In a world of pure imagination, take a long look and you’ll see…the video for “Phone” from the freshly released “I Have to Feed Larry’s Hawk” by Tim Presley’s White Fence! Here, neon dreams come alive with a lava lamp glow and wobbly, willy wonka kitsch to create brain food for a new wave theater, in which you will find yourself watching “Phone”. The second TP/WF video from Ashley Goodall (see also, “I Have To Feed Larry’s Hawk”), “Phone” warms you up and sedates your pleasure center as Tim Prezzo’s neo pop fantasies crawl inside your ears to invite a gentle slumber. Trading in his six string for the resonant vibrations of a piano, the blissful melodies you’ll hear on “Phone” appear above and beneath the surface – there’s more to devour the deeper you dig! Taking a spark and starting a fire, the video for “Phone” compliments Tim‘s elegant eccentricities note for note.
Song from Tim Presley’s White Fence’s 2LP/CS/CD “I Have to Feed Larry’s Hawk,” out January 25, 2019 on Drag City Records.
Methyl Ethel will release their third album “Triage” on Friday 15th February 2019.
The album was written, produced and performed by lead singer Jake Webb, recorded in Jake’s home studio in West Perth and mixed at Mute Studio in London with Marta Salogni.
With his thirtieth birthday, and the ceremonial cap on three records and three EP’s, Webb felt a sense of closure in the making of Triage. Methyl Ethel has always been a surrealist outfit – a dark and obscured expression of life set to the backdrop of dream pop hooks. But Triage is a more reflective album – one that explores the notion of coming of age, only to reference it for the snapshots and passing memories that it has become.
Methyl Ethel is the musical project of Jake Webb. As a live band it expands to a five piece and includes Thom Stewart, Chris Wright, Lyndon Blue and Jacob Diamond.
Methyl Ethel has enjoyed phenomenal successes over the last years. ‘Ubu’ became an ARIA Accredited Gold single earlier this year off the back of landing at #4 in triple j’s 2017 Hottest 100. The band have clocked up over 25 million Spotify streams alone and all of their tour dates in Australia and the UK since 2016 have sold out.
The Lush-Elastica-Moose super group (not supergroup) drop their first album awash with layered, gushing shoegaze noise. Piroshka, the band featuring Miki Berenyi of Lush as well as members of Moose, Elastica, and Modern English, will release their anticipated debut album, Brickbat, on February 15th . Containg sweet pop melodies, slow hooks, jangly guitars, shimmering synths and Miki Berenyi’s unmistakable sardonic and thick London delivery has a familiar comfort to it. Piroshka feels like your favourite pair jeans that have been stuck at the back of your cupboard, out of sight, out of mind, until one day you think shit, those jeans were my favourite I wonder if they are still as great as before. Spoiler alert, they are.
“What’s Next” is one of the Lush-ier songs on the record, and has one of the strongest choruses, too. The song itself is about the constant flood of bad news we get on a daily basis, with Miki belting out “We live to protest!” She tells us more about the song:
“What’s Next” started life as a guitar-and-drums demo from Justin that he’d called ‘Protest’ – the drums being inspired by the idea of a protest march. It’s one of the very first songs Piroshka worked on together. The lyrics are inspired by the shock and fallout regarding current political upheavals – how this finger-pointing and rage and blame are so damaging, how we need to get back some kind of solidarity if we possibly can because the divisions between us are playing into certain people’s hands. Funnily enough, the song was called Time’s Up when it was first recorded, but that title then got taken so we thought we’d better change it! It’s the only track on the album mixed by Alan Moulder – before we got picked up by Bella Union, we had an album’s worth of demos but we only had enough money to get one of them mixed!
But don’t let their familiarity make you think for one moment that they are just here, resting on their laurels, relying on our nostalgia. NO.
Piroshka have got shit they wanna talk about. Behind the smoke and mirrors of their lush (HEY?) sound is an angry kickback at some awful parts of our society and ourselves, the last thing they want you to do is just sit there and listen, they want you to take responsibility and act! , looks like you just found a CND Badge/Free Mandela Flyer/One of those weird charity wristbands everyone was wearing in the noughties in one of the pockets of those old jeans.
Piroshka – Everlastingly Yours, taken from the album Brickbat due 15/01/19.
Hailing from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Tyler Burkhart’s career to date has been the epitome of DIY. Tyler’s been releasing his home written, recorded and released music via Bandcamp for a number of years, slowly growing both his audience and his songwriting craft. This week Tyler has confirmed his first not-entirely-DIY release, in the shape of a new single, “Waiting For You”, coming out via Berlin-label, Feel Flows.
Discussing the track, Tyler has suggest it’s about, “different kinds of people and the motives that drive them” and how at the heart of all those desire is a commonality, “they all long for something beyond themselves”. Recalling the likes of Chis Cohen or Angelo De Augustine, Tyler’s music feels instantly intimate, an almost nostalgic sound, all soft vocals and steady rhythmic guitars, embellished with distant electronic pulses and layers of lead guitar. Tyler’s musical career has always felt on a steady upward trajectory; here you feel this may just be a giant leap into the next level, a songwriter who has clearly spent years honing their sound, now ready to share it with as many people as care to listen.
As promised, Esoteric Recordings have announced the release of a new re-mastered four disc deluxe expanded boxed set limited edition (comprising 3 CDs and a DVD) of the legendary 1975 album ‘FUTURAMA’! Features the original album remastered from the original studio tapes, and an additional 36 bonus tracks drawn from a stunning new 5.1 surround sound & stereo mixes by award winning engineer Stephen W Tayler, out-takes, BBC Radio In Concert & John Peel Sessions, rare promo videos, a lavishly illustrated 68-page book with an essay of recollections by Bill Nelson, a facsimile Record Store poster for FUTURAMA, replica track sheets, and postcards.
Recorded in the first two months of 1975 at Rockfield studios (with some sessions also taking place at SARM studios in London), FUTURAMA was the second album by Be Bop Deluxe and the first to feature the line-up of BILL NELSON (vocals, guitars, keyboards), CHARLIE TUMAHAI (bass, vocals) and SIMON FOX (drums). Produced by Roy Thomas Baker (who at the time was also working with Queen), FUTURAMA was an album of immense musical inventiveness and creativity and was a huge leap forward in creative terms for Bill Nelson.
The album gained much praise thanks to Bill Nelson’s composition skills and his highly innovative guitar playing. Featuring such wonderful material as ‘Maid in Heaven’, ‘Sister Seagull’, ‘Music in Dreamland’, ‘Sound Track’, ‘Between the Worlds’, ‘Jean Cocteau’ and ‘Swan Song’, the album would see Be Bop Deluxe heralded as one of the most accomplished acts of 1975.
Also available as a 2CD Edition. Released April 26th!
Dan Bejar started Destroyer as a solo home-recording project in the early to mid-nineties. Exploring and overturning genressuch as glam, MIDI, yacht rock, & even underground Spanish independent artists, Bejar was proclaimed “Rock’s Exiled King”
Dan Bejar: vocals, midi marimba on track 8
Ted Bois: piano, yamaha d-50 on track 3
Nicolas Bragg: electric guitar
David Carswell: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, midi tuba on track 4
JP Carter: trumpet, effects
John Collins: bass
Joseph Shabason: saxophones, flutes
Josh Wells: drums, congas, bongos and various percussion
This Is The Kit is the musical project of Kate Stables and whoever joins her. You thought you didn’t like the banjo but you were wrong pal. Listen as Kate rips forward with her hypnotic twang pattern and a voice of rare, unaffected beauty. This is the Kit is honest music. It’s how it really is! Honest and eager, that’s what makes it so beautiful.
This Is The Kit’s first studio album release was recorded in Italy and produced by John Parish. It was first released on Microbe records (France) in 2006
Recorded by Marco Tagliola and produced by John Parish in Italy 2006. Featuring Kate Stables – vocals, guitar and banjo; John Parish – drums; Julien Barbagalo – drums; Jamie Whitby Coles – drums; Jesse Morningstar – violin, guitar, vocals, percussion.
Pavement disbanded before the turn of the millennium. Still, the impact of the Stockton, Californian. band’s music still echoes, due to its independent ethos, occasional disregard for melody, and progressive view of art rock and punk. Even setting aside all the bands clearly influenced by Pavement, the group’s five-LP output makes them one of the most important alternative rock bands of the ‘90s. Here then are the best songs from indie rock legends, Pavement second album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.
“Unfair”
This is one of the angriest sounding Pavement songs. It’s one of the band’s variations on a theme of “Northern California rules / Southern California drools,” which likely exacerbates that ferocious guitar riff. Malkmus first rallies to, “burn the hills of Beverly!” before howling at his state’s southern residents, “I’m not your neighbour, you Bakersfield trash!”
“Elevate Me Later” Malkmus is an amazing guitarist, but some songs just stick out above others. On top of that, though, this is also one of Malkmus’ best vocal performances. And here on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, there’s something in the way his voice sounds in “Elevate Me Later” that is perfectly in sync with the tone of the instrumentation.
“Silence Kid” “Silence Kid” kicks off Pavement’s second album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. The sound of Crooked Rain is more polished and lusher than Slanted and Enchanted, and this is clear right from the start of “Silence Kid.” It squeals strangely and slowly during its intro, but kicks into high gear by the time the vocals start. Also, note that cowbell.
“Cut Your Hair”
If you only know one Pavement song, it’s probably this one. The closest thing Pavement ever got to a hit appeared on 1994’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and was later featured in Beavis & Butthead and one of those campy Brady Bunch movies. The song seems to be about appearance mattering for musicians in terms of being popular and successful, but it’s Pavement so we can’t be entirely sure. The music video for Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair,” released in 1994, remains a ridiculous romp. In it, the gang pays a visit to the barbershop, each member costumed in their own low-budget getup—Scott Kannberg in a gorilla suit, Stephen Malkmus crowned a weepy king. It’s both utterly pointless and splendidly on-brand for the most chilled-out players in ’90s indie-rock. “Cut Your Hair” is a bad music video, but that’s why it’s so great. Pavement made indifference look impossibly cool.
“Gold Soundz”
The second single off Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain tops this list because it’s a rocker with a decidedly indie flavor. Although “Cut Your Hair” charted much better than “Gold Soundz,” the latter more fully encapsulates the essence of Pavement—messy but melodic, retro, yet still relevant. Plus, the lyrics include the phrase “quarantine the past,” which, of course, is the title of Pavement’s aforementioned greatest hits compilation. Therefore the song has to be great.
The album that elevated Pavement to a new level of slacker-rock stardom is turning 25 years old today. “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” arrived on February. 14th, 1994, and alternative rock arguably hasn’t been the same since. The band’s more jittery debut, Slanted & Enchanted, had dropped two years earlier in 1992, but it was Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain—a record they made in some guy’s NYC apartment-slash-studio that broke the band. MTV played their awful music videos; people fell hard for their affably effortless songs like the aforementioned “Cut Your Hair,” the mindlessly nostalgic “Gold Soundz” and the quasi-country banger “Range Life.” Pavement had arrived.
After the band’s eventual break-up, but before their 2010 reunion, Malkmus went out on his own and started making music with his other band, The Jicks, plus a few solo endeavors.
Meg Duffy of Hand Habits wrote their forthcoming record as wildfires burned through Southern California. For an album about love and relationships, it’s a fitting setting; there’s something inherently destructive in making space within yourself to bring someone else in. the new track is premiering “What Lovers Do,” the newest single from Placeholder ( via Saddle Creek Records) and a lulling, frank revelation on the complexities of desire.
Over gentle guitar, Duffy muses about the attraction between lovers, describing it as “halfway with your hands into the fire of my desire.” As the song plays out, it’s clear the relationship isn’t a smooth one, and feels more like a series of games. But the draw between the two continues to feel magnetic, and Duffy nonetheless, sounds sweet and warm in the retelling.
“Hesitation, revelation, and repetition-aspects of the story you can identify easily, and must be the witness and the participant,” Duffy writes via email. “When the shame baton gets passed back and forth between parties, who is the fool? I could never claim to have a complete understanding.”
Through their first three albums, the group divined a signature style what Pitchfork described as “an expansive vision of rock ‘n’ roll, one that cherrypicks from various folk traditions: punk, rockabilly, blues, whatever they might have on hand or find in the trash.” The sound is a front-heavy, groovy, fire & brimstone punk-blues overlying a dynamic and metaphysical roots rock. On their fourth album “Human Question”, the Denver trio zooms out to a more vast and accessible stylistic and spiritual universe. The 38-minute thrill ride generates growth and cathartic self-reflection for audience and performer alike. If there was justice in this world, the Yawpers would be the savior that rock-n-roll didn’t know it was waiting for.
Following their critically acclaimed and meticulously plotted concept album Boy in a Well (set in World War I France, concerning a mother who abandoned her unwanted newborn), the Yawpers created Human Question with a contrasting immediacy. The album was written, rehearsed, and recorded over a two-month period with Reliable Recordings’ Alex Hall (Cactus Blossoms, JD McPherson) at Chicago’s renowned Electrical Audio. The band tracked live in one room, feeding off the collective energy and adding few overdubs. Through the new approach, ten songs connect with an organically linked attitude and style.
On Human Question,lead singer and guitarist Nate Cook writes his way out of trauma, rather than wallowing in it, as was his self-destructive formula in the past. “I wanted to take a crack at using these songs as therapy, really,” Cook said. “I think I’ve always been inclined to write more towards the dregs of my psyche, and explore my depressions and trauma, rather than describe a way out.” The self-reflection engages the band’s trademark dangerous, emotionally fraught choogle, and the listener is constantly kept on edge, not knowing when to brace for a bombastic impact or lean back and enjoy the ride.
The band skillfully balances that Jekyll and Hyde formula. In “Child of Mercy” guitarist Jesse Parmet revs the engines with a disintegrating blues guitar framework, backed by a breakneck beat by new drummer Alex Koshak. Eventually, the tune whips into a cyclone of distortion and Cook’s sustained falsetto, as he howls, “Won’t you please wake me up when the night is over.” For such a raw and kinetic sound, the Yawpers are never stuck in one gear for long. They deftly navigate shifting dynamics and moods, and if you squint your ears, the Sun Studios’ Million Dollar Quartet transmogrifies into the ghosts of Gun Club, Jon Spencer, and Bo Diddley.
“Dancing on my Knees” is the direction that Dan Auerbach could’ve taken Black Keys: raw yet poppy, outsider while mainstream, danceable while thought-provoking(lyrics include “It wasn’t what I asked for / But it’s exactly what I need / You’ve said there’s growth in agony / And we finally agree”). There are moments of blunt Stooges raw power (“Earn Your Heaven”), shaker rhythms behind ‘70s psychedelic rock(“Human Question”), and the salacious boogie of Zeppelin (“Forgiveness Through Pain”). Through it all, Human Question is impossible to confuse with anything else—it’s distinctly the Yawpers.
“Man As Ghost”, “Can’t Wait,” and “Where the Winters End” reveal a softer and contemplative side, blending touches of modern Americana and folk music. In these moments of sonic respite, Cook and company display their range through acoustic guitar strums, relaxed and aired-out tempos, and big yet dialed-in vocal runs. But, no song exhibits the band’s extended capabilities like “Carry Me,” a Gospel-soul burner that builds from hushed to impassioned, with the lead singer begging for salvation in full open-throated fervor by song’s end.
Human Question isn’t meant for the meek or casual listener. It will make you dance, mosh, sing along, and dig deep into your soul. Some people lament that rock-n-roll is dead. They just haven’t heard the Yawpers yet.
The Yawpers Are:
Nate Cook , Jesse Parmet , Alex Koshak
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