In 2015, 20-year-old Memphis singer-songwriter Julien Baker stunned folks with her debut album, Sprained Ankle. The spare arrangements, plaintive vocals, and candidness about how she relates to everything from significant others and herself to times of trouble and God’s mysterious presence in her life were all striking revelations, especially from such a young voice.
Her follow up album releaseTurn Out the Lightsfinds Baker seasoned far beyond what you’d expect two years later. Her growth as a lyricist astounds, and she’s expanded her still-minimalist instrumentation to include piano and ambient parts and now trusts her voice to harmonize and draw attention to itself by raising her volume as songs call for it. No record out this year boasts a more affecting and beautiful one-two punch than singles “Appointments” and “Turn Out the Lights”, and few emerging singer-songwriters have us as excited as Baker.
The 2nd video from Julien Baker’s long-awaited 2nd album, the titular track “Turn Out The Lights”, directed by Sophia Peer. ‘Turn Out The Lights’ is available now.
From the new album ‘Turn Out the Lights’ out October 27th on Matador Records, Essential Tracks: “Appointments”, “Turn Out the Lights”, and “Everything That Helps You Sleep”
After working with Jim Eno on their catchy 2015 debut, Sorry All Over the Place, The Kickback trekked out West under the guidance of Modest Mouse mastermind Dennis Herring for a sophomore follow-up that’s as engaging as it is ambitious.
Recent years haven’t been too easy on singer-songwriter Billy Yost, who channels his breakups and burdens into the aptly titled latest album, “Weddings and Funerals”, an addicting assemblage of mutating power pop that goes down like deep depression in a cold November.
It was reasonable to think we would never get another Fleet Foxes album.
After the band’s rustic self-titled debut took off unexpectedly in 2008 (eventually earning a Gold record for mega-indie label Sub Pop), frontman and core creative force Robin Pecknold poured himself fully into making its excellent follow-up, 2011’s Helplessness Blues. Then Fleet Foxes toured the world for a while, a process that seemed to take a toll on the band. Pecknold moved to Portland and dropped out of public life. His drummer left the band and became a star in his own right. Other members moved on to their own projects. A couple years ago, Pecknold popped back up as a student at Columbia University, then disappeared again. At some point, he took up surfing, apparently. With the future of Fleet Foxes firmly in his hands, Pecknold seemed ready, willing and able to check out for good.
Thank the heavens he didn’t. Fleet Foxes third album, “Crack-Up”, is at once sumptuous and ambitious, a serpentine journey from the center of harmony-drenched folk-pop out to the edge of Pecknold’s brain and back. It is lovely, strange and generous, and ultimately a very welcome return for the Seattle band.
On Helplessness Blues, Fleet Foxes pushed back against the successful formula of their debut, expanding their palette and inserting some free-jazz skronk just because they could. Crack-Up, on the other hand, sounds like a band that has become perfectly comfortable with its wanderlust. The evidence comes early, as opening track “I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar” is three songs in one, evolving from yawning anti-tune to orchestral gallop to a collage of cozy vocal ooohs, sloshing water and found sounds.
Later, the band juxtaposes its bracing first single, “Third of May,” with a coda called “Odaigahara” that slowly drips with a sort of submerged desperation. “I Should See Memphis” is built out of insistent acoustic guitar, playful string arrangements and Pecknold’s Civil War and Muhammad Ali references, rumbled below his natural register. And “Mearcstapa” might be the album’s most curious track, with Pecknold singing inscrutable lyrics over restless rhythms and a mishmash of sounds.
These kinds of explorations might’ve sunk a Fleet Foxes album five years ago. Now, they hang together enough to counterbalance Crack-Up’s half-dozen classic, gorgeous gospel-roots hymns; the kinds of songs that have defined this band since it oozed from the gaps in a pile of old Beach Boys, CSNY and Simon & Garfunkel LPs just over a decade ago.
“Third of May” and “Fool’s Errand” and the title track, these are the faster, more urgent ones. The slower, sparser numbers include “Kept Woman” and “If You Need to, Keep Time on Me.” They are all paragons of songcraft, teeming with lush instrumentals, indelible melodies and the kinds of harmonies you expect to hear as you approach the pearly gates. There is perfection here in among the exploration.
Crack-Up is a collective effort, no doubt. These are skilled singers and players, up and down Fleet Foxes lineup. It’s Pecknold, however, who is blessed with not only an incredible songwriting gift, but also the unwillingness to sit still for very long. The latter took him away from music for a while, but perhaps that was necessary to recharge the former. It’s good to have him back.
In 1995 maybe it was not the best time for the shoegaze sounds of Slowdive. Their most obscure record — an instant cult favorite, “Pygmalion”, spent none of its time looking at the ground, and all of its 49-minute runtime looking inside an all blue kaleidoscope. It owed more to Brian Eno’s ambient than Brian Jones’ psychedelia, alienating shoegaze fans and quickly becoming a catalyst for the premature end of the band. But trends are a capricious thing andindie pop ended up spending two decades catching up.
Few albums this year sounded as wonderful and complete and thorough as Slowdive. That it’s the first album in 22 years from a band whose moment many thought had come and gone is even more remarkable. Slowdiveis deeply connected to their earlier works Souvlakiand Pygmalion, but it also sounds modern, a band that has tracked and absorbed another quarter-century of musical evolution.
The opening sixty seconds of their new self-titled record could easily be confused with a lost Beach House song until two minutes in when Neil Halstead’s voice reappears from hibernation worn and wiser. It wasn’t like he disappeared, he made three solo records and five (!) Mojave 3 records, but 2017 is the time resurrect the output of this cardinal project. Every social media post I saw from the band during their 2014 reunion tour had the tone of humble surprise at the teenagers humming their songs at festivals worldwide.
The premiere track “Slomo” is an almost seven-minute preface to the record. As if 22 years wasn’t long enough, the two-minute intro peaks curiosity before launching into its deliberate extensions of shoegaze, and breezy indie-pop. Breaking into the pre-release teaser “Star Roving”, is a punchy quick five-minute single that feels like two. Most artists tend to mellow out as they age; “Star Roving” is the exception that proves the rule. It’s one of the most dynamic pieces of Slowdive’s career.
The opening duo is well sequenced, playing off of each others energy. “Don’t Know Why” plays at a higher bpm with a floating harmony and a smooth melody, when the full band pushes in.
Slowdive keeps one foot firmly planted in their 90’s heritage but the acquisition of Chris Coady on production is a win . Slowdive shows that their core value is still what it was way back when. The patience to let chord progressions develop and surprise movements have their space, and patience to let simplistic patterns prove strong. The guitar hook on “Sugar For the Pill” is deceptively simple and surprisingly catchy. Halstead’s emotional melody underneath rotates slowly. Ingredients this simple shouldn’t add up to all they do, but the sum is greater than the parts here. “Sugar” plays its clarity and doesn’t over-complicate, Halstead is 15 again writing plain and powerful. Few bands can make the turn from pleasant to intense as quickly and purposefully as Slowdive.
“Everyone Knows” piles on with a noisy collapse, the fifty-four-second outro never loses any steam, just pulsing on, it could have continued for 10 minutes without complaint. “No Longer Making Time” pops into its chorus like it’s going for radio, the guitar piercing like it’s trying to get ahead of the rhythm but never losing synchronicity. The band never falls into self-parody, their noise instincts are too intact from two decades of hibernation. Right when the song sounds like it will kick in for one last chorus, it sputters out, echoing the band’s own faulty trajectory in 1995.
“Go Get It” shows a side of hardness, Its chorus wrecks any beauty remaining from the verse as the multiple guitars continuously assault. “Falling Ashes” proves to be the records only misstep, not quite living up to its cinematic intro. Most of the record’s lyrics are intentionally obscured, but “Falling” has the plainest spoken. Seven songs and 38 minutes probably didn’t seem like enough but leaving the ultimate track off would have been an overall improvement. Or perhaps a moving ambient stretch to hearken back to the underrated Pygmalion.
Whatever band you most hope reunites, you can only hope they do it like Slowdive. Not rushed, not cash-grabbing, but focused on relationships and on furthering the legacy of the band. If anyone asks how to get into Slowdive, the correct answer is still to start with Souvlaki but Slowdive wouldn’t be a bad second choice
Kelli Schaefer is an absolute trip. Let me just get that out of the way. Sporting a denim trench coach and backlined by some notable Freakout Record musicians (Jeremiah Hayden on drums, Courtney Sheedy on bass, EllySwope and Ryan Lynch on guitar), Kelli immediately sets you on edge with a controlled vocal style and two distinct personas on stage. Watching her perform is like watching a suspense movie that doesn’t climax. Your heart rate increases, breathing shortens and attention becomes wrapped in a straightjacket.
Much of this magnetism is due to Kelli’s imaginative hand movements and awkward body angles, but it’s her impressively dynamic vocal range that creates evangelists. It’s cruel and authoritarian one moment, charming and forgiving the next. She easily sings difficult melodies but also has the stamina to flawlessly extend notes.
Seeing Kelli Schaefer perform is an experience.
http://
No Identity is darker than Ghost of the Beast, growling with confidence – but with a sense of humor. Confidence was hard-won, coming out of the passing of her father and dealing with the unavoidable ripples from it, the record was as much shaped by life and life was shaped around the record. The title track of No Identity kicks off with a beat as strong as a heart and a guitar line threatening to explode. She sings in clear, close range:
The much anticipated debut EP of Miss Redgrave Jones. My much anticipated EP release, Luckiest Girl In The World is a blend of genres with soulful songwriting, big beats and dark grooves.
Through a series of fortunate events, producer Jason Lowrie and I crossed paths and have proceeded to forge an alliance that is nothing short of magical. My vision is being realized and it’s certifiably cosmic. We have been riding the same creative wave from the beginning and continue to. The music we are making is absolutely glorious and I’ve never felt more inspired and in the flow. The 5 song EP we are creating is a stepping stone towards the full length record, which will be recorded and released by spring of 2018. For those of you who may not know, an EP is a short form album and usually has 3-6 songs, while an LP is a full length album, and can have upwards of 8 – 12 songs.
Jay Som is the project of 23-year-old Melina Duterte, who has been creating music for the past 10 years or so on a multitude of instruments, from guitar to trumpet. Though she played every instrument on her newest record Everybody Works, her touring band here at the Tiny Desk gave a rougher edge to some of the more premeditated sounds on her wonderful album. Multiple-instrumentalist Melina Duterte (aka Jay Som) rode her production and recording acumen on debut LP, Turn Into, to a deal with indie major label Polyvinyl for Everybody Works.
Of the three songs they chose to bring to the Tiny Desk, one was a personal favorite from Everybody Works: “The Bus Song,” which is a perfect swirl of stream-of-consciousness: In what can only be described as bedroom maximalism, Duterte dug her lyrics into the granular, banalities of existence and aimed her production at expansive soundscapes. On “The Bus Song”, Duterte sings, “I can be whoever I want to be,” and that’s exactly who she is on Everybody Works.
It’s lyrics on this, alongside the comfy, no-frills directness of Duterte’s delivery, which make Jay Som feel so welcoming and refreshing. “Everybody Works” is available now:
Setlist;
“The Bus Song”
“Baybee”
“I Think You’re Alright”
Two years after the interstellar, metallic Garden of Delete, The esoteric electronic experimentalist Daniel Lopatin (AKA Oneohtrix Point Never) returned to score a crime drama starring Robert Pattinson. Retaining his own burning palette and pushing it through a Vangelis/Carpenter mesh, Lopatin continues to find new ways to inject anxiety and awe under the skin.
Its a somber, piano-heavy collaboration with Iggy Pop in which the Stooge dreams about petting crocodiles is a good place to start, but Lopatin delivers the high-voltage thrills all on his own.
check out the essential Tracks: “Hospital Escape / Access-A-Ride”, “The Acid Hits”, and “The Pure and the Damned”
Oneohtrix Point Never’s ‘The Pure and the Damned’ video, starring Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie, and Iggy Pop. Directed By The Safdie Brothers.
There was only one show performed in support of the 1992 release of “Automatic For The People”, that was on 19th November at the group’s old haunt, the 40 Watt Club in Athens GA. (almost 25 years to the day) Here is the recently discovered complete film of this performance. Special thanks to Dan Aguar & Todd Ploharsky for film restoration. The audio is available on all versions of the new 25th Anniversary Reissue of Automatic For The People. The Set includes four tunes from their recently released album including “Drive” (which was played twice), “Man on the Moon,” “Everybody Hurts” and “Monty Got a Raw Deal,” proving it wasn’t always bad to hear “and now here’s a new song.”
SETLIST:
01 – Drive (0:00) 02 – Monty Got A Raw Deal (4:35) 03 – Everybody Hurts (8:49) 04 – [Greenpeace Speech] (14:42) 05 – Man On The Moon (16:07) 06 – [‘Oh Life’ Story] (21:25) 07 – Losing My Religion (22:35) 08 – Country Feedback (27:56) 09 – Begin The Begin (33:04) 10 – Fall On Me (37:05) 11 – Me In Honey (41:39) 12 – Finest Worksong (46:00) 13 – Drive (54:34) 14 – Love Is All Around (1:00:20) 15 – Funtime (1:04:47) 16 – Radio Free Europe (1:07:26)
This single follows his acclaimed 2016 collaborative album ‘I Had A Dream That You Were Mine’ a collaboration with ex-Vampire Weekend multi-instrumentalist Rostam.
Hamilton Leithauser has shared his new single ‘Heartstruck (Wild Hunger)’, another collaboration but now with Angel Olsen, The song is Leithauser’s first new music since the release of ‘I Had A Dream That You Were Mine’
Leithauser has once again sought out a collaborator for his latest track, with the former Walkmen frontman this time pairing up with Angel Olsen for the new song. Speaking about the track, Leithauser said: “This song is about catching yourself off guard when an emotion hits a little harder than you were ready for. It’s a desperate and funny situation. The desperation can be a little bit ridiculous, which can be a little bit funny, but it’s also desperate, so it’s agonising.
“I thought ‘Wild Hunger’ should be delivered with huge passion and energy, and I needed a fierce and booming voice as a counterbalance. Luckily, I got my first choice: Angel Olsen.” “Heartstruck (Wild Hunger)” is a new Hamilton Leithauser single that I duet on.
