Archive for the ‘CLASSIC ALBUMS’ Category

BEECHWOOD – ” Songs From the Land of Nod “

Posted: March 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Beechwood held an album release for their debut LP, “Songs From the Land of Nod” (Alive/Naturalsound Records), a darkly shimmering rock ’n’ roll record of bruising timelessness.  The allure of Beechwood’s powerful onstage rock star insouciance which is only somewhat less pronounced offstage can come across as slightly studied, an assertion the band contests, bolstering the denial with tales of their shambolic misspent youths. But at least they’re studying the right bands. the trio share teen tales of skateboarding over the George Washington Bridge to see bands in Manhattan; then, a few years later, being escorted out of Arlene’s Grocery during one of their own gigs (“We started rolling around, and things got knocked over, broken. We were just younger. Honest aggression.

We’re more composed now”) and various other angst- and substance-fueled shenanigans. The band’s Gordon Lawrence, 24, looking not unlike a young Thurston Moore, hair covered by a plaid cap, Drummer/vocalist Isa Tineo, 25, a dark beanie obscuring his head/face tattoos, perches on a stool. His visual counterpoint is Beechwood’s newest, member Sid Simons, 21. The bassist’s blonde shag hair is straight off a Sweet album cover, and his faint Australian accent and easy demeanor make him an effective foil for his more formidable-seeming Jersey-bred bandmates.

While Beechwood exude an honest cool that can’t be bought, any hipster factor is shattered when Tineo leans into the tape recorder and shouts: “We’re going to take over the fucking world!”

If the heady, garage-y, spooky compositions on Songs From the Land of Nod are any indication, Tineo could be right. Of the provocative title (the song “Land of Nod” closes the record) Lawrence explains, “There are biblical, childhood, and drug references. There was a two-year period that led up to that album. I went through a lot of stuff, physically, emotionally.”

“I put myself through something that I’m through now. But at the time…the biblical reference, East of Eden…” he says haltingly. “I could see what Eden was and where I wanted to be, but I felt I was constantly outside the gate looking in. I felt that way, honestly, my whole life. Outside. Trying to get in and not knowing how. Eden was being happy. Being OK. Not waking up every morning and wanting to die. Or not waking up at all. Not being able to fall asleep.”

The lanky singer, polite and soft-spoken, declines to elaborate on his issues, but the hazy melancholy and changing tempos of “C/F” — referring to the guitar chords — was one written from the depths. (On the lighter side is a more jaunty entry, Beechwood’s most popular song on Spotify, the two-minute pop-dream “Heroin Honey” written and sung by Tineo, which, he clarifies, is “about a girl, not drugs!”).

Beechwood seem to possess the rock ’n’ roll knowledge of their combined ages, . They easily cite Brian Eno, Jim Carroll, and other darkly creative underground icons. Names are not dropped, but leak out. Actor (Last Days, Boardwalk Empire)/musician Michael Pitt insisted on directing the band’s surf-guitar-ish rave-up “I Don’t Wanna Be the One You Love” video after catching a Beechwood soundcheck at a small Brooklyn club. Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong met the group at Armstrong’s own party, and he asked to hear some Beechwood music.

Beechwood began, as the best do: in the basement, and for all members, with a strong paternal influence. “My dad was a painter. He hung out, on the outskirts, with Steve Albini and Urge Overkill in Chicago,” begins Lawrence, who named the band after the street he grew up on. “We went to see Elliott Smith, the Stones, when I was a little kid. When I got a guitar, instead of lessons, he gave me the first Ramones record. From there, I found out about the Stooges and bands like that. He introduced me and took a step back and let me figure out shit. I was ten years old and going to see Gang of Four.”

Simons, who has been in the band now about two years and was not on Songs From the Land of Nod, credits his dad (stage name Mike Lezbian), the singer for the Scavengers “the first punk band from New Zealand” — for starting him off on the musical good foot.

Tineo’s father was an influence on his son — and countless others. “My dad (JuJu Gigante aka Jerry Tineo) played a really important part in music, in hip-hop. In the early ’90s he was a drummer in a famous group called Beatnuts. They were iconic. My dad started traveling with that group when he was 19, 20 and hasn’t stopped. He’s played every genre of music, I grew up with it all .

“I just knew what I liked and what I didn’t,” says Tineo. “But rock ’n’ roll specifically was the first genre of music that found me. I’m Dominican. Gordon grew up with rock, but rock found me. The shit hit me like a ten-ton truck. It fit my lifestyle, the way I wanted to live my life.” Tineo’s dad taught him beats, but the drum set “didn’t speak to me until rock. My dad also bought me a guitar, which I didn’t end up learning until years later.”

Beechwood’s founders “learned to play, more or less, with each other,” says Lawrence. “Isa and I met through mutual friends who all skated together. We’d all meet up at some local skatepark for the day and then hang out afterwards, try to find someone over 21 or with a fake ID to buy us some 40-ouncers from the bodega, and then go out looking for some party or whatever at night.” The pair’s first recorded endeavor, Trash Glamour (2014), was cut in Lawrence’s parent’s basement. “In my head, it was Exile on Main Street, but we were in a basement. It sounds awful,” Lawrence confesses.

Tineo says. I should have been born when the Ramones were around. And Beechwood he’d never even seen us  You, know, you wouldn’t have been the Ramones, or you wouldn’t be as great as you are now, because there’s only you, only one of you, one of your band. Only you can do what you’re doing now.’ ”

Indeed, their septuagenarian fore-musicians are revered but not imitated. Live, Lawrence and Tineo switch instruments; they all write songs. Rife with prolific creativity, youth, and constant change, a next record, Inside the Flesh Hotel, is in the can and will be out this summer. It aurally showcases a happier headspace for the Lawrence, and marks Simons’s writing and recording debut.

There’s one cover song on Songs From the Land of Nod, and it’s lyrically telling. The Kinks gem “I’m Not Like Everybody Else” resonates as much musically as it does lyrically for the band: “I don’t want to live my life like everybody else / And I won’t say that I feel fine like everybody else / ’Cause I’m not like everybody else.” Production on Land of Nod comes courtesy of Lawrence’s uncle in Chicago, who has a “Brian Jones/Brian Wilson vibe” that’s evident in the album’s intricate, creative layers, and the scary-beautiful intensity of dark, driving songs like “This Time Around.”

Reasonably apt comparisons to bands like Suicide and the Velvet Underground pepper Beechwood’s press kit. Those references, Lawrence points out, often come from older journalists. “When people listen to something, they want to put it in a certain context that makes sense to them. You experience through the filter of your past, a reference point,” he notes. “We’re not doing anything new, not starting some new genre. We’re just playing rock ’n’ roll music the best that we can. The guys writing these articles grew up going to the Ramones. When they listen to us, it’s a compliment, knowing that the same energy they felt as a kid going to see those bands is what they’re feeling when they see us.”

HOP ALONG – ” Bark Your Head Off Dog “

Posted: March 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Written over the course of 2016 and 2017 and recorded in the summer of the latter year by Frances Quinlan (songwriter/vocalist/rhythm guitar), Tyler Long (bass), Joe Reinhart (guitar), and Mark Quinlan (drums), “Bark Your Head Off, Dog” addresses disappointment, particularly in man’s misuse of power, and relates accounts from the periphery — one’s attempts to retreat from the lengthening shadows of tyrants, both historical and everyday. It considers what it’s like to cast off longheld and misguided perceptions, yet without the assurance of knowing what new ones will replace them. Much like on Hop Along’s first and second records, Get Disowned and Painted Shut, Quinlan seeks in real time to work through these issues.

Throughout the album, one gets the sense that Quinlan is wandering in the thicket of a forest—a state of being that will feel familiar to longtime listeners—and on this outing, she hasn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs behind her. The album’s artwork, which Quinlan painted herself, invites the listener into that forest, as well. “There is a terror in getting lost,” she says, “the woods are at the same time beautiful and horrifying.” This curious wandering gives the album, both lyrically and musically, a heightened dimensionality.

Bark Your Head Off, Dog is, without question, Hop Along’s most dynamic and textured record yet. Self-produced and recorded at The Headroom in Philadelphia by Reinhart and Kyle Pulley, Bark Your Head Off, Dog features the familiar sounds that have always made the band allergic to genre: grunge, folk, punk, and power pop all appear, with inspiration from ELO to Elvis Costello to ‘70s girl group vocal arrangements. This time around, they’ve added strings, more intricate rhythms, lush harmonies (featuring Thin Lips’ Chrissy Tashjian), along with a momentary visit with a vocoder. In more than one place, Mark Quinlan drums like he’s at a disco with Built to Spill. 

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Most significantly, Bark Your Head Off, Dog shows the band at its strongest and most cohesive. Hop Along (which originally began as Quinlan’s solo project under the moniker Hop Along, Queen Ansleis) has never sounded so deliberate, so balanced. “So strange to be shaped by such strange men” is a line that repeats on more than one song on the album. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. That I just deferred to men throughout my life,” Quinlan says. “But by thinking you’re powerless, you’re really robbing yourself. I’m at a point in my life where I’m saying instead, ‘Well, what can I do?’”

releases April 6th, 2018

MIYA FOLICK – ” Deadbody “

Posted: March 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Last autumn Los Angeles-based musician Miya Folick released a new EP, Give It To Me, which was lauded asamong the best EPs Of 2017. Today, Folick has followed that up with a brand-new song called “Deadbody” which was co-written by her and Justin Raisen. It’s a skeletal track that builds to a towering chorus where Folick gets to show off her capacious voice: “Over my dead body,” she sings, booming drums behind her. It’s a wall of pure power. Here’s what she had to say about the song:

I wrote ‘Deadbody’ after reading article after article about people’s exploitation by people and power structures, and then talking to my friends about our own heavy experiences. I felt defeated by the weight and pervasiveness of the system we are fighting. I needed something to sing that felt hopeful but fierce. I wanted to growl and be demanding and defiant. ‘Deadbody’ was meant for me and you to sing together, to make us feel empowered, strong, and exhilarated by our own resilience.

Deadbody came from a place of frustration. I needed something to sing that felt hopeful but fierce. I wanted to growl and be demanding and defiant. I wanted something clear and stark. I made Deadbody for you and me to sing together, to remind us of our power, our strength, and our resilience. I want you to sing it loud and hold it in your heart. I made it for you

Thank you so much to my producer team @justinraisen @yves_above_so_below @lukeniccoli and to @terriblerecords for making this with me. And thanks to Waverly Mandel for the beautiful artwork.

KING TUFF – ” Thru The Cracks “

Posted: March 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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King Tuff, photo by Olivia Bee

King Tuff’s forthcoming album The Other is little less than a month away, but the one-time garage rocker’s wild, starry-eyed new sound has been the cornerstone of the record’s pre-release singles, from the thoughtful title track to the rambunctious “Psycho Star” to the funk-laden “Raindrop Blue”. New track “Thru the Cracks” gazes upward into the ephemeral, the song serving as a tribute of sorts to an old friend King Tuff’s Kyle Thomas lost to suicide.

Jenny Lewis lends her honeyed contralto to the track, as does Springtime Carnivore’s Greta Morgan, while Ty Segall drummer Charles Moothart offers the rhythm some shambling rhythm.

The Other‘ (Release Day: April 13, 2018)

“About two years ago I lost a good friend to suicide,” Thomas says in a press statement. “He loved the Beatles, Nirvana, Burroughs, bumming smokes, stealing his parents records and selling em to me… he was a complex character, a sweetheart with poor social skills, a musical genius with no outlet. He was pretty damn misunderstood in this world and struggled for a long, long time.

“I had this song laying around for 7 years or so, but sadly it wasn’t until he was gone that it came into focus and I realized what it was all about. It’s one of my favorites I’ve ever written, and one of the truest. And it all comes back again to this thing, the Other. Maybe death is just a passageway to something else. Maybe in death we finally, once and for all, join the Other. I dunno, but I think Jeremiah is probably hanging out on the metaphysical stoop right now with none other than the Other itself.

AMEN DUNES – ” Freedom ” Best Albums Of 2018

Posted: March 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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With every record, Damon McMahon aka Amen Dunes has transformed, and Freedom is the project’s boldest leap yet. The first LP, D.I.A., was a gnarled underground classic, recorded and played completely by McMahon in a trailer in upstate New York over the course of a month and left as is. The fourth and most recent LP Love, a record that enlisted Godspeed! You Black Emperor as both producers and backing band (along with an additional motley crew including Elias Bender Rønnenfelt of Iceage and Colin Stetson), featured songs confidently far removed from the damaged drug pop of Amen Dunes’ trailer-park origins.

Love took two years to make. Freedom took three. The first iteration of the album was recorded in 2016 following a year of writing in Lisbon and NYC, but it was scrapped completely. Uncertain how to move forward, McMahon brought in a powerful set of collaborators and old friends, and began anew. Along with his core band members, including Parker Kindred (Antony & The Johnsons, Jeff Buckley) on drums, came Chris Coady (Beach House) as producer and Delicate Steve on guitars. This is the first Amen Dunes record that looks back to the electronic influences of McMahon’s youth with the aid of revered underground musician Panoram from Rome. McMahon discovered Panoram’s music in a shop in London and became enamored. Following this the two became friends and here Panoram finds his place as a significant, if subtle, contributor to the record.

The bulk of the songs were recorded at the famed Electric Lady Studios in NYC (home of Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC, D’Angelo), and finished at the similarly legendary Sunset Sound in L.A., where McMahon, Nick Zinner, and session bass player extraordinaire Gus Seyffert (Beck, Bedouine) fleshed out the recordings.

On the surface, Freedom is a reflection on growing up, childhood friends who ended up in prison or worse, male identity, McMahon’s father, and his mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of recording.

The characters that populate the musical world of Freedom are a colourful mix of reality and fantasy: father and mother, Amen Dunes, teenage glue addicts and Parisian drug dealers, ghosts above the plains, fallen surf heroes, vampires, thugs from Naples and thugs from Houston, the emperor of Rome, Jews, Jesus, Tashtego, Perseus, even McMahon himself. Each character portrait is a representation of McMahon, of masculinity, and of his past.

Yet, if anything, these 11 songs are a relinquishing of all of them through exposition; a gradual reorientation of being away from the acquired definitions of self we all cling to and towards something closer to what’s stated in the Agnes Martin quote that opens the record, “I don’t have any ideas myself; I have a vacant mind” and in the swirling, pitched down utterances of “That’s all not me” that close it.

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The themes are darker than on previous Amen Dunes albums, but it’s a darkness sublimated through grooves. The music, as a response or even a solution to the darkness, is tough and joyous, rhythmic and danceable. The combination of a powerhouse rhythm section, Delicate Steve’s guitar prowess filtered through Amen Dunes heft, and Panoram’s electronic production background, makes for a special and unique NYC street record.

It’s a sound never heard before on an Amen Dunes record, but one that was always asking to emerge. Eleven songs span a range of emotions, from contraction to release and back again. ‘Blue Rose’ and ‘Calling Paul the Suffering’ are pure, ecstatic dance songs. ‘Skipping School’ and ‘Miki Dora’ are incantations of a mythical heroic maleness and its illusions. ‘Freedom’ and ‘Believe’ offer a street tough’s future-gospel exhalation, and the funk-grime grit of ‘L.A.’ closes the album, projecting a musical hint of things to come.

Released March 30th, 2018

VARIOUS ARTISTS – ” U​.​F​.​O. Stories, A Tribute To The Flaming Lips “

Posted: March 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The story of The Flaming Lips are somewhat confused, or rather merge with my own.
Briefly, when we are young, we are crazy, dreamy, rebellious, we have no limits, and The Lips at the beginning were just like us, crazy young people, dreamy, loud and rebellious, but adulthood comes to us all and with it many responsibilities , the priorities change completely, we mature, we grow and we understand that, that time of dreams passed, with The Lips, it happens the same thing.

But one thing is certain, the essence, it will always be stored and will appear from time to time, just let it happen … this is the magic of life, this is the magic of The Flaming Lips´ music.

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Thank you my friend Wayne for accompanying me for all these long years.
This is dedicated to you, my brother! And of course, my special thanks to all the wonderful bands that are part of this project.
With love……. Renato Malizia

ROCKPILE – ” Live At The Palladium “

Posted: March 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Image of Rocklipe 'Live at the Palladium' red vinyl LP.

Coming late April/early May on our Vogon imprint, this concert captures Rockpile at the height of their powers. Includes live versions of ‘Girls Talk’, ‘Cruel To Be Kind’ and Rockpile’s version of ‘Jailhouse Rock’.

Rockpile were a British rock and roll group of the late 1970s and early 1980s, noted for their strong pub rock, rockabilly and power pop influences, and as a foundational influence on new wave. The band consisted of Dave Edmunds (vocals, guitar), Nick Lowe (vocals, bass guitar), Billy Bremner (vocals, guitar) and Terry Williams (drums). Rockpile recorded four studio albums, though only one (Seconds of Pleasure) was released under the Rockpile group banner. Two other albums (Tracks on Wax 4 and Repeat When Necessary) were released as the Dave Edmunds solo albums, and one more (Labour of Lust) was released as a Nick Lowe solo album.

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Tracklist:

Side 1. Down, Down, Down / So It Goes / I Knew The Bride / Switchboard Susan / Crawlin’ From The Wreckage / Trouble Boys

Side 2. Girls Talk / Crackin’ Up / Born Fighter / Let It Rock / Cruel To Be Kind / I Hear You Knocking / Jailhouse Rock

THIS WEEKS ESSENTIAL NEW RELEASES Friday 30th March 2018

Posted: March 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Happy Easter! Welcome to this week’s essential new Easter releases, As befitting a major public holiday weekend, there are lots and lots of great albums released tomorrow. You can choose from Cabbage, The Vaccines, Ben Harper, Haley Heynderickx, Trembling Bells, Frankie Cosmos new favourites Sons Of Kemet and much more besides. Plenty of reissues too out tomorrow , A really nice collection and very limited of The Damned singles box set, this will be gone soon so if you are looking for a copy, grab one now – other re-releases include the albums, Spacemen 3 and some a fab Supremes set on CD only.

Some very nice pre-orders available now including the two biggies which are both are actually reissues, though it’s doubtful that many of you have one of these in your collection. The Pink Floyd ‘Pulse’ 4LP set is getting a re-release on the 18th May and a reissue of The Floyd’s ‘Relics’. Also on the reissues tip is the very wonderful looking  Supremes box set; ‘Supreme Rarities’ is coming out as a 4LP set from of all places Third Man Records. Already selling well is the forthcoming re-release of ‘Version 2.0’ from Garbage, with an orange 2LP version or a deluxe box set.

Have a great Easter weekend (don’t eat too many of those Chocolate Eggs!)

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Cabbage  –  Nihilistic Glamour Shots

Cabbage have finally released their highly anticipated debut album (not counting the Record Store Day release), following on from a trio of EP’s, released under the delightfully tactful ‘‘Young, Dumb & Full Of…

We start off with the thrashing garage rock of ‘Preach To The Converted’ with twanging distorted guitar and the sort of snarling vocals you could imagine being venemously spat from the edge of the stage before launching into the fuzzy off-kilter rock of Arms of Pleonexia, reminiscent of a younger Ty Segall swagging around the stage before a baying croud after one too many bottles of corner-shop white lightning. Things continue at this frenetic pace with ‘Molotov Alcopop’ providing a bit of nuanced rhythm before the gothic rock of ‘Disinfect Us’ suggests a more mature suite of influences, from the militant march and languid blues overtones of early White Stripes.

Further on, we get syncopated guitars over a meandering drum machine on the brilliantly swaying ‘Pendurabo’ and jangling hazy indie, topped with a curiously (but effectively) distorted vocal affectation over the top.

Brilliantly varied, but held together with a persistent narrative thread, ‘Nihilistic Glamour Shots’ lives up to the hype of the earlier 3 EP’s, with a willingness to experiment but a knowing nod to all of their numerous influences.

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Frankie Cosmos  –  Vessel

New York-native songwriter Greta Kline has shared a bounty of her innermost thoughts and experiences via the massive number of songs she has released since 2011. Like many of her peers, Kline’s prolific output was initially born from the ease of bedroom recording and self-releasing offered by digital technology and the internet. But, as she’s grown as a writer and performer, devising more complex albums and playing to larger audiences, Kline has begun to make her mark on modern independent music. Her newest record, Vessel, is the 52nd release from Kline and the third studio album by her indie pop outfit Frankie Cosmos. On it, Kline explores all of the changes that have come in her life as a result of the music she has shared with the world, as well as the parts of her life that have remained irrevocable.

Frankie Cosmos has taken several different shapes since their first full-band album, 2014’s Zentropy, erupted in New York’s DIY music scene. For Vessel the band’s lineup comprises multi-instrumentalists David Maine, Lauren Martin, Luke Pyenson, and Kline. The album’s 18 tracks employ a range of instrumentations and recording methods not found on the band’s prior albums, while maintaining the succinctly sincere nature of Kline’s songwriting. The album’s opening track, “Caramelize,” serves as the thematic overture for Vessel, alluding to topics like dependency, growth, and love, which reemerge throughout the record. Although many of the scenarios and personalities written about on Vessel are familiar territory for Frankie Cosmos, Kline brings a freshly nuanced point of view, and a desire to constantly question the latent meaning of her experiences. Kline’s dissonant lyrics pair with the band’s driving, jangly grooves to create striking moments of musical chemistry.
Vessel’s 34-minute run time is exactly double the length of Frankie Cosmos’ breakout record, Zentropy, and it is an enormous leap forward. Typically, albums by artists at a similar stage in their careers are written with the weight of knowing that someone is on the other end listening. Yet, despite being fully aware of their ever-growing audience, Kline and band have written Vessel with a clarity not muddled by the fear of anyone’s expectations. Vessel’s unique sensibility, esoteric narratives, and reveling energy lace it comfortably in Kline’s ongoing musical auto-biography.

Vessel was recorded in Binghamton, New York with Hunter Davidsohn, the producer and engineer who helped craft Zentropy and Next Thing, and at Gravesend Recordings in Brooklyn with Carlos Hernandez and Julian Fader. It features contributions from Alex Bailey (formerly of Warehouse, and now part of the live configuration of Frankie Cosmos), Vishal Narang (of Airhead DC), and singer/songwriter Anna McClellan, all of whom have played on bills with Frankie Cosmos and collaborated on-stage with the band.

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Haley Heynderickx –  I Need to Start a Garden

Haley Heynderickx’s highly anticipated debut album. Haley has a wonderful voice and the lyrics are poetic and heartfelt. Musically it’s sometimes reminiscent of early Velvet Underground in that many of the songs quickly build into frenetic and emotive climaxes. The difference here is that these crescendos dissolve into tender moments of unabashed vulnerability, rather than fragmenting into splinters of drug-fueled confusion. It’s beautiful and heartfelt. For fans of Velvet Underground, Angel Olsen and Cat Power.

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Amen Dunes  –  Freedom

Over the course of 10 years, Damon McMahon aka Amen Dunes has transformed continuously, and Freedom is the project’s boldest leap yet. The themes are darker than on previous Amen Dunes albums, but it’s a darkness sublimated through grooves. The music, as a response or even a solution to the darkness, is tough and joyous, rhythmic and danceable. It’s a sound never heard before on an Amen Dunes record, but one that was always asking to emerge. Eleven songs span a range of emotions, from contraction to release and back again. Blue Rose and Calling Paul the Suffering are pure, ecstatic dance songs. Skipping School and Miki Dora are incantations of a mythical heroic maleness and its illusions. Freedom and Believe offer a street tough’s future-gospel exhalation, and the funk-grime grit of L.A. closes the album, projecting a musical hint of things to come.

In creating Freedom, McMahon brought in a powerful set of collaborators and old friends. Along with core band members, including Parker Kindred (Antony & The Johnsons, Jeff Buckley) on drums, came Chris Coady (Beach House) as producer, and Delicate Steve on guitars. This is the first Amen Dunes record that looks back to the electronic influences of McMahon’s youth with the aid of revered underground musician Panoram from Rome, who finds his place as a significant, if subtle, contributor to the record. The bulk of the songs were recorded at Electric Lady in New York, and finished at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, where McMahon, Nick Zinner, and session bass player Gus Seyffert (Beck, Bedouine) fleshed out the recordings.

Yet, if anything, these eleven songs are a relinquishing of all of them through exposition; a gradual reorientation of being away from the acquired definitions of self we all cling to and towards something closer to what’s stated in the Agnes Martin quote that opens the record, “I don’t have any ideas myself; I have a vacant mind” and in the swirling, pitched down utterances of “That’s all not me” that close it.

“Miki Dora was arguably the most gifted and innovative surfer of his generation and the foremost opponent of surfing’s commercialization. He was also a lifelong criminal and retrograde: a true embodiment of the distorted male psyche. He was a living contradiction; both a symbol of free-living and inspiration, and of the false heroics American culture has always celebrated. With lyrics of regret and redemption at the end of one’s youth, the song is about Dora, and McMahon, but ultimately it is a reflection on all manifestations of mythical heroic maleness and its illusions.”

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Camp Cope  –  How To Socialise and Make Friends

Camp Cope’s new album How To Socialise and Make Friends is the current Australian buzz band. The follow up to their 2016 self-titled debut kicks off with the instantly remarkable bass line of The Opener, an explosive diatribe against the sexist double standards of the music industry at large. What follows the lead single are a collection of songs that anchor on the cycles of life, loss and growth through resilience and those moments of finding and being yourself. Throughout the nine songs on How To Socialise and Make Friends it becomes clear that if their debut was the flame, this is Camp Cope rising from the ashes, stronger and more focused than ever. For fans of Courtney Barnett, Bettie Serveert and Liz Phair.

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Dead Meadow  –  The Nothing They Need

Since their widely-acclaimed self-titled debut album released in 1999 Dead Meadow have released seven studio albums – three via Matador records (Shivering King and Others (2003), Feathers (2005), and Old Growth (2008)) and two live albums which includes Three Kings, a feature length live film and soundtrack. Their unique marriage of Sabbath riffs, dreamy layers of guitar-fuzz bliss with singer Jason Simon’s melodic croon has won over psychedelic pop/rock and stoner rock fans alike and with their new album The Nothing They Need (Xemu Records) the band show that in 2018, they continue to fuse their love of early-’70s hard rock and ’60s psychedelia into their own distinct sound.

The album was recorded in Dead Meadows’ studio/rehearsal space, The Wiggle Room and it celebrates twenty years of the band with eight songs that feature everyone that has been musically involved with the band over the years. Jason and Steve Kille are joined by original drummer Mark Laughlin, Stephen McCarty ( the drummer throughout the Matador years), and current drummer Juan Londono. Cory Shane joins them on guitar for some Feathers era dual guitar interplay.

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No Joy / Sonic Boom  –

No Joy / Sonic Boom is Jasamine White-Gluz and Pete Kember. You know Jasamine from her eight-years (and counting) stint as a founding member and principal songwriter of Canadian shoegaze / noise-pop band No Joy. And Pete Kember is Sonic Boom, of Spacemen 3, Spectrum, and E.A.R. While neither can accurately recollect how they met, the pair first touched on the idea of working together in an exchange of emails during the fall of 2015. No Joy had just finished touring on the back of LP More Faithful (their third full-length on the Mexican Summer imprint, and their heaviest to date), and Jasamine was eager to walk a new path. “No Joy functioned as a four-piece ‘rock band’ for so long,” she says. “I wanted to pursue something solo where I collaborated with someone else who could help me approach my songs from a completely different angle. Pete is a legend and someone I’ve admired for a long time. Being able to work with him on this was incredible.”

What started as a sonic exploration between two friends—passing songs back and forth intercontinentally, with Jasamine writing and producing songs in Montreal and Pete writing, arranging, and producing in Portugal—soon grew into a project of substance, the result being four glistening tracks that dance along the lines of electronica, trip-hop and experimental noise. “I wrote some songs that were intended for a full band and handed them off to Pete, who helped transform them. I barely knew how to use MIDI so I was just throwing him these experiments I was working on and he fine-tuned my ideas. There are barely any guitars on this album, because I was focused on trying to find new ways to create sounds.” The No Joy / Sonic Boom EP begins with the 11+ minute epic “Obsession,” a disco-y dream trance jam that ebbs and flows, before “Slorb” slinks in, casting its seductive spell. “Triangle Probably” rings triumphant, an industrial beat thumping below, the track interwoven with Jasamine’s silvery vocals. “Teenage Panic” begins in celebration, brimming with hope and excitement, and then—a full stop—before striking back in the form of a droning loop that gathers more and more layers as it spins out into the infinite void.

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Holy Wave  –   Adult Fear

El Paso’s Holy Wave will release their new album, Adult Fear via The Reverberation Appreciation Society. The band have always differentiated themselves from the psych pack with their keyboard-forward sound that rarely falls into standard trippy tropes, and the album’s title track is a good example of that, with a grooving bassline and nice harmonies in the chorus.

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The Damned  –  Stiff Singles 1976 – 1977

BMG proudly present this limited edition set comprising of 5 x 7″ vinyl singles including the famed first ever punk single New Rose and all the other early hits from the impressively chaotic punk quartet. All singles have been recreated with their original artwork, including the ultra-rare, previously fan club only Stretcher Case Baby. These are all packed in a superb box, collaged with original press cuttings from back in the day. Also included is a Damned embroidered patch, exclusive to this boxset. It was the summer of 1976 when Dave Vanian, Rat Scabies and Captain Sensible recruited guitarist and songwriter Brian James, they played their first gig supporting the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club and quickly signed to Stiff Records and began writing the very first chapter of the punk rock history books. Their debut 7” – New Rose – was written by Brian James and backed by a proto-thrash version of The Beatles’ Help. It was recorded by Stiff’s in-house producer, Nick Lowe and set the punk dream alight at exactly 9.00am when record shops opened for business on 22 October 1976, stealing a march on the Pistols by becoming what is widely acknowledged as the very first punk record ever released.The band really came into their own with their second single – Neat Neat Neat – which had two cuts on the B-side, Stab Yor Back and Singalongascabies. Produced, like New Rose, by Nick Lowe, the vinyl had a message from one band member scratched in the run-out groove: “this is your captain speaking…” So what were Captain Sensible’s favourite acts on Stiff, one journalist asked him in 2007? “I wasn’t interested!” he insists. “It was mainly pub rock in the early days, which we despised and sneered at in our young and snotty way…” After a special 7” – Stretcher Case Baby – cut to give away at gigs celebrating the band’s first anniversary, they went back into the studio, this time with Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason at the controls. Third single Problem Child was written by Brian James with Rat Scabies and featured new recruit Lu Edmonds on guitar. An incendiary two minutes of the band in their prime, it failed to crack the UK top 40 but did make number 27 in NME’s alternative singles chart. By the end of 1977, the Damned were ready to part with Stiff, just as Brian James and Lu Edmonds were ready to part with The Damned. Their last single was Don’t Cry Wolf, backed with another Nick Mason-produced track, One Way Love.

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Spacemen 3 –  Playing With Fire

Every once in a while a record comes along that somehow manages to define an era. in the late 80’s there can be no doubt that one such record was released – and that record was Playing With Fire by Spacemen 3. Fuelled by narcotic indulgence and an overwhelming sense of darkness it was rightly hailed as a classic at the time and is still considered to be one of the greatest albums of the time by many today. Its mesmerising beauty and sublime originality are still recognised as a genuine triumph to this day.

2CD – Double CD with live versions of Suicide and Repeater and recordings of Che and May the Circle be Unbroken. Not only that but they’ve also included a second CD full of studio out-takes and demos, including the Spacemen 3 version of Any Way That You Want Me – the song which went on to become Spiritualized’s debut single.

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Jade Bird  –   Something American EP

Jade Bird’s debut EP Something American – originally released in 2017 gets a limited physical release. Across the 5 tracks, her voice has arrived like a total breath of fresh air in the current musical landscape – putting her own positive, refreshing spin on a richly complex personal and musical heritage. Within the EP, Jade manages to twist huge themes including disillusionment, divorce, cheating and sorrow into the realities of an independent-minded modern British teenager. Produced by Simone Felice (The Lumineers, Bat For Lashes etc), the EP was recorded at Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, NY and features Matt Johnson (Jeff Buckley, St Vincent) on drums, Will Rees (Mystery Jets) on guitar and Sara Lee (B-52’s) on bass.

This Week’s Full Releases list

Alfa 9 – ‘My Sweet Movida’ limited clear vinyl LP
Anthroprophh – ‘Omegaville’ swirl vinyl LP
Barbarossa – ‘Lier’ limited turquoise vinyl LP
The Bug Vs Burial – ‘Flame 1’ 12″
Cabbage – ‘Nihilistic Glamour Shots’ LP
The Cars – ‘Heartbeat City’ limited coloured vinyl 2LP reissue
The Cars – ‘Shake It Off’ limited coloured vinyl 2LP
Chris Carter – ‘Chemistry Lessons Volume 1’ coloured vinyl 2LP
The Cavemen – ‘Nuke Earth’ LP
The Cavemen – The Cavemen’ red vinyl LP reissue
Frankie Cosmos – ‘Vessel’ limited blue vinyl LP
Graham Coxon – ‘The End Of The F***ing World: Original Soundtrack’ 2LP
Czarface & MF Doom – ‘Czarface Meets Metal Face’ LP
The Damned – ‘Stiff Singles 1976-1977’ limited 5×7″ singles box set
Dead Meadow – ‘The Nothing They Need’ LP
FACS – ‘Negative Houses’ LP
Fever Ray – ‘Plunge’ deluxe 2LP
Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite – ‘No Mercy In This Land’ LP
Micah P. Hinson – ‘At The BBC Broadcasting Corporation’ LP
Hollywood Sinners – ‘Khome Kakka’ LP
Interrobang – ‘Interrobang’ limited orange vinyl LP
Major Murphy – ‘No.1’ LP
OST – ‘Mr Robot: Volume 4’ limited coloured vinyl 2LP
Max Richter – ‘Hostiles: Original Soundtrack’ 2LP
Sonny Rollins – ‘Saxophone Colossus’ LP reissue
Steve Reich – ‘Pulse/Quartet’ LP
Shit & Shine – ‘That’s Enough’ 12″ EP
Sons Of Kemet – ‘Your Queen Is A Reptile’ 2LP
Spacemen 3 – ‘Playing With Fire’ black vinyl LP reissue
The Streets – ‘Original Pirate Material’ 2LP reissue
The Streets – ‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’ 2LP reissue
The Third Eye Foundation – ‘Wake The Dead’ LP
Trembling Bells – ‘Dungeness’ LP
The Vaccines – ‘Combat Sports’ limited orange vinyl LP

The CAVEMEN – ” Nuke Earth “

Posted: March 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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New Zealand’s The Cavemen are back, ready to drink, fight, fxck and play some goddamn rock and roll! Nuke Earth is their 3rd foot long record and it’s pure, primitive motherfuckin’ Garage Punk like you lust after every night when you’re licking your sexiest leather record jackets, or ‘77 punk steeped in a moldy stack of bootleg Motörhead outtake LPs. The Cavemen have gone batshit crazy, and they’re in full-on attack mode here with 13 tracks of panty dropping chaos guaranteed to land you in jail faster than you can crack one off in a grindhouse showing an “Ilsa” film.Rock’n’roll is here to stay, and it’ll always be for the crazy kids…like it or lump it!T

BRAM TCHIAKOVSKY – ” Strange Men Changed Men The Complete Recordings 1978-1981 “

Posted: March 29, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Born Peter Bramall in November 1950, Bram Tchaikovsky first came to prominence as a member of the pub rock band The Motors in 1977, subsequent to playing in several local rock bands in Lincolnshire during the late ‘60s. Following his decision to leave The Motors, Bram opted to form his own eponymous power pop band, with Mike Broadbent on bass and keyboards, and Keith Boyce on drums. The trio signed to the Radar label in 1978 and went on to achieve a US Top 40 hit in 1979 with ‘Girl of My Dreams’. Several band member changes and two albums later, Bram Tchaikovsky made the decision to split from the band and retire from the music business entirely.

This lovingly assembled package, fully endorsed by Bram Tchaikovsky himself, contains all three Bram Tchaikovsky albums Strange Man, Changed Man (1979), The Russians Are Coming (1980) and Funland (1981), plus all of the band’s singles, b-sides and alternative versions from 1978-1981.

Includes the singles ‘Sarah Smiles’, ‘Lullaby of Broadway’, ‘Girl of My Dreams’, ‘I’m The One That’s Leaving’, ‘Let’s Dance’, ‘Stand & Deliver’ and ‘Shall We Dance?’.

Presented in a special clam shell box set, complete with individual disc wallets featuring the original albums’ artwork. Includes booklet with full sleeve notes focussing on the musical career of Bram Tchaikovsky.

All material contained within has been remastered for the best sound possible.

Released April 27, 2018.

**100 Limited Edition signed copies available exclusively here (while stocks last!)*

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