On her fourth (and tellingly self-titled) album as The Weather Station, Tamara Lindeman reinvents, and more deeply roots, her extraordinary, acclaimed songcraft, framing her precisely detailed, exquisitely wrought prose-poem narratives in bolder and more cinematic musical settings. The result is her most sonically direct and emotionally candid statement to date, a work of profound urgency and artistic generosity. “Timeless… Measured, perceptive storytelling. A singer with an unmistakable & communicative voice, able to convey hope & hurt with equal clarity.” – Pitchfork
“She writes literate songs with unusual precision & sings them in an understated, open-hearted way that lends good poetry the directness of conversation.” – Uncut
“Bob Dylan aside, the singer-songwriter I’ve listened to most over the past year, & to whom I expect to be paying attention for many more to come, is Tamara Lindeman, who, under the name the Weather Station, performs songs notable for a conversational fluency, a diarist’s powers of observation, & a quiet refusal of emotional simplicities.” – Richard Williams, The Guardian
The Weather Station’s S/T album is out October 6th, 2017 on Paradise of Bachelors (worldwide), Outside Music (Canada), & Spunk Records (AU/NZ).
The Weather Station is the fourth—and most forthright—album by The Weather Station, the project of Toronto songwriter Tamara Lindeman. Her most fully realized statement to date, it is a work of profound urgency, artistic generosity, and joy. Self-titled and self-produced, the album unearths a vital new energy from Lindeman’s acclaimed songwriting practice, marrying it to a bold new sense of confidence.
“I wanted to make a rock and roll record,” Lindeman explains, “but one that sounded how I wanted it to sound, which of course is nothing like rock and roll.” The result is a spirited, frequently topical tour de force that declares its understated feminist politics, and its ambitious new sonic directions, from its first moments. On past records, Lindeman has been a master of economy. Here her precisely detailed prose-poem narratives remain as exquisitely wrought as ever, but they inhabit an idiosyncratic, sometimes disorderly, and often daring album that feels, and reads, like a collection of obliquely gut-punching short stories.
Her previous album Loyalty was recorded at La Frette Studios in France in the winter of 2014 with Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas) and Robbie Lackritz (Feist). Nominated for the 2015 Polaris Music Prize, it earned praise from The Guardian, Pitchfork, NPR Music, Uncut, and MOJO, among many others, who celebrated its delicate, carefully worded verse, filled with double meanings, ambiguities, complex metaphors, and rich details of the everyday.
The Weather Station’s S/T album is out October 6th, 2017 on Paradise of Bachelors (worldwide), Outside Music (Canada), & Spunk Records (AU/NZ).
There’s no other way to say it: This album kicks so much ass. Instead of rattling around your brain, the hooks on this thing punch right through your skull. Screaming Females sound less ragged and more polished, and to some, the sanding down of their punk edges could be a disappointment. But that polishing leaves them a towering rock machine, every one of Marissa Paternoster’s guitar heroics and defiant wails perfectly calibrated to make you want to go stomp a dragon in the teeth. And if that makeover paves the way for something like “Wishing Well,” a downright pretty alt-pop song that still manages to shred, I’m all for it.
The Moonlandingz – the band born from a semi fictional concept album by Sheffield electronic analogue weirdos the ‘Eccentronic Research Council’ and fronted by Fat White Family frontman, Lias Saoudi – have shared their brand new This Cities Undone EP, ahead of their forthcoming and fast-selling UK headline tour dates.
The extended player includes a single version of album closer ‘This Cities Undone’ featuring guest vocals from Yoko Ono and Human League’s Phil Oakey, alongside a Confidence Man remix and new cut ‘Dirty Red Rose’.
“I’m a big fan of Yoko’s 70’s albums like Approximately Infinite Universe,” the band’s Adrian Flanagan said. “During a late night semi drunken recording session, I suggested to Sean Lennon – who we were working with up at his studio in upstate New York – that this crazy psychedelic freak out track that we had on the boil – but had no lyrics for – could really work with Yoko doing her thing on it. Sean got it straight away, said that he thought it was a good idea and after that brief suggestion it was never mentioned again… About two months later I’m at a tiny gig in some old spoon factory in Sheffield, watching a bloke play a home made synth in a shoe box with a wind up clockwork parrot sat on his shoulder, when I get an email off Sean titled MUMLANDINGZ. In the email was a video clip of his mum doing this incredible vocal over our music… The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, her voice stirs you like the most primal of rock and roll, it’s got so much spirit, it’s proper witchcraft!
“After receiving the Yoko vocal, Lias Saoudi and I set about writing some words for the track back in Sheffield. A week or so later we got our friends Philip Oakey and Rebecca Taylor to come and sing on the track and then Dean Honer and I went back to NYC to mix it,” he added.
“It was a song that went on quite a journey, but it was worth every bit of the trip. I see the track as a celebration of the activist in us all, the downtrodden, the ignored, people bullied by their local council, the government, the CEO’s in the workplace, the people you never voted for making a complete pig’s ear of running your cities, lunching out on decent hard working taxpayers money, whilst thousands of kids sleep rough in the street and whilst tower blocks burn. We live in frightening times, under the pretense of a so called democracy and something’s got to give!”
“New York” is a song by American musician St. Vincent. It was released on June 30th, 2017, through Loma Vista as the lead single off her fifth studio album, Masseduction. “New York” is a sombre ballad mourning the end of a relationship. Unlike her previous material, the song does not contain Clark’s “fiery guitar playing, nor the squelching industrial soundscapes of her great self-titled album from 2014. It’s just her voice, and some simple lilting piano chords—that’s about it.” The song finds Clark “singing without apparent irony about personal loss. The song could also be read as a eulogy for a certain portion of the soul of New York City itself; she sings mostly about locales in the East Village, painting them with a wild romantic streak that exists mostly in the memory of the city’s denizens.” It is far more straightforward than we’ve come to expect from Annie Clark,
American singer-songwriter St. Vincent treats the New York audience to her track fittingly titled ‘New York.’
St. Vincent was the musical guest on the Late Show With Stephen Colbert, performing two new tracks from her forthcoming album Masseduction.
Annie Clark chose to sing ‘New York’ live on the show with the iconic imagery from the album’s artwork taking centre stage behind her, choosing to change the usual “motherfucker” line to “you’re the only other sucker in the city who can handle me” due to television guidelines.
Following the live TV performance, St Vincent decided to treat guests of the show to a rendition of ‘Los Ageless’ – another track from the album but the familiar PVC boots as seen in the official video reemerged for the performance.
Early last year, prog legends Yes toured the America’s and performed their 1980 album Drama in its entirety, together with sides one and four of their 1973 classic Tales from Topographic Oceans. A new live album, Topographic Drama: Live Across America, features recordings from this tour.
This live release – which also includes some fan favourites like Roundabout and Starship Trooper – has audio taken from 12 dates recorded in February 2017, by the current Yes line-up: Steve Howe (guitars), Alan White (drums), Geoff Downes (keyboards), Billy Sherwood (bass), Jon Davison (vocals), and additional drummer for this tour Jay Schellen.
This set will be available on double CD and as a 3LP vinyl package, with cover and design by – you guessed it – Roger Dean.
Topographic Drama: Live Across America will be issued by Rhino on 24th November 2017.
Classic ALABAMA BROADCAST Recording from 1995 – Presented across 2 CDS By the beginning of the 1990s, with their MCA contract coming to an end, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were proving as popular as ever they were. 1991 s Into The Great Wide Open was received warmly by critics and fans alike, and their 1993 Greatest Hits album sold in excess of 10 million copies. Now signed to Warner Bros., the group – sans original drummer Stan Lynch – teamed up with producer Rick Rubin to record Wildflowers, released on 1st November 1994. The album sold over three million copies and produced the Top 20 single You Don t Know How It Feels . To support this latest release, the band embarked on an extensive tour of North America, playing over 90 dates that year. The recording featured on this two disc set is taken from their performance at The Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, AL on 6th October 1995, a show recorded for FM radio broadcast nationwide in exceptional audio quality. Containing hits from across their entire catalogue – including You Don t Know How It Feels , Free Fallin , Don t Come Around Here No More and American Girl – this CD is sure to become a must-have live album for Tom Petty fans everywhere.
Hotel Wrecking City Traders (HWCT) have been dislodging earwax, busting strings and sticks and blowing minds since 2007. HWCT are an instrumental noise rock duo with a heavy focus on improvisation and a love of loud volume and the psychedelic. Their sound is ever-evolving and expansive, breaking down genre’s and throwing them in a melting pot with hypnotic results.
Passage to Agartha references both a legendary city at the Earth’s core and the name of a seriously whacked-out electric joint by Miles Davis. Hotel Wrecking City Traders certainly aren’t jazz, but the Perth rockers share a similar love of sonic exploration. The mix of post-rock tension-and-release with guitars run through broken amplifiers and concrete slab bass makes for a truly bruising take on heavy psychedelia. Their last album, Phantamonium, played with those discordant elements. This one uses the jagged edges to burrow straight towards the center of the planet.
If you’re going to have a death cult, it may as well be a black-hearted one. These Melbourne natives appropriate ‘60s imagery in their lyrics and visual presentation, but their sound is firmly rooted in ‘90s neo-psych. They prefer to lay down a fog bank of fuzz to cover their Britpop hooks, like Oasis experimenting with My Bloody Valentine’s gear. They’ve been slowly working on their full-length for a few years now and, if the Black Rainbow EP is any indication, it should be filled with hazy shoegaze, mumbled vocals, and blissful riffs. The Black Rainbow-EP contains the best pop psychedelic music I’ve heard this year. The Black Heart Death Cult create a sonic wall of psychedelic goodness, which lights up the listener. These Aussie musicians are the real deal. The psychedelic flame burns bright within them and their great music. Highly recommended.
Sparkly magic mountain-drops fall from the outer cosmic reaches in the re-imagined mind-forrest of The Flower Captain. Gloom/doom singer/songwriter Sasha L Smith envisions a brave new dark age of droney bliss in the sonic bazaar. Fret wizard Bill Patching, sub-sonic vibe dealer Deon Slaviero & human time-machine Andy Nunns are well on the magic bus, which we call “The Black Heart Death Cult”.
In a press conference shown live on Facebook, St. Vincent announced that her latest album, Masseduction, will be released on October. 13th. Pre-order now and download “Los Ageless” and “New York” instantly.
She also released the new single, “Los Ageless,” The song follows “New York,” which was released in June, and which just received its own video treatment.
While St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, has previously described the record as being about heavy topics like “sex and drugs and sadness,” the lead-up to the announcement has been anything but. She’s been teasing it for days, posting short, sarcastic video clips on social media, which in a recent New Yorker profileshe referred to has her new media kit. In the clips, she mocks journalists for the cliches regularly hurled at her, like questions about performing in heels, how she’s changed since her last album or whether St. Vincent and Annie Clark are the same person. The videos were written by her friend Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney and Portlandia fame.
But there is also the question of her album cover, which reportedly features neither St. Vincent nor Annie Clark. Shot on the same set as the videos, it shows a woman bending over, donning hot pink tights and a leopard-print thong bodysuit in front of a red background. As she revealed, “This is not my ass. This is my friend Carlotta’s ass. Isn’t it a nice ass?” She’s referring to her research assistant, who is also a photographer and model. “But will people assume that it’s my ass?” she continued. “I was thinking of a photo of my face that encapsulates the entire record—but maybe that’s a bit of a fool’s errand.”
In addition, Clark sent out a message on her mailing list about Masseduction in which she likens the album release to wedding planning. “Putting out a record is like having a bridezilla-style* wedding every 2-3 years. Lots of ‘did you get the save the date? it was an email cause, you know, the planet…’ and fussing over flower arrangements, except you’re walking down the aisle to your own music by yourself, to your ‘self,’” she wrote, before later acknowledging that the whole metaphor is “sexist af.” “Your bridesmaids and groomsmen are your label, agents, managers, day managers, personal assistants standing expectant with a mixture of stress, excitement, pride. The fans are the attendees, who will pick sides (this side prefers the old you walking down the aisle, this side is onboard for the new you waiting at the altar, there is definitely one person who will protest the marriage in a drunken, dramatic way
Annie Clark has also followed up “New York,” the controlled, composed first single, with a new track called “Los Ageless.” The title might make the song seem like a companion piece, but it’s actually a pulsing, synthetic, slightly funky piece of new wave. It sounds like nothing Clark has ever released before. Clark and Antonoff co-produced the album, recording most of it in New York’s storied Electric Lady studios. It features a ton of greats, including young jazz great Kamasi Washington on saxophone, Jenny Lewis on vocals, Kendrick Lamar collaborator Sounwave on beat production, and Thomas Bartlett, the French musician known as Doveman, on piano.
St. Vincent: Fear The Future, is a special live performance off the new album MASSEDUCTION on October 7th and presented as part of the Red Bull Music Academy Festival Los Angeles. This collaboration with Red Bull Music Academy will bring the forthcoming album as well as previous St. Vincent material to life in technicolor.
In a statement, Clark had this to say about the album:
Every record I make has an archetype. Strange Mercy was Housewives on Pills. St. Vincent was Near-Future Cult Leader. MASSEDUCTION is different, it’s pretty first person. You can’t fact-check it, but if you want to know about my life, listen to this record.
