Originally just the bedroom project of songwriter Tilly Scantlebury, Lazy Day grew into a full band when her self-recorded Garageband tracks started taking off on Soundcloud and drawing attention from many quarters of the independent music press. After recruiting drummer Beni Evans, guitarist Liam Hoflay and Jonathan Coddington on bass, Scantlebury has continued to impress with a series of singles wrapped deep with emotion plus the EP ‘Ribbons’ which exhibited her wide spanning take on indie rock across a short succession of seven tracks.
Her latest release is new single ‘Double j’ which takes its kews from the 90’s alt rock the grew out of the grunge years and is an ode to her best mate.
“I wrote ‘Double j’ about my best friend and how she gets me through a lot. It feels really good to talk about her strength and all that it does for me, especially shouting about it in the big choruses. These are the happiest lyrics I’ve ever written, and I wanted the music to properly reflect that – to be a fierce celebration of friendship.” – Tilly Scantlebury
‘Double j’ will appear on the upcoming EP ‘Letters’ which was recorded with producer Steph Marziano (Radiohead, The Prodigy, Mumford & Sons) at Czar Street Studios in London and will be out on 22nd March via Lazy Day’s very own label Weird Cool Records.
We’re extremely excited to announce the release of our new single, “White Bird”, out today, 13th February.
This single has been taken from our 3rd album, “Morning Dancer”. Limited Edition “Morning Dancer” Prints are available. Matthew and The Atlas released the earlier track “Pyres”, which was the first track to be taken from the their third album, which is due for release on 10th May.
“Morning Dancer” is the third album from Matthew and the Atlas, the project led by British songwriter Matt Hegarty.
Across Hegarty’s first two LPs (‘Other Rivers’ and ‘Temple’) and the four stripped back EPs that preceded and followed them, he has traversed a range of musical territories from classic acoustic folk, to dramatic synth-laden electronica, and urgent guitar led alt-rock. The common thread has been a songwriting style that marries a subtle melodic sensibility with lyrics full of natural imagery and dark emotional heft – all delivered in his striking and distinctive vocal. In the process Hegarty has quietly built a major cult following in Europe and the US, which has seen Q magazine dub him the “British Bon Iver”.
As part of the Communion Records family (Matthew and The Atlas’ debut EP was the label’s first ever release) Hegarty toured his early releases extensively and internationally with the likes of Mumford and Sons, Bear’s Den, Civil Wars and others around Europe and the US. That early touring, and a passionate word-of-mouth fan base, has taken Hegarty’s music around the world and close to 100m streams across all his releases.
Armed with a collection of new songs in the second half of 2018, Hegarty found his way to Bristol based producer Ali Chant (Perfume Genius, Youth Lagoon, Gruff Rhys). They clicked immediately, and recorded and mixed Morning Dancer in an intensive six week stint, which saw Hegarty recording for the first time with his full five-piece touring band. The record has familiar elements – the energy and intensity of the live show, stripped and delicate confessional moments, and touches of the synth heavy drama that characterized his debut. To that mix, Chant and Hegarty have added flourishes of brass and woodwind and a playful looseness to the production and arrangements that takes the songs and Hegarty’s voice to a new place altogether.
‘White Bird’ taken from forthcoming album ‘Morning Dancer’.
Tucson, Arizona’s Matt Rendon has certainly done his homework. Over the course of 22 years and six albums as The Resonars (seven if you count the Butterscotch Cathedral album; a one-ff psychedelic magnum opus released in 2015) for labels like Get Hip & Burger Records, Rendon’s musical vision has remained unwavering; a paean to a lost-era of analog recording, whip-smart, dynamic songwriting, and soul-stirring anthems to ignite generations. “No Exit” is his latest album as The Resonars.
“No Exit” kicks off with the epic clang of “Louise Tonight”, which merges dive-bombing guitar licks and bombastic drumming, hinting at the controlled chaos of a modern day Townshend/Moon. Elsewhere, “The Man Who Does Nothing” evokes the shimmering harmonies of The Hollies atop a persistent backbeat, and tunes like “Before You’re Gone” “Beagle Theory” sidle up to a dreamy kiwi-jangle strong enough to make Martin Phillips jealous. Conversely, tunes like side two’s “All Those Hats” rages with an amphetamine-laced melodic tension reminiscent of The Buzzcocks or The Undertones. Rendon has consistently proven to have a knack for an everyman style of songwriting that doesn’t seem rote or tired, lacing his melodic vocal harmonies with that melancholic joy omnipresent in the best numbers by bands like The Beach Boys, Big Star or even Simon & Garfunkel’s pop hits.
Rendon typically handles all aspects of Resonars albums from the recording & engineering (at his own Midtown Island Studios) to the performance of every instrument, but for “No Exit” he employs the help of some friends & colleagues; Resonars live drummer Johnnie Rinehart plays on half the tunes, while sometimes live members Ricky Shimo and Travis Spillers play bass & sing (respectively) on two numbers. Despite being the first Resonars album in 5 years, Rendon shows no signs of stopping; He’s a rock & roll lifer, having been raised in a musical environment & osmosis thru older sibling’s rock fandom. Once it’s inside you there’s no escape. “No Exit”, if you will.
Like many important bands, Seattle quartet Versing got their start in college radio—Tacoma’s KUPS. The group’s main songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Daniel Salas served as alternative music director there, where he met guitarist Graham Baker, drummer Max Keyes, and bassist Kirby Lochner. Now Versing are poised to spread their coolly combustible brand of rock on those said airwaves…and beyond if the world knows what’s good for it.
Baker, Keyes, Lochner, and Salas have risen through Seattle’s competitive rock ecosphere with nonchalant élan. They cheekily titled a previous album Nirvana, but never mind the bleach: Versing isn’t emulating Sub Pop’s most famous artist. Rather, these four twenty-something aesthetes are forging an exciting sound that finds a golden mean between lustrous noise and ebullient melody.
Emerging from a stint as a drummer in a stoner-metal band, Salas formed Versing as a vehicle to vent obliquely about his political and social views with irony and humor. Populated with strange characters, his songs often double as “critiques of centrism and conservatism, from a leftist perspective. That’s a theme: committing to something or doing something that may be hard but is the better option. However, when I write politically, it’s more allegorical and can be interpreted beyond the political realm. I find that more interesting to write about than my personal life.”
That being said, the pell-mell, ostinato-laced “Renew,” which Salas says is his most hopeful song, has a personal message. “It’s about taking time to care for yourself—even when things are all weird and fucked up.” Meanwhile, the immersive, pummeling “Offering” evokes those twin pillars of 1988 rock: My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything and Pixies’ Surfer Rosa. “I just really enjoy that droning line of guitar feedback,” Salas says. “We use a lot of feedback on our songs, but I think that’s one of the more deliberately musical uses we’ve found for it. It’s sort of a fantastical song about traveling through a mystical portal to stop an encroaching force of evil, and the feedback is like the whirring sound the portal makes.”
Another fantastical song, “Tethered” is a low-key, Daydream Nation-esque anthem with plenty of dissonance and surging, distorted guitars, plus rhythms that drive piles. Salas explains that it’s “about how people are tied together,” figuratively. “It’s a reminder of the interconnectedness of humans, to people who make excuses for not doing the right thing” for the greater good of humanity.
With Versing, songwriting is obviously crucial, but much of the pleasure in 10000 comes from its guitar textures. They’re swarming, yet also spiky and agile. The funny thing is, Salas writes most of Versing’s songs on his unplugged Gibson guitar. “I like a more shambolic tone than something that sounds really clean and put together. I like there to be some screechiness to it—something that’s not right.”
Salas cites earlier purveyors of abstract rock music Cocteau Twins and Wire as major inspirations. Much of the rock that followed in the wake of 9/11, though, leaves him cold. “9/11 messed up a lot of things culturally, including music,” he says. “It engendered a deep social conservatism and nationalism that meant the chaotic and unpracticed sounds previously common in rock music had to go, in favor of tighter playing, more simplistic subject matter, and super clean production.”
Gently chiding the Seattle music scene’s self-seriousness while acknowledging Versing’s playfulness and irony, Salas says, “There’s a ‘let’s just fuck around and see what comes out,’ aspect of what we do, which I think is uncommon for Seattle bands.”
Versing’s freewheeling attitude has paradoxically resulted in 10000, an engrossing album that’s impossible to feel ambivalent about.
releases May 3rd, 2019
Sat, Feb 16th – The Sunflower Lounge , Birmingham United Kingdom
Kevin Ratterman and I first met when his incredible band Twin Limb opened for us on tour. Instant friendship. But the real kicker came about a week into tour and I asked him about previous bands he’d been in. He said a few and then mentioned off the cuff that he was the drummer of Elliot. My mind was completely blown. Not only did I love the music but it was at an Elliot show where I first saw Sue. At Kevin’s concert, 15 years ago I saw who was going to be the love of my life. If that doesn’t align the starts than nothing will. From there we talked music and recording and I just continued to discover how talented Kevin was in the studio. So when everything came together to make Eraserland, it was Kevin who truly brought it all together. We would get up every morning and have coffee and map out our day, then work about 14 hours, then after everyone would leave we stay up till about four in the morning just talking, laughing, planning and just really growing so close as friends. I’ve spent a lot time in the studio but I’ve never seen someone work harder but somehow float on air and make everyone involved feels so relaxed and inspired. I think everyone would agree, that Kevin was the boss, in the best of ways. When we would finish a live take all together (sometimes a nine minute song), there would be a stillness in the air of all us waiting to hear over the headphones if we got the take. That 15 seconds felt like a lifetime, especially when Kev would casually say “Let’s get another one”. Partnerships like this don’t come around often, or maybe ever, and for the first time in my life I was smart enough to recognize that and appreciate every second I got to spend with Kevin, and be around his magic.
Eraserland is the first record I’ve ever written where the majority of the songs started with a bass part. I needed to switch a lot of stuff up in my life and writing songs on a different instrument really proved beneficial. I feel like Oaks was becoming a “shred” band and at the time I wanted to be as far from that as possible. If you build songs from a bass line you start from an extremley centered and structured place, and that is exactly what my chaotic mind needed. Long story but all that work was then put into the hands of Tom Blankenship. Hanging with Tom was like going on a spiritual retreat so much thoughtfulness, kindness, observation, listening or to put it simply the ingredients that make a PERFECT bass player. When we recorded Eraserland, we tracked all the parts live together. Even with my songs which definitely aren’t prog anthems, it can be tough to get a complete take out of five individuals. But Tom NEVER messed up, I’m serious, NEVER messed up. Just quietly in the zone and constantly coming up with something fresh that somehow worked in the arrangement even better than his last take. It was amazing to talk with everyone and quickly find out that this is just Tom, he is the rock that holds everything together.
“Weird Ways” off Strand of Oaks’s new album “Eraserland” out March 22nd on Dead Oceans
This record wasn’t supposed to be here. I had thought for a moment Strand of Oaks might be over until a text from my friend, Carl Broemel, changed all that. Unbeknownst to me, four members of My Morning Jacket and Kevin Ratterman booked studio time to record songs I didn’t think I’d ever write. But they believed I could and pulled me back from the brink. At last, the songs came–and quickly morphed into everything I’ve ever worked toward as this band. These ten songs are about existing and continuing on, a testament to the hope that even if we feel like we are disappearing, there is that glimmer of light. You may not come out the same person you started as, but that’s okay. I’m glad this record is here now for whoever chooses to find it. Welcome to Eraserland, where we all can start again. ~tim
After three long years, an announcement of a new album from the Felice Brothers.
“Undress” was recorded in the late summer of 2018 in Germantown, New York. “Many of the songs on the new album are motivated by a shift from private to public concerns,” says songwriter Ian Felice. “It isn’t hard to find worthwhile things to write about these days, there are a lot of storms blooming on the horizon and a lot of chaos that permeates our lives. The hard part is finding simple and direct ways to address them.”
Undress follows the band’s 2016 album Life In The Dark, and finds the group in a very different place three years later. Between personnel changes, families growing and the political landscape, the result is a tighter, more-paired down release. “Every song is a story,” said James Felice. “On this album everything was a bit more thoughtful, including the arrangements, the sonic quality and the harmonies.”
The Felice Brothers are long standing faves. Their wonderful blend of storytelling, lyrical genius and ramshackle Americana began in 2006, playing subway platforms and sidewalks in NYC and they have gone on to release nine albums of original songs and to tour extensively throughout the world. The new album is out on Yep Roc Records on the 3rd May.
The title track from the upcoming record, Undress, out May 3rd on Yep Roc Records.
Warners’ 2003 R.E.M. compilation In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 will be reissued by Craft Recordings as a double vinyl set in May.
This album collects highlights from the band’s post-I.R.S. Records years from 1988’s Green to 2001’s Reveal. The 18 tracks include hits like ‘Losing My Religion’, ‘Everybody Hurts’ and ‘Stand’; selections from soundtracks (‘The Great Beyond’ and ‘All the Right Friends’) and the previously unreleased ‘Bad Day’ and ‘Animal’.
This set was commercially very successful and issued across a number of formats – as well as standard CD and cassette editions, there was a 2CD package with a bonus disc of B-sides and rarities and a DVD-Audio with 5.1 surround mixes.
A two-LP vinyl set was issued at the time, but it was only released in Europe and was extremely limited (reflected in the astronomical prices required to secure one on the used market . So this new vinyl edition from Craft Recordings will be very welcome and represents the first time it has been available in the USA and Canada on vinyl.
In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003will be issued as a 2LP set on 10 May 2019
There are songwriters and then there are storytellers, and Steve Earle is very much the latter. His songs, such as “The Devil’s Right Hand,” “Copperhead Road” and “Guitar Town,” have been sung by Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless and many, many more.
Steve Earle’s inspiration came from two main storytellers: Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. In 2009, Steve Earle made an album of Townes Van Zandt songs called TOWNES and now he’s paying tribute to his other hero, Guy Clark by releasing GUY. This album by Steve Earle & The Dukes covers 16 songs by the great Nashville-via-Houston artist and leans toward some of the earlier tunes. Steve Earle left San Antonio, headed to Nashville, met his hero, Guy Clark (who was playing pool) and quickly became his bass player.
The band playing with Steve Earle on this album is The Dukes: Kelley Looney on bass, Ricky Ray Jackson on pedal steel guitar, Eleanor Whitmore on fiddle and mandolin, Chris Masterson on guitar and Brad Pemberton on drums. And the record wouldn’t be complete without a load of friends, including Rodney Crowell, Jerry Jeff Walker, Emmylou Harris, Shawn Camp, Terry Allen and more.
Written by Guy Clark. From the new album ‘GUY,’ available March 29th:
I am so happy to (finally) announce that my new album, “The Big Freeze” is out on March 29th! You can hear the first single “Living Room NY” . Laura Stevenson’s music has always dealt in crushing existential dread, be it self-deprecation or heartache. This is an artist who once opened a 2015 song called “Jellyfish” with “I’m fucking hideous and spiteful / When I’m left to my devices.” Even the press release for her new album opens with: “If gravity is strong enough, at the end of time our universe will collapse, pulling all of existence back down to infinitesimal size, like before the Big Bang. But if expansion outpaces gravity, eventually the universe will be cold and empty – all light, heat, and connection will be gone.” That phenomenon of a too cold, uninhabitable universe is called The Big Freeze, which is also the title of Stevenson’s upcoming fifth LP that’s out 29 March.
The New York songwriter is back with her fifth album, ‘The Big Freeze,’ out 29th March.
W. H. Lung is a recording project founded in Manchester in mid-2016. Its first single to yield is the dream-like and shifting ‘Inspiration!’, recorded at The Nave in Leeds and produced by Matt Peel (Eagulls). A song that speaks to the ideas of eternity, belonging and meaninglessness, it takes the shape of a kraut/psych peregrination; persevering but never dull, and bringing it home before the break. The motorik nature of the track stems from W. H. Lung’s writing ethic which, with an Alesis drum machine at its core, aims to create a surrounding maelstrom of ethereal circuits and hypnotic rhythms. W. H. Lung continue to write and record. The debut album ‘Incidental Music’ drops 5th April 2019 on Melodic Records.
The first single taken from W. H. Lung’s debut album ‘Incidental Music’ out 5/4/19.
