With only single-digit days left before the June 15th release of their much-anticipated album Hope Downs, from AustralianMelbourne’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have shared one last single and announced their biggest headlining tour yet, album-closing cut “The Hammer” comes on the heels of three previous singles, “Mainland,” “Talking Straight” and “An Air Conditioned Man.”.
“The Hammer” taken from their forthcoming album, Hope Downs, which is out next week (June 15th) via Sub Pop Records. Like most of what you’ll hear on the new album, “The Hammer” is earworm indie rock that nods to Australia’s (and New Zealand’s) rich history of strummy pop (The Go Betweens, The Clean).
studious patrons of a specific corner of the internet may already be familiar with Sarah Beth Tomberlin’s stirring At Weddings , released under her own surname last year. the substance and weight of that album appropriately drew the interest of Saddle Creek Records, who will reissue At Weddings, containing three brand-new songs, on august 10th.
as an introduction (or re-introduction), Tomberlin has shared a new music video for her standout cut “Self-Help,” its meditative, metallic timbre supplemented by hazy footage of Tomberlin taking in an aquarium. the recurring jellyfish feel like a subtle nod to references of electrocution and overall pain, concepts Tomberlin sifts through with devastating turns of phrase.
Parisian band Juniore have been around for a few years, mixing surf and modern pop with yéyé and other French-y sounds. If you like La Femme, Juniore work in a similar style and share a producer, Samy Osta. After a string of singles, Juniore released their debut album, Ouh Là Là last year .
Burger Records is reissuing Ouh Là Là on cassette this month and it comes with a new song, “Magnifique,” for which the band just released a video. You can watch that below as well. “Magnifique” is also the title track of a new 10″ EP Juniore are releasing in Europe.
Katie Von Schleicher recently announced the release of a special 7″ single to come out on Full Time Hobby on May 4th. The track ‘Glad To Be Here’ was launched online a couple of weeks ago, and today we bring you the flip side ‘Party Dawn’.
The confidence that Von Schleicher exudes on the new single belies the fact that she just released her debut album, Shitty Hits, last year. ‘Party Dawn’ is a song that crackles with thoughts and memories, electrified by Von Schleicher’s brooding voice. The atmosphere of the song is heavy, accentuated by rumbles of thunder and delicately splashy percussion. Although always seemingly on the verge of breaking into a fully cathartic moment, she keeps her patience and her poise throughout, only letting minor surges of feeling eke out at a time, ensuring that ‘Party Dawn’ maintains its focus and magnetism throughout, and is all the more impressive for that.
Von Schleicher says about the new songs: “On a break from touring this winter I went alone to Maryland, where I am originally from, and made these two songs, taking the gear I’ve very happily accrued since making my album Shitty Hits. I built a fire, I set up my gold drum kit, I saw a ton of stars and felt smushed by silence, and it was lonely, so I made these songs. “Glad to Be Here” is where I find myself right now. “Party Dawn” is tied to Maryland, to my friend and our adolescence. Both are a bridge toward the subject matter of my next record. Back in New York, my collaborator Adam Brisbin (Sam Evian, Jolie Holland, Buck Meek) contributed guitar and bass, and Julian Fader (Ava Luna, Frankie Cosmos, Nadine, Palehound) mixed it.”
As an intimate meditation on modern womanhood, Laura Marling’s Semper Femina was about as grounded as could be. Just a year later on LUMP, the debut of her side project with Tunng founder Mike Lindsay, Marling shakes off the pressures of authorship and embraces the surreal, ditching her persona of world-weary folk singer to be the medium for the faceless expressive force the duo call LUMP. While her lyrics might be free to lean into the abstract, Marling’s vocal performance is still recognizably folksy, down to her cadence and melodies on nearly every track. Lindsay has wrapped her voice in pulsing, hypnotic arrangements that easily slide from euphoric to ominous, and on the album’s dreamiest cuts the atmosphere gets filled out with sunny woodwinds and an angelic choir of Marlings harmonizing into infinity. All that surrealist pop plays out over 30 minutes of interlocking songs, enough to keep you thoroughly entranced and get you hoping LUMP might soon inspire its hosts to deliver more.
“Late To The Flight” kicks off the album in stunning fashion, welcoming listeners with a shimmering aural sunrise painted in flutes and endless layers of Marling’s delicate voice.
Tunng’s Mike Lindsay – a prolific, Mercury prize-winning producer – was introduced to Grammy-nominated, Brit award-winning singer-songwriter Laura Marling after her show supporting Neil Young in London. LUMP is a heady blend of wonked-out guitars, Moog synths and pattering drums, set against droning, coiling clouds of flutes and voices. The lyrics are inspired by early-20th-century Surrealism and the absurdist poetry of Edward Lear and Ivor Cutler – a bizarre but compelling narrative about the commodification of curated public personas, the mundane absurdity of individualism, and the lengths we go to escape our own meaninglessness.
As Kiley Lotz told Paste magazine, Magic Gone represents “finally starting to accept who I am… Instead of running away from the hard stuff, I’m starting to now sort of see the joy and pride you can take in owning your own shit in your life.” Petal’s final Magic Gone single is “Stardust,” a sparse and delicate rock ballad that showcases the raw-yet-concise power of Lotz’s voice.
“Stardust” by Petal from the upcoming album ‘Magic Gone’, out June 15th, 2018 on Run For Cover Records
The solo album from Allo Darlin’ drummer Mikey Collins, who combines his love of solid grooves and joyous harmonies to create a fun and sonically varied record. Mikey played most of the instruments and mixed the record himself, with some assistance from Laura Kovic (Tigercats) on vocals and fellow Allo Darlin’ member Paul Rains on lead guitar. The flicker of his previous band provided the building blocks of an upbeat, positive record, but Mikey wanted to add his own quirky, disco spin & sonic expansiveness, aided by co-producer John Winfield (who has worked with Jimmy Somerville), with the aim of making a record that people stood a chance of being able to dance to. To create this eclectic sound, Mikey draws on influences as far flung as Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Bruce Springsteen & Todd Rundgren as well as more current artists such as Night Works, Matthew E White and Father John Misty.
Mikey began working on the album while he was still touring with beloved Fortuna POP! signed indiepop outfit Allo Darlin’ and as a result it took a pretty long time to complete. The last few years were a conveyor belt of change as he; got married, had a child, bought a house, moved from London to be by the Kent coast (Ramsgate) and opened a residential studio Big Jelly Studios (where they’ve recorded albums by Girl Ray, Metronomy, Pete Doherty and the Puta Madres, Mt Wolf, Seamus Fogarty and many others including Elizabeth Morris from Allo Darlin’s new band, ELVA). The record journeys through these changes but has its roots firmly grounded in his new seaside habitat. His identity with and connection to the area is even incorporated into the album artwork – a startling photograph by local photographer Jason Evans (who has worked with Radiohead and Keiran Hebden/Fourtet), incorporating flora and fauna of the region, an outer ring of pop glow that hints at the neon din of the seaside. The idea for the image emerged after a discussion about the relationship between organic and synthesised sounds on the record and its need to represent the area.
Mikey explains the album; “Mostly it’s about a seismic shift in life. I probably delayed growing up in a lot of ways, touring can kind of help that – it’s a fantasy world in some ways! I hadn’t really stopped to appreciate what I had until I got a little bit of time and space to think. Being by the sea is good for that. I realised how many positives there are in my life and I wanted to channel some of that into a record.” Unsurprisingly there are a lot of references to the sea, falling in love and friendship on the album. This is evident in songs such as as “Falling”, which is about proposing to his wife – something he swore blind he’d never do! – to “Pinata”, a song about handing over your heart, wrapping it in a piñata and giving someone the bat (in a humorous way). “Side by Side” is a reflection on having spent a lot of time with a group of people and that, hopefully, the Allo Darlin’ friendship would always endure.
“West Coast” is another uptempo disco-vibe, reflecting on time spent with long term tour buddies The Wave Pictures in California. In “Home Bird”, Mikey tried to pay homage to to the grooves of older RnB tunes with a simple arrangement, Rolling Stones-esque riffs and thoughts about the dichotomy of missing home, but loving being on the road. The finger-picked, delicately arranged acoustic song, “Moving On”, was recorded in one take in the upstairs flat of a cafe/bar (called Caboose) that Mike opened with his wife when they first moved to Ramsgate. An airplane flew overhead at a seemingly poignant moment, so Mike decided to keep that take, as explains; “it seemed like a perfect moment captured!”.
IDLES have confirmed details for the follow up to last year’s excellent debut album Brutalism. The much anticipated record is titled Joy as an Act of Resistance, and will be out August 31st via Partisan Records. It takes aim at everything from toxic masculinity, nationalism, immigration, and class inequality – all the while maintaining a visceral, infectious positivity.
The Bristol band have also shared the album’s first single, a brilliant pro-immigration, punk anthem entitled Danny Nedelko, which takes its name from one of the band’s close friends (and Ukrainian immigrant). The song is accompanied by a self-directed video that features Danny himself.
Singer Joe Talbot summarizes: “This album is an attempt to be vulnerable to our audience and to encourage vulnerability; a brave naked smile in this shitty new world. We have stripped back the songs and lyrics to our bare flesh to allow each other to breathe, to celebrate our differences, and act as an ode to communities and the individuals that forge them. Because without our community, we’d be nothing.”
‘Joy as an Act of Resistance.’ out 31st August 2018
Here among these tracks is his first single “Rollerskate” from his latest album, ‘Toss Up,’ we are so excited to announce Kevin Krauter as the newest addition to the Bayonet Records roster! We are so thrilled to be releasing the breath taking solo album by the Indiana songwriter
The second single, “Keep Falling In Love” from Kevin Krauter’s new album is also included along with a music video! The track premiered on Beats1 and the video is up on Gorilla vs Bear website. Following up the first single “Rollerskate,” this new track showcases the melodic, personal side of Kevin’s songwriting on this album.
‘Toss Up’ builds on the sonic worlds of Krauters’ first releases, conveying a similar mood with a greater array of instruments and influences. An insightful songwriter with a lyrical style that is both economical and evocative, Krauter crafts unique soundscapes that scramble a range of influences—‘60s flower pop, ‘70s easy listening, ‘80s New Wave,‘90s alt-radio, ’00s indie rock. The secret tension on ‘Toss Up’, the engine that drives these songs: melody propelled by rhythm, melancholy fended off by the exuberance of simply creating art.
So far Kevin has released the album’s first single “Rollerskate,” as well as a second single “Keep Falling in Love” . You can still pre-order the limited edition color vinyl pressing of ‘Toss Up’ which comes with custom balsa air glider from the Bayonet Records webstore
Releases June 15th, 2018,
All songs written & performed by Kevin Krauter
Ry Cooder understands that a great song is a great song, whether it was written before the Depression or last week. Still, at the same time he isn’t afraid to explore new avenues and possibilities for the material. Like his three previous records, Paradise and Lunch is filled with treasures which become part of a world where eras and styles converge without ever sounding forced or contrived. One may think that an album that contains a traditional railroad song, tunes by assorted blues greats, and a Negro spiritual alongside selections by the likes of Bobby Womack, Burt Bacharach, and Little Milton may lack cohesiveness or merely come across as a history lesson, but to Cooder this music is all part of the same fabric and is as relevant and accessible as anything else that may be happening at the time. No matter when it was written or how it may have been done in the past, the tracks, led by Cooder’s brilliant guitar,
Truly a musician’s musician, guitarist Ry Cooder has been a bridge connecting contemporary audiences to a dizzying variety of traditional musics for almost half a century. His ongoing career includes a string of acclaimed albums for Reprise, of which Paradise And Lunch was his fourth release – and one of his best.
Produced by Russ Titelman and Lenny Waronker, the 1974 collection touches on blues, gospel, jazz and folk, with Ry applying his distinctive stamp to such highlights as “Jesus on the Mainline,” The album also includes Cooder’s updated arrangement of bluesman Washington Phillips’ song “The Tattler” that stands out for its guitar playing, It was subsequently covered by Linda Ronstadton her 1976 album Hasten Down the Wind
Other tracks like “Ditty Wah Ditty,” which features Earl “Fatha”Hines on piano. Here both musicians are given plenty of room to showcase their instrumental prowess, and the results are nothing short of stunning. Eclectic, intelligent, and thoroughly entertaining, Paradise and Lunch remains Ry Cooder’s masterpiece. Though there are other stellar instrumentalists (including saxophonist Plas Johnson and drummer Jim Keltner) supporting the headliner’s faultless fretwork, Cooder’s down-home vocals are just as important to the set’s soulful appeal, and Paradise And Lunch is heaven for roots rock fans.
