The awesome debut EP from Spielbergs, fully-loaded with post-punk, celebration rock and noisy indie tunes. If you’re into the likes of Japandroids, Superchunk or Gang Of Youths then give this a listen.
The duo started an “adult youth club thing” where they’d meet every Friday night in a rented rehearsal space, workshopping jams over beers with no operating principles other than (a) it had to be fun and (b) there had to be no expectations attached to it. What a triumphant and life-affirming debut! amazing artwork and incredible production to match.
“You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever” is the debut album by Orange Juice, released on this day (February 1st) in 1982. After leaving Postcard Records and convincing Rough Trade to finance the sessions, Orange Juice ended up signing to Polydor for their 1982 debut album, You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever. Made up of a couple re-recordings of brilliant songs from early singles (“Falling and Laughing,” “Felicity”), cleaned-up versions of songs from the demo, and a few new tracks, the album is a slick, tuneful slice of early-’80s pop that’s catchy and bright, and only slightly overcooked.
Both Edwyn Collins and James Kirk could have retired after this album and been secure in the history books as two of the finest songwriters of the era. Kirk’s “Three Cheers for Our Side” and “Felicity” are brilliantly odd and hooky songs that sound unlike anything anyone else was doing at the time; Collins’ songs are reliably witty, cutting, and romantic with lovely choruses. “Falling and Laughing” is timeless pop, “Tender Object” is a rippingly good dance-punk, his ballads are heartbreaking (“Untitled Melody,” “In a Nutshell”), and “Consolation Prize” takes the prize for hilarity (“I wore my fringe like Roger McGuinn’s/I was hoping to impress/So frightfully camp it made you laugh/Tomorrow I’ll buy myself a dress”).
Not too many other folks were writing songs like these, either. Add some excellent guitar interplay between Kirk and Collins and a strong rhythm section to the mix and you’ve got something that seems hard to mess up. Unfortunately, some of the production choices come close to wrecking things, as the tinkling pianos and backing vocalist can come on a little strong at times. The glossy finish given to the album is also a giant leap from the scrappiness of their early sound, though its effects are lessened by the exuberant energy the band plays and sings with at all times.
These criticisms aside, once one accepts that the arty punks Orange Juice started off having fully embraced the sophisticated pop side of the world, then it’s easy to see that You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever is one of the best examples of early-’80s pop there is. That it’s the one and only album the team of Collins and Kirk made before splitting only makes it all the more essential to own.
Colossal Youth is the legendary debut album by Young Marble Giants; an album that has influenced the likes of Nirvana and Belle and Sebastian with its paradoxical combination of abstract, sparse electronica and warm, intimate introspection.
Comprised of guitarist-songwriter Stuart Moxham, brother and bassist Philip, and singer Alison Statton, Young Marble Giants emerged from the punk and post-punk landscape with a sound like no one else. Recorded in five days, Colossal Youth went on to influence whole legions from Sheffield to Seattle, looking to de-grungify gangs of four or more. They found fans in the likes of Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Belle & Sebastian, David Byrne, Sonic Youth, The Magnetic Fields.
Cited as one of the most definitive records of the post-punk era, there is something almost canonical about the album’s use of voice, muted instruments and space. Colossal Youth’s attention to sparse detail is now a modus operandi for haunted electronica auteurs and spectral singer-songwriters alike, but ultimately, only the Young Marble Giants sound like Young Marble Giants.
Young Marble Giants ‘Colossal Youth: 40th Anniversary Edition’ includes the titular album as well as songs from ‘Salad Days’, ‘Is The War Over?’, the ‘Final Day’ single and their ‘Testcard’ EP, plus a live DVD of their last ever US show at Hurrah in New York in 1980. Indies exclusive clear vinyl.
Colossal Youth is the opposite of ‘Anarchy In The UK’ or ‘Clash City Rockers’, [but] every bit as good.” – Dave McCullough, Sounds 17/05/1980
Young Marble Giants (YMG)’s one and only album Colossal Youth celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, the Cardiff trio are releasing a special edition reissue. Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth 40th Anniversary Editionincludes the titular album as well as songs from Salad Days, Is The War Over, the “Final Day” single and their Testcard EP as well a live DVD of their last ever US show at Hurrah in New York in 1980.
Alongside the announcement, the band have shared live footage of them performing “Final Day”, taken from the DVD.
Neil Young is continuing his dive through his vast archives with the release of another “lost” album, 1982’s “Johnny’s Island”.
The musician has announced the release on his website, Neil Young Archives, and noted that it will be available “soon.” This latest announcement follows the other archival releases, including his most recent release the Box Set “Archives Vol. 2: 1972—1976” which hosts a trove of unreleased material from a pivotal period in his career. “Johnny’s Island” was recorded at Commercial Recorders in Honolulu, “Island in the Sun” was recorded in 1982 by the same creative team but rejected as his first LP for Geffen Records. He went on to deliver the controversial “Trans” instead, which featured three tracks that started life on its shelved predecessor with the same group of musicians that helped produce “Trans”, released that same year. A few of the songs originally recorded for Johnny’s Island ended up on “Trans”, including “Like An Inca”, “Hold On To Your Love”, and “Little Thing Called Love”. A note on the Neil Young Archives about Johnny’s Island states,
‘Johnny’s Island’ a complete album now being prepared for release at NYA, includes a majority of unreleased tracks including ‘Big Pearl,’ ‘Island In The Sun,’ and ‘Love Hotel,’ plus others you may have heard before.. it’s a beautiful record coming to you soon.
In 1995, Young discussed the lost album—which had been tentatively titled Island In The Sun—in an interview with Mojo, saying, “It was a tropical thing all about sailing, ancient civilizations, islands and water.”
Additionally, Young has shared a new animated video for “Computer Cowboy”, originally released on Trans. The new video, directed by Willie Nelson‘s youngest son Micah, is set to appear on another project called Trans – The Animated Story. Though Young didn’t go into too much detail on The Animated Story, he did state that it “includes all of the Trans music and characters, telling their whole story.” The project is expected to arrive at some point this year on DVD, Blu-ray.
This latest “lost” album announcement follows the 2020 release of 1972’s Homegrown which was also rescued from the archives. In addition to Johnny’s Island, Young still has plenty of other projects in progress including his 1990 Crazy Horse concert film and live album Way Down In The Rust Bucket due out on February 26th, a bootleg of his solo debut at Carnegie Hall on 12/5/70 available on May 7th, and many more.
Released in December 1982, Trans was the 12th studio album of Young’s career. It began a series of records thathave beendescribed as “puzzling at best,” as Young indulged in the complete artistic control he’d been granted by his new label, including experimenting with synths and vocoders. Geffen sued him after the release of the 1983 follow-up Everybody’s Rockin’, claiming he had delivered “unrepresentative” and “uncharacteristic” albums.
“They told me they wanted me to play rock ‘n’ roll and told me I didn’t sound like Neil Young,” the singer recalled. “So I gave them Everybody’s Rockin’ and said, ‘This is a rock ‘n’ roll album by Neil Young after someone tells him what to do. This is exactly what you said you wanted.’ And we got way into it.” The label eventually apologized.
A psychotherapist by day, Laura Fell’s upcoming debut album, ’Safe from Me’, is a search for answers from a woman always expected to have them to hand, and the self-punishing frustration that assumption brings.
A sleeper hit of an album – we’re sure of it, on an exciting brand new label named after a line in a Big Thief song. We’re in good company. Pressed to vinyl exclusively for recordstore as part of their Albums of the Year 2020, and barely a day has gone by where we haven’t given it a spin. Fell’s dedication to this journey of self-discovery was unquestionable from the off, so much so that her peers questioned her sanity. Holding down three jobs to fund the record, Fell was determined that the songs would go far beyond their acoustic guitar genesis, assembling classically trained musicians to fully realise her vision.
London-based, Laura Fell only started playing music at 25 when the poetry she had been writing for almost a decade began to feel more like songs. This talent stretches throughout ‘Safe from Me’; Fell invites you to claw at the soil until you strike gold, and the meaning eventually becomes unearthed.
‘Safe from Me’ will be released on 20th November through Balloon Machine Records.
All music & lyrics by Laura Fell (excepting Track 4 – Left Foot Right Foot – co-written with Gus White) Laura Fell – Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar (Track 8) Chris Hyson – Electric Bass, Piano, Synths, Vocals Alex Haines – Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Vocals Lloyd Haines – Drums & Percussion
Essential new music for fans of Aldous Harding, Laura Marling, PJ Harvey.
Recordstore Exclusive Seafoam Green Vinyl LP, album sleeve signed by Laura, strictly limited to 250 copies worldwide.
Valley Maker has shared new single ‘Instrument’ – tune in now. The South Carolina singer songwriter produces work of incredible richness and nuance, matching indie rock tropes to elements of Americana.
Valley Maker new album ‘When The Day Leaves’ is out on February 19th, and his new single ‘Instrument’ gives an indication of the riches in waiting. Valley Maker is the contemplative psych folk project of songwriter Austin Crane. Crane uses billowing, revelatory metaphors to narrate his own journey through cosmic mystery and the essential search for meaning.
Recalling Conor Oberst’s earlier work or even aspects of Elliot Smith, it’s a rainy rumination that carries within it a spark of optimism. The track is lifted from his forthcoming release When the Day Leaves, which drops on February 19 via Frenchkiss Records. The video, filmed and directed by Joseph Kolean and Zach Gutierrez, incorporates film footage that Austin captured on a Super 8 camera in the North Carolina mountains. They collaborated on the clip for previous single “Mockingbird” and Austin notes, “through mixing mediums and blending human and natural worlds, we wanted the ‘Instrument’ video to visually be in conversation with what we created for ‘Mockingbird,’ and with the landscape of the album cover.”
A song about suffering and renewal, ‘Instrument’ is a tender portrait of perseverance, an ode to carrying on.
He comments…”I wrote ‘Instrument’ as a meditation on the challenges of persevering, of loving the world and other people, and of maintaining a hopeful vision for the future in these times we’re living through.”
“The uncertain future of our planet, with climate change and related natural disasters, always feels very present for me in these considerations. So the song and video reflect both upon anxieties and affections for our world; they explore what it means to remain a part of it all, to carry on amidst human and elemental uncertainty.”
“Instrument” is from Valley Maker’s new record, “When The Day Leaves“, out February 19th, 2021 on Frenchkiss Records.
Four long years after their last release, the deliciously titled “Wig Out at Jagbags”, Stephen Malkmus and his balmy Jicks Band return with an equally delicious follow-up. Spread across 11 tracks, the former Pavement frontman meditates on a changing world by changing with it, leaning on newer toys like an Auto-Tune and Mellotron. He even gets political without all the gimmicky trappings that traditionally come with being an aging white rocker trying to stand on a soapbox.
Why It Rules:For all those reasons and more, Malkmus arrives in top form on Sparkle Hard, sounding like a bona fide bard of his generation. Make no mistake, he still knows how to get silly, but it’s the type of silly one might attribute to whimsically clever authors like Shel Silverstein or Dr. Seuss. Songs like “Bike Lane”, “Kite”, and especially “Shiggy” prove he still has his eye on the stage while deeper cuts like “Solid Silk” and “Middle America” hint that he’d just as happily stroll around the neighborhood. “Bike Lane” is a high point on one of Malkmus’ strongest albums, which puts it in rare company indeed.
Stephen Malkmus is known for an easygoing air on songs full of jangling guitars and wandering subject matter, a reputation he undercuts with savage social commentary on the tightly focused “Bike Lane.” The song, from Sparkle Hard, his latest with the Jicks, skewers misplaced cultural priorities as he juxtaposes an observational, mild-mannered refrain—“Another beautiful bike lane”—with a brutally casual recounting of how a young black man named Freddie Gray died at the hands of Baltimore police officers in 2015. It’s bracing, as Malkmus offers sarcastic sympathy for the cops, and also irresistibly catchy, with a propulsive beat, squiggles of keyboards and an off-kilter guitar workout.
“I will not be one of the watchers/I will not disappear,” Stephen Malkmus sings on “Middle America,” one the best songs from his seventh solo album. an ambling rumination on growing older, featuring a probable allusion to the #MeToo movement: “Men are scum, I won’t deny.” Malkmus continues to mix it up with spacey vocoder-enhanced vocals on prog-jam “Rattler” The elder indie statesman doesn’t have much to prove (as if he ever sang like someone who did) but he and his band aren’t resting on laurels here. Riffing on sunshiny pop, country balladry — with Kim Gordon in tow! — prog workouts, and extended jams equally indebted to the Dead and Neu!, Malkmus gets in where he fits in. Clever as ever but warmer, too.
I hear echoes of the Pavement song “Greenlander” in “Middle America” – not enough that they’re extremely similar on a structural level, but close enough in tone that they share a particular shade of melancholy and evoke a frigid and empty landscape. In lyrical terms they’re from very different ends of a lifespan. “Greenlander” confronts a very youthful sort of awkwardness and regret, with the line “everything I did was right, everything I said was wrong / now I’m waiting for the night to bring me dawn” standing out as one of the young Malkmus’ more straightforward and poignant moments. “Middle America” is more like a collection of wise thoughts and observations, but presented in a humble and low-key way. There’s some good advice in the song but the emotional power of it lies more in the bits where he seems far less certain of himself or anything else. There’s something in the way he sings the “in the winter time” hook that conveys a sweet vulnerability and vague doubt that actually makes him come across as a stronger and more reliable person.
As the frontman of Pavement, Stephen Malkmus recorded some of the most influential, indie genre–defining albums of the twentieth century. For better or worse, it’s work all of his subsequent productions will be measured against, even though he’s been recording solo for nearly twenty years now. Sparkle Hard, his seventh solo album, stands firmly with one foot in the past and the other in the present. An “if it ain’t broke, why fix it” mentality lends a well-worn familiarity, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t playing around with our expectations a little. Kim Gordon cameo on the stripped-down, twangy, tongue-in-cheek “Refute.” All the while, he retains his signature effortlessness, stepping back when things start to get too serious.
Maybe that’s why this album feels so aptly timed. We’re within the midst of a nostalgia boom for bands that defined the ’90s, while current mainstream rock seems to take itself more and more seriously, panicking that the genre is on the decline despite a new class of young, wry indie artists nipping at their heels (many of whom seem to have studied at the School of Malkmus Wit). We needed a new record from Stephen Malkmus to remind us that rock isn’t dead.
From the new album ‘Traditional Techniques’ by Stephen Malkmus
‘From Exile’ is a reimagined stripped down version of The Menzingers 2019 release “Hello Exile’. ‘From Exile’ was recorded from the band’s respective homes while in isolation during COVID-19 stay at home orders.
The Menzingers were on tour in Australia when the world seemed to abruptly stop due to COVID-19, forcing the band to cut their tour short and make their way back to Philadelphia. “The live music industry vanished before our eyes, and just like that we were out of work like tens of millions of others,” notes singer/guitarists Greg Barnett. “As the weeks progressed the upcoming tours got rescheduled, then rescheduled again, then effectively cancelled. There were times when it all felt fatal. There’s no guide book on how to navigate being a working musician during a global pandemic, so we were left to make it up as we went along. We wanted to document and create in the moment, and though we couldn’t be in the same room together due to social distancing lockdowns, we got creative.”
Over the next few months, the band would re-record ‘Hello Exile’ from their separate locations. “We would track the songs from our own home studios, share the files via dropbox, and pray it all made sense when pieced back together. Initially, we planned for the album to be similar to our acoustic demo collection ‘On The Possible Past,’ but we quickly found out that this batch of songs benefited from more detailed arrangements,” adds Barnett. “We rewrote, and changed keys and melodies. We blended analogue and digital instruments in ways we never had before. We dug through old lyric notebooks and added additional verses. We got our dear friend Kayleigh Goldsworthy to play violin on two songs. No idea was off limits. Hell, I even convinced the band to let me play harmonica on a song (no small feat!). The recording process ran from mid-March till June, and upon completion we sent it over to our dear friend and close collaborator Will Yip to mix and master.”
Why We Love Them: We simply don’t deserve Haim. The world is far too broken to fully appreciate Women in Music Part III, the sister trio’s subtly spectacular third LP, which further establishes them as more than expert pop students-turned-teachers. Released in June, WIMPIII cuts to the center of a Fleetwood Mac and Sheryl Crow mix CD-R and extracts all its sun-kissed ‘70s soft-rock (“Don’t Wanna”), ‘90s California-pop (“Gasoline”) and a list of thrilling surprises — all courtesy of a band inadvertently shouldering a genre with their breezy brilliance. Though it isn’t just what the Haim ladies accomplish with their undervalued guitar, bass and drums that make them the year’s most vital band. It’s everything else; the psych-tinged Janet Jackson tribute that is “3 AM,” the pulsing exploration of “Now I’m in It,” which sounds like Savage Garden breathlessly dancing at a Robyn concert. Their song writing has only become more dauntless since Days Are Gone put them on the map and they help rock transcend its perceived limitations in 2020 without declining to rock altogether. We bow down to Danielle, Este and Alana, our three-headed summer girl.
These sisters had a hit a few years back and Iv’e always like their cool LA vibe but this album kicked it up a notch . This song is great but the whole album is worth a few hundred listens.
Finest Moment: Pick one: “Man from the Magazine,” a percussion-free middle finger to mansplaining journalists and their dumb-ass questions (“Do you make the same faces in bed?”) or the accidentally apt “I Know Alone,” whose opening line “Been a couple days since I’ve been out” has become a coronavirus quotable (despite being written months before the pandemic). Far too many people can relate to both
In 2017, the New York Times declared, “Rock’s not dead, it’s ruled by women.” Iterations of this thesis, equal parts tone-deaf and impressed with itself, have proliferated over the last several years, as the word “women” has been whittled down to a buzzword. Women have created complicated, vulnerable, muscular music since the dawn of rock, yet every few months, someone discovers it for the first time.
While there’s plenty of genre-hopping on Women in Music Pt. III—hip-hop, reggae, folk, heartland rock, and dance—HAIM has created an album that’s defined not just by exploration, but by their strong sense of individuality. Unlike the sparkling, thoroughly modern production of 2017’s Something to Tell You, this album’s scratchy drums, murky vocals, and subtle blending of acoustic and electronic elements sound ripped straight from an old vinyl. It’s darker, heavier fare for Haim, for sure—a summer party record for a troubled summer. Haim’s instincts to veer a little more left of the dial result in an album that strikes a deft balance between the experimental and the commercial, the moody and the uplifting. You’re unlikely to hear these songs on Kroger’s in-store playlist—on which 2017’s “Little of Your Love” seems to have become a permanent staple alongside the likes of “Eye of the Tiger” and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)”—but these songs are riskier, and ultimately that much more rewarding.
The best album of the Haim sisters’ collective career is a smorgasbord of genres. From the R&B worship of “3AM” and “Gasoline” to the Paul Simon-referencing “Up From a Dream”—via “Man From the Magazine”‘s raw-edged raised eyebrow—the record broadens the band’s horizons while also holding onto the core pop-rock sensibility beloved by their fans. Establishing them even further as the current torchbearers of long-haired California guitar music, Women In Music Pt. III is the record that believers have long known HAIM had in them.
On Women In Music Pt. III, Haim poke fun at the trope and prove its validity. They drift from boundless joy into hazy dream states, skipping around the vibrant streets of LA and then going through the motions in a fog. WIMPIII’s sound is similarly layered; R&B slow jams, country crooners, and melodic indie-pop build on HAIM’s soft rock foundation. Some of the album’s best one-liners and biting salvos confront the experience of being othered by men — during interviews, booty calls, relationships — but there’s no mistaking who’s in control.
jason Isbell continued to stake his claim as Nashville’s most empathetic wordsmith with his seventh album. A slightly more subdued production than 2018’s stormy The Nashville Sound, the LP still cuts deep lyrically with ballads like “Only Children” and “Dreamsicle” — “New sneakers on a high school court/And you swore you’d be there,” he sings in the latter. The impassioned “Be Afraid” takes aim at silence in the wake of injustice, with Isbell proclaiming, “If your words add up to nothing, then you’re making a choice.” Isbell’s keen self-awareness has always been a core component of his work, and like the hard-fought sobriety he chronicled in “It Gets Easier,” he doesn’t always have the answers.
Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires have spent most of 2020 in their Nashville attic, playing half-improvised cover songs and telling charmingly rambling stories to their webcam. This isn’t how things were supposed to go. Isbell, along with Shires and the rest of his 400 Unit band, had just come out with Reunions, one more album of crowd-pleasing country-rockers and quietly devastating laments. They should be playing big outdoor amphitheaters, where they thrive. But maybe it’s better this way. This way, you can sob to yourself while hearing a wrenching fatherhood song like “Letting You Go” without worrying about anyone else in the crowd seeing you.
On “Reunions”, he is willing to keep pushing forward anyway. Reunions, the seventh studio album from Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit is a powerful and reflective release. Whereas the album was created on the heels of the anxiety caused by commercial and audience expectations, Reunions lacks any notes of trepidation. Rather, Isbell and the 400 Unit revel in strength and collectivity.
That album is fueled by explosive solos and back-and-forths, finding the musicians garnering inspiration in each other’s talents. This sense of unity is also channelled outward. “What’ve I Done to Help” ponders the role of the individual, especially as guilt and hopelessness seem so overpowering. More so, on “Be Afraid” he defends the use of his cultural platform and music to trumpet his political beliefs. For Isbell, the strength he demonstrates now is the result of his struggles. Contending with sobriety, parenthood, and childhood trauma, Isbell delivers his lyrics as a testament affirming that trials often lead to empowerment. The message is universal and a poignant rumination in 2020’s wake.
His winning streak continues. whether solo or with the fantastic 400 unit, Jason Isbell puts out fantastic music.
The Fat Angel Sings 