The Struts are hell bent on becoming the biggest band on the planet the same way The Darkness once were. They have the chops, but neither of their albums have dented the Billboard Top 100 yet (2014’s Everybody Wants). That said, with giant “should be hits” on each platter and a relentless touring schedule opening for the likes of Foo Fighters, I have a feeling they will eventually have the last laugh.
The Struts, hailing from the East Midlands in the UK, have a head start on the revivalist circuit – two years into the game, in 2014, they opened for the Stones in Paris, before even releasing their debut LP Everybody Wants, a flash pot of musical theater shtick, glam-rock camp and pop-punk snot that suggested a band in on the joke but still committed to it. Frontman Luke Spiller – even the name is a punchline — is a mix of Freddie Mercury, Noel Gallagher and Julian Casablancas, has a thing for trilling his Rs, and clearly never met a hand-clap-driven shout-along he didn’t adore. “Kiss This” was the band’s first notable achievement, and their second LP advances the notion that maybe ignoring the last 30 or 40 years of pop trends isn’t the best approach.
After the breakup of Japan, this reluctant star retreated into a series of four albums—including his masterpiece—built on noir balladry, instrumental abstraction, and an abiding sense of distance. The first four solo albums, newly reissued on vinyl, exude an intense but ambiguous loneliness. “I wrestle with an outlook on life that shifts between darkness and shadowy light,” he sings during his most forthright song, “Orpheus.” Throughout these records, he does battle—with his outlook, with his past, with his expectations. As a singer, he seems to avert eye contact, his peculiar baritone formal and serious, classically beautiful but wary of sounding that way. As an arranger, accompanied by masters of ambiance like Ryuichi Sakamoto and Robert Fripp.
Before going solo, Sylvian found himself, like Scott Walker and Brian Wilson, playing the uncomfortable role of young pop icon. Commercially successful and critically loathed, Japan were a New Romantic group in which the inventive fretless bassist Mick Karn often outshone Sylvian, the dashing frontman. Japan formed while its members were classmates in South London, and their trajectory reflects the swiftly evolving taste of precocious teenagers. When they started in 1974, they sounded like the New York Dolls. As they rose to prominence, they sounded like Roxy Music. Eventually, they discovered the avant-garde.
That last touchstone was no phase; it has defined Sylvian’s career ever since. The sound that Sylvian explored as a solo artist—eerie, atmospheric, solitary—came into focus on Japan’s fifth and final album, 1981’s Tin Drum, and its sparse highlight, “Ghosts.” Where Sylvian’s best hooks had once come from pairing oblique phrases to new wave rhythms, he somehow found power now within the two syllables of the word “wilder,” melding them together with swelling vibrato. In a TV performance just before Japan broke up, he strips the song down to just acoustic guitar and voice, leaving long gaps of silence between each verse. “This whole year has been, like, drifting apart,” he tells the interviewer about Japan’s imminent dissolution.
Post-Japan, he began collaborating with Sakamoto on singles like “Forbidden Colours” his lyrical accompaniment to Sakamoto’s exquisite theme for Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. By the time Sylvian released his solo debut Brilliant Trees in 1984, his group of musicians included Sakamoto, members of Can and Pentangle, and atmospheric trumpeters Jon Hassell and Mark Isham. The album remains his most immediate work, featuring some of his most memorable melodies (“Red Guitar,” “The Ink in the Well”) and daring explorations like the nearly nine-minute title track. It’s a remarkable opening statement, indicative of the singular world Sylvian was able to establish, even when surrounded by such rich talent.
David Sylvian’s debut solo album from 1984 is now available for the first time on 180 Gram vinyl. Featuring the singles Red Guitar, The Ink in The Well and Pulling Punches, the album is now housed in a gatefold sleeve with a printed inner bag and comes with a download card. David is joined on his debut album by a stellar cast including Holger Czukay, Jon Hassell, Kenny Wheeler, Mark Isham, Phil Palmer, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Danny Thompson.
“Brilliant Trees” (Sylvian, Hassell)
The entirely instrumental “Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities”, a strange hodgepodge of collaborations and soundtrack material. Still believing Sylvian’s appearance and cult of personality to be his biggest selling point, a video company asked him to participate in a documentary; Sylvian responded with an abstract collage filmed in Tokyo, soundtracked by new ambient compositions included here. The record is vivid and atmospheric (particularly Side B, the longform piece “Steel Cathedrals”), but it’s more like a blueprint for the collaborative work to come. This new edition—its first complete release on vinyl—makes this reissue series more comprehensive, but it remains an album more interesting in concept than practice.
David Sylvian’s intermediary album, made up of two entirely separate projects from 1985, is now available for the first time on 180 Gram vinyl. Featuring brand new artwork, the album includes rare photographs by Yuka Fujii, design by Chris Bigg, and a download card. David is joined on Alchemy by Holger Czukay, Robert Fripp, Jon Hassell, Steve Jansen, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Kenny Wheeler.
The cult classic 1991 album featuring David Sylvian, Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri, and Mick Karn. Also features contributions from Bill Nelson, Phil Palmer, and Michael Brook. The majority of the material on this album was written as a result of group improvisations. There were no pre-rehearsals; the improvisation took place in the recording studio and much of the finished work contains original elements of those initial performances.
“Gone to Earth” is more essential. which featured one record of atmospheric vocal tracks and a second record consisting of ambient instrumentals. The album contained significant contributions from noted guitarists Bill Nelson (formerly of Be-Bop Deluxe) and Robert Fripp (of King Crimson), and a rhythm section comprising SteveJansen of Japan on drums and Ian Maidman of Penguin Cafe Orchestra on bass
Split into an LP of traditional compositions and an instrumental companion, its scope summarizes where Sylvian had been and foreshadows his next moves. “That album was put together piecemeal,” he later reflected. “I ended up with this… incohesive collection of material that I somehow had to make sense of.” It’s a marvel how coherent it feels. Some songs border on noir balladry, like the gorgeous “Silver Moon,” while others are almost gothic, including “Taking the Veil” and “Before the Bullfight” You can sense Sylvian peeling away the dramatic flourishes that made Brilliant Trees so bold. The ambient side, featuring guitar contributions from Fripp and Bill Nelson, offers shadows where once there were songs.
This was David Sylvian’s second solo album proper, a 2LP set from 1986, is now available for the first time on 180 Gram vinyl. Featuring the singles Silver Moon and Taking The Veil, the 2LP set is housed in a gatefold sleeve with brand new artwork, including rare photographs by Yuka Fujii, design by Chris Bigg, and printed inner bags plus a download card. David is joined on his second solo album by Robert Fripp, Bill Nelson, Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Phil Palmer, B.J. Cole, Mel Collins, Steve Jansen, and Steve Nye.
If Gone to Earth felt like a labored portrait of the artist, then its follow-up was made on instinct. Released just a year later, Sylvian’s masterpiece, “Secrets of the Beehive”, arrived quickly. “Each track was written in one sitting,” he has noted. Sakamoto’s string arrangements appear mostly just to vanish, and Sylvian sings uncharacteristically from behind acoustic guitar or a piano. He is a kind of live vanishing act, a singer/songwriter dissolving into fog. “September” suggests a jazz standard until it’s abruptly snuffed out in less than two minutes. “The Boy With a Gun” and “The Devil’s Own” take on varied evils but resolve without a hint of redemption. Conceptually heavy but structurally light, Secrets of the Beehive seems to forecast a storm that lingers in the distance.
The album’s quick creation involved abandoning pieces that had once seemed central to the work as a whole, and it does feel like a statement with the core scooped out. This only adds to its mysterious pull. During the brightest moment, “Let the Happiness In,” Sylvian sings over lapping percussion and a brass section that mimics foghorns. Through the dusk, Sylvian prays for the “agony to stop” as the arrangement opens into something that sounds like peace. “As a listener,” he has said, “I prefer to be taken through the stages of doubt before being shown the way out.” Few albums suspend you so completely.
All of this, of course, can seem a bit bleak. This intensity subsequently pushed Sylvian to seek spiritual guidance and shake things up creatively. Following the release of Secrets of the Beehive and his first-ever solo tour, he focused more on collaborative work, from a pair of ambient albums with Holger Czukay and two excellent releases with Fripp to music with artists like Fennesz decades later.
David Sylvian’s third solo album from 1987 is now available for the first time on 180 Gram vinyl. Including the singles Orpheus and Let The Happiness In, the album features new artwork based on Nigel Grierson’s original photographs, redesigned by Chris Bigg, housed in a Gatefold sleeve with a printed inner bag and download card. David is joined on his 3rd solo album by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mark Isham, Steve Jansen, Danny Thompson, and David Torn.
These four records, then, mark a distinct phase of his career—likely the last time his work would be received by a mass audience, establishing a path toward the reclusive future he dreamed of.
In Martin Power’s biography of “Sylvian, The Last Romantic”, early manager Simon Napier-Bell recalls the young artist confiding, “I want to be a minor rock star.” It’s a humble, self-deprecating remark that rings true so many years later: His music remains a glowing source of solitude, all driven by a desire to be hidden but sought after—a celebration of all things lost and unnamed.
A few lines and a guitar lick are all Justin Townes Earle needs on “Ain’t Got No Money,” the shifty roots rocker that will be featured on his just-announced LP The Saint of Lost Causes.
Something of a return to the familiar for Earle, The Saint of Lost Causes sees him reunited with longtime producer Adam Bednarik in Nashville after venturing out to Omaha, Nebraska, to record 2017’s Kids in the Streets with Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes. “Ain’t Got No Money” is lean and wiry, built around a locked-in riff that calls to mind James McMurtry’s “Choctaw Bingo” and never loses step with Earle’s bitten-off, occasionally slurred vocal about trying to find the cash to make it to New Orleans. “Give me some money or just leave me alone,” he sings in the refrain, over a panting harmonica that wails through the song’s middle fifth.
Due to be the second of 12 songs on The Saint of Lost Causes‘ running order, “Ain’t Got No Money” and its pared-down arrangement suggests a different direction from the fleshed-out, full-band approach of Kids in the Street, which centered around more personal tales inspired by Music City, his hometown. Earle and Bednarik cut the album at Sound Emporium in Nashville.
From the new album ‘The Saint Of Lost Causes,’ available May 24th
Charly Bliss are back with their sophomore album Young Enough. Produced by Joe Chiccarelli (U2, Beck, Alanis, The Strokes, The Killers, My Morning Jacket, Cage The Elephant), the album finds the band exploring both the darker and poppier side of their sound while expanding on what made their debut Guppy a critically acclaimed smash.
Stephen Malkmus has shared an arch, psychedelic new video and song. That track is “Rushing The Acid Frat,” the second single from his upcoming electronically-tinged album Groove Denied, which was previously shelved by Matador Records. His last full-length was last year’s Sparkle Hard with the Jicks. We shared Groove Denied’s last single, “Viktor Borgia” earlier this year.
The slinky Robert Strange- and James Papper directed-video for “Rushing The Acid Frat” portrays a cartoon version of Malkmus, front-and-center, sauntering around an acid-view of Los Angeles locales. Among his stops, Malkmus drops into Koreatown and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. A whole cast of anthropomorphic animals and objects make cameos as well.
From the new album, ‘Groove Denied’ out March 15th.
The Doors’ fifth album, Morrison Hotel, released in February 1970, was seen as a return to form after the critically mauled (but commercially successful) Soft Parade from the previous year. A few weeks before the record’s release, the band set off on their “Roadhouse Blues Tour”, playing across the US, and certain shows in Canada – planned Japanese dates were cancelled during this period – before, on 5th June, performing at the Seattle Coliseum in Washington State’s largest city. Putting on a dynamic but amicable show with Jim Morrison in good spirits, conversing rather than taunting the crowd (albeit somewhat cryptically at times), this rarely heard concert, recorded for FM radio broadcast at the time, proves that The Doors remained a force to be reckoned with, a year from their demise following the death of The Lizard King in July ’71.
This is the first concert taped by Doors road manager Vince Treanor. Vince used a Sony TC-630 stereo tape recorder (a gift from The Doors) running at 3 3/4 ips with a pair of AKG-D1000E cardioid microphones placed on either side of the stage to capture the audio from the vocal and instrument amps. Jim is drunk for the show and interacts quite a bit with the audience. Interesting! What always struck me about this show is how TENSE it sounds. Hecklers get worse and worse throughout the show, Date: June 5th – 1970
“In some ways [our first three albums were] like kind of one massive period of obsessing, making music, touring, all those things,” Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig has said. “I think now for the first time in a long time I kinda feel like, a little bit more relaxed. Like, ‘Yeah, we’ll definitely make a fourth album.'” Details are still scant, but the indie rock foursome’s leader revealed that he wants their fourth album to “feel like a new era.” He also said that discarded songs from the Modern Vampires sessions are among the tracks being considered for the as-yet-untitled project.
The NYC outfit recently returned with the joyous new track to launch their upcoming album, ‘Father Of The Bride‘. Ezra Koenig and co. have also announced a lengthy US tour, along with a summer date in Dublin. Now, the group have shared the colourful new visuals for their comeback tune.
The ‘Harmony Hall’ video sees Vampire Weekend cooking up pancakes as a snake lurks around their vibrant kitchen. Later, we see the guys perform in a candlelit room, backed by a dazzling Catherine wheel firework.
Australian band Gang of Youths have been getting both critical and commercial acclaim Down Under with an absolutely fantastic second album, ‘Go Farther In Lightness’, leading them to sell out pretty much every venue they play in Oz. for some reason their success doesn’t seem to have reciprocated over here in the UK akin to how successful DMAs have been, but recent radio play for their single ‘Let Me Down Easy’ is sure to bring them to the attention of the wider public.
The first music I heard after landing in Austin was a cascade of metallic-guitar harmonics, cut into declarative power chords and shot over breakneck hard rock as if Mogwai had taken off at the speed of Blue Öyster Cult. Then singer-guitarist David Le’aupepe took the noise to a higher plane of debate with his earnest, preacher’s cry in “What Can I Do If the Fire Goes Out,” an anthemic knockout from Go Farther in Lightness, Gang of Youths’ second album and an award-winner in their native Australia last year. The band was founded in 2012 in Sydney, where members were attending an evangelical church, and there was an air of the early, brazen U2 in “Atlas Drowned” and “Just Say Yes to Life” – but with more guitar-drums bedlam, razing feedback and sly classic-rock touches like guitarist Joji Milan’s Queen-like skids in the latter song. Gang of Youths played another, longer set the next evening, opening up their songbook and spreading the firepower. But there was a striking sense of hurry and mission to their four-song day-party blitz at Sidewinder, as if their lives and our spiritual fates depended on the connection. Le’aupepe introduced “Just Say Yes to Life,” with a reference to his father, who is ill with cancer. The singer spoke about the fear of impending loss and the inspirational lesson that has come with it. “He lived a life and said yes,” Le’aupepe declared. “So don’t fuck around. Just say yes.” The music followed with affirming force.
Music video by Gang of Youths performing Let Me Down Easy (Audio). (C) 2017 Mosy Recordings under exclusive license to Sony Music Entertainment Australia Pty Ltd
One listen to Springtime And Blind may have you loving the raw sound…quite unpolished indie rock/grunge. Fiddlehead’s debut album is not punk or hardcore in a traditional sense, but it’s played by people from those worlds while translating the spirit of those scenes. Featuring Pat Flynn of Have Heart on vocals, the record sees him stretching his vocal range further than ever, as he sings almost solely about the death of his father in ways that are evocative but never cloying. In a scant 24 minutes, Fiddlehead makes the kind of music that falls somewhere between post-hardcore and indie rock, finding ways to take songs about uniquely personal experiences and transform them into cathartic anthems. And really, that’s what the best hardcore music has always done.
The bands haunting post-punk melancholia recalls the abrasive banshee-like noise of The Birthday Party and Suicide on the bands 9th album.
New Single From The Underground Youth “it feels like an accurate portrayal of the band live and you can almost envisage the singer squirming on the floor Iggy Pop circa Raw Power style as the track builds in intensity.
The latest The Underground Youth single ‘Last Exit To Nowhere’ from their upcoming album “Montage Images Of Lust And Fear.
