. What’s here represents, at least one version, of the evolution of guitar music through the nineties, as told, not by the big hits, but by the limited edition singles, The Evening Session cult favourites and the bands who maybe never made it, but in some cases never wanted to anyway. “ Curated by acclaimed BBC 6 Music radio DJ and former NME journalist, Steve Lamacq, This 4CD compilation. 71 tracks from the 1990’s chosen by the UK’s leading Indie tastemaker. This is a great compilation. If you were a gig-going regular seeing ‘new bands’ in the 1990’s you will find lots to love here.
It is a useful historical over-view which tries valiantly to present as much as possible of the music on offer over the decade in the indie/guitar sphere and create some sort of evolutionary narrative… but inevitably it fails to be all-inclusive and ends up being just one mans choices in vaguely chronological order.
Steve Lamacq, for a leading BBC6 purveyor of taste, is pretty much some-one you can trust though. He’s the same age as me, was a teenage Lurkers fan and we, I imagine, went through our teenage years listening to exactly the same music, diverging as we reached our twenties in the mid eighties.
Like with any boxed set or comp, every now and then you get a run of three songs in a row which are perfect; they run together beautifully and make you go ‘Yes!’ as each one starts and you recognise it within a second or two despite not having heard it for yonks.
Despite 71 tracks though, there are so many bands missing; And I don’t just mean The big guns like Oasis, Blur, Verve and Pulp -there was no necessity for them to be there, but something from the pre-Sony Manics should have opened proceedings if we’re honest. Lamacq will be forever indirectly associated with them due to the For Real blood-letting which was during an interview with him.
Huggy Bear I can only assume refused permission for Her Jazz to be included – leaving Voodoo Queens the sole representative of Riot Grrrl groups.
It is just guitar bands ( No Red Snapper, Fluke or Credit To The Nation) and apparently “nothing which has been included on a ‘Shine’ compilation”, The Bands which deserved to be on here, are Shed 7, the Headcoats, Mantaray, Flinch, Tindersticks, Baby Bird, Prolapse, Gretchen Hofner, Bandit Queen, Thrum, Breed, Compulsion, Five Thirty, David Devant & his Spirit Wife, A House, Into Paradise, Die Cheerleader, the Flaming Stars, Add N to X, Quickspace, Nubiles,,, to name a few and there is nothing from the Too Pure / Clawfist / Wiija labels -Stereolab Gallon Drunk…. but that at least means there is plenty of scope for a second volume.
There has been some comment about the ‘Lost’ part of the title. Suede, Charlatans etc are hardly ‘lost’. Even the more obscure acts are only a google and YouTube search away. Nothing is really ‘lost’ any more.
CD 1 Is a mix of Baggy Northern sounds and Thames Valley Shoegazing to start with. Ride sound tame and lame, Northside sound naive and fun, the New FAD’s are their generations A Certain Ratio. Curve sound class and ahead of the game. Kitchens of Distinction emerge as the band whose back catalogue needs to be tracked down. The Fraggle-Pop-Punk of the Family Cat, Senseless Things and MC4 somehow hasn’t aged well. particularly when they are followed by Teenage Fanclubs finest moment Everything Flows… which is certainly does with a final four of Silverfish / Daisy Chainsaw / Voodoo Queens and the noisy experimental wonkiness of Cornershop.
CD 2 Is, to my mind the best, – 14 really great tracks out of the 19 – the New Wave of New Wave and Brit-Pop Division 2. (and Premier division debuts by Suede, Auteurs & Elastica) all of which are classics – as are Tiny Monroe, Salad and Mansuns contributions.
CD 3 is more of a mixed bag, genre and quality-wise. The appalling, irritating Bis, the dull bluster of Travis and Marion, but then that classic Rialto song (Monday Morning 5:19) and superb examples of the work of Strangelove, Whipping Boy and Scarfo – seriously good bands who should have been more than contenders. Kenickie and Catatonia both sound excellent, now as then – and both frontwomen have gone on to deserved success, Cerys as Greatest Living Welshwoman and broadcaster and Lauren Laverne -purveyor of some terrible unbearable dance-music on 6-Music -but a superb Desert Island Discs host.
CD 4 Starts with Arab Strap and Mogwai so with Delgados has a strong Scottish flavour and marks a progression and seriousness as well as quality. The Beta Band make sense in such company, as do Clinic, but Ten Benson, Wubble U and Campag Velocet do nothing for me and only prove stoners don’t always make great music. Cay, Cable and Seafood are interesting but not a patch on some of the bands omitted.
The good stuff outweighs the iffy and it is a great, eminently listenable boxed set. An American equivalent culled from the Nineties US underground would be interesting to hear -but probably wouldn’t be as pop and would stick to even tighter generic parameters.
I feel sorry for Lammo, his hands tied by the BBC, in that he cannot ‘promote’ his ‘product’ on their airwaves, when, if he’s anything like me, he probably wants to shout ‘Listen To This! It’s fuckin’ ace!’ because if its on here, you can guarantee that he loves it, and he wants to share his love and have a wallow in the nostalgia of the nineties for a while.
