The prodigiously talented Jeff Buckley only made one studio album, 1994’s Grace, before his accidental drowning in the Mississippi River in 1997, but his estate has continued to release a wealth of posthumous material. These range from top notch material like the drafts for his second album, released as Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, as well as great songs like ‘Forget Her’, a Grace outtake, but his clearing of the decks has also felt like it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel with releases like Grace Around the World.
But despite all the archival activity, one fascinating song by Buckley remains in the archive – collaborator Elizabeth Fraser has dismissed the song as “unfinished, you see. I don’t want it to be heard.” Fraser, the lead singer of the Cocteau Twins, previously recorded a version of Tim Buckley’s ‘Song to the Siren’ in the mid 1980s. She was in a relationship with Jeff Buckley in the mid 1990s, and they sang together on ‘All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun’. Even if it’s unvarnished, with Fraser and Buckley only accompanied by an acoustic guitar, it’s still enthralling – two unique, spectacular voices in an unlikely pairing.
Fraser struck up an intense relationship with Jeff Buckley after they became infatuated with each other’s voices. Again, emotion produced music. This sublime duet they recorded called All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun is around the internet, to her irritation.
“Why do people have to hear everything?” she complains. I tell her it’s wonderful. “But it’s unfinished, you see. I don’t want it to be heard.” There’s a pause. “Maybe I won’t always think that.”
Buckley died in 1997, by which time they had lost touch – Fraser had grown frustrated with his constant touring, a reaction that weighs heavily on her. “I just wish I’d been more of a friend,” she says, softly. “His career was everything to him, and I wish I had been more understanding – happy with a different kind of relationship. I missed out on something there, and it was my fault.”
The news that Buckley had disappeared – he drowned, swimming in the Wolf river in Memphis – came while Fraser was recording Teardrop with Massive Attack. “That was so weird,” she says. “I’d got letters out and I was thinking about him. That song’s kind of about him – that’s how it feels to me anyway.” It seems she is haunted by guilt: for not being there for Buckley, for everything. As she puts it: “I need to forgive myself.”
Unreleased (unfinished) acoustic track by Jeff Buckley and Elizabeth Fraser. Recorded sometime around 1995-1996.
When her debut album At Weddings made a fleeting appearance on bandcamp late last year, we fell in love with Tomberlin‘s devastating “Self-Help“, an exquisite, achingly intimate inner devotional that was intensely moving and quietly powerful in a way that recalled Seven Swans-era Sufjan. At Weddings will see a proper release this week via Saddle Creek Records, and Tomberlin shares the gauzy Laura-Lynn Petrick-directed visuals for another beautiful, poignant gem from the record, “Any Other Way“. At Weddings is out this Friday.
Tomberlin – “I’m Not Scared” From the album At Weddings – Out 10th August.
Saddle Creek Records are to release that very debut. It’s called At Weddingsand is due out 10th August. We’ve already gotten two great reasons why it should be on your radar, and now here’s yet another one.
Tomberlin’s new single “I’m Not Scared” is still very much of a piece with the previous ones we’ve heard. It’s a fairly somber track, but once again the voice of Sarah Beth Tomberlin is so striking in its emotive delicacy it’s hard not to get totally wrapped up in it. This song uses mostly piano to create a gorgeous thick layer of atmosphere with its hanging notes that lend to its even pace.
Of the song, Sarah Beth Tomberlin says “It is abrasive, heavy, but packaged delicately. I feel like many people view women as such — shrill and emotionally burdensome but responsible for consistently presenting themselves pleasantly. Gentle and affable – their warmth a tool to heal often with no regard for the state of the body and mind that warmth permeates from. Women, and especially queer, trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming people, have such a capacity for pain. Physical, mental, emotional, psychological pain. This is a hymn-like song in the way that it moves melodically. A reflection on that suffering. I didn’t realize the full meaning when I wrote it. The weight of the song didn’t hit me until I was listening to the final recording. It is kind of like leaving a person or situation that is really abusive and not realizing how much it affects your psyche until you’ve removed yourself completely. You look back and you realize you are strong, even though that is the last word you would use to describe how you feel.”
Credits: Music + lyrics by Sarah Beth Tomberlin Sarah Beth Tomberlin – guitar, Wurlitzer, vocals Owen Pallett – guitar, Prophet 6, and background vocals
Produced, recorded, and mixed by Owen Pallett at M’s House + Owen’s House
Untitled 2 recorded on my phone
Album cover art by Sarah Beth Tomberlin
The first time Chicago’s Campdogzz graced my ears, I couldn’t help but feel similarly to when I first heard Hop Along. The Jess Price led quintet has a knack for writing driving, powerful music, evocative of sonorous midwest roads and stopovers. They notched a moderate hit with 2015’s “The Well,” off a promising debut record that sees Price delivering with Frances Quinlan-like fervor. In Rounds will be the first new release on Cursive’s recently established 15 Passenger label and Price’s commanding vocals are already on full display atop the dizzying riffs and consonance of “Souvenir.” Campdogzz capture the bleak yet spirited heart of the industrial midwest in a five-piece band propelled by driving rhythms, insistent dual guitars set in intriguing arrangements, and the haunting, evocative songs and voice of Tulsa native Jess Price. In a moment, Jess turnsa beguiling melody to a darkening storm, rich in portent and meaning.
Campdogzz have earned a devoted following in Chicago and the midwest, with a lineup that has solidified into a potent live band featuring Jess Price (lead vocals, guitar and keyboard); Mike Russell (guitar and backup vocals); Nick Enderle (guitar); Mahmoud Haygood (bass); and Matt Evert (drums). In addition to their own headlining shows and tours (until recently conveyed by a school bus rigged for self-sufficient touring and camping; if you don’t know where to get the best falafel in every American city, you are definitely not a Campdog), the band has opened for Big Thief, Sam Evian, Ohmme, Tim Kasher and others. They were recently seen in the first season of the Netflix series, “Easy,” recorded a popular Audiotree live video session, and self-released “Riders in the Hills of Dying Heaven” in 2015. That early recording has been streamed nearly 2 million times. Now, Campdogzz are poised to come aggravate your blues, bang your head, and remind you where you are on the long road away from home.
Bandmembers
Mike Russell,
Jess Price,
Nicholas Enderle,
Andrew Rolfsen,
Matt Evert,
Our first introduction to the character of young Max Fischer in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore comes by way of his lengthy extracurricular resume—Stamp & Coin Club, Fencing Team, Trap & Skeet Club, Rushmore Beekeepers, etc etc etc. But just as memorable as Fischer’s list of exploits is the music that scores it: the fuzzed-out 1966 single “Making Time” by the UK group The Creation.
The song, which kicks against the mundanity of working in a clock factory, is cut from the same cloth as equally ecstatic mid ‘60s anthems like The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and The Who’s “My Generation,” and with good reason: all three were produced by Shel Talmy, a Chicago native who spent the meat of the 1960s living in London. In The Creation, Talmy saw a band willing to push the boundaries of rock ‘n’ roll, and to explore the use of noise and overdrive in the context of melodically-driven tunes. Where the feedback Talmy added to The Who’s “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere” was rejected by Decca Records (they thought there was something wrong with the test pressing), The Creation, led by singer Kenny Pickett and guitarist Eddie Phillips, were more than willing to crank things up to 11. Phillips even ramped up the noise factor by using a violin bow on his electric guitar, a technique that would be hijacked by Jimmy Page a year later when he made his debut as the new member of The Yardbirds and then, more famously, in Led Zeppelin.
Eddie Phillips was looking for was something that would give me a long sustain, and the fuzzbox wasn’t even invented yet back then. So to get that long sustain, I thought maybe what I could do was to get a thing that would make the bottom E play while I can hammer on notes on the top E. First thing that I tried to do was take a hacksaw and put a bottom E guitar string in it, so the windings on the one string would go one way and the strings on my guitar would go the other way and these windings would sort of rub on each other to make the sound I was looking for, which it did. But unfortunately, the hacksaw cut some scars on the guitar neck, and those scars were still there when Dave from XTC took it.
Biff! A violin bow scrapes across the strings of a guitar
Bang! The hiss of a an aerosol can releases paint on to canvas
Pow! As the violin bow pierces the canvas.
Sadly, the band never scored a hit single during their initial run, but a decade after they split up, Boney M.’s Eurodisco version of “Painter Man” finally put The Creation in the UK Top 10. As it turned out, this was only the beginning of a wave of appreciation for the group: The cover art for their single “Biff Bang Pow” can be seen on the inside of The Jam’s classic third LP All Mod Cons, and, in the ‘80s, Alan McGee decided to call his new record label “Creation,” in direct tribute to the group. The label’s earliest signings—the Jesus & Mary Chain, Ride, Swervedriver—all shared The Creation’s signature fondness for noise and distortion.
The scant yet sacred discography The Creation produced during their initial two-year run has been compiled and released a number of times over the course of the last 50 years, but the Numero Group’s new collection Action Painting is by far the most exhaustive anthology to date. A beautifully-packaged, two-disc hardcover box set, Action Painting gathers up all the original singles recorded by the group’s original lineup and pairs them with songs by their first iteration as The Mark Four, as well as newly mixed versions of the group’s most well-known tunes. Like the originals, the remixes were produced by Talmy who, at 79 and legally blind, is still a genuine master of amplified fidelity.
Creation guitarist Eddie Phillips comments aboutAction Painting, as well as the history of one of the most electrifying, influential, and underrated acts to emerge from the British Invasion.
We were on [‘60s music TV show] Ready Steady Go the same week Little Richard was on it. After the show, we did a two-week tour of the UK with him, which was a real gas. He didn’t really come very often to the UK. But when you talk about an awesome performer—he really was that. It was just fantastic.
He signed my cherry red Gibson 335 , ‘To Eddie, Good Luck Always, Little Richard.’ After I left The Creation, I still stayed friends with Kenny Pickett, and I lent him the guitar in the early ‘70s for a short period of time. While he had it, the neck got broken. He called me afterwards and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I sort of had an accident with your guitar. Can I buy it off of you?’ So I sold it to him for 100 quid. Then, it ended up in the hands of Dave Gregory from XTC. Dave said he needed to bring it in for repairs—because I half-wrecked the guitar to begin, with using the bow on it—and, unfortunately, Little Richard’s autograph got rubbed off. How mad is that?
John Lydon used to say that The Creation was one of The Sex Pistols’ favorite bands, and they actually covered “Through My Eyes.” They featured [that cover] in that movie that came out about them around 20 years ago, The Filth and The Fury.Our songs crop up in strange places. They made a movie about Jimi Hendrix a couple of years ago, and they used “Through My Eyes” in the movie.
When I first heard Oasis, I just thought they were a ripoff of The Creation. Well, not a ripoff , but you knew they looked at our videos and listened to our songs. Plus, the way Liam Gallagher was onstage, that persona—it looked to me as though he got that from Kenny Pickett, because Kenny had this arrogance about him when he was on the stage. Oasis used to remind me of The Creation quite a lot. We actually did a night at the Royal Albert Hall, and it was a Creation Records birthday bash. When we were on there we played a few songs as The Creation with the original lineup.
We loved the 1960s Batman; I personally don’t enjoy the new Batman movies. I quite prefer the lighter, campier Batman with Adam West and Burt Ward. We got the title for “Biff Bang Pow” from those captions in the show when somebody gets knocked on the chin. We would actually open our live sets with the Batman theme, and we’d really rock that thing.
If kaleidoscopic psych that blends florid Tropicália with hypnotic drones, churning motorik and gritty garage gives you any kind of thrill, you owe it to your neurotransmitters to roll up for The Psychics. Their last EP 4×3 will work your frontal lobes, too, as its catchy and delightfully disorienting tunes offer insightful looks at everything from drug experiences to the role of art in society. It’s also the first release from the slimmed-down version of the band that relocated to Music City from Bloomington, Ind., last year, trimming down their name in the process — though they are no longer “Jerome and the Psychics,” the enigmatic Jerome X remains the frontman.
The band Foxing have always been ambitious. From its ornate music videos to the post-rock sprawl of 2015’s album Dealer, the band has never taken the direct route to anything. This was evident even before Nearer My God was released, as the band put out five different versions of the title track, each one seeing vocalist Conor Murphy tackle the song in a different language. It was impressive, not only because it showcased how strong Murphy’s singing has become since the release of Foxing’s debut album, The Albatross,in 2013, but also because it hinted at the full scope of the group’s latest.
While Foxing was once pegged as an emo band, it always wanted to achieve more, and Nearer My Godis proof of it. Opener “Grand Paradise” is more Prince than The Promise Ring, with thunderous electronic claps serving as the backbeat to Murphy’s effects-drenched voice. Even when Foxing plays the part of a rock band, the songs buck easy definition. “Slapstick,” “Nearer My God,” and “Crown Candy” are all expansive works that pull from post-rock, indie, soul, and electronic without feeling like some ham-fisted combination. It’s as impressive as it is expansive, .
No one song easily encapsulates the record, but listen to “Slapstick” and watch the accompanying video to get a sense of the sheer scope of this thing.
Upon first listen, The Beths’ debut album, Future Me Hates Me, bleeds together too much, the songs slipping imperceptibly from one to the next. But soon enough, the bubble-grunge riffs and Motown-backup-singer “whoa-ohs” start to distinguish themselves. The New Zealand band has two gears: The first is a more classically pop-oriented retro sound, like a ’60s girl group doing the shimmy-shimmy-cocoa-pop but with guitars and a shoegaze influence. The second is a caffeinated ’90s alterna-rock head rush, with Superchunk-level riffs and Velocity Girl vocals courtesy of singer-guitarist Elizabeth Stokes.
It can tend toward the simplistic—the title track apes early Weezer, for example—but the middle of the album (particularly “Not Running”) shows that when the band embraces its more rambunctious and harder-edged sound, it captures something powerful. By the time the last notes of the slow-build barnburner “Less Than Thou” close things out, Stokes’ mission is clear: a joyous refusal to stop riffing, no matter how heartbroken.
The Beths‘ forthcoming album, “Future Me Hates Me.”
Hailed as the new vanguard of indie rock following the breakout success of 2016’s Puberty 2, Mitski returns with her new album Be The Cowboy, via Dead Oceans Records.
Mitski’s carefully crafted songs have often been portrayed as emotionally raw, overflowing confessionals from a fevered chosen girl, but in her fifth album, Mitski introduces a persona who has been teased before but never so fully present until now a woman in control.
“For this new record, I experimented in narrative and fiction,” comments Mitski. Though she hesitates to go so far as to say she created full-on characters, she reveals she had in mind “a very controlled icy repressed woman who is starting to unravel. Because women have so little power and showing emotion is seen as weakness, this ‘character’ clings to any amount of control she can get. Still, there is something very primordial in her that is trying to find a way to get out.”
In Be The Cowboy, Mitski delves into the loneliness of being a symbol and the loneliness of being someone, how it can feel so much like being no one. Lead single “Geyser” introduces us to a woman who can’t hold it all in any more. She’s about to burst and unleash a torrent of desire and passion that has been building up inside. While recording the album with her long-time producer Patrick Hyland, the pair kept returning to “the image of someone alone on a stage, singing solo with a single spotlight trained on them in an otherwise dark room. For most of the tracks, we didn’t layer the vocals with doubles or harmonies, to achieve that campy ‘person singing alone on stage’ atmosphere.”
There is plenty of buoyant swagger on Be The Cowboy, but just as much interrogation into self-mythology. Throughout these 14 songs, the music swerves from the cheerful to the plaintive. Mournful piano ballads lead into deceptively uptempo songs. “I had been on the road for a long time, which is so isolating, and had to run my own business at the same time. A lot of this record was me not having any feelings, being completely spent but then trying to rally myself and wake up and get back to Mitski.”
Mitski’s discography is a series of scrambled sonic cinematic reels spliced together by one of the most talented lyricists of our generation. Her fifth album, Be The Cowboy, is a new era for Mitski, carrying with it the same impossibly ripped-open emotional nudity that Mitski’s built her legacy upon over the past six years.
The Beta Band have announced details of UK. & North American tours this autumn. The shows will feature the classic line up of Steve Mason (guitar, vocals), Richard Greentree (bass), John Maclean (samples, keyboard) and Robin Jones (drums).
Speaking about the forthcoming tour, the band explained: ‘The Beta Band, as everyone knows, is an institution, like Bedlam, or the RSPCA, and as such has its own indelible stain on the bedsheet of Western culture. It was the great John Noakes who said “you have to shake it out at least once every couple of decades, if you want to know what the moths did”. So with both those facts in mind, we realise the time has come to show the wall the Luminol, kill the lights and hit the UV.’
Because Music have acquired the back catalogue of The Beta Band and will start a reissue campaign with a 4LP deluxe coloured vinyl presentation of the classic Three E.P.’s compilation. Over three EPs Champion Versions, The Patty Patty Sound, andLos Amigos del Beta Bandidos — core members Steve Mason, JohnMaclean, and Robin Jones fused rock, folk, trip-hop, ambient, house music, rap, and more with an effortlessness and humor that still makes them easy to overlook. Their most high-profile fans were Radiohead, who later solidified electronic music’s assimilation with Kid A, a landmark release they once described as their “Beta Band record.” Though the Betas went on to open for Radiohead and release three vibrant albums, they disbanded in 2004 never having fully outgrown that cult status. Speaking to member John Maclean about the breakthrough compilation The Three EPs, released 20 years ago today, and recent reissue of their airtight Best Of compilation, that underdog quality doesn’t feel like the hinderance it’s often framed as. Rather, it’s an extension of what made them so special in the first place.
The acclaimed Scottish band released just three albums and three EPs between 1996 and 2004 (when they disbanded) and it’s those three EPs – Champion Versions, The Patty Patty Sound and Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos – that were brought together to form their first ‘album’. Innovative and singular, The Beta Band’s unique musical and aesthetic approach to everything they did set them far apart from their musical contemporaries. Together for a relatively short period of time, the three albums and three EPs they released between 1996 and 2004 would nonetheless help define them as one of the most exciting and cherished bands of their generation.
The audio has been newly remastered for this release and pressed on four vinyl records, with Champion Versions pressed on RED vinyl, The Patty Patty Sound on double YELLOW vinyl and Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos on BLUE vinyl.
All the records are housed in a numbered outer slipcase which also holds a CD of the remastered audio. The Three E.P.’s deluxe vinyl set will be reissued on 14th September 2018
Champion Versions EP A1. Dry The Rain / A2. I Know / B1. B + A / B2. Dogs Got A Bone
The Patty Patty Sound EP A. Inner Meet Me / B. The House Song / C. Monolith / D. She’s The One
Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos EP A1. Push It Out / A2. It’s Over / B1. Dr. Baker / B2. Needles In My Eyes
We’re very pleased to announce that our new album ‘Only Now Forever’ will be released on the 12th October 2018 on LP / CD / Digital / Cassette via Invada Records.
The new video for the album’s first single ‘Above Us’, directed by Alden Volney, which recently premiered on Clash Magazine, Whilst holding evident inspiration from previous times, the sound this London-founded duo present is progressive and distinctly new in every sense. Idyllic at times; gritty in others, each bar is as enchanting as the last, leaving you in a melancholic trance. Offering poignant lyricism that explores modern anxieties that plague many, the duo manage to imbue feelings of empowerment, fighting such struggles with a deceivingly sanguine sound. This seamless juxtaposition is perhaps their best trait, and will appeal to fans of Depeche Mode, The Soft Moon, New Order, Nine Inch Nails, and My Bloody Valentine.
Taken from The KVB’s forthcoming album ‘Only Now Forever’. Released on Invada Records on all formats October 12th 2018.
