The lineage of kaleidoscopic California folk-rock could hardly have meandered into better hands than those of GospelbeacH, the all-star quintet whose members boast resumés longer than a hippie’s hair. At the center of the spinning wheel is singer-guitarist Brent Rademaker (Beachwood Sparks, the Tyde, Further). While Rademaker is the unchanging core, various lineups of the band have included his former Beachwood Sparks bandmate and drummer Tom Sanford, guitarist Neal Casal (Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Furthur), guitarist Jason Soda (Everest, Watson Twins) and bassist Kip Boardman (Watson Twins).
Last summer GospelbeacH continued to deftly honor the grand tradition of West Coast rock and roll with their second album Another Summer of Love. This time around it was more 70’s FM rock than 60’s AM gold, more cosmo than country with a theme of timeless love delivered through straightforward, inviting songwriting and singing by Rademaker.
Warm classic production and tight harmonies are helmed once again by guitarist/vocalist Jason Soda. Recorded in Los Angeles at Palomino Sound, Jason’s new 1970’s vintage artisan recording studio. Third GospelbeacH core member Jonny Niemanns adds cascading piano, organ and mellotron fill out the album’s rich sound.
“Change of Heart”, a previously unreleased single from the album. The song features effortlessly cool vocals and bouncy, power pop-tinged rock and roll sound. References to Tom Petty are unmistakeable, but you can also hear the band finding inspiration in acts like Mikal Cronin and Traveling Wilburys. Their is a sunny California vibe to the song, even though it seems to be dabbling in the fare of a broken relationship. The band also throws in some vibrant group harmonies that give it a warm, surf pop sound. Ultimately “Change of Heart” captures a different side of Rademaker’s musical vision, proving he isn’t an artist put all his eggs into one basket when it comes to the genres he tackles.
In the tradition of the Troubadour scene of the 1970’s Another Summer of Love also features some of the GospelbeacH friends and Los Angeles’s finest players and singers including, Pearl Charles, Miranda Lee Richards, members of Wilco, Mapache, Eels, and pickers from the Grand Ole Echo. The album artwork features reflective photography by GospelbeacH guitarist/singer Neal Casal and Allah-Las drummer Matthew Correia.
Played and sung by
Brent Rademaker- vocals, guitar & bass
Jason Soda- vocals, guitars
Jon Niemann- keyboards
with
Kyle Crane- drums
George Sluppick- drums
Andres Renteria- percussion
Pearl Charles- vocals
Sam Blasucci- vocals
Will Courtney- vocals
Steve Taylor- vocals
Austin Singer Songwriter Shakey Graves who in December 2017 teased the oncoming of new music via Twitter, has officially announced the new studio album ‘Can’t Wake Up’ due out 4th May on Dualtone Records. In evolution from his 2014 release ‘And The War Came‘, and receiving the award for Best Emerging Artist at the 2015 Americana Music Awards, this new album harnesses a revelatory sound that ascends to new genres for the artist.
“This record is the most I’ve ever intentionally worked on a project, musically speaking, in terms of the scope of it and how much thought went into it,” shares Alejandro Rose-Garcia aka Shakey Graves. “It’s a dense album; there’s a lot of information going on.”
Thirteen new songs venture through reflections and life lessons learned from personal experiences dating as far back as high school. “The beautiful lesson of all this is having to trust yourself, to be willing to start something that you don’t know the outcome of,” he reflects. “Or to lean toward something just because it feels right, even though it may not be what you originally put down on paper. Those are the kind of stories in this record. They’re not so much about specific people or even myself per se. They’re different shades of every person’s life.”
It’s been a long time since Justice burst onto the Athens scene with a pair of excellent EPs. After a few name changes and the addition of a few members, Justice is returning with a new EP. Much like Justice’s past releases, The Movies will serve as a chronicle of the past year in the life of the band, with songs that incorporate elements of folk as well as the occasional dip into pop-punk. Their 5 track EP “the movies” is out today on Marching Banana Records. These songs are the best way we know how to say goodbye to what has been an insanely special few years making music together in Athens.
The record was recorded live one year ago with Drew and mastered by Chase Park Transduction. Thank you to everyone who has given our music their time and ears over the past two years!
The Clean member Hamish Kilgour’s second-ever solo album, Finklestein, flips the singer/guitarist/drummer’s path taken on All Of It And Nothing. Having previously gone for intimate, minimalistic performances, Finklestein displays a chock-full production quality akin to a fairytale. It’s a fitting change, seeing as the songs are based around a children’s story Kilgour conceived for his son about a kingdom that invents a way of dealing with their depleting gold resources. The songs include organ, saxophone, pedal steel, piano, vibraphone, harmonica, even footsteps (Hamish is renowned for his stepping), most of it performed by Kilgour and his producer/collaborator Gary Olsen at Olsen’s studio, Marlborough Farms in Brooklyn. Originally conceived as being a children’s book as well as album, Finklestein rides roughshod through this fairytale world with grace.
Finklestein took a year to record, as Hamish’s involvement with a large part of the Brooklyn music scene, as well as dates with recent New Zealand Music Hall of Fame inductees The Clean, split his time. His songs benefit from this elongated recording period, as each track creates its own space within the Finklestein world, mixing instruments and melodies in a rainbow of ways. Yet it’s Kilgour’s songwriting sensibilities that hold the album together, his charismatic and loose arrangements within a congenial environment of musical play.
For those early birds who love their Hamish, there’s a Finklestein Special Edition, which includes Funklestein, an entire second LP of music created to complement it’s cohort release. This bonus LP, limited to 50 copiesand vinyl only, provides two psychedelirious side long tracks (Side A: “Reaction” & Side B: “Action”) using the same musicians and studio as Finklestein proper.
Hamish Kilgour’s new album “Finklestein” out June 22nd on Ba Da Bing Records
Haley Heynderickx is an expert at confessional songwriting. Turning her gaze inward, she recalls the delicate sounds of Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez, while crafting earworms that serve as therapy for the Portland-based singer-songwriter. With her superb debut album I Need To Start A Garden, Heynderickx analyses her own self-doubt and isolation, all the while trying to find confidence.
Premiering Heynderickx new video for one of the most poignant tracks on the record: “No Face.” The track stemmed from the idea of a Miyazaki character in the film Spirited Away. Of the song, Heynderickx says, “‘NoFace’ represents a soul in no-man’s-land. The song is an odd ramble written after witnessing a bar fight in Portland based on racial discrimination. The question that started the fight was simply, ‘what race are you?’”
The visual is a simplistic, emotional portrait of energy around Heynderickx. “Haley and I wanted a silhouette for simplicity to compliment the song,” says music video director Evan James Atwood. “Shooting it surrounded by these plants, the Palo Santo, and the energy…it came together naturally in one take. We both loved how we tapped into the heart of the song itself — capturing the emotion so strongly.”
“No Face” is the opening track off ‘I Need to Start a Garden’, Haley Heynderickx critically acclaimed full-length debut, out now on Mama Bird Recording Co.
Don’t be fooled – East Brunswick All Girls Choir may sound like The Langley Schools Music Project in name, but aurally they are nothing alike. This is rough, raw melodic rock from this great Melbourne-but-soon-to-be-Berlin-bound band. And this is definitely one band that you can picture in Berlin – they keep it “real” and “loose.”
‘Essendon 1986’ comes from their upcoming debut album ‘Teddywaddy” which will be released by Departed Sounds in the near future.The heady mess of distortion, dirty guitars and vocalist Marcus Hobb’s haggard bluesy howls make this song impossible not to love. The track builds with the dark melodies and Hobb’s impassioned cries, ending in a gritty overflow of loud guitar noise.
‘Essendon 1986‘ is taken from the upcoming East Brunswick All Girls Choir album ‘Teddywaddy’ out June 29th.
There’s a lot going on for The Goon Sax. She Knows, the scorching first single from their wonderful and devastating second album We’re Not Talking has just been released. The album is available from the lovely people at Wichita recordings
The band are about to embark on a European tour with Franke Cosmos, a sold out headline show in London and their first US tour.
The Goon Sax are James Harrison, Louis Forster and Riley Jones from Brisbane. The band were Still in high school when they made their first album Up To Anything in 2016, their brand of awkwardly transcendent teenage guitar pop took them into end of year lists for BBC 6Music, Billboard and Rough Trade, and earned them rave reviews from the Guardian, Pitchfork, Spin, Uncut, Rolling Stone and elsewhere. According to Metacritic, Up To Anything was the 8th best-reviewed debut album anywhere in the world in 2016.
We are beyond delighted to welcome The Goon Sax to the Wichita family!
It’s all change for Pinkshinyultrablast. The shoegaze group are titans of the Russian underground, but vocalist Lyubov recently moving to Los Angeles, the band have been exploring new ways of composing and collaborating. Partnered with a line-up refinement, the new material sees Pinkshinyultrablast go down a more electronic path while experimenting with new sounds. It’s reported the rest of the band have now settled in Los Angeles, the band’ style has undergone a line up refinement, including an emboldened use of electronics.
New album ‘Miserable Miracles’ arrives on May 4th via Club AC30, and they’ve arranged a full UK tour to coincide. The latest track ‘Dance AM’ is a bold departure from their previous material, while remaining recognisable as their work. Electronic-driven and with searing guitar lines, it’s digitally enhanced shoegaze which peers endlessly into the future.
Pinkshinyultrablast are Lyubov – vocals, Rustam – synths and electronics and Roman – guitars.
Originally hailing from a city more synonymous with the State Conservatory than a gang of shoegaze addicts, Pinkshinyultrablast have nevertheless seen great critical and commercial success since their debut album Everything Else Matters and follow-up Grandfeathered. They’ve been compared to bands such as Lush but this is no mere throwback tribute – due to their sharp, icy electronics and ability to subvert the genre, bringing something new to the table. They possess not only the spirit of late 80s/early 90s British bands like Cocteau Twins, but also machine-made sounds of the same era from Sabres Of Paradise or Global Communication, not to mention wider vibrations like Cluster, Popul Vuh, Terry Riley and Philip Glass.
The trio’s third album, Miserable Miracles, is out on 4th May via premiere shoegaze ambassadors Club AC30 (UK) and Shelflife (USA). The band have also announced an extensive UK tour to coincide with this and the 10 year anniversary of their very first show, and very kindly talked us through the ideas behind the new record.
Dance AM
Lyubov: This song opens our third full length and marks us moving in a new direction with sound and production and in some way music genres. For one of the most upbeat and fast-paced songs of the LP we also feel like it’s one of the album’s most lyrical.
Roman: Since the last album we are geographically away from each other and the change in locations has led to us moving in new directions musically too. The sound and its production we feel has progressed. For those people who look to genres, we are maybe in a different one too now. Lyrically expressive, this is one of the albums most upbeat and fast-paced tracks and an introduction to Miserable Miracles.
Triangles
Lyubov: We revisited the early years of making music as a band with this song and drew from the early inspiration with krautrock we had. It’s nice to play with this genre once again. After listening back to the final version also felt like a tribute to Stereolab in some way.
Roman: For this track, we had a chance to revisit the early years of how we made music. We spent it together as a band and drew on some of our personal earliest inspirations, It certainly touched on krautrock and some of the less known tracks in that musical space too. We found this a super refreshing approach and cared less about recent musical trends and went old school. When the track was done and we listened back to the finished version it also felt like a tribute to Stereolab in some way, a band that influence far more bands than the casual listener probably realises.
Find Your Saint
Lyubov: The first song we started working on from the album. We all had a strong vision early on of what this song should be like and have had quite a bit of back and forths about it. This is a result of a close collaboration and is also one of the singer’s personal favourites.
Roman: One of the favourites of Lyubov, the lead singer, this was the first song we started working on from the album after a small break post-Grandfeathered. We all had a strong vision early on of what this song should be like and had quite a bit of back and forth about it. It was worth it to come up with something we are all so happy with. The main melody of a chorus came to Rustam whilst he was in a bus so he just switched on a laptop and made a fast sketch and it evolved from there. This is a result of a close collaboration and the long gestation period hopefully shows how much care went into it. The video for this was a lot moodier than what had come before, channelling our inner Lynch!
Lyubov: An intermission on the album, though the conclusion for side A of the LP.
Roman: What started out as a mellow breaking point in the album has ended up being two of our manager’s favourite tracks. He has compared them to Brian Eno, though that is a lofty accolade so they are not our words, ha!. The likes of Brian Eno are obviously great influences as they are for many musicians. This originally was just a part of a jam Rustam played on a Fender Rhodes into pedals and several guitar amps, we were so surprised of sound that we took a small part of this jam into the album.
Earth And Elsewhere
Lyubov: A gateway into the second part of the album.
Roman: Following on from ‘Blue Hour’ this starts off the second half of the album. A record very much designed to be able to be dipped into and consumed as a whole too. Sequentially there was a lot of thought put into the way the album segues and in this digital streaming age, we encourage people to listen through as a whole. The cinematic qualities of both this and ‘Blue Hour’ are sounds we would love to explore further especially with original scores and soundtracks how the likes of Mogwai have managed to combine the two. This track has some crazy Stereolab kind of chords progression and has some cyberpunk anime feeling, Ghost in the Shell or something like this
Taleidoscope
Lyubov: The song that probably points the most to our interest and continuous exploration of the obscure J-pop of the 1980s. Also a nod to our mutual appreciation of the Japanese artist Chiemi Manabe.
Roman: This is our take on disco style music almost without the guitar involved. If we had to point to one artist that this song is our most mutual appreciation of, it would be Chiemi Manabe.
We are on a mission to continually explore our fervent interest in obscure Japanese music of the 1980’s and our song titles have not hidden that fact across this and previous releases. We realise a band dream of playing in Tokyo, two nights in June of this year, and are looking forward to exploring even more of the sounds and culture whilst we were there, dreams do sometimes come true.
In The Hanging Gardens
Lyubov: At times having a slightly darker and more anxious tone than the rest of the songs on the album, this song manifests our exploration of different ways of vocals – instrument interaction and song dynamics. From parts of acapella to a vocals/keyboards dialogue, to a mix that’s densely layered up, we were looking for new ways to play with different parts and textures of the song.
Roman: This was the song that stands out to us at times of having a slightly darker and more anxious tone than the rest of the songs on the album. The fact that the likes of Andy Bell of Ride and Kurt Feldman from the Depreciation Guild chose to remix it is great too.
Eray
Lyubov: This song was the last one we wrote for the album and is named after our keyboardist Rustam’s recently born son Eray.
Roman: It is the last song to have been recorded and a chance for us to be in a contemplative but ultimately upbeat place. To say more words detracts from what we feel is a beautiful thing!
Looming
Lyubov: Further experimenting with the mix, here we contrasted an overall light and airy sound with the distorted choruses, clashing the different sides of the spectrum against each other and trying to see what comes of that.
Roman: We close the album out with a bang and a chance to be experimental within our new found musical happy place. Whilst further experimenting with the mix, here we contrasted an overall light and airy sound with the distorted choruses, clashing the different sides of the spectrum against each other and trying to see what comes of that. This is probably the only song on the album that was born from guitar ideas we found among our practice space recordings.
Miserable Miracles is out on 4th May via Club AC30.
Ever since their first LP, New Brigade, appeared at the beginning of this decade, the Danish quartet Iceage have been buzzed about in particular punk and indie circles.
We’ve heard four stellar singles from Iceage’s fourth studio album, “Beyondless”: “The Day the Music Dies,”“Pain Killer” featuring Sky Ferreira, “Take It All” and “Catch It.”“The Day the Music Dies” combines raunchy brass, frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s sassy lead vocals and driving keyboards into a theatrical, Rolling Stones-esque stomper with Rønnenfelt drowning in anxiety (“How can one kill an impulsion / When it’s still kicking and breathing”) and restlessness (“The future’s never starting / The present never ends”).
From the new album ‘Beyondless’ out May 4th on Matador Records
Chicago quartet Ganser was formed in 2014, embracing college art rock, post-punk, and noise. Taking influence from the no wave din of acts like Sonic Youth and contemplative post-punk like Magazine, they dive deep into where words fail on their debut LP Odd Talk following 2016’s This Feels like Living. Their amorphous sound takes on the form of their comedically grim, absurdist subject matter. Seeking meaning in mess, they sort through syllables and signals to find the right words. When’s the last time you called your mother? Ganser is Alicia Gaines, Brian Cundiff, Nadia Garofalo, and Charlie Landsman.
Full album releases April 20th, 2018 on No Trend Records.
“Satsuma” unravels and splinters, a looming centerpiece off the band’s debut album, Odd Talk, out April 20th on No Trend Records, but contains a commanding and withdrawn presence. “The keening anxiety present on other tracks…turns into reservation here, coming out the other side as a swaggering warning against expectations and showing your hand in a time of uncertainty. It is a song to feel big when you feel small.”
Digging further into the song’s message, Gaines doesn’t mince words. “Being alive, you can’t help but be affected by your environment, even if unintentionally. The chorus of ‘Satsuma’ refers to words spoken by a dangerous idiot referring to the inauguration crowd in 2017,” she states of the song, which not only carries a profound weight of doomed universality but scarred intimacy.
