Melbourne sisters Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes, Charm of Finches, celebrate the one year anniversary of their stunning debut album “Staring at the Starry Ceiling” in the lush Velvet Room at The Thornbury Theatre. Named one of the best releases of 2016 by ABC Radio National, it was produced by Melbourne luminary Nick Huggins and features ten delicate songs about heartbreak, solitude and whispering trees awash with the young duo’s signature angelic sibling harmonies. The duo, aged 17 and 14, were awarded The 2017 National Folk Festival Gill Rees Young Musicians’ Award in Canberra, and continue to win hearts at music festivals over the country with their unique dreamy folk sound, both delicate and authentic.
“folk purity…affecting and emotional” The Music
Praise for “Staring at the Starry Ceiling”:
“For a duo so young to conjure a full album of music so candid and original as this is astonishing…Charm of Finches sound like they’re mining something far more ancient and universal”
I don’t know who it was that once said “From moments of sadness, moments of destruction, moments of grief, from those moments beauty can spring forth like a rare flower that only blooms once a year in the coldest snow and darkest night.” Actually, I do know who said.
‘Stage Four’ by Touché Amoré. Lyrically it’s an album that details the treatment, suffering and final days of vocalist Jeremy Bolm’s mum, before she passed away from cancer in 2014. And what a fucking album it is. I was Completely blindsided by how emotionally raw this album is. They’ve always dealt with some heavy issues, but this one just blew me to bits. Remember last year when Sufjan Stevens released the heart-wrenchingly incredible ‘Carrie and Lowell’, an album all about his absent mum and her passing? Well, take that album, but instead of Sufjan being sombre and sad, he’s really, Really angry. That’s ‘Stage Four’. I can’t even begin to comprehend the emotional pull this album must have on all the band, but especially Bolm. The loss of a loved one is a hard and trying time for anyone, but to then be brave enough to get on stage and spill your heart out about it and how you now feel about it and all your fears and insecurities .
Just go and listen to it. Every song reveals a new unforgettable detail about Bolm’s mother’s treatment, his inner mental health and his constant wrestling with grief and depression. Bolm easily cycles through the stages of grief at least 27 times repeatedly throughout the album. Lines such as “I took inventory of what I took for granted and I ended up with more than I imagined” and “She passed away about an hour ago when you were onstage living the dream” are utterly shattering and they’re peppered throughout the whole album. There are parts of songs that Bolm sings in clean vocals, in a voice that almost sounds as if it’s on the very edge, creeping closer to completely letting go, and I was right there with him.When you listen to it, don’t you dare tell me you listened to ‘Skyscrapers’ without welling up at all. I almost blub every time I hear that song. Bolm’s uninhibited howls of pure grief at the huge climax sends shivers down my spine. That isn’t singing, it’s pure emotion and the weight of the loss washing over him, and by an easy extension me. And then her final voice message plays, and your heart is broken all over again.
It is a knockout punch of emotion, a raging sea in the midst of a storm, Please go and listen to it. Bring some tissues.
Folk singer Nadia Reid’s second album could be aimed heavenwards too. Lyrical clues are embedded in most songs and the first and last tracks are as spare, self-contained and hummable as hymns. As on her 2015 debut – released when she was only 24 years old – Reid has a lovely way of lingering on some notes and clipping others short. She has just returned from touring to her hometown, Christchurch New Zealand, where her friends and fellow folkies Marlon Williams and Aldous Huxley live too. All sing in a style beyond their years – what is it in NewZealand’s untroubled waters?
24-year-old Californian songwriter, Angelo De Augustine. After relentlessly touring his debut album, Angelo developed whopping cough and found himself on stage, completely unable to sing. His voice took eight months to recover, and it was during this time that he turned a problem into an opportunity and sat about crafting the songs that would go on to become his upcoming second album, Swim Inside The Moon.
Swim Inside The Moon is Angelo’s first record working with Asthmatic Kitty, the label created by SufjanStevens and Sufjan’s step-father Lowell Brams. The record is a majestically lo-fi affair. Thinking deeply about his approach to songwriting, Angelo concluded his music couldn’t thrive inside a normal recording studio, and set about discovering his perfect recording method, which as he explains involved a bathtub, a reel-to-reel tape player and a single microphone. By keeping it simple, Angelo tapped into the truth behind his music, and like Elliot Smith or yes, Sufjan Stevens, he created a mood that flows throughout the record, giving it an instantly recognisable tone and atmosphere.
A brave, warm and frankly magical record, Swim Inside The Moon is the sound of a songwriter discovering himself, just in time for the rest of the world to surely learn who he is alongside him. Ahead of Swim Inside The Moon’s release next month, Angelo was kind enough to sit down and talk us through his recording process, how his mum is his major inspiration and why his dogs deserve to be credited as co-producers.
exclusively recorded in the bathtub of my house with one sm57 microphone, a 1970’s 4 track reel-to-reel tape machine, and an old P.A. mixing console. The album was recorded live. I thought it would be much easier to capture the performance as a whole and have it the way that I wanted from the start. It was a frequent occurrence that my dogs would bark outside the door or decide to happily saunter into the bathroom looking for a snuggle with their jingling collars interrupting the recording midway.
Another important part of my process was to position the microphone in such a way as to pick up the reflection of my voice and guitar that bounced off of the walls of the bath tub. I would engage the 4 track in my room, press record, and run into the bathroom to sit on the side of the tub and begin the song. When the guitar and voice were recorded , I would, in the same vain, record my mom’s 100 year old piano, electric guitar, or synthesizer on top of the song.
Melkbelly is a promising 4 piece noise-rock band from Chicago, They are known for their frantic arrangements, toothed melodies, and blaring live show this is the fun part, when a promising band seems to emerge fully formed, from out of nowhere, with a great debut album. Consider Melkbelly, the affably disruptive Chicago quartet of singer-guitarist Miranda Winters, guitarist Bart Winters (her husband), bassist Liam Winters (his brother) and drummer James Wetzel. Cramming what should be an unworkable heap of concepts and sounds into a deliciously volatile 35 minutes, Nothing Valley is a bracing blend of scraping noise and tender melody, not unlike the recipe used by Speedy Ortiz. Melkbelly emerge fully formed, from out of nowhere, with a great debut album. Melkbelly are an affably disruptive Chicago band comprising singer-guitarist Miranda Winters, guitarist BartWinters (her husband), bassist Liam Winters (his brother) and drummer James Wetzel. Cramming what should be an unworkable heap of concepts and sounds into a deliciously volatile 35 minutes,
Appropriately, it’s issued on the Carpark Records imprint Wax Nine, supervised by Speedy boss Sadie Dupuis. Nothing Valleycaptures the exciting details of the guitars and drums, yet leaves Winters’s voice just fuzzy enough to induce uncertainty
Alex Lahey likes to keep it real. The 24-year-old Australian musician takes her rise up the ranks from music student to ‘an artist with one of the most highly anticipated debut albums of 2017’ in her stride. Lahey sees her life as ordinary: “I fall in love, I have a family, I go out with my friends, I like to have a drink.” However, most people can’t distil those universal experiences into wry, punchy indie-rock songs – three minute odes to millennial angst and all the complicated feelings that come with it. Alex Lahey can. ‘Love You Like A Brother’ is proof.
Born and raised in Melbourne, Lahey initially studied jazz saxophone at university but unimpressed with “learning music in such a regimented way” she switched to an arts degree (see her ‘B-Grade University’ EP for more details). Her tenure with cult music collective Animaux allowed Lahey the musical anarchy she yearned – hell, she booked the band their first gig before they’d even prepared a single song.
Lahey stepped out on her own once she began to write songs that didn’t fit Animaux’s party space. Songs that were inspired the two people she considers the greatest songwriters of all time, Dolly Parton and Bruce Springsteen. Songs that got her noticed at a local industry conference and scored her a solo management deal. Lahey had graduated.
The ‘Love You Like A Brother’ album drops fresh off the back of Lahey’s breakthrough in 2016. Last year her ‘You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me’ single was inescapable and landed her a spot in Australian radio network triple j’s prestigious Hottest 100 of 2016. The song’s universal tale of rejection took Lahey global – its message, she says, is the flipside of the usual break-up scenario: “Yeah, you’re right. It’s not me. It IS you.”
And that no-shit-taken attitude is the backbone of ‘Love You Like A Brother’. From the stomping title track ‘Brother’ to the gently moving ‘Money’, Lahey’s debut long-player tells it like it is.
The album found Lahey back in the studio with production partner, and one-half of Holy Holy, Oscar Dawson (Ali Barter, British India). The pair pushed each other to create an intimate sonic experience that comprises scuzzy guitars thrumming over pop melodies, helmed by Lahey’s unfussy but arresting vocals.
The album’s songs traverse the everyday themes of family, heartbreak and identity. Lahey tells her stories with character… and dry humour – “I’ve figured it out,” she sings in ‘Awkward Exchange’, “you’re a bit of a dick” – but there are also moments of darkness. In ‘Taking Care’ she muses, “I’ve gained weight and I drink too much, maybe that’s why you don’t love me as much.”
‘Taking Care’ was written after Alex had an eye-opening conversation with her mother. “I was seeing someone who I knew wasn’t treating me well, and chose to ignore it, and I think my mum had picked up on it as well. She just said to me at the end of the conversation, ‘Alexandra, whatever you do, just make sure that you take care of yourself’.”
The poignant ‘Backpack’ is a tribute to Lahey’s latest relationship, and the unsure start it got off to. “When we first started going out, they warned me about how they’re really flighty, and I was like, ‘I just want you to stay. And I don’t know if you are.’ It’s just saying it’s hard to hold someone down if they’re always thinking about the next place that they’re going to. It’s hard to give someone a hug when they’re walking away. And sometimes it’s good to chase them down and be like, ‘Hey, I’m here.’”
And, in case the album’s title hadn’t given it away already, there’s a track for her brother too. “We don’t get a choice/So let’s stick together,” screams Lahey in ‘Brother’. That angsty love you’re hearing is easily explained by Lahey, “My brother and I clashed for a long time, and then all of a sudden as adults, we’re really close. I feel like this song is my gift to him.”
The themes of Alex Lahey’s album might be universal, but it’s the unique approach she takes unpacking them that’s earned her millions of Spotify streams, buzz-worthy showcases at SXSW and festival sets alongside the likes of Flume, The Kills, At The Drive-In and James Blake as well as guesting on tours with Catfish & The Bottlemen, Tegan & Sara and Blondie.
A sampling of our 2017 releases to stream (or download for ONE MEASLY DOLLAR!) ~ More great stuff packed up for 2018, so be sure to subscribe to our newsletter over at: troubleinmindrecs.com
It’s been a while. We have exciting news for you: there’s new music! A whole album of it, in fact. It is called The Way Is Read and we recorded it with our fantastically talented friends yMusic who, for those of you not familiar with them, are a New York City-based chamber ensemble. That doesn’t really clarify anything, does it? Basically, there aren’t the right words to describe what these musicians can do. Luckily, we are in the music biz, not the word biz, so you can simply listen to the sounds and understand for yourselves. The record will be available digitally on November 24th, 2017 and on limited-edition vinyl on December 1st (totally worth it if only to have Camilla’s painting to hang on your wall).
A bit more about the music itself; the collaboration was originally commissioned in 2016 at Justin Vernon’s Eaux Claires Festival, and we’ve had the opportunity to perform it a handful of times in the US. We didn’t just want some “classical” backing to our songs, we wanted to become a group together, using our voices as instruments on yMusic’s existing work, chopping up compositions and rearranging them, taking old folk songs and making them abstract, as well as writing original songs. The process of forming an orchestra with these musicians has been fascinating for us and we feel very proud to be able to share it with you all.
‘Trouble On My Mind‘ is taken from The Way Is Read, available digitally on 24th November and on limited edition vinyl on 1st December.
Cradling a “Purple Haze” smoothie outside The Post East cafe in East Nashville, Ron Gallo is talking about the tortured relationship that spurred him to write and record one of the year’s most searing and unfiltered alt-rock albums, Heavy Meta. “Loving somebody that is outside your realm of understanding is a pretty earth-shattering thing,” says Gallo, 29.
In 2013, around the time a burned-out Gallo decided to leave Toy Soldiers, the band he’d fronted for eight years, he entered into a two-year relationship with a woman who struggled with mental-health and drug-addiction issues. “It was a pretty dark time –not all of it — but, god, it was a heavy situation. I was frustrated and pissed off with humanity,” says Gallo, adding, I had met a girl that I was with for a few years. and that relationship was a real learning experience in a lot of ways. I started writing this record — a lot of the songs on it are two or three years old now and then things really got bad, to the point where she had to go away. So there I was in Philly — I’d been there for 10 years at this point — and I was like, if I stay here for one more week, I’m going to blow my head off. “Through the course of that relationship a lot of Heavy Meta was written.”
For someone not yet 30 who describes his upbringing in the Philadelphia area as “pretty basic, middle class suburban” — albeit colored by the divorce of his parents during his early teens — the lyrics that Gallo wrote for Heavy Meta sounded like the work of a man much older and irreparably world weary.
On Heavy Meta, he levels his jaundiced eye at the parents of unwanted children in “Why Do You Have Kids?”; dysfunctional relationships in “Young Lady Your’re Scaring Me” (a No. 30 hit on Billboards Adult Alternative Songs chart); Big Pharma in “Kill The Medicine Man”; and dead marriages in “Put The Kids to Bed”, Gallo’s latest single and video,
Spiked with surf and psychobilly guitar lines and feral hoots that would be home on Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska album, the music on Heavy Meta is often as catchy and cathartic as the lyrics are dark — and the songs were made to be played live. In between a schedule that will see him and his band play 24 dates between Sept. 24 and Nov. 21, His path to Heavy Metaand how his worldview, but not his music, has changed dramatically since he wrote those songs. Just as abruptly as his ex-girlfriend dropped out of his life, she resurfaced months later — and rocked Gallo’s world once again.
Darts are volatile in the best sense, combining Sonic Youth-y guitars and a degenerate snideness with a powerhouse drummer and Angus Ayres’ Modest Mouse-esque growl. Their new album, Below Empty & Westward Bound, roams hungrily all over the place, as does their bruising live show.
The new single ‘Aeroplane’ shows off yet another side of the Bendigo/Melbourne five-piece, thanks to the softer lead vocals of guitarist Ally Campbell-Smith. It’s still dark and grungy, but it’s the Darts equivalent of a ballad and provides a respite from the forcefulness elsewhere. With frayed guitars, wailing vocals and dissonant keys form a rich collage throughout the single, edging in and out of complete chaos and serene moments which rise so beautifully. Aggressive beats and punchy yet melodic guitars set the tone — it’s fast and fun, raunchy and loud. They’ve taken angst, sadness, and frustration, and spat it out in the best possible way. It’s a breath of crisp, pure, non-ironic air, The band are doing a few dates supporting Super Best Friends before launching the album in catch them live if you can.
