Since 2015’s GUYD The Phoenix Foundation have been writing, recording, touring with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, creating the acclaimed soundtrack for Hunt For The Wilderpeople, building shrines to light, creating scores for VR, producing other artists and baking sourdough. Now they are ready to release some more music into the swirling oblivion that is 2020
Every Friend Ship needs a Life Boat. So we have two additional songs from the album here, featuring the lovely vocals of Fazerdaze on ‘Beside Yourself’
Dinosaur Jr. are returning with a new album: “Sweep It Into Space” is out April 23rd via Jagjaguwar Recordings. Kurt Vile co-produced the album and played 12-string guitar on the new song “I Ran Away,” which is out today. Here is Sweep It Into Space, the fifth new studio album cut by Dinosaur Jr.. during the 13th year of their rebirth. Originally scheduled for issue in mid 2020, this record’s temporal trajectory was thwarted by the coming of the Plague. But it would take more than a mere Plague to tamp down the exquisite fury of this trio when they are fully dialled-in.
“Sweep It Into Space” follows Dinosaur Jr.’s 2016 record “Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not”. They began recording the new one in autumn 2019 at Biquiteen in Amherst, Massachusetts. After the pandemic interrupted recording with Vile, J Mascis “ended up just mimicking a few things [Vile]’d done,” as he said in a press release. “But the recording session was pretty well finished by the time things really hit the fan.”
And Sweep It Into Space is a masterpiece of zoned dialling. Recorded, as usual, at Amherst’s Biquiteen, the sessions for Sweep It Into Space began in the late Autumn of 2019, following a West Coast/ South East tour. The only extra musician used this time with Kurt Vile. Indeed, Sweep It Into Space is a very cool album. As is typical, Lou Barlow writes and sings two of the album’s dozen tunes and Murph’s pure-Flinstonian drumming drives the record like a go cart from Hell. Lou’s songs here are as elegant as always. But there are very few moments where you wouldn’t know you were hearing Dinosaur Jr. in blindfolded needle drop.
“I Ran Away” the new song by Dinosaur Jr. from the album ‘Sweep It Into Space’, out April 23rd on Jagjaguwar Recordings.
Fans of the rock band Yes—who gained entry to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Class of 2017 on their third nomination have had, in recent years, two opportunities to enjoy the progressive rock group in concert. There’s the band that uses the official Yes name, and which features the long time members, guitarist Steve Howe and drummer Alan White. And for several years, there was Yes Featuring Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman, made up of Yes co-founder/vocalist Jon Anderson, and long time band members, keyboardist Rick Wakeman and guitarist Trevor Rabin (who may or may not return together).
For fans of classic Yes, we’re going to take you back to the early ’70s when the band was releasing album after album of prog rock goodness.
After two musically solid but poor-selling albums, the five-piece psychedelic-progressive rock group Yes privately suspected their label Atlantic was looking for some serious commercial progress in order to justify keeping them under contract. Their London-based A&R man Phil Carson was typically hands-off, but with label-mates like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Led Zeppelin and CSNY catching fire, Yes could easily be left behind. In late spring 1970 they retired to a farm in Devon, England, for rehearsals with a “make or break” attitude.
The band had been used to building LPs from a combination of their own compositions and a sprinkling of unusual cover tunes, often radically reworked from their sources (the Byrds’ “I See You,” the Beatles’ “Every Little Thing,” Buffalo Springfield’s “Everydays” and Richie Havens’ “No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed” had appeared on the Yes and Time and a Word albums). This was to be their first album of entirely original material.
Bill Bruford was likewise able to be subtle one minute and crash the next. Using a jazz approach, he tended to imply the main beat rather than always state it as a rock drummer would. His approach was defined by variety. ChrisSquire played bass like a lead instrument, generally with a heavy-gauge pick. Like the Who’s John Entwistle, he sounded at times like a low-pitched guitarist rather than a harmonic accompanist, part of the rhythm section. TonyKaye had trained as a concert pianist, but he’d abandoned classical music for pop, playing a Vox Continental in various groups before joining Yes in 1968 and settling on the Hammond B-3 organ as his main squeeze. Vocalist Jon Anderson (who initially spelled his first name John), drummer Bill Bruford, keyboardist Tony Kaye and bass player Chris Squire were integrating their new guitarist Steve Howe, after original member Peter Banks left in April. Howe, who’d previously been with the “freakbeat” band Tomorrow, was at home in a number of genres, including folk, blues and country, and was soon exerting a strong influence on the group sound as they wrote and rehearsed new material. His main axe was the Gibson semi-acoustic ES-175, often considered a jazz guitar. He was the type of versatile player who could take advantage of it. He could play powerful block chords, wail jagged solo lines, flat-pick or fingerpick; whatever it took, he supplied it.
Anderson sang in a high tenor, and was responsible for most of the group’s lyrics, which tended toward the mystical, pastoral and mythological. Yes’ producer-engineer Eddy Offord described how the group teased Anderson for his wordplay: “The band gave him such a hard time. They’d all say to him, ‘Jon, your fucking lyrics don’t make any sense at all! What is this river/mountain stuff?’” Offord says Anderson would always explain, “I use words as colours, for the sounds of the words, not the actual meaning.”
Offord recalled, “Bill Bruford didn’t like Jon messing with the tracks once they were recorded. I remember we were trying something—Jon wanted to have some echo in the background—and Bill got up and yelled, ‘Why don’t you put the whole fucking record in the background with echo then?’ But what I learned about working with them was, if somebody has an idea, it’s better to try it than sit around debating it.” Working at Advision Studios in London during autumn 1970, the group aimed for precision and even perfection. Most of the time Squire and Bruford recorded their parts and all other instruments and vocals were meticulously stacked on top, filling the 16 tracks available. Recording their complex, multi-part songs sometimes in takes as short as 30 seconds, they redesigned and edited pieces together as they went. Some heavily rehearsed sections were wedded to spontaneous studio creations. Offord was so expert that for much of the time the listener can’t hear the seams. So what appears to be superhuman effort, with musicians switching tempos, moods and effects at will, is actually a result of brilliant musicians who could hear the totality of the music in their heads as it emerged in bits, and a producer who could make it sound organic even when it was built like an assembly-line machine.
The nine-minute “Yours Is No Disgrace” kicks off the LP with a show of force, a sort of warped tango rhythm with Bruford and Howe assertively locked in, extremely prominent bass work, a Howe transitional solo and Kaye’s organ holding the strands together. Anderson and harmony vocals don’t enter until 1:30, with a tempo change, a Hammond B-3 bed and lyrics that are both evocative and opaque: “Yesterday a morning came, a smile upon your face/Caesar’s palace, morning glory, silly human race.”
Instrumental effects and changes in dynamics and tempo continue to oscillate, circling back like a classical sonata to theme and variations. There are sections that sound like prime King Crimson or Genesis; the arrangement keeps us guessing. At the 6:00 mark, Howe performs a dazzling series of solos in different styles, but isn’t allowed to linger before Anderson re-enters. At this point the lyrics are even wilder: “Battleships confide in me and tell me where you are/Shining flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are.”
Strangely, the next track is “Clap,” a Chet Atkins-style acoustic guitar piece recorded at Howe’s very first live gig with Yes, at the London Lyceum on July 17th, 1970. Incorrectly and unfortunately listed as “The Clap” on the original LP, it’s a fine showcase for Howe, but what it’s doing sequenced between “Yours Is No Disgrace” and another nine-minute epic, “Starship Trooper,” is a mystery. Surely such a contrast would have worked better tucked somewhere on side two? Howe laid down a longer version of “Clap” at Advision, but it wasn’t released until 2003 when Rhino issued an expanded CD of the album.
“Starship Trooper” is in three parts running together, with “Life Seeker” written by Anderson, “Disillusion” by Squire and Howe’s “Würm.” Anderson’s at his peak, and again the instrumentalists are constantly impressive and in motion. Listen to Bruford’s variations as he moves around the kit and Squire puts in spectacular punctuation. At one point, Howe’s guitar track is run through a flanger, giving it a synthetic sound. He also does another Atkins-like country backing for a multi-tracked vocal grouping. Howe’s final section is a solid rocker that pounds a couple of chords into submission, Kaye dominating the background and Howe up front.
Yes rose at the same time that free-form FM radio stations were sprouting in every market. Song length was no concern for the programmers and DJs, who had no problem playing the full versions of “Roundabout” (8:29), “Starship Trooper” (9:23), “And You and I” (10:09) and “Close to the Edge” (18:50), which took up an entire side of the LP of the same name. Though edits of these songs for the most part failed to click with Top 40 programmers—at a time when rock bands were still a pop radio mainstay—their lack of mainstream appeal didn’t diminish their fans’ enthusiasm.
Diehards understand that that wasn’t what the band was about. This wasn’t a singles band. Yes made albums. And they did so with great regularity, releasing eight in a six-year span from 1969 to 1974 including 1973’s live triple-LP Yessongs. The band’s third release, 1971’s The Yes Album, featured Anderson and Howe (making his Yes debut), co-founder and bassist extraordinaire Chris Squire, and Yes original members keyboardist Tony Kaye and drummer Bill Bruford.
Side two begins with a two-parter meshing Anderson’s “Your Move” and Squire’s “All Good People.” The first half, with lyrics that use a game of chess as a metaphor for relationships, was released as a single and did get some AM airplay, but the FM dial took to the whole thing and made it ubiquitous, helping “The Yes Album” on its slow but steady trek to gold record status when released on February 19th, 1971.
“Your Move” utilizes a drum-bass tape loop, which was Offord’s solution to a frustrating session in which Bruford and Squire laboured hard but couldn’t get it right for long enough. Listen for Howe’s overdubbed 12-string. Squire’s bouncy “All Good People” is about as jaunty as Yes ever got, and it’s remained a fan favourite for 50 years.
“A Venture,” written by Anderson, fades in on Kaye’s delicate piano, Howe chimes in and the track becomes a very Beatlesque upbeat romp. On an extended version, released in 2014 as part of a deluxe CD/Blu-ray reissue supervised and remixed by Steve Wilson, there’s nearly two minutes of extra soloing, Howe and Bruford doing some excellent work. Offord has said he regrets the early fade on the original LP. The album concludes with the strong “Perpetual Change.”
It’s got a very cinematic, dramatic opening, after which Howe does a brief countrified electric solo, and the tumult dies out for Anderson’s gentle entry. The choppy main theme re-enters (listen what Bruford does here), and then, true to the title, it switches back into a lower gear. Much of the track consists of two overdubbed Yes bands playing in different time signatures.
The LP features four all-time classic rock greats: “Yours Is No Disgrace,” “Starship Trooper,” “I’ve Seen All Good People” and “Perpetual Change.” All are featured on “Yessongs”, which was recorded during their 1972 North American tours. Bruford performs on two of the collection’s tracks, but left the group after they finished recording Close to the Edge that summer. His replacement was Alan White and the result on the remainder of the tour and for the next several years was—despite the band’s numerous iterations—the one that many define as the classic Yes lineup: Anderson, Squire, Howe, Wakeman and White.
“The Yes Album” was very successful, and Yes was at last well-established as one of rock’s perennial acts. It would be Kaye’s last album with the group (until he returned to the line up more than a decade later). They wanted him to integrate synthesizers and other electronic sounds into the mix, and he wasn’t having it. His replacement, Rick Wakeman, was more than amenable, and Yes’ next discs, “Fragile” and “Close To The Edge”, were even bigger hits. The behemoth “Tales From Topographic Oceans”, which partisans cite as the apotheosis of ’70s prog-rock, was waiting in the wings.
After a break of over four years between album releases, Australian duo Big Scary announce fourth LP ‘Daisy’. Their most playful collection to date, the tracks are full of drama – a little bit spooky and a little bit silly. It’s ok to LOL when you listen (and do a little boogie), but equally there is a thoughtfulness to be discovered within the themes and arrangements. The pair of Joanna Syme and Tom Iansek reflect broadly on superficiality, naivety and fantasy, compared with the complexities of reality, and the ongoing exercise in thoughtful living. Dynamic relationships are explored, between lovers old and new; and with the voice in your head.
Since releasing their last album ‘Animal’ in 2016 the pair have dived into broader creative projects. Tom has released three albums across solo project #1 Dads and duo No Mono, and produced or engineered releases for Maple Glider, Tom Snowdon, The Paper Kites, Airling and Bec Sykes. Jo created a second label imprint Hotel Motel Records (the first being Pieater, run with Tom Iansek and manager Tom Fraser); releasing four LPs, eight EPs and many singles; and toured Australia and Canada with the likes of Quivers and Cool Sounds, as well as working the Pieater releases.
All songs written and performed by Big Scary, except for “Bursting At The Seams” where extra percussion was performed by Jim Rindfleish and live strings were performed by Emma Kelly
Subtitled “Glam Queens And Street Urchins (1970-1976)”, this new set is loosely a follow up 2019’s well-received RPM 3CD box All The Young Droogs. This time round Roxy Music, Mott The Hoople and The Troggs rub shoulders with lesser-known combs like Streak, Rococo and Rosie.
On first inspection this new compilation “Oh! You Pretty Things” seems to explore the shiny and brash glam explosion, which became the first true UK pop craze of the 1970s, plus its more “serious” and diverse “older brother” underground rock. But in between we have talented singer-songwriters, proto-punk maniacs, would-be natural heirs to The Small Faces and a boatload of opportunists, among the many other shades of early 70s pop. This does seem to me to be squarely a follow up to the All The Young Droogs 3CD set of a year or two ago and includes some of the same artists too. That isn’t really a big deal as far as I’m concerned, because that was an excellent selection box of the era . It does, however, give Oh! You Pretty Things a lot to live up to.
Naturally inhabiting the same terrain to All The Young Droogs, this new set adds vital detail to what has these days become something of a glittering myth. Glam has become as much a 1970s cliché as dark, foreboding streets, terrible interior design, rumblings of industrial discontent, power cuts and three tv channels that shut off at midnight. Really just an overfamiliar trope purpose-built to be mocked on We Love The 70s-type clip shows. Yet despite this it had real, lasting value and revitalised what was becoming a very dull music scene. Glam only made a limited impact in America, despite being the place pioneers of the style like the Velvets, the Warhol crowd and The Stooges initially emerged from, but in Britain, it was big news.
What isn’t often recalled is that even though thousands of kids all over the UK embraced glam as their own, virtually everyone else in the country hated it and weren’t exactly backwards in lambasting the whole thing. Much like punk, which couldn’t conceivably occurred without glam, all-comers from the Peter Pan of pop Cliff to the NME, from guardians of the nation’s morals to “serious” rock fans, lined up to vent their collective loathing for the glitter pop scene which occupied centre stage.
Old duffers were outraged to see bands in wild outfits and pretty boys in make up, whilst hip music journos sneered peevishly “they can’t play” and “it’s all a money-making con”. Ring any bells? Even though many of the glam ranks came directly from the 1960s generation, a good few of their contemporaries weren’t happy with the situation either. Perhaps being usurped as no longer being the bright young things upsetting the oldies, but becoming the “oldies” themselves, is what irked them. The passing of the years matured the 60s rebels into the new establishment, whereas the glam rockers were just toting some frothy, pure fun for a generation too young to enjoy the fruits of the swinging decade. Even some of the bands codified under the glam label weren’t too happy about it, witness Blackfoot Sue’s scathing Glam Obituary on disc one of this set
But we’re only getting half or possibly three quarters of the story of Oh! You Pretty Things by focussing on solely glam, because a lot else was happening too, with underground rock not a total thing of the past and would-be proto-punks making their first steps. So let us delve into the music, which when all is said and done will determine whether or not you choose to pursue this set further.
The first disc certainly comes out swinging with four big-name acts. Roxy Music open things up with Pyjamarama and there’s probably not a better scene-setter than could have been selected, still sounding otherworldly and like a future yet to be discovered, but also zeroing the listener into the sense of wonder and imagination of the best of the early 1970s UK pop scene. ELO follow with the atypically tough Ma-Ma-Ma Belle and Sparks seems well on the way to inventing new wave a couple of years early on Barbercutie. Here they weld Eddie Cochran riffs to The Who’s original power-pop attack but, aided by the strangeness intrinsic to the Maels, it becomes something completely of their own. Given the boxset’s title it is natural that The Pretty Things are here and the tuneful and assured Joey just goes to show what a valuable outfit they still were.
Front cover stars The Hollywood Brats could have gone on and become one of the UK’s top bands of the time, They were bold, brash and trashy with great tunes, but being ahead of their time and the chaos that surrounded them didn’t help. As it was, they laboured away in obscurity, which doesn’t make Tumble With Me any less great. There’s so much on this disc of note, but space dictates this will have to be a whistle-stop tour. Hopefully most people know how fabulous Be Bop Deluxe, Ian Hunter, The Kinks and Hawkwind are and their contributions here, respectively Teenage Archangel, One Bitten Twice Shy, Powerman and the punk soul Kerb Crawler, all cut the mustard.
Mick Ronson’s spirited cover of White Light White Heat was a cast-off from the Pin Ups album sessions and it would be inaccurate not to mention that the considerable shadow of David Bowie hangs over this set. Most obviously, Simon Turner covers The Prettiest Star, Dana Gillespie does a cool take of Andy Warhol and DB’s underlying influence is usually somewhere to be found in the background.
Among the lesser well-known artists are Peter Perrett’s pre-Only Ones band England’s Glory. Their Bright Lights may have a bit of VU influence, something that is strongly suggested in the sleeve notes, but this song is heart-breaking in a way only Pete could do. Peter Meaden proteges Streak reimagine The Stooges as a pop act on the fine On The Ball and Blue Movie Star, an unreleased song by obscure five-piece Rococo, is a fast and explosive effort which wouldn’t shame Sparks. Gary Holton’s Heavy Metal Kids give us the tearaway anthem The Cops Are Coming and Send Me The Bill For Your Friendship is a bitter, brilliant song right out of the top drawer by the late Duncan Browne, a visionary artist who thoroughly deserves more acclaim. The Pink Fairies rough and ready Street Urchin finishes things off for what is a top quality platter from beginning to end.
Moving on to the second part of Oh! You Pretty Things, you would think that this disc would have trouble following up its predecessor. But when you open up with Slade’s grandstanding breakthrough number one Take Me Bak ‘Ome, Thin Lizzy (with a fuzzy and tough rocker Little Darling), Lou Reed And John Cale as four out of the first five offerings, you know the standard set is not going to drop. Lou is represented by the peerless Satellite Of Love and Cale goes back to his VU roots on the menacing chug of Gun. It is the mix between the bigger bands/singers of the time and new discoveries unearthed which makes this set so appealing.
After this initial blast (and one shouldn’t forget Zior’s infectious stomp Cat’s Eyes among Noddy, Phil and the Velvets), we enter a run of proto-punks. The mighty Jess Hector is a nailed-on certainty for this kind of collection and his Hammersmith Gorillas rarely failed. They certainly don’t on Shame, Shame, Shame, where a mid-60s mod pop number is kitted out with prime 70s raunch and solid playing. Knox of The Vibrators crops up in Despair, who provide us with the busy and pleasing Lady EasyAction and the excellent Doctors Of Madness, who give us a demo version of B-Movie Bedtime, show here how far ahead of the crowd they were in 1975. Iggy crops up with Mainman demo Gimme Some Skin and Third World War get bluesy on the class conscious Rat Crawl.
There is so much to dig and excite here, one is tempted to write about every track. Curved Air are alarmingly punky on The Purple Speed Queen and Agnes Strange (a band from Southampton, not a female singer) seem to anticipate The Pistols’ Did You No Wrong on Give Yourself A Chance. Rosie, a spin-off band from Streak, are a real discovery, appearing like a slightly restrained Hammersmith Gorillas on their decidedly non-PC Rosie’s Coming To Town (it was a different time, as I think I once heard someone say) and The mighty Troggs bump and grind on Strange Movies. Tim Curry’s cast recording from The Rocky Horror Show Sweet Transvestite hits the sweet spot betwixt spoof and authenticity and Wayne County, who was another huge influence on all things glam and punk, shows again why his/her work should be more lauded with the fast and funny Queenage Baby.
We arrive at the final disc of Oh! You Pretty Things with The Dolls’ Personality Crisis, the album version with producer Todd Rundgren’s flowing piano part. Then Slough’s Tina Harvey does a more or less straight cover of I’m Waiting For The Man, a record that arrived just that a few months early for the punk crowd. I know I’m biased but to me John Howard is one of this country’s best songsmiths and early recording Small Town, Big Adventures shows his muse already fully formed. It is stuffed full of great lines and cut with a breezy, elegant style. Brett Smiley’s Space Age is full-blown glam mayhem and this opening salvo makes Leo Sayer’s actually quite pretty tune The Dancer seem inconsequential in comparison.
A Raincoat, a pseudonym for studio boffin Andy Arthurs, cut an irresistible camp gem in I Love You For Your Mind (Not Your Body) and Duffy’s The Browns is the kind of 1960s character study The Small Faces and The Kinks specialised in, updated for glitter rock times. Who knows who the berk was at Chrysalis who decided not to issue The Winkies’ superb freewheeling rocker Last Chance as a single. Given a chance it may well have given them a much deserved leg-up. Then The Flamin’ Groovies prove with their back to basics sound Dog Meat they were helping to prepare the ground for punk, prior to jangling themselves right back to the sixties with Shake Some Action.
Spiv, from London, veer close to heavy metal on high energy rocker Little Girl. So much so that it is no surprise that drummer Tony Church later played in NWOBHM band Shadowfax. JesseHector returns with more brutal and beautiful sounds in High School Dropout, cut with his pre-Gorillas outfit Crushed Butler. If this is the sound of “three ugly heavy musicians making music to match” sign me up right now!
The Hollywood Stars were put together by Kim Fowley as a LA version of the New York Dolls, though the premeditation doesn’t harm the slightly bluesy rocker King Of The Night TimeWorld. The set finishes with Alex Harvey’s semi-autobiographical The Last Of The Teenage Idols and Mott’s eternal Saturday Gigs – it’s hard not to think The Clash may have got their start as a combo of these two, they are such brilliant snapshots of the early 1970s you can almost touch it.
I’m not going to be making any apologies for raving about this set – it is brilliantly put together and sequences top-notch better known material with rarities in a way that had me jumping out of my seat with joy. As usual with these kind of sets we get nuggets of information and pictures of the artists in the accompanying booklet and the clamshell box it comes in for me gives it that touch of quality the slipcase simply doesn’t. Oh! You Pretty Things is as good a survey of the glam times as we are likely to see and massively enjoyable to listen to.
Released on Grapefruit Records 3CD | DL “Oh! You Pretty Things”
Kid Congo, who’s played in Gun Club, The Cramps, The Bad Seeds and more, releases a new EP that’s a tribute to the late non-binary, African American singer and Los Angeles legend Sean De Lear. It’s been a while. He’s got a new EP of groovin’ garage goodness with some songs about life, death and the slippery world of memory and dreams. Here he comes strutting on out of the desert in a pale pink linen suit just as cool as an evening breeze. Kid Congo might be dressed sharp and have things weighing on his mind but he’s not to cool to bust a move or throw some shapes. His band The Pink Monkey Birds know all about shaking their tail feathers and so “Swing From The Sean DeLear” is an infectiously funky set that’ll have you toe tappin’, head noddin’ and finger snappin’ before you even know it.
Kicking off with the title track, ‘Sean DeLear’ is a rough and excitable stomp with some old school Iggy Pop swagger about it. The song is a remembrance and a celebration of a Los Angeles underground star. Sean DeLear was a non-binary, African American singer and scene fixture, by all accounts a force of nature and embodiment of the sort of subcultural vitality we’re all sadly missing these days, sat at home watching our screens. The band kick out the jams to keep the flame burning. Eventually ‘Sean DeLear’ wanders off into the night in search of further adventure and the tune unravels. ‘(Are You) Ready, Freddy?’ brings the full tilt rock ‘n’ roll freak out ending that it might have got. Apparently a staple of their live set it’s an overheated guitar riot, with occasional yells of the title, anchored by the pulse of its tight, elastic bassline and hectic, driving drums.
“We’re at the end of the end of privilege.” Now here’s something, Kid hasn’t gone in much on politics in the past but these have been some severely trying times for us all, ‘(I Can’t Afford) Your Shitty Dreamhouse’ is a righteous middle finger to the man. A traditional rock ‘n’ roll “fuck you” to an ugly establishment consensus of “racist, conservative… disgusting bullshit.” More than the increasingly impossible dream of a secure, affordable, home the dream house here is a particular vision of America. That sickly nostalgia for a better day that never was. I puzzled over the line “get your hair, out of my hair” but I’m now pretty sure it refers to the mysterious coiffure of the last President, whose time in office Kid seems to have sat out as a recording artist. All that fun and the tune is infectiously, unstoppably, funky into the bargain, clap your hands and chant along brothers and sisters.
The final track is an hallucinatory wonder. A loose Chicano groove that takes your hand and leads you into the dream space. There’s atmospheric flute breezing by through a kind of tough cocktail jazz. Kid pops up with an occasional spoken interlude. These concern a dream in which his friend and former Gun Club bandmate, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, wanders into his kitchen to pay a visit. Pierce has been dead 25 years but there’s no great revelation passed on or anything particularly eventful that occurs, just Kid’s warm sense of happiness in seeing his friend again that fills the whole track. About midway through the tempo picks up and the playing becomes a touch more dramatic but the magic of it is that it just kind of hangs there, a full 14 minutes worth of percolating sound without a big lyrical narrative or even really much in the way of musical development and yet it rolls by without ever dragging its feet.
It’s a joy and a surprise, which seems to be how Kid Congo felt about the dream itself. This whole EP is solid greatness, really a spirit lifting tonic. It’s good to welcome them back, the band sounding sharp and limitless. Hopefully it means a new album is out there on the not too far horizon. In the meantime this will do just fine.
“Swing From The Sean DeLear” by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds: In The Red Records
Valerie June has shared a new climactic, string-laden piano ballad from her upcoming album “The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers”. Valerie June’s voice is always great, but it really soars on this one. Produced by Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Alicia Keys, John Legend) and Valerie June, “The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers” is sweeping and ambitious with earthy R&B production and a touch of psychedelia amidst its astral folk-pop orchestration, the pair arrived at a sound that is elegant and endlessly surprising. At the center is June’s spellbinding vocals and infectious sense of wonder that finds the Brooklyn-via-Memphis artist narrating the often precarious journey to joyful possibility. The ethereal clip for “Why The Bright Stars Glow” embodies a dreamer’s aura as Valerie’s shimmering figure cuts against a night sky.
Conjuring a next-generation fusion of folk, soul, gospel, country and transcendental blues,The Moon and Stars, Prescriptions For Dreamers, Valerie June’s third full-length album for Fantasy Records is a deeply affecting work of genuine beauty and unassuming wonder.
“Why The Bright Stars Glow” from the album “The Moon And Stars:Prescriptions For Dreamers”,out March 12th, 2021 via Fantasy Records.
On Tuesday, Wild Pink shared a video for their new single “Pacific City.” It served as the fourth single from their new album, “A Billion Little Lights”, which came out today on Royal Mountain Records. Keith Pratt directed the video. For the past several months, John Ross has been building up to the release of his new album as Wild Pink, “A Billion Little Lights”. So far we’ve heard several songs from it,
Frontman John Ross speaks about the inspiration behind the new song in a press release: “‘Pacific City’ is named after the city in Oregon and I was watching Heat a lot while writing it. I wanted to write a few songs with a conventional song structure on this album and this was one of them—we spent a lot of time on the drum tones and used a Yamaha RX21 drum machine. The song is about time passing and realizing you’re not the same person you used to be.”
The band previously shared the songs “The Shining But Tropical,” “You Can Have It Back,” and “Oversharers Anonymous” from the album. Their last album, Yolk in the Fur, came out in 2018 on Tiny Engines.
Matt Berninger of The National released his debut solo album, “Serpentine Prison”, last October via Book, Berninger’s new imprint with Concord. Today he announced a new deluxe edition of the album that includes six extra bonus tracks (four covers and two originals) and shared one of those extra tracks, “Let It Be,” which is an original song and not a Beatles cover. This solemn retrospective track marks a new venture for the rock artist as he explores the development and evolution of a friendship. The deluxe edition of Berninger’s Serpentine Prison will be available on March 12th digitally and March 21th, physically. Featuring six bonus tracks, including “Let It Be” and an unnamed second original track Berninger has included covers of Eddie Floyd’s “Big Bird”,Morphine’s “In Spite Of Me,” Bettye Swan’s “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye” and the Velvet Underground’s “European Son”.
The deluxe edition is due out digitally March 12th.
Previously Berninger shared the album’s title track, “Serpentine Prison,” via a video for it. Then he shared another song from it, “Distant Axis,” via a video for it. Then he shared another song from it, “One More Second,”. Then he shared a remix of “One More Second” by Baltimore four-piece Future Islands. Booker T. Jones produced the album “Serpentine Prison”, with additional production by Sean O’Brien. In addition to the release of Serpentine Prison, 2020 saw Berninger collaborating with a whole host of industry talent, from Taylor Swift on her Evermore track “Coney Island” and Australian singer-songwriter Julia Stone on the St. Vincent– produced “We All Have,” which will feature on her upcoming album Sixty Summers. As well as joining forces with synth-pop outfit Future Islands for a remix of his single “One More Second.”
The album is dedicated to Berninger’s grandmother Elaine and his college professor Gordon Salchow.
The official lyric video for Matt Berninger “Let It Be”. “This is a new song about an old frenemy. Not Paul McCartney or Westerberg.” Taken from the deluxe edition of his 2020 solo debut album, “Serpentine Prison”.
Nearly three years on from that release (for Bernice a rapid turnaround by comparison to the seven-year gap between their 2011 debut and Puff), the band return with their third full-length, Eau de Bonjourno, out March 5th from Telephone Explosion and Figureeight records. It marks their first collaboration with producer Shahzad Ismaily, the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist who has worked with artists as varied as Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, John Zorn, and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. While their genre reconstruction remains distinctly Bernice,
Dann’s lyrics bring a newfound focus to storytelling in the present moment, compassionately meeting ourselves where we are, and finding joy in spaces that are familiar but ever changing.
Eau de Bonjourno, according to Dann, “openly plays with the shape of a pop song,” drawing on the band members’ backgrounds in jazz, subverting rhythmic formulas, and resting in grooves that sit just outside of predictable. Instead of letting instruments take extended solos, the tone is set on opener “Groove Elation” with brief blurts of synthesized sax, patient passages of space, or clusters of beats, tenderly held together by Dann and Williams’ intimate vocals. The album’s sound is experimental in its truest definition, chopped up like musique concrète and then delicately placed back together with the loving touch of a scrapbook collagist.
We Choose You a song about the impossible present and the necessary future. Featuring the brilliance of Matthew Pencer’s production/mixing, the elegance of jake shermanwooo ‘s vocoding, and as ever the boldness of recording & friendship.
New song & video shared today !! it’s called It’s Me, Robin the video was made by Sonia Beckwith and Thom Gill it feels like a real accurate reflection of where I’m at these days, which can often not be the case when releasing music / videos as it takes so much time between the making and the releasing. This one still buzzes in me. Our album will be out March 5th on Telephone Explosion Records
The upcoming arrival of our newest album, entitled “Eau De Bonjourno”, to be released March 5th 2021 on Telephone Explosion Records here in North America and on Figureight Records in the EU/UK.
The Band:
Robin Dann, Thom Gill, Dan Fortin. Felicity Williams, Phil Melanson,
The Fat Angel Sings 