Hovvdy’s debut LP was nothin’ short of lovely. there are too many reasons to count why y’all should be excited about ‘Cranberry’
The Austin based band released one of 2016’s most enduring – and endearing – albums in “Taster”. “Cranberry”, is their first since signing to the venerable double double whammy, label seems poised to flesh out the warm, lived-in aura that permeates their disarmingly honest work. case in point: lead single “Petal” drips with nostalgia, its assured pace gently giving way to tender falsetto.
The Australian punk-pop newbie released her sugar-rush of a debut album this year, packed with crunchy guitars and hooks that could land a barracuda. “I Haven’t Been Taking Care of Myself” is the best of the blazing bunch, and it features Lahey shouting her insecurities from the rooftops. It’s less of a singer-songwriter confession than a drum-thumping power pop anthem, albeit one in which the singer swings through a chorus about weight gain, drinking problems and self-esteem.
Three long years of anticipation have preceded San Francisco’s psych-blasted, starry-eyed weirdos The Fresh & Onlys’ return with Wolf Lie Down. The opening title track is a searing return to form with chugging full speed rhythms, snotty Wipers wall-of-sound guitar gristle, and the unmistakable midnight croon of singer Tim Cohen. Their 6th LP and debut for Sinderlyn Records finds the band equally at home with anthemic garage rock burners like “Impossible Man” and “One Of A Kind,” and the brooding western twang of “Walking Blues” or “Black Widow”.
Wolf Lie Down builds on the band’s literate guitar-pop arcana, seamlessly incorporating their pastoral desert-noir sensibility into Cohen and Miles’ dueling damaged art-punk songcraft. While the record is driven and performed predominately by the duo of Miles and Cohen, former members Shayde Sartin and Kyle Gibson lay down their classic rhythmic chug on a few tunes. They also enlisted original drummer James Kim, as well as touring companion James Barone (Beach House) on drums and some mixing duties.
The brilliant title track is among one of our favourites of the year, and now we also have the smouldering garage chug track of Impossible Man
While Cohen and guitarist/producer Wymond Miles are not the new kids on the scene (both are fathers of two now), Wolf Lie Down strips back the layered feel of the last few records to reveal themselves full of passion, imbued with an uplifting romanticism, and their trademark (if often overlooked) wry sense of humor. Recorded mostly at Miles’ home studio, the songs’ foundation came to life in the studios of Bay Area analog garage/ psych veterans Kelley Stoltz (Electric Duck) and Greg Ashley (Creamery).
This new chapter in the elusive world of The Fresh & Onlys is a triumphant return to form as underground jangle titans. Wolf Lie Down also wears the haunted pastoral vividness of their most recent work. Perhaps ironically, their latest LP in a vast canon of work may be the best introduction to this unapologetic multi-faceted rock ‘n’ roll band.
Chris Schlarb loves big records with bigger ideas, and doesn’t hesitate to ask big names to appear on his own, like Wilco’s Nels Cline, Minutemen’s Mike Watt, Cynic’s Paul Masvidal and Muscle Shoals bassist David Hood. Modeled somewhat on that Muscle Shoals approach, Schlarb is old-school when it comes to studio musician mojo, where players of various ages and experience can combine for a creative awakening. In the last couple years, he’s even opened his own studio, BIG EGO, in Long Beach, Calif.
Schlarb’s new record under his Psychic Temple moniker, IV, refines the unclassifiable, yet quintessentially Southern California vibe explored on last year’s III. The romantic “Turn Off The Lights” is one of three duets that Schlarb sings with Terry Reid, the English guitarist with a voice of a gritty angel (just listen to 1969’s “Superlungs My Supergirl” for proof). Reid has long lived in L.A., and here channels his now-worn, but still soulful voice into a dexterous workout of a classic California pop song.
In this studio video, you can see them backed by a roster of high-end jazz musicians like drummer Chad Taylor (Chicago Underground Duo), Dave Easley (Brian Blade Fellowship) working the pedal steel like a sitar, bassist Steuart Liebig, Hammond organist John Clement Wood and percussionists Danny Frankel and Tabor Allen. It sounds like something that might have come out of composer David Axelrod’s brain, directed and arranged for his dream band.
IV on Joyful Noise Records.
From Psychic Temple – ‘IV’
on Joyful Noise Recordings
Well, we’ve finally got a copy of Trevor Sensor’s debut LP on Jagjaguwar Records. released in June and titled Andy Warhol’s Dream”. I’ve Been waiting a while for this one since seeing him at last years Green Man Festival. Here’s a little something on the first single, “High Beams”.
“The song derives from the desire to be one of those people on the television – a desire instilled in us since childhood in America and the western world at large. A desire that consumes us, especially those few born in middle America who look for supposedly greater things beyond the horizon of cornfields and prairies, or the northern factory towns of England – those places where nobody of any pop cultural significance is suppose to come from – for there is only so much room in the camera lens, the television screen, and we must save it for the pretty, plastic people,” Sensor explains. “It revolves around things lost, things hoped for and the dreams we tell ourselves to keep us from the possibly horrifying conclusions that forever creep up on us in the back of our minds. To these conclusions and this desire, I curl back my feelers and hiss.
The term “super group” is thrown around pretty liberally these days, but in the case of Lo Tom, it’s unquestionably in order. The band comprises scene veterans David Bazan (Pedro the Lion, Headphones) on vocals and bass, JasonMartin (Starflyer 59, Bon Voyage) on guitar, TW Walsh (The Soft Drugs, Pedro the Lion) on guitar and background vocals and Trey Many (Velour 100, Starflyer 59) on drums. With a melodic pedigree that’s rooted in the guitar-heavy, alt-rock-fueled ‘90s and also shaped by the glossed-up, genre-shifting ‘00s, Lo Tom encompasses a surprisingly modern sound that simultaneously flirts with and fights against its own nostalgia. Overflowing with a confidently relaxed cool and an absolute lack of pretense or veneer, Lo Tom’s debut somehow feels both enthusiastically self-assured and deceptively effortless.
In June, Atlanta punk trio The Coathangers released their “Parasite” EP, which comes a little over a year after their last long player, Nosebleed Weekend. So far we’ve heard “Captain’s Dead,” and now the band has released a creepy accompanying video for the track.
Directed by Matt Odom, the clip has guitarist-vocalist Julia Kugel, drummer Stephanie Luke and bassist Meredith Franco in full cheerleader garb, except this pep rally isn’t like any you attended in high school. The Coathangers’ squad is gothic and ghoulish maybe even a little undead.
“The song is about a very interesting and difficult time of personal transition that happened at the end of last year, which coincided with a changing political climate ushered in by the election of Donald Trump as president,” Kugel says. “It was like the Trump ethos of savage ignorance was taking over every aspect of life, and then a realization that all things do circle and come back. The reward for malicious action is often a bag of shit, one way or another.
The video was shot by good friend and longtime Coathangers collaborator Matt Odom in and around our house in Long Beach. The badass cheerleaders were a play on the whole captain of the squad thing. We wanted this video to be a bit random and weird to the observer, yet the clip soaked in personal meaning. feels a bit like a feverish nightmare… a hex on assholes.”
“Deluxe Editions of albums are usually only awarded to bonafide classics… ‘Interplanetary Class Classics’ is and will forever be, a bonafide classic released in March 24th, old folks with tricky legs and leaking midriffs the world over will say it was ’20 years ago to the day’ that they tried to buy the album of the Epoch but the 500 copies manufactured had sold out in 5 minutes flat in branches of B&M bargains and Wilkinsons, forever committing the artist to that struggling, low fee, indie band bracket – instead of being the genuine top 20 artists that they should have been, Top 20 Stars even!
Alas – with no time for bitterness to fester and after an intensive tour of the world, we,The Moonlandingz, were able to pull back some dignity and glory by simply being ‘the best live group off the planet’ – and as a Unit we put a new found yearning in to the hearts of those entranced by the sheer brilliance of our kind of pop music, Moonlandingz music!
It is for those bewildered and wide eyed Kooks that we bring you this – A Deluxe Edition of our ‘Legendary Lost’ Long player, which comes with a 2nd CD containing an extra hour of music, such as, all the EP B-sides, Remixes, unheard tracks, charming demos & the more curious experimental soundtrack side of our incredible, yet impeccably stylish audio arsenal! Not joking aside – It’s nice to have all these tracks in one place, so to draw a line under what’s gone and make way for our future, next to the greats. We may not be there when you want us but we will be there when you truly need us. Till then, we are observing your earth!” Adrian Flanagan, Organ grinder for The Moonlandingz, Valhalla Dale, South Yorkshire. X
Taken from the debut album “Interplanetary Class Classics” Released March 24th 2017 on Transgressive Records (UK/EU) & Chimera Music (U.S.)
Video for brand new single ‘BLACK HANZ‘ by The Moonlandingz. Directed by Charlotte Kemp Muhl.
Hailing from Southeast Nebraska, Bartels and his band of brothers, The Stoney Lonesomes are making honest, hard hitting, Americana Rock that is not easily forgotten.
Evan Bartels is a lot of things, but above all else he is a great story teller. He has dedicated his life to living in a way that encompasses all facets of the human experience and capturing those feelings and emotions in his songwriting. The words that you can’t find when you wish only to know someone has felt what you are feeling… that’s what is put into his songs and they grab you and resonate in your bones.
I don’t know what does but. Bartels is the next generation of gruff, emotional rock songwriters. I’ll tell you this it opens with a nice acoustic part, but you sure as shit better stay for the 1:20 mark and hear that breakdown. If you click away from the song after that, we aren’t even friends. Get the hell out of here with this song, man. I don’t even know what to say about it anymore it’s just so good.
You can listen to ‘Tattoo’ and the rest of Evan Bartels‘ full length album “The Devil, God & Me
2017 was ridiculous. If any year needed the vulnerable and punching thoughts of one of this generations greatest songwriters, it was this. Tackling consumerism, Internet trolls, and racist leaders, Ramirez is at the peak of his art on “Stone Age”. His latest album marks a different direction, but never lacks his incredible artistic integrity that bounces between folk, country, and rock with a conscience.
David Ramirez the Austin-based singer songwriter is preparing to release his new album “We’re Not Going Anywhere”. It’s a follow-up to his acclaimed 2015 record Fables, and sees him pitch a message of defiance against Donald Trump’s America. Ramirez, who has dual American and Mexican heritage, has created an album that is rooted firmly in the present, not the past. “So many cultures in this country are being viewed as un-American and it breaks my heart,” he says. “My family has raised children here and are proud to be a part of this country. Most of what I’ve seen as of late is misplaced fear. I wanted to write about that fear and how, instead of benefiting us, it sends us spiralling out of control.”
Tracks like “Stone Age” bridge the years nicely with his enduring sardonic lyrics sung with his weary and incredible voice.
The new album, We’re Not Going Anywhere out 9/8/17
Ahead of the album’s release, we’re premiering this beautiful video for “Time”, a song which looks at how memories and relationships develop, and features Ramirez’s bandmates Sam Kassirer (producer), Simon Page, Mark Wright, Ari Bernstein and Zach Hickman.
Ramirez says: “I went into the studio with plans to document our time there and by the second day, after recording most of the song “Time”, I knew I wanted it to be the backdrop for the film. It’s easily one of the dreamiest songs I’ve ever recorded, and framed against the black and white montage of memories from the studio, it comes across with more nostalgia than heartbreak.”
