Archive for the ‘CLASSIC ALBUMS’ Category

BUZZCOCKS – ” Singles Going Steady “

Posted: February 15, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
0

As a member of the Buzzcocks, Shelley—alongside co-guitarist Steve Diggle, bassist Steve Garvey and drummer John Maher—released three albums (Another Music In A Different Kitchen, Love Bites and A Different Kind Of Tension) in the late ’70s which pretty much drafted the blueprint for modern pop punk.

The band originally started with frontman Howard Devoto in the lead singer slot for the infamous 1977 EP Spiral Scratch. When Devoto quit to join the band Magazine, Diggle was enlisted, and Shelley moved to the vocalist position.

During their late-’70s tenure on the United Artists label, the Buzzcocks crafted one perfect pop-punk track after another. They were masters of fractured love songs that were everything from cautionary (“Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)”) to awesomely creepy (“Orgasm Addict”). While the band had energy to spare, the tunefulness of the songs caught the ears of fans of the then-nascent new-wave scene.

June 21st, 2019, Royal Albert Hall, London: What was intended as a celebration of perhaps English punk’s most universally beloved band, The Buzzcocks, is now a wake. On December. 6th, 2018, frontman Pete Shelley died of a heart attack in Estonia, where he’d been enjoying a less hectic existence than London had afforded him for 30 years.

The occasion was supposed to be the biggest 1977 punk gig ever, with opening sets from Penetration and the Skids. The original Buzzcocks rhythm section of bassist Steve Garvey and drummer John Maher would join remaining co-guitarist/songwriter Steve Diggle and current drummer Danny Farrant and latter-day bassist Chris Remington. But now the center mic had no one manning it. The band’s guitarist and chief songwriter was gone. Diggle announced he’d keep Buzzcocks going, in an agreement made with Shelley. Valiant and appropriate, considering all the best modern-day Buzzcocks songs, such as the extraordinary “Sick City Sometimes,” were Diggle’s. When you see them on tour, he will be singing Shelley’s songs, too. But that night at Royal Albert Hall, a brace of special guests took the stage. Peter Perrett of the Only Ones; Penetration’s Pauline Murray; The Skids’ Richard Jobson; Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible of the Damned; Tim Burgess of the Charlatans UK; and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore.

For the grand finale, every single guest vocalist piled onstage to sing the greatest Buzzcocks tune, “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?).” They needn’t have bothered: All that was necessary was to turn the mic toward the audience and play instrumentally. The crowd knew every word.

This was because Shelley did write the best songs in all of punk. So good, they went beyond punk. He had a keen melodic sense. It was born of ’60s pop but leavened with a yen for the strident experimentation of German art-rock acts (Can, Neu!) and the fundamentalist rock ’n’ roll of glamsters such as David Bowie. But most important was his subject matter: He wrote supremely universal lyrics. They were almost all love songs, except no one got the object of desire in a Shelley song. And they might as well have been objects, considering gender was never specified in any of them. Perhaps this was due to his lifelong bisexuality. But it was as revolutionary as any political lyric coming out of London.

There are exactly five essential Buzzcocks albums that are stone-cold classics.

Behold the dawn of U.K. indie rock, as well as DIY and several other historic firsts. Buzzcocks were initially conceived by university students Howard Trafford and Peter McNeish in 1976, after having their Damascene moment seeing the Sex Pistols earlier that year. Diggle met them after they became Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley at the summer 1976 Pistols gig in Manchester that sired the entire local scene. (The Fall, Joy Division, Factory Records and the Smiths all start here.) Diggle was meeting someone else at the venue, and it was then Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren accidentally introduced him to the Buzzcocks singer/guitarist. With teenage Keith Moon acolyte Maher on drums, they wed a noise akin to a krautrock Ramones to Devoto’s arch lyrics, delivered in a flat yawp impossible without Johnny Rotten’s example.

Following a rough-and-ready demo session (captured on Domino’s Time’s Up LP), the band decided to properly document the sound they’d forged. Four songs were recorded in late December 1976 by Martin Hannett, the man who shaped the sound of Manchester. “It took three hours [to record], with another two for mixing,” Devoto recalled of the session. Funds exhausted, the band borrowed £500 from friends and family to press it. Released on Jan. 29th, 1977 on their own New Hormones label, Spiral Scratch made Buzzcocks the first British punk act to issue their own records. It swiftly sold out its initial thousand-copy pressing.

Historical value aside, the music makes this such a brilliant release. Crisply recorded and sonically dry, there’s an urgency to these speedy missives, especially “Breakdown” and “Time’s Up.” “Friends Of Mine” bemoans pals who keep Devoto “pissing adrenaline,” while Shelley unleashes a two-note guitar hook across “Boredom” that sounds simultaneously like a siren and the death of six-string heroics.

Almost immediately following Spiral Scratch‘s release, Devoto decided punk’s over and he’s done all he wanted with Buzzcocks. He left to finish his university studies, eventually forming prime post-punk outfit Magazine after graduation. This put Shelley in front of the centre vocal mic, enabling Diggle to return to guitar. Garth Davies assumed bass duties, replaced by the more-amenable Garvey by the time Buzzcocks signed with United Artists Records. The explosive “Orgasm Addict” 45 soon followed, guaranteed to escape airplay.

In December, the band entered the legendary Olympic Studios to essentially liquidate their inventory of Devoto-era material for a debut LP. Another Music In A Different Kitchen offered 11 slices of loud speed pop. With Maher’s animalistic drums propelling Shelley and Diggle’s hot-wired guitars, the former’s fey, delicate warble delivered lyrics surely penned by Devoto, such as the skewering of the traditional rock obsession with hot rods, “Fast Cars.” But it was on “I Don’t Mind” that Shelley previewed his vision for Buzzcocks’ future: a singles band offering a bitter view of romance, with no one getting the object of desire.

Six months after the release of their debut LP, Buzzcocks appeared bleary-eyed and disheveled from Love Bites‘ pure white sleeve. The music also sounded less upbeat than Another Music. This is the sound of a band who’d undertaken two national tours, countless Top Of The Pops appearances and issued two hit singles on the way to its creation. Not that Love Bites lacked energy. The key track is their greatest single, “Ever Fallen In Love.” Perhaps the most glorious singalong ever written, the lyrics lament a secret love that could ruin a friendship. (“I can’t see much of a future/Unless we find out what’s to blame, what a shame/And we won’t be together much longer/Unless we realize that we are the same.”) Yes, Shelley essentially wrote “Love Will Tear Us Apart” a full two years before Joy Division did. “Ever Fallen In Love” is better, however.

The greatest Buzzcocks album isn’t a proper LP. It’s a greatest hits album, assembled from the eight U.K. 45s they’d released across the previous two years, presented in sequence with the A-sides on Side One and the Bs on the reverse. Intended as a U.S. introduction to the band as they embarked on their first American tour in the second half of 1979, “Singles Going Steady” worked because it presented all of Shelley and Diggle’s best material. It’s their essential music. Buzzcocks would never record a more perfect full-length.

The last original Buzzcocks album was the sound of Shelley’s nervous breakdown, set to a precursor of modern cut-and-paste digital record production. Yes, it was recorded analogue. But all guitars and vocals were set atop tape loops of the Maher/Garvey rhythm section. Electronic elements were seeped in, flavouring even Diggle’s punk screamers (“Mad Mad Judy”). But the heart of this LP is the fragile, disturbed tunes Shelley was penning under doses of LSD. “You Say You Don’t Love Me” was the one great 45 not on Singles Going Steady. But the album’s highlight is truly the lengthy existential breakdown “I Believe,” with its shrieked refrain of “There is no love in this world anymore!” From here came the 45 RPM triptych that became 1981’s Parts 1,2, 3 and dissolution until eight years later. Buzzcocks live, since 1989.

Unlike many acts with similar beginnings, the Buzzcocks carried on making great records and sharing stages with contemporary acts. Whether he was supporting ’90s alt-rock staples (Nirvana, Pearl Jam) and still getting must-see notices on stages from Warped Tour (summer of 2006) to the 2017 Riot Fest stage, Shelley was still bringing joy, sweat and harmonies for your head, feet and heart. The man may be gone, but his place in punk history will continuously resonate and evolve.

“It’s good that people like what we do,” Shelley told AP in July 2008. “It’s an unexpected side effect because when we started out, we thought no one would like what we did at all. It was the most uncommercial form of music we were attempting to do.”

When younger fans approached him to say their parents were big fans of the Buzzcocks, Shelley would say “I congratulate them on a fine choice of parents.”

PALE WAVES – ” Who Am I “

Posted: February 15, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , , ,
0

Pale Waves Come into Their Own on <i>Who Am I?</i>

Pale Waves from the band’s very beginning. They had the dark, brooding look of an ‘80s goth act, but a discography full of danceable pop hits. Even while receiving acclaim as the NME Under The Radar Award winner before their debut album’s release, they caught heat from critics for sounding too much like other indie-pop artists. With all of the discourse on the individuality of Pale Waves (or lack thereof), their second album “Who Am I?” amplifies the qualities that caused fans to label them as the next big thing

Pale Waves are looking forward to calmer waters in 2021. Last year promised so much—the release of their sophomore album and an ensuing world tour, for one thing—but amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK indie rock band found their usually steady boat rocked by rough seas.

A near-deadly tour bus crash last March wasn’t the only life-altering event that they endured (drummer Ciára Doran, lead guitarist Hugo Silvani, and bassist Charlie Wood were lucky to escape with their lives). Self-identity struggles plagued Doran and lead singer Heather Baron-Gracie, and the usually tight-knit duo found themselves butting heads over their next album’s musical direction. Add in a life-threatening virus that completely changed how records are produced, and the physical and mental impact of numerous setbacks was taking their toll.

And yet, hope sprung eternal. The pandemic’s arrival allowed Doran, Silvani, and Wood to recover from their injuries. For Baron-Gracie, the global shutdown provided the opportunity for some long-overdue self reflection—a period that has not only led to Pale Waves’ frontwoman being more open about her sexuality and inner demons, but one that lit a creative fire.

Born out of that soul-searching is “Who Am I?”, Pale Waves’ second LP that is equal parts post-grunge and pop-rock, a middle finger to societal labels and a haven for anyone who feels lost or alone. Speaking to us over Zoom, Baron-Gracie revealed the unusual influences behind the album, discussed comparisons to The 1975, and shared why the foursome are closer than they’ve ever been.

Pale Waves excels at making the personal feel relatable on “Run To” and “Tomorrow.” While “Run To” is told from Baron-Gracie’s perspective and “Tomorrow” is a collection of stories from others, both songs take an optimistic view of the growing pains that arrive with coming of age as an outcast. With catchy and relatable one-liners like “sexuality isn’t a choice” and “everything is going well / except my mental health,” the band reaches through their past of stifling small towns and feelings of hopelessness to uplift fans who know their feelings all too well.

“Who Am I?” opens with “Change,” a track that trades the ‘80s glam synths of Pale Waves’ debut album My Mind Makes Noises in for a ‘90s-inspired acoustic guitar. The switch-up is perfect for frontwoman Heather Baron-Gracie’s vocal prowess, with the singer’s voice landing somewhere between the pop-with-an-attitude of Avril Lavigne and the raw emotion of The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan. This isn’t to say Pale Waves floats by on the nostalgia factor alone—the band translates their many inspirations into their own brand of indie pop that feels perfectly fit for 2021, with their lyrics bouncing between relationships, identity and mental health. On an album centered around a question of identity, the band is at their strongest when shouting out the answer. Few songs on the record compare to “You Don’t Own Me” in terms of pure anthemic pop-rock, as Baron-Gracie defiantly asserts, “You don’t own me / and I’ll do whatever I want to” in the face of everyday misogyny. 

The B52’s – ” Cosmic Thing ” Classic Albums

Posted: February 15, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

Albumism_TheB52s_CosmicThing_MainImage.jpg

“Cosmic Thing” is the fifth studio album by American new wave band the B-52’s, released in 1989. It contains the singles ” Love Shack ” and ” Roam “. The success of the album served as a comeback after the death of guitarist Ricky Wilson in 1985. Once The B-52’s released their underrated fourth LP Bouncing Off The Satellites in the wake of the death of guitarist Ricky Wilson, the impact of losing such a key member on the frontlines of the AIDS epidemic made it difficult to think about recording new music. For a moment, “She Brakes For Rainbows” seemed like the last song we’d ever hear from the Athens, GA new wave heroes.

“After Ricky died, we felt that the band was finished,” admits Keith Strickland, who co-wrote “Rainbows” with Wilson and also took over his major role in the band as lead guitarist. “We couldn’t imagine going on without him.”

“When Ricky died, it was very uncertain if we would continue or if we could continue,” remembers Kate Pierson, who along with Ricky’s sister Cindy Wilson comprises the iconic vocal harmonies of the band. “We all just withdrew into our own worlds for a little while and then we began communicating again. So during that time Keith moved upstate and I also bought a house up here as well. We were neighbours across the pond.” Strickland, who was living in Manhattan at the time (as was singer Fred Schneider and Wilson and her husband), felt a need to relocate from his citified surroundings. And just as such greats as Bob Dylan and Sonny Rollins had done in the past, he chose to head to Woodstock, long before it became the go-to transplant for Metro area expats.

“After Ricky died, I just wanted to get out of New York City,” he says. “I was also studying Buddhism and had on occasion attended teachings and events at the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monastery in Woodstock. I had always wanted to live in the mountains, so I thought Woodstock would be an excellent place for me to live.”

As it turned out, Strickland was on to something. The town of Woodstock has long been a rustic getaway residence for such music icons as Bob Dylan, Todd Rundgren, Paul Butterfield and Jack DeJohnette. And for one of the B-52’s chief songwriters, who just lost the Lennon to his McCartney, living in such a holistic habitat indeed opened up his creative pores in short order, creating the roots of what would become Cosmic Thing, released 30 years ago on June 27th, 1989.

“I moved to Woodstock in the summer of 1986 and rented a little cabin on a pond off Wittenberg Road that was covered with lily pads and abundant with wildlife,” explains Strickland. “It was idyllic and very healing. I wrote the instrumental portion of the songs. I would record a multi-track of music, and Kate, Fred and Cindy would improvise over it, and together, we would arrange their lyrics and melodies with the music. I remember starting the track for ‘June Bug’ with wildlife sounds that I’d recorded on the pond.”

“Keith is a very underrated musician,” Schneider comments . “The music he brought us for Cosmic Thing, we thought, was brilliant and inspiring. There was some trepidation about doing another record, but once we heard the music and got to jamming, everything fell into place really quickly.”

Pierson also moved to Woodstock, The singer also saw it as a place of catharsis in the wake of Ricky Wilson’s death.

“For Keith and me, it was a sense of peace we found up here,” she reveals. “Just being in this small town, it was the same as it was in Athens. They both have a similar spirit in that it’s very liberal and there’s a lot of interesting musicians who live here. Being in the country while working on Cosmic Thing gave us the easy going, porch swing life we had in Athens that we needed to make these songs.”

The songs on Cosmic Thing were a slight move away from the band’s previous four albums which had been perceived as more underground “new wave.” Their 1979 eponymous debut album was a hit, particularly in Australia where it achieved the number 3 spot on the charts along with all three singles achieving similar success. Both “Rock Lobster” and “Planet Claire” have become some of music’s most legendary songs in their own right and have also gone on to forever be synonymous with the band and the new wave era they epitomized throughout the ‘80s.

The band’s following three albums did moderately well, with many claiming that their sophomore LP Wild Planet (1980) is their best. Whammy! (1983) and Bouncing Off The Satellites (1986) did not go on to achieve the same success as the previous two and maybe because of this, the band felt the need in the making of the latter album to write separately and switch up instruments (Keith Strickland moved from drums to guitar and keyboard).

Eventually all four surviving members of the B-52’s would agree to find an apt studio location to begin fleshing out the cache of songs that would become Cosmic Thing. They chose two distinct locations: Sigma Sound Studios in New York City, where they would cut the majority of the material with Nile Rodgers of Chic. But for four songs, they went to Dreamland Studios in West Hurley, a little town in northern Ulster County not too far from Woodstock, and record with Don Was, who came in almost immediately on the back of his work on Bonnie Raitt’s Grammy-winning classic Nick of Time.

“I remember working on Cosmic Thing like I remember summer camp when I was a kid,” said Don Was . “I had just wrapped Nick of Time and headed to New York. And here I was at Dreamland, I remember sitting out back there at night. The nights were beautiful, and you could hear all the crickets. It was lovely, man. I don’t remember any stress. I recall driving one night we saw the Northern Lights at a Zen monastary up on a mountain. I remember it as a very moving and warm experience up there.”

“I remember one night up at the studio, we had a UFO sighting,” adds Wilson. “Fred and I were standing in the front yard and saw this light in the sky that was shaking and twirling around and around, kind of like in a unity pattern and jumping all around. We could not figure out what it was, but it stuck around for a little while and then left.”

“Dreamland turned out to be the perfect studio for us,” recalls Strickland. “The big room sounds great. I remember when we were recording ‘Love Shack,’ a lightning storm knocked out the electricity in the middle of the song during the bass breakdown. So we took a dinner break, went to the Gypsy Wolf Mexican Restaurant in Woodstock. Then returned to the studio and listened to the last take, and realized how good it sounded, so we quickly went for another take and spliced to the two together.”

“I remember Don Was sitting in the kitchen and we all sat around the kitchen table and listened to cassettes on a portable cassette player,” adds Pierson. “Then we’d go and drive around in the car and listen on the car stereo, because that’s the way most people were listening to music at the time.”

The region would continue to serve as a harbinger of healing and salvation for the band when they found the location for what would trump “Rock Lobster” as the singular hit of their careers. The “Love Shack” was indeed a little ole place nestled in the deep woods of Plattekill, NY, in southern Ulster County, where their unwitting local fans had no idea some MTV video history was going down inside a wildly designed, multi-coloured house owned by ceramic artists Phillip Maberry and Scott Walker.

“Our friend Tommy and the famous hairdresser Danilo, they told us when they heard the song ‘Love Shack’ and we were gonna do a video they said ‘Oh my God, you have to do the video in this house. It literally is the Love Shack,” Pierson recalls. “So I went to the director and told him we have to shoot at this house. I had gone up there though I didn’t know Phillip and Scott lived in this house, which was a literal shack. And they had the checkerboard roof, and two goats named Kate and Cindy. There was an amazing garden and it was in this sorta grotto with stone all around.”

“It was actually already painted in those bright and fanciful colours,” Strickland remembers. “We invited friends from the city to join us. It was a beautiful summer’s day in the Hudson Valley.”

“It was a perfect place to film,” adds Wilson. “It was a glorious day, and all the colours in the house all popped. It was amazing.” “We all loved it, but the director wanted to do it in a studio in New York, not have to schlep upstate,” Pierson explains. “But once they saw it, they were like, ‘Oh yes, this is it.’ So they made these signs that say ‘Stay Away Fools’ and ‘Love Rules’ and put the goats in the video. And we invited all our friends and had a party. The video was just one big party. We started out really early in the morning and it turned into this rave. RuPaul got the dance line going, and it almost felt like we weren’t being videotaped.”

“It was indeed a party,” Strickland agrees. “We wanted to recreate the Soul Train dance line, but the video director didn’t get the process. So RuPaul, who was there, directed that scene.”

“It was great having RuPaul in it,” adds Schneider in regards to the drag legend’s public debut on the set of the video. “I had met him years before on the 14th St. bus. But the police, however, didn’t like us up there.” And given just how ubiquitous “Love Shack” remains 30 years later, especially as a wedding standard as essential to the night as the “Chicken Dance,” it’s hard to believe the song almost didn’t make the finished album.

“We finished all the songs we had to do a day early, so we had this extra day to do something,” remembers Was. “So they said, ‘We have this other thing, but its 15 minutes long and we haven’t figured it out.’ I remember sitting on the steps outside the studio and thinking about this thing they were improvising about a love shack and going, ‘Well maybe that’s the chorus.'”

“I remember how ‘Love Shack’ wasn’t put together yet, and Don said how it needed a chorus,” interjects Pierson. “It wasn’t even gonna make the album because it wasn’t solidified. But after we added that chorus, Bingo, here it is; it sounds like a hit. But we didn’t aim to write hits, we aimed to heal ourselves and channel Ricky’s spirit. That was the goal, and I knew his presence was there.”

“So we started rearranging the lyrics like a puzzle, and we were able to get it down to three and a half minutes with a chorus and some semblance of a plot line and cut it,” explains Was. “The first take was killer except when we got to the tin roof rusted part. Cindy started with this exuberance that shocked everybody. I don’t know what that line means; I don’t think anybody knew what that line means (laughs). But she infused it with so much feeling, it threw everybody. I think she even choked up at the end of the line. It was really deep, and we tried to do it over and over and we couldn’t get the feeling we had in that first take. It took me all night to figure it out before I realized everything should be punched in right after the tin roof rusted line, because we never got that thing back again, that manic energy.”

“We had a hard time selling ‘Love Shack’ at first,” admits Schneider. “I remember our A&R guy taking me around while Kate and Cindy would do soundcheck and we would go to radio stations basically to beg them to play the song. Even the record company thought it was too weird. I thought it was the most accessible thing we had done. College radio embraced it immediately, but mainstream wouldn’t touch it until they saw how well it was doing. We went to No. 1 in several markets, though in America we were beat out by Milli Vanilli and Paula Abdul, both of whom were accused of not singing on their hit songs!”

It’s a wonder to look back on the roots of Cosmic Thing on its 30th anniversary, commemorated with the release of a deluxe edition of the album by Rhino Records that includes a killer live show from The Woodlands, TX, in 1990 as the bonus disc (along with an expanded version of the classic LP that includes remixes of the album’s triad of hits in “Love Shack,” “Channel Z” and “Roam”). It might not be as ubiquitous to the Woodstock region as, say, The Band’s Music From Big Pink, Bob Dylan’s The Basement Tapes orThe Muddy Waters Woodstock Album, but the catharsis experienced during the creation of Cosmic Thing couldn’t have been achieved anywhere else.

“Cosmic Thing wasn’t a plan to do this big comeback for Ricky,” Pierson explains. “It really was a healing thing. It was about doing it together as a means to heal, because after Ricky died we have this amazing, precious thing that was each other still. So we figured let’s get together and try this again. And the vibe of being at Dreamland in Ulster County to record this album was magic.

CHERRY GLAZERR – ” Big Bang “

Posted: February 15, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , ,
0

May be an illustration

This week Cherry Glazerr (the Los Angeles-based band led by Clementine Creevy) shared a new song titled “Big Bang.” It marks their first music release of 2021, and is out now on Secretly Canadian Records. Cherry Glazerr shared their first new music of 2021 with a single titled “Big Bang.” inspired by lead singer Clementine Creevy’s time spent listening to DJ Koze, Caribou, Yaeji and Kaytranada. The bass-heavy, atmospheric track is marked by Creevy’s silky vocals and fits of endlessly catchy pop. “I wanted to give it a sort of early ‘aughts pop production feel, with the interplay between the acoustic guitar figure and the bass synth and the 808 hits during the choruses,” Creevy says. “The lyrics came from feeling like I was growing apart from someone who was close to me in my life, and the song is essentially about heartache, but it’s euphoric at the same time. That’s what I like about it — the intensity of those very personal feelings paired with a sort of huge, exposed energy. I feel like I was able to let a lot out with this song. It feels really special to me.” 

Creevy speaks about the song in a press release: “Some songs take on a lot of forms until they finally end up the way they do and this was one definitely one of those. It lived a few different lives for sure, I just kept changing up the rhythms until I was like, ‘oh yeah that’s it right there!’”

She adds: “I wanted to give it a sort of early ‘aughts pop production feel, with the interplay between the acoustic guitar figure and the bass synth and the 808 hits during the choruses. The lyrics came from feeling like I was growing apart from someone who was close to me in my life, and the song is essentially about heartache, but it’s euphoric at the same time. That’s what I like about it the intensity of those very personal feelings paired with a sort of huge, exposed energy. I feel like I was able to let a lot out with this song. It feels really special to me.”

The band released a new song titled “Rabbit Hole” in December of last year. Their most recent album, Stuffed & Ready, came out in 2017 on Secretly Canadian. 

RYLEY WALKER – ” Rang Dizzy “

Posted: February 15, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , ,
0

This week Ryley Walker announced a new album, sharing a song from it titled “Rang Dizzy.” The upcoming album, “Course in Fable”, will be out on April 2nd via Walker’s own Husky Pants label.

“Rang Dizzy” is made up of such poetic lines as: “I extend my hand to all probable possibilities/That I may be baptized in seltzer from glaciers” and “As the cherry water runs down my spine/I recall coupon codes from minimum wage jobs/Unionized by labor kept in sheep skin/Saving up for tires that light up when you drive them.”

“Rang Dizzy,” is a free-flowing tune that incorporates some jazz influence into the mix. Like the album as a whole, the song was produced by Tortoise’s John McEntire.

As Walker noted, he doesn’t have any fancy new press photos for this album cycle yet, as he tweeted, “i didn’t have time to go to the woods or an alley to take press photos of me looking away from the camera cause I’m packing records. this is all I got.”

http://

Walker’s most recent original solo album was Deafman Glance, which came out in 2018 on Dead Oceans. Later that year, he also released The Lillywhite Sessions, a cover album of an unreleased 2001 Dave Matthews Band album. Also that year, he and Charles Rumback collaborated on the album Little Common Twist. Now, he’s soon to be back with another solo record: Walker has announced Course In Fable, which is set to come out on April 3rd via his own Husky Pants Records.

Releases April 3rd, 2021

Ryley Walker- Guitar/Vocals
Andrew Scott Young – Bass/Piano
Bill MacKay – Guitar/Piano
Ryan Jewell – Drums/Percussion
John McEntire – Engineer/Mixing/Synth/Keys/Vibraphone
Douglas Jenkins – String Arrangements/Cello
Nancy Ives – Cello

CORY HANSON – ” Pale Horse Rider “

Posted: February 15, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , ,
0

Cory Hanson , Pale Horse Rider, Drag City, Vinyl LP, CD , Cassette

Cory’s first solo, ‘The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo’, was an intense affair, a grand experiment that produced inspiring, unconventional music – but this time around, he wanted to breathe a bit easier, to feel that breath in the music as well. So he and his band drove out to the desert to record in a low stress environment: Brian Harris’ Cactopia, a house surrounded by 6ft tall sculptural psychotropic cacti. They built a studio inside and then they made music and lived off pots of coffee and chili and cases of Miller High Life as they played guitars, bass, keyboards and drums in what seemed increasingly like a living biomech, their tech made out of fungal networks and cacti needles.

Waiting placidly for end of days, a rictus grin flashing winningly as he summons strength for the already-in-progress epic clash, Cory Hanson delivers a new music video for Pale Horse Rider.
The third single/title track from the forthcoming album ascends to climactic heights (both within itself and in the context of the larger record coming into view) via majestic country gospel-inflections and ambient steel guitar, swelling to a repeated chorus radiating with cries of catharsis from our Cory. Like the two before it, this new song is insanely amazing! The “Pale Horse Rider” video pairs sumptuous sunny California imagery to lyrics anointing the arrival of mass destruction while Cory acts as demonic guide to the future wasteland, skipping about the scene impishly. The stakes are high – and driven calmly through the heart of the matter. Out with the old, in with the new age.

Watch the title track today, but heed the note below –Pale Horse Rider is still approaching, but has slid back in time slightly, to allow for end-of-eon-type delays and adjustments. All the better to allow you to obsess on these advance singles! : The digital release date has moved to April 16th. Physical orders will be delayed, with a new ship date of May 21st.

It was loose and flowed onto tape well. Recorded by Robbie Cody and Zac Hernandez (who assisted on Wand’s ‘Laughing Matter’), the sounds were great from the get-go. First takes were mostly best takes. Fuelled with DNA lifted from country-rock cut with native psych and prog strands, Cory guided his craft toward the cosmic side of the highway, a benevolent alien in ambient fields hazy with heat and synths, early morning fog and space echo spreading the harmonies wide.

‘Pale Horse Rider’’ got a lot to get out of its mind, looking around and seeing that, on the surface, things don’t always look like much. A lifelong Californian, Cory’s naturally found himself standing to the left of most of the country. The west may be only what you make it; these days, the roadside view looks exceptionally sunbleached and left behind. ‘Pale Horse Rider’ eyes the city, the country and the fragile environment that holds them both in its hands – a record as much about Los Angeles as it can be with its back to the town and the sun in its eyes; as much about nostalgia as new music can be with the apocalypse over the next rise.

Cory’s adroit ability to flip through the gains and losses of any given moment with a simple line or two is given delicate bloom on the latest single “Bird of Paradise.” An ominous fever dream of opaque moral lessons (a la Bobbie Gentry’s “Refractions”), “Bird of Paradise” is a flowing ballad sparked from within by bubbling guitar arpeggios, glittering electric keyboards and arcs of steel guitar like falling stars shooting through the night sky. Moods of estrangement and desire play out delicately in the shadowy grid of a deserted urban landscape.

On ‘Pale Horse Rider’, Cory Hanson moves ceaselessly forward. The old myths weave and waft, the shadows of tombstones flickering in the mirages and the light that lies dead ahead.

Title track from “Pale Horse Rider,” to be released on LP/Cassette/CD/Streaming on March 12th, 2021, from Drag City Records.

MO TROPER – ” Revolver “

Posted: February 14, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
0

Mo Troper’s recording and production methods skew DIY—a fitting approach given his musical influences. “I was sort of just working with what was available to me, which wasn’t a lot,” Troper says of his experience crafting this album “I don’t actually have a drum kit or a guitar amp right now, so I knew I was going to have to rely on, like, Apple Loops and GarageBand presets. I suppose I was trying to go for something like the Lightning Seeds, or anything else from that strange era of British music where indie pop and shoegaze sort of overlapped. I was also listening a lot to the Tokyo-based songwriter Yokosawa Shunichiro’s newest album, Zettai Daijoubu, which is really ornate, artful bedroom pop.”

“I don’t have any impressive synthesizers or anything,” he adds, “so a lot of the sounds are actually sampled from old video game music. There’s a kick drum taken from Super Mario RPG and one of the arpeggiators samples a specific noise from Yoshi’s Island.”

All proceeds go to Defense Fund PDX, a support group that prioritizes marginalized people in jail and Portland’s houseless population, It’s Mo doing the Beatles. Take my money, no questions asked. Please do Abbey Road.

http://

Releases March 12th, 2021

Mo Troper: vocals, guitars, bass, keys, drums, programming

Tyler Blue Broderick: vocals on “Yellow Submarine”

recorded and mixed by Mo Troper at home in late 2019/early 2020

all songs written by Lennon-Mccartney, with the exceptions of “Love You To,” “Taxman” and “I Want To Tell You,” written by George Harrison. recorded and released with permission from sony/atv music publishing and sony atv tunes llc.

KATY KIRBY – ” Portals “

Posted: February 14, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags:
0

Says Katy: I’ve always been uneasy with the idea of alternate universes, or realities. Even choose-your-own-adventure books used to stress me out. I wondered if it might be equally interesting and more helpful to consider “alternate universes” something as simple as other people. Around the time I wrote this song, I had been considering what I’d retain from a relationship if or when it ended—what I might be left with in the long run, after it didn’t hurt anymore. I realized that it’d be an alternate version of myself. Hell, how many parts of whatever I call a self aren’t even accessible without a particular interaction? “Portals” is me thinking about the alternate, purely interior worlds that slide open with each person/universe we intersect with, and if what we think of as “closeness” to that person has anything to do with what gets opened.
 
Katy Kirby released a new single this week “Portals,” accompanied by a nostalgic lyric video created by our new designer Sarah Goldstein. 

 
“Katy Kirby’s Timeless Songs Are Wonderful Leaps of Faith …The best debut album of 2021 so far.” — VICE / Noisey Next
 
“Clearly putting her own twist on pop” — Bob Boilen, NPR All Songs Considered
 
Katy’s been included on:
VICE’s 10 Albums That Will Get You Excited for 2021, Paste’s 40 Albums We’re Most Excited About in 2021, The Line of Best Fit’s 50 Artists on the Rise in 2021, Stereogum’s 101 Most Anticipated Albums of 2021, Paste’s 30 Best New Artists of 2020 and more…
 
Her album is out next Friday. February 19th.

ACTIVITY – ” White Phosphorus “

Posted: February 14, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , ,
0

Activity recently shared this track “White Phosphorus,” a b-side from their debut album “Unmask Whoever”, named as one of the best rock albums of 2020. Much like their LP, the New York City band’s latest track has a pervading eeriness, complete with hushed vocals, a steady synth hum and elusive guitar lines—not to mention bleak lyrics like “decorate the walls with horse insides.” Its twisted drama is quite cinematic, and their instrumental sprawl is nothing if not absorbing.

This is actually the first song we recorded but it didn’t work on the album. Putting it out NOW on Bandcamp only. It’s called “White Phosphorus.” We hope you enjoy!

http://

Released February 5th, 2021

GRANDADDY – ” The Sophtware Slump ” The 20th Anniversary 4 x LP Vinyl

Posted: February 14, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

One night in June of 1999, we were sitting in Jason’s tiny house in Modesto, California when he mentioned that he could sit down at the piano and play the whole of what would be The Sophtware Slump front to back. This meant he was (finally!) ready to begin recording. The piano was in the kitchen then so we sat and he started to play. Distracted by beer and conversation, we didn’t make it all the way through.

Early last year, as we discussed if we should commemorate the 20th anniversary I recalled the memory and wondered what the album would have sounded like before all that wonderful production, before one note had been committed to tape.

Today we announce The Sophtware Slump…..on a wooden piano. Recorded at Jason’s home during Pandemia 2020. It will arrive digitally November 20th on Dangerbird Records and as part of a four piece vinyl boxset of the original album and most of the b-sides and odds and ends from that era, many appearing on vinyl for the first time here. And a standalone physical release to follow in early 2021.

Grandaddy formed in 1992 and have released five official LPs, most recently 2017’s Last Place. In its 20th anniversary feature on The Sophtware Slump, Stereogum summed up the album, and Grandaddy, with the question: “What if West Coast indie, but sci-fi?” In an age of unprecedented connectivity, these songs spoke to significant solitude. Grandaddy members include Jason Lytle, Aaron Burtch, Jim Fairchild, Tim Dryden, and the late Kevin Garcia, who passed away in 2017.

The Sophtware Slump. Grandaddy’s second album, released 20 years ago today, essentially answered the question: What if West Coast indie, but sci-fi? Or, given the music’s vast prog-rock horizons and Lytle’s skepticism toward all the technology encroaching on Earth’s natural order: What if Radiohead, but West Coast indie? Grandaddy hailed from Modesto — Spanish for “modest” — and the punny title was appropriately self-deprecating. It made a lot of thematic sense, too:

This was a concept LP about the slouching citizens of a disappointing dystopia, trapped on a tapped-out planet full of useless junk. But far from a dreaded second-album misstep, The Sophtware Slump stands as a quirky, ambitious landmark in the overgrown ruins of Y2K-era indie.

Lytle formed Grandaddy in 1992 after his burgeoning pro skateboard career was unceremoniously ended by a knee injury. Early gigs at skate parks plus a longstanding devotion to the Maximumrocknroll radio show led to Grandaddy playing up tempo punk rock at first, but by the time they released their debut album Under The Western Freeway in 1997, their style had softened into a rustic yet electronic spin on the scrappy underground guitar noodlings of Pavement and Built To Spill. The album’s best, most enduring song, “A.M. 180,” paired fuzzed-out power chords with a deviously catchy keyboard riff that sounded futuristic and amateurish all at once. The other tracks toyed around with a less overtly poppy variations of this aesthetic, a sort of ramshackle space-age slacker rock that, as it turned out, lent itself perfectly to songs about the American West decaying into a technological wasteland.

Such is the genius of The Sophtware Slump. Jason Lytle had established an entire alternate universe in sound and substance, strung together in peculiar vignettes that left much to the imagination. It was a triumph, but Grandaddy weren’t done evolving yet. Three years later, they’d return with Sumday, an album that ditched the mythology and experimentation in favor of ’70s-inspired hi-fi splendor. At the time, Lytle called it “a reflection of everything we’ve been working towards” and “the ultimate Grandaddy record.” Maybe, but some might argue that the ultimate Grandaddy record is the one they rolled out in the year 2000, the grand treatise about the tortured love triangle between mankind, his planet, and the works of his hand. Like the clunky machinery that dots its landscape, The Sophtware Slump may now seem like an outdated relic, but boot it up and you’ll discover it still works wonders.

Wishing you all as much health and happiness as you can muster during this often trying time. With love from Jim, Jason, Aaron and Tim. And Kevin.

http://

Grandaddy really figured out their sound and worldview with their fantastic second album, featuring frontman Jason Lytle’s absurdist tales of mundanity and stress in our increasingly tech-reliant world, set to a blend of ’90s indie rock, glammy synthphonic flourishes (Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev’s influence loomed large in 2000), and twangy country. The concept album imagines a world full of alcoholic robots, sad computer programmers, lost pilots, stuntman Evil Knevil, and forests made of discarded appliances that Lytle makes relatable with his empathetic style and a hard drive full of earworm spacerock pop…somehow it all sounds even more relevant now than it did in Y2K.

Older Entries
Newer Entries