“In The Rainbow Rain” will be out 27th April via the fine folks at ATO. Okkervil’s last album, Away, was my favorite Okkervil River album release for awhile. Based on this track, Sheff seems to have maintained the momentum.
Here’s some info on the album.
Will Sheff and the band started work on the new album shortly after the end of that tour – and the presidential election. “If December 2016 was good for anything, it was good for writing songs,” he says. Galvanized by the seismic events of that Fall and the following year, Sheff, sometimes co-writing with his new band, channeled his outrage and sadness into music intended to be hopeful, healing and uplifting. Inspired by the Quaker meetings he had been attending, Sheff injected the album with undercurrents of spirituality and gratitude. The result is something akin to a modern secular gospel record, and among the best music of his career.
Okkervil River “In The Rainbow Rain” out April 27th!
Okkervil River is the folk rock band led by Will Sheff. The cult band is a favourite amongst their peers as much as their own fans. The band from Austin, Texas, take their name from a short story by contemporary Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya. The band formed in 1998 and quickly released the EP Bedroom followed by the seven track EP Stars Too Small To Use the next year.
The band have released a total of seven studio albums including Don’t Fall In Love With Everyone You See (2002), Down The River Of Golden Dreams (2003), Black Sheep Boy (2005), The Stage Names (2007), The Stands Ins (2008), I Am Very Far their latest album The Silver Gymnasium (2013).
Run Out Groove Vinyl is a new vinyl-only label that that caters specifically to music fanatics, pressing limited edition titles made by music fans for music fans. Each month 3 prospective projects are put up for a vote. The project with the most votes then is made available for pre-order for 30 days. The finished products are individually numbered, high quality pressings with beautiful packaging.Production is a one time deal with quantities strictly limited to the number of pre-orders.
Down by the Old Mainstream was American Alternative country band Golden Smog’s first full-length album, released in 1995. Its title is from a line in both the Wilco song, “Someday Soon” from the album, Being There, and from “Radio King,” the last track on this album. Golden Smog was a loosely connected group of musicians comprising, at various times, members of Soul Asylum, The Replacements, Wilco, The Jayhawks, Run Westy Run, The Honeydogs and Big Star. Golden Smog’s lineup has often changed, but relative constants who appear on all the recordings are guitarists Kraig Johnson (Run Westy Run), Dan Murphy (Soul Asylum) and Gary Louris (The Jayhawks), along with bassist Marc Perlman (The Jayhawks).
This month, the classic 1995 Golden Smog album Down By The Old Mainstream is up for voting. Long revered by Americana enthusiasts, this album was only previously available on vinyl in a limited reissue in 2010, copies of which now command very high prices in the collector’s market. This is the first time the alt-country super group’s debut album will be reissued on vinyl since 2010. The deluxe package will be limited and numbered
A supergroup of members from Fat White Family, Childhood and more – plus a schoolteacher on vibes calling himself Steely Dan – Insecure Men play a kind of skronked Ariel Pink-style exotica, where rudimentary drum machines patter behind psych-pop ballads about Cliff Richard, teenage sexuality and Penge.
In many ways Insecure Men – the band led by the fiercely talented songwriter and musician Saul Adamczewski and his schoolmate and stabilising influence, Ben Romans-Hopcraft – are the polar opposite of the Fat WhiteFamily. Whereas sleaze-mired, country-influenced, drug-crazed garage punks the Fat Whites are a “celebration of everything that is wrong in life”, Insecure Men, who blend together exotica, easy listening, lounge and timeless pop music, are, by comparison at least, the last word in wholesomeness.
The band originally formed in 2015 in the cramped confines of The Queens Head pub, Stockwell, in the Fat White Family’s notorious South London ‘practice space’. Saul recorded all of the songs he wrote at The Queens Head onto tape at Sean Lennon’s studio in upstate New York. This tape, recorded on his own in a corridor onto an ancient Tascam while in a foul mood with his mates, essentially became Insecure Men’s self-titled debut album as more layers were dubbed over the top until nothing of the original demos remained.
Saul lists some of the influences on their sound, mentioning the exotica of Arthur Lyman, the early electronic pop of Perrey and Kingsley, the supreme smoothness of The Carpenters, the songwriting chops of Harry Nilsson and the hypnagogic uncanniness conjured up by David Lynch, describing what they do as “pretty music with a dark underbelly to it”.
Critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Alela Diane has a new album out titled “Cusp”
“This music is about motherhood,” Alela says of her highly anticipated fifth album Cusp. “Even just by saying that, it feels like people will write you off. It’s like you’ve suddenly lost the charm of being youthful and even attainable––you’ve been commoditized as available. There is not a big place in the music industry for 30-something women with kids making music.” She laughs as she pauses, then adds, “Maybe we can create that space.”
If anyone can carve out needed new territory, it’s Alela. Cusp may be a thematic departure for the Portland, Oregon-based artist, The new 11-song collection was born during Alela’s three-week artist residency at Caldera in Oregon during January 2016. The time was a revelation to Alela, who’d been consumed with her then two-year-old daughter and had found little time to create. In a small A-frame cabin deep within Caldera’s snowy woods, alone for the first time since becoming a mother, she tended to a wood stove, made soup, rediscovered how to be on her own, and wrote songs. “I was just coming back to myself and learning how to take care of me,” she says. “It was really wonderful to be able to get back in touch with my creative side and just reflect on the intensity of what I’d been going through, becoming a mom––reflecting on that from a space where I wasn’t inside of it.”
Early in her Caldera stay, Alela broke her thumbnail while shoveling snow, and her signature finger-picking guitar became a challenge. She had noticed a grand piano in the main lodge and wondered: Why not write songs there? The result is the most piano-driven album of her career, fueled by that energy that only comes with facing and falling in love with something new. “It definitely felt different,” Alela says of composing for the first time on the piano, pointing to the visibility of chords that keys allow, especially when compared to guitar. “It was pretty freeing to get out of my normal habits that I usually fall back into when I write on guitar.”
Alela recorded most of Cusp at Flora Playback and Recording while pregnant with her and her husband’s second daughter, who was born in February 2017. Produced by Peter M. Murray and mixed by Noah Georgeson, the album features contributions from heavyweights including Ryan Francesconi (Joanna Newsom), Rob Burger (Iron & Wine), Peter Broderick, Heather Woods Broderick (Sharon Van Etten), Luke Ydstie (Blind Pilot), and Daniel Hunt (Neko Case).
The February weekend that Cusp was mixed in Los Angeles, Alela planned to be there. Instead, she went into labour––five weeks early. Severe complications ensued, and in a harrowing twist, Alela almost died giving birth to her little girl. “I have never felt so grateful to be alive as I do now,” she says. “I hope that by exploring motherhood in song, I can help demand respect for the life givers we are. Talking and singing about the experience of motherhood is not something I can shy away from. It is the essence of who we are as human beings. This album is my version of women’s work.”
When Alela releases Cusp in February 2018, it will mark exactly one year since her near-death, new-life experience. “Life and death meet in a cusp,” Alela says. “The two are intrinsically linked. My second daughter was born on the cusp.”
Cusp explores the weight and beauty of creating life. Album opener “Albatross” bemoans the pain of leaving her daughter behind for a promotional tour––a heartache she’d never experienced. “The chorus is a reference to flying overseas and having to leave my kid at home, the intensity of that,” she says. Forlorn but also imbued with wonder and acceptance, the song is a perfect example of Alela’s ability to capture the nuances of an experience. Gorgeous “Move Us Blind” delves into our complicated relationship with time, while “Buoyant”––which Alela says “surprised her”––is rich with the vivid imagery her loyal listeners have come to expect.
Throughout the record, Alela refuses to stray from her perspective as a mother and woman. “These songs are about a really different moment in my life than my earlier work, which was more rooted in being young, innocent, curious––I was reflecting on the past and the magic of youth.” “Song for Sandy” was written for British singer Sandy Denny who died shortly after the birth of her daughter. Triggered by the drowned Syrian toddler who washed up on a Turkish shore, Alela penned the haunting “Emigré” in response to the international refugee crisis. Moody “Never Easy” tackles Alela’s complex relationship with her own mother, a recurring theme throughout her albums.
Alela Diane – Ether & Wood (Official Video) Album ‘Cusp’ is now available
Released in 1993, ‘Star’ the debut studio album from Belly. Featuring “Gepetto”, “Feed the Tree”, “Full Moon, Empty Heart”, and “Slow Dog”, the album was certified gold and would be nominated in 1994 for a Grammy for Best Alternative Album. The band was also nominated for Best New Artist. Happy 30th anniversary!
Belly was an rock band formed in 1991 by former Throwing Muses members Tanya Donelly (who was also in The Breeders) , joined forces with the Gorman brothers Thomas and Chris (on guitars and drums respectively) and bassist Fred Abong to launch Belly “Star” was their debut album by this American alternative rock band Belly.
It was released in 1993 and was an unexpected success. With their jangling, over driven guitars and breathless, mysterious vocals, Belly suggests the hard/soft edge of electric girl groups and power pop bands like The Bangles.
Much of Star is like looking through the world from the otherside of the glass. From the ominous foreboding of “Low Red Moon” to the heady frenzy of “Slow Dog”, the whole thing drifts and jumps majestically. Marbled and distorted colours and sounds make new, hypnotic shapes. It’s the realm of dreams made into music.
The energy and infectious indie-pop hooks still have me dancing around the kitchen whenever it makes one of many outings. The guitar jangles are still as elastic and rawkus as ever and Tanya Donnelly’s otherworldly and haunting vocals still intoxicate me. Using the trance like harmonies of dream pop as a foundation, Donelly expands the genre’s boundaries, trimming away its pretensions and incorporating a flair for sweet, concise pop hooks and folk-rock inflections. She also spikes her airy melodies with disarmingly disturbing lyrics. Images of betrayal and death float throughout the album, but what hits home initially — and what stays after the album is finished — are the hooks, whether it’s the rolling singalong of “Gepetto” the surging “Slow Dog,” the melancholy “Stay” .
Belly’s second single ‘Gepetto’ taken from their debut album ‘Star’ – featuring Tanya Donelly (formerly of Throwing Muses and The Breeders), Chris Gorman and Tom Gorman. Bass on the first Belly album comes from former Muses bassist Fred Abong, who was later replaced by Gail Greenwood.
Donelly named the band “Belly” because she thought the word was “both pretty and ugly.”Their EP, Slow Dust (1992), made it to number one on the UK indie chart. Soon after, their single “Feed the Tree” made the Top 40 in the UK Singles Chart and their first album, Star (1993), hit number two on the UK Albums Chart.
In the United States, the album was certified gold, largely based on the success of “Feed the Tree” played on Modern Rock radio stations and MTV, where the video was featured as part of MTV’s Buzz Bin videos and Alternative Nation video show for much of 1993. Two follow-up singles were released, “Gepetto” and “Slow Dog” but neither matched the initial success of “Feed the Tree.”Star was consequently nominated for two Grammys. The album went on to sell over 800,000 copies in the US alone and two million worldwide.[citation needed]
In the spring of 1993, they embarked on a US tour supported by Radiohead
Recorded Sound Emporium Studios, Nashville, Tennessee Amazon Studios, Liverpool, England .
Superfood. I absolutely love this band, they’re so unique and so loveable at the same time. Their music is so absorbingly cheery, it’s hard to physically turn it off. And not to mention, their production is always so magnificent. And after seeing them support Wolf Alice in November I started to like them even more, I’ll still be listening to this album in 2018 and I hope you will be too.
Following the release of singles Double Dutch and I Can’t See, Superfood (aka Dom Ganderton and RyanMalcolm) release their long-awaited second album Bambino. Bambino is the band’s first album through DirtyHit and one that tears apart the rule book of what should be expected of a band in 2017, as the London via Birmingham two-piece fuse sample led dub to their technicolour indie. Stand out track Unstoppable is one of the band’s most immediate tracks to date. Sampling the late Prince Buster, the song hurtles along with a fizzing energy and indisputably contagious melodies.
Bambinowas recorded over the past couple of years. Free from outside influence, the self-produced record bursts with light but the album’s formation wasn’t without its problems, “we had no money, no label and wanted to give up several times.” says frontman Ganderton. The band emerged through the struggles with a record that serves as a document to perseverance, while putting to bed any notion of a difficult second record and pointing to an exciting new direction for the band.
The 24-year-old New Zealander already having fronted Christchurch outfit The Unfaithful Ways’ debut LP and co-helmed weird-country triptych Sad But True Vols I – III (with Delaney Davidson), Williams‘ solo debut was overdue. The former chorister delivered on every promise, summoning the vocal performance of the year with an antique penny thrown into a haunted mineshaft: see “When I Was a Young Girl”, Williams‘ desolate take on American folk standard “One Morning In May”. From Western TV-theme charge “Hello Miss Lonesome” to “Dark Child” – a flaying indie-rock elegy for a youth destroyed and birthright forfeited – to haunted house phantasy “Strange Things” (‘she left me alone in a seven-bedroom home built upon the bones of fallen soldiers’), Williams shrouds so much timeless country-folk brilliance in the same creeping, lingering sense of disquiet.
Ezra Furman will be live in-store at Rough Trade East to perform tracks from new album ‘Transangelic Exodus’, released 9th February on Bella Union.
One of the breakout success stories of 2015 following the release of his hugely acclaimed album Perpetual Motion People, Ezra Furman releases his new album Transangelic Exodus in March. Transangelic Exodus is a new landmark for the American singer-songwriter: “Not a concept record, but almost a novel, or a cluster of stories on a theme, a combination of fiction and a half-true memoir,” according to its author. “A personal companion for a paranoid road trip. A queer outlaw saga.”
The music is as much of an intense, dramatic event, full of brilliant hooks, with an equally evolved approach to recorded sound to match Furman’s narrative vision. In honour of this shift, his backing band has been newly christened: The Boy-Friends are dead, long live The Visions. In other words, the man who embodies the title of his last album ‘Perpetual Motion People’ is still on the move… Or, in the vernacular of the new album, on the run.
Ezra Furman live at Rough Trade East – London Thursday 8th February 2018
Bella Union Records are celebrating the release of Ezra Furman’s beautiful, pioneering, thrilling, tremendous new album “Transangelic Exodus”, which is available now via Bella Union! Transangelic Exodusis a new landmark for the American singer-songwriter: “Not a concept record, but almost a novel, or a cluster of stories on a theme, a combination of fiction and a half-true memoir,” according to its author. “A personal companion for a paranoid road trip. A queer outlaw saga.”
After five years since the release of “Transangelic Exodus”. This record means so much to me & I can never fully explain it.
One thing I can say: so much hard work and soul went into it. Five people made this record and we gave our lives to it for months and months. My four bandmates were all operating at maximal creativity & dedication, willing to explore possibilities with me, to try new things, to rip it up & start again. None of it could have been done if I was a “solo artist,” as some call me. This was a collaborative work, and I am so grateful to my collaborators: Tim, Sam, Jorgen & Ben. It really became a musical rebirth for me, first as a songwriter & then as a musician in general.
It was also a crucial ingredient of an ongoing queer awakening, a spiritual awakening, a social/political awakening—America was in scary upheaval in 2017, & so was my own life and spirit. These tracks reflect that—fear, rage, joy, despair, adventure, a fierce inner peace in direct contradiction to the violence that churns all around it.
“Transangelic Exodus” is in the running for my favourite thing I have ever made. It is probably the hardest I have ever worked on any piece of art.
The reward for our efforts was the album’s reception: not by blogs or critics and certainly not by the pop charts, but by the individual people who opened their hearts to this record. I know it’s a weird record and I never expected most people to understand it. But those who got it, really really got it. Travelling around playing this music, I met these wonderful people who brought me so much happiness. You used the album as it was intended to be used: as shelter for the mind, as tinder for a parking lot fire of the heart. Some of you were runaways of one sort or another, some of you outlaws on paper or in spirit, & so many were young queers working your asses off to totally change your lives. As was I. We did it, & we’re still doing it. Thank you.
Blessings to all Ezra
Transangelic Exodus Ezra Furman’s second album for Bella Union, is a new landmark its “not a concept record, but almost a novel, or a cluster of stories on a theme, a combination of fiction and a half-true memoir,” according to its author. “A personal companion for a paranoid road trip. ” The music is as much of an intense, dramatic event, full of brilliant hooks, with an equally evolved approach to recorded sound to match Furman’s narrative vision. In honour of this shift, his backing band has been newly christened: The Boy-Friends are dead, long live The Visions. In other words, the man who embodies the title of his last album Perpetual Motion People is still on the move… Or in the vernacular of the new album, on the run. His musical DNA remains intact – a thrilling, literate form of garage-punk rooted in The Velvet Underground, Jonathan Richman and ‘50s rock’n’roll. Standout tracks include the album’s lead single Driving Down To LA, a sparse, but explosive, mix of doo-wop and digital crunch.
Another is the haunting Compulsive Liar. Transangelic Exodus addresses another kind of coming out, as Furman addresses his Jewish faith on record much more openly than before, from the shivery ballad God Lifts Up the Lowly (which includes a verse in Hebrew) to the exquisite Psalm 151 and the line “I believe in God but I don’t believe we’re getting out of this one” in Come Here Get Away From Me, a heady blend of rock’n’roll rumble and ghostly clarinet. Crossing between love, gender, sexuality and religion, and singing in solidarity with the innocent, persecuted, oppressed and threatened, Ezra Furman has soundtracked the current fear and loathing across America like no other, while pushing ahead with his own agenda, always on the move.
“2016 was a hard year,” Furman notes in a statement. “While the political and cultural conversation devolved in a very threatening way, we travelled and toured a lot. We saw ourselves coming to the end of what we were, and we wanted to become something new.”
This sea change included an album full of memoir-like material, in which Furman opens up more about his personal journey of coming out as queer and gender-fluid, as well as addresses his Jewish faith. “Not a concept record, but almost a novel, or a cluster of stories on a theme, a combination of fiction and a half-true memoir,” explains Furman. “A personal companion for a paranoid road trip. A queer outlaw saga.” Speaking about the concept behind the record, Furman continues,
“The narrative thread is I’m in love with an angel, and a government is after us, and we have to leave home because angels are illegal, as is harbouring angels. The term ‘transangelic’ refers to the fact people become angels because they grow wings. They have an operation, and they’re transformed. And it causes panic because some people think it’s contagious, or it should just be outlawed. The album still works without the back story, though. What’s essential is the mood — paranoid, authoritarian, the way certain people are stigmatized. It’s a theme in American life right now, and other so-called democracies.”
Furman cites Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City, Kanye West’s Yeezus, and Angel Olsen’s Burn Your Fire For No Witness as influences on Transangelic Exodus.
acclaim for “Transangelic Exodus”
“Thelma & Louise meets Angels In America… Pop has plenty of angels, and Transangelic Exodus joins them in the firmament.” Mail On Sunday – 5 Stars ***** (Album of the Week) “This is one of the most probing and pioneering avant–retro–pop albums of the age.” Classic Rock – 8/10
“By way of glam, garage rock, baroque’n’roll balladry and declamation, Furman fashions a bold and engrossing manifesto.” Sunday Times
“Both sonically and lyrically, it’s an album that is explicitly, thrillingly transgressive, and is already an early contender for one of the albums of the year.” Uncut – 8/10
“His seventh album vibrates with fear, rage and fierce defiance… Transangelic Exodus feels like an appropriately angry response to a repressive political moment.” MOJO – 4 Stars ****
“Furman’s music has been rethought, cut up, redrafted into something irresistibly modern. The songs are tremendous – melodic, unsettling and laugh–out–loud brilliant.” Q – 4 Stars ****
“Transangelic Exodus sets out for fresh horizons with a full tank of passion, purpose, political rage, raucous invention and rock’n’roll fire.” Record Collector – 5 Stars ****
“A sense of defiance and unrest runs throughout Transangelic Exodus… Timely and uncompromising, it feels like a record of real importance.” DIY – 4 Stars ****
“This is a fascinating, mature set from an artist who feels as vital as ever.” DORK – 4 Stars ****
Plain Dog is a band of many genres. We all met in Brooklyn, NY. We all play music,
Plain Dog are a Brooklyn band who play a scuzzy, psych-laced strain of rock music. Built on the founding duo of guitarist/vocalist Russell Efros and guitarist Willie Almack, the band has undergone a few line-up changes as they’ve gigged around New York since their 2015 formation, most recently adding Ian Devaney — frontman of recent Band To Watch Nation Of Language on bass. Over the course of these early years and one EP, they moved from grungy garage rock roots to a more layered, washed-out sound. Today, their music’s DNA is equal parts ’80s and ’90s American indie and the blearier corners of Britpop and its immediate predecessors, bringing to mind the mix a band like Yuck was messing around with at the beginning of the decade.
The group is now gearing up to release their sophomore EP tomorrow, entitled All My Friends. You may have stumbled across some of its songs already: “Cherry Cola” was featured in an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and “Girl Named Phil” was included on Glassnote Records’ recent Noteworthy 01 Compilation. On this EP, Efros wanted to inject a bit more shoegaze qualities into their sound, leading to songs that toe the line between rough-hewn and dreamy.
