Another Wolf Parade album, another knockout. The band aren’t just back to recycle sounds of the past, but taking what they know and giving their songwriting and sound further evolution and grit that is on full display on Cry Cry Cry. It seems like so many people just want to pretend that Apologies To The Queen Mary is the only record these guys released. I love that album as much as the next guy (or gal), but the band gave us another rich and rewarding gift, one that patiently reveals itself further and further with each listen.
The album carries a sense of uprising that is not unrelated to Wolf Parade’s renewed determination to drive the band forward in uncertain times. Welcome to Cry Cry Cry.
Foxygen is the Big Bang of two combusting minds. It’s the splayed Galaxy of polar geniuses Sam France and Jonathan Rado. It’s a handshake with a knife behind your back. A cosmic, Californian death-game of highway chicken. A sleepless night in a five star hotel. Truth or dare. Foxygen is the risk of pushing your best friend off the ledge just to see if they can fly. You listen to this album properly. You take in each moment. Each new melody that threads forward from the fingertips of one of this generation’s finest piano men in Jonathan Rado. And you fall in line behind Sam France’s sprawling and reckless lyric. Witness his mastery. Feel them struggle against the walls of their own creations. Follow them there. To the perimeter. To the exit sign. And let your eyes fog up with thoughts like ‘For at least this moment I understand how cold blooded and beautiful I am.’ Notice that the two young guys aren’t there anymore. They’re outside looking for another joint to haunt. They’re already out of sight.
And now you’re on a train. Facing the wrong way so the trees are passing in front of you. And you’re looking forward but everything is getting further away. These nowhere towns somehow sound good. Like the city is heavy, but out here we float a little bit. America is too big of a boat to sink. Don’t sink baby. Hang.
Rory Gallagher is the first solo album by Irish blues rock musician Rory Gallagher, released in 1971. It marked his departure from his previous band Taste. After disbanding Taste, Gallagher auditioned some of the best musicians available at the time including Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell the bassist and drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He decided on two Belfast musicians; drummer Wilgar Campbell, and bass guitarist Gerry McAvoy to be the core of his new power trio band.
After practicing with Jimi Hendrix’s band Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell and Belfast musicians Gerry McAvoy and Wilgar Campbell at a practice room in Fulham Road, the newly formed band with McAvoy and Campbell got underway with recording in Advision Studios.
With his first solo album Gallagher continued in the eclectic style that had exemplified his first band Taste. This album entered the UK album charts at number 32, an excellent beginning for a solo career. It contains 10 tracks, all of which are Rory compositions and clearly show the continued blues rock direction that he began with Taste. A trademark of Rory’s music is his inclusion into the fusion, jazz and folk instruments like alto sax and mandolin. “I’m Not Surprised” stands out on this album with it’s mellow “unplugged” feel and loosely based Blues structure.
The album begins with “Laundromat” which was to become a regular number in his live set. A blues rock song with a classic Gallagher riff, the song was inspired by the public laundromat located in the basement of his flat where he lived at the time in Earls Court. The next song, “Just the Smile”, is an acoustic number that was inspired by the British folk revival. It shows the influence of some of Gallagher’s favorite English folk musicians such as Richard Thompson, Davy Graham, and Bert Jansch. (Gallagher would later go on to record with Jansch.) “I Fall Apart” has a jazz feel to it and features a guitar solo that starts slow and introspective and builds to a powerful climax. The next two songs, “Hands Up” and “Sinner Boy”, were again blues rock and would also become standard numbers for his live show. “Wave Myself Goodbye” is another acoustic number, a talking blues song featuring New Orleans style piano provided by Vincent Crane from the band Atomic Rooster (Rory’s brother Donal had been acting as tour manager for them). Gallagher plays the saxophone in the next song, a jazz number called “Can’t Believe It’s True”. Also recorded at the time were two blues classics, Muddy Waters’ “GypsyWoman” and “It Takes Time” by Chicago blues legend Otis Rush.
Rory Gallagher – ‘Rory Gallagher’ 180g vinyl LP remastered reissue. Originally released on the 23rd May 1971 This reissue LP is released on Friday 2nd March 2018.
Tracklisting –
A1. Laundromat
A2. Just The Smile
A3. I Fall Apart
A4. Wave Myself Goodbye
A5. Hands Up
B1. Sinner Boy
B2. For the Last Time
B3. It’s You
B4. I’m Not Surprised
B5. Can’t Believe It’s True
Montreal band Suuns are pleased to announce their new album, “Felt”, coming out on March 2nd through Secretly Canadian. Singer/guitarist Ben Shemie says, “This record is definitely looser than our last one [2016’s Hold/Still]. It’s not as clinical. There’s more swagger.” You can hear this freedom flowing through the 11 tracks on Felt. It’s both a continuation and rebirth, the Montreal quartet returning to beloved local facility Breakglass Studios (where they cut their first two albums [Zeroes QC and Images Du Futur] with Jace Lasek of The Besnard Lakes) but this time recording themselves at their own pace, over five fertile sessions spanning several months. A simultaneous stretching out and honing in, mixed to audiophile perfection by St. Vincent producer John Congleton (helmer of Hold/Still), who flew up especially from Dallas to deploy his award-winning skills in situ.
The album’s lead single “Watch You, Watch Me” debuts today in the form of a Ruff Murphy-directed video. The song showcases an organic/synthetic rush that builds and builds atop drummer Liam O’Neill‘s elevatory rhythm. O’Neill exclaims, “It was different and exciting. In the past, there was a more concerted effort on my part to drum in a controlled and genre-specific way. Self-consciously approaching things stylistically. Us doing it ourselves, that process was like a very receptive, limitless workshop to just try out ideas.”
Suuns are hugely proud of their roots in Canada’s most socialist province, whilst not sounding quite like anything else the city has produced. Quebecois natives Shemie and Joseph Yarmush founded the group just over a decade ago, the latter having moved to Montreal from a nearby village. The only member not to be formally schooled in jazz, guitarist Yarmush studied photography and utilized his visual training to help realize Shemie’s novel concept for the eye-catching album artwork.
“I was at a barbecue last summer and there were balloons everywhere,” recalls the singer. “I like this idea of pressure, resistance, and pushing against something just before it brakes. And there is something strangely subversive about a finger pushing into a balloon. It seemed to fit the vibe of the record we were making. We made plaster casts of our hands, going for a non-denominational statue vibe. Joe came up with the colour scheme, the sickly green background, and shot the whole cover in an hour.”
It’s a suitably outre image for Felt, which breaks with Suuns’ earlier darkness for a more optimistic ambience. The record’s playful atmosphere is echoed by its double meaning title. “Some people might think of the material,” muses Shemie. “I like that that could be misconstrued. Also it’s to have felt and not to feel a little introspective, but that feeling’s in the past.”
Two never-before-released songs recorded during the same sessions as Jay Som’s breakout debut “EverybodyWorks”, which landed on Best of 2017 lists from nearly everyone this year including Pitchfork, NPR, Stereogum, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Billboard, and a slew of others.
Musically, these tracks would have been equally at home on that record, as they highlight how Melina Duterte has “perfected that tricky balance between polished ambition and lo-fi charm.”
“Both of these tracks were made during the spring of 2016 – the first demo stages for Everybody Works. They were fun to write and record but felt out of place on the track list during the finalization of the album. These tracks remain close to my heart and I’m really grateful they’re finally out in the world.” – Melina Duterte
Jessica’s Brother first started playing together in October 2016 when Jonny Helm (drums, also of The Wave Pictures) asked Charlie Higgs (bass, previously of Ramshackle Union Band) to come and play some songs written by Tom Charleston (Jessica’s Brother). The trio clicked immediately, and just 9 months later recorded the album with Laurie Sherman at The Cube and with Darren Hayman.
Jessica’s Brother are a London-based trio, fronted by songwriter Tom Charleston. The band recently shared their debut single, “Overnight Horror”, a track that blends the worlds of Americana and 1960’s folk into a perfectly formed sound entirely their own. The track was the first taste of an upcoming album, coming soon on Fika Recordings. A record the band suggest blends themes of, “joy, anger, silliness”.The album, which features guest appearances from the likes of Allo Darlin’sPaul Rains and Enderby’s Room violinist Dan Mayfield, was, the band say, a result of changing characters, and, “instruments clambering over each other in a small room”.So far so intriguing, Jessica’s Brother may not have shared much material to date.
There are themes of joy, anger, silliness. The characters change, the instruments clamber over each other in a small room. Their shared influences include Silver Jews, Jason Molina, Richard Thompson and Neil Young.
Olden Yolk are a New York based group built around songwriters, vocalists and multi-instrumentalist Shane Butler who was also a member of, the psych-rock band, Quilt and Caity Shaffer. The band is set to release their self-titled debut album in February, on the ever excellent psych-and-more label, Trouble In Mind Records.
The band have suggested the tracks on their debut album are a series of odes to city living, resulting in a genre they coin as “urban psychedelia”. Olden Yolk are a band who seem to constantly reinvent themselves, even over the course of a single record: a fascinating album that’s set to take the coming year by storm.
Olden Yolk’s sound is intriguing; the band citing, “a penchant for dystopian folk, abstract poeticism, and motorik rhythms”. The resultant record is one that seems to flitter through genres, drifting from the hazy-kraut driven, Takes One To Know One, to the angular Cate Le Bon-like, Vital Sign and the psych-folk of Gamblers On A Dime.
In between playing 117 shows last year, Courtney Marie Andrews managed to make time to record her new album titled May Your Kindness Remain. Much of the new album was written when Courtney was on the road but she says that the new album “it’s not a road record like its predecessor.” Instead she say it was inspired by the people she met along her travels. Many of her songs depict “complex people and places with all too common struggles.” May Your Kindness Remain was produced by Mark Howard (Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, and Willie Nelson), and features a great set of session players. Courtney has an amazing voice and that is full force on the title track/lead single. It is a slow building track with some beautiful gospel harmonies and a bit of fuzzed out guitar. Check it out below.
So far, there are two limited variants, a ‘Pink Rose’ version you can pick up directly from Courtney or the Fat Possum web store (limited to 300) and a gold variant that will be sold at independent record stores.
“…a collection of songs, borne from interactions with others, that strives for healing and empathy in the midst of division and discord.” –NPR
“…awash in church organ, lush harmonies, and a soaring, impassioned lead vocal from Andrews, whose twang quivers and shudders as she scales the song’s climactic final refrain.” – Rolling Stone “Andrews gives us a glimpse as to how far her voice will go with the gospel-powered title track. Electric guitar and a soulful organ bass combine with Andrews’ traditional folk songwriting to drive the chorus…We’d all do well to listen”
Olympia, WA post punk trio UK GOLD wound up among my top singles of 2017, and they look to be continuing with that momentum in 2018 with the release of this tough little post punk rumbler called “Off Duty Nuns”. It’s the first track teased from the upcoming Girlsville benefit compilation OUR VOLTAGE.
FROM GIRLSVILLE:
“OUR VOLTAGE IS A BENEFIT COMP FOR LEGAL AID FOR ANTI-RACIST ANTI-FASCIST ACTIVISTS, GAS/FOOD MONEY FOR CITIZEN JOURNALIST LIVESTREAMERS, AND FOR LEFTIST SELF DEFENSE GYM HAYMAKER IN CHICAGO.
THIS COMP FEATURES BRAND NEW TUNES BY UK GOLD, DAMAGED BUG, MR.AIRPLANE MAN, FREAK GENES, BUMMERS EVE, VIRVON VARVON, BEASTII, GERM HOUSE, MR. & THE MRS.,THE MYRMIDONS, PLUS PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED JAMS FROM THE PRISSTEENS, THE BUZZARDS, & ATOMIC SUPLEX.”
Lauren Ruth Ward’s music has spread like wildfire these past two years in LA after leaving her hometown of Baltimore. Her lyrics are secrets to strangers, writing about her life’s trajectory sharing both vulnerability and strength delivered with grit and vibrato. Her band re-creates 60’s rock and roll nuances, allowing Ward to release a powerhouse of raw, visceral emotion in their live show.
