Danish rockers Yung arrived with their debut album, A Youthful Dream, in 2016, and it was filled with punk-laced guitar pop, simultaneously scruffy and sharp, and often life-affirming. Now back with their follow-up, Ongoing Dispute, they sound like they’ve been emotionally tested and are now out to prove something. Their new LP is, at times, tense, as they try to make sense of where they are and where they’re going, but its unexpectedly intricate riffs and fits of rip-roaring joy both cut through and complement that emotional tension. They’re most exuberant and captivating on “Unresolver” a big-hearted track wrapped in stylish post-punk, jangly indie and explosive, warped garage rock.
There’s more to the stormy atmosphere that runs through Ongoing Dispute than that, though, as Silkjær can attest. “I did get my own head out of my ass, for a change!” he laughs. “In the past, I’ve always written about me, and my life, and things that affected me, but this time, I started talking more about things that affect everybody. I was thinking about the things that aren’t working in the world; there are songs about those kinds of problematic structures. There’s a song on the album called ‘Dismantled’; we had to dismantle our self-image as a band to move forwards, and I had to dismantle my self-image as a songwriter, too.”
Recorded over two sessions at Dreamland Studio and the tiny, now-defunct Studio One (so-called, Silkjær jokes, because you can only fit one person in at a time) and produced by the band’s regular sound tech Neil Robert Young, “Ongoing Dispute” is an ode to perseverance, collaboration and triumph over adversity. It represents the dawning of a new era for the band, the one that A Youthful Dream should have, and the title, says Guldborg Tarp, perfectly encapsulates the dynamic that has driven Yung forwards, out from under that black cloud. “Ultimately, that’s what the writing of this record was – an ongoing dispute. We come in to write and we’re referencing completely different bands, but every time we wrap up a song, we’re excited about it. It reflects the lyrical side of the record, too; it’s like the last few years of coping with the world have been an ongoing dispute for us!”
Yung:
Mikkel Holm Silkjær, Tobias Guldborg Tarp , Frederik Nybo Veile , Emil Korning Zethsen
“Unresolver” · Yung from the album “Ongoing Dispute” on PNKSLM Recordings Released on: 2021-01-22
The pandemic continues to have a profound impact on Intervention’s key partners. Earlier this year both Stoughton Printing, the company that makes our amazing jackets, and our pressing plant RTI shut down for a period, and have struggled to catch up since. Earlier this week Stoughton announced it has suffered a small Covid-19 outbreak and needs to close again until February 1st. When Stoughton reopens it hopes to be at or near full capacity. Where this affects Intervention and its fans and friends is that The Church “Starfish”release is delayed since we can’t get the jackets completed for several more weeks. There is something of a domino effect here, as we cannot get in RTI’s queue until the jackets are done and delivered. Starfish is the fifth album by the Australian rock band The Church, released in April 1988. The band’s international breakthrough album, “Starfish” went gold in America and has remained their most commercially successful release.
The high guitar priests of the Australian band the Church have been making pretty much the same record for nearly eight years with twin guitars overlapping in crystal formations of pinging harmonics, staircase arpeggios and clarion twangs and singer-bassist Steve Kilbey’s voice walking a thin line between a melancholy drone and an embittered hiss. Yet no two Church records ever actually sound alike. At its most compelling, the band scrambles the real and the surreal with ease, rattling its stately guitarchitecture with howling north-wind echo and the troubled undertow of Kilbey’s enigmatic lyrics. It’s like being in the middle of a recurring but constantly evolving dream where only the faces remain the same.
The first single, “Under the Milky Way”, charted in the US Billboard peaking at No. 24, leading to significant exposure of the then relatively underground Australian act. “Under the Milky Way” was recorded/produced in Los Angeles including renowed L.A. session musicians Waddy Wachtel and Greg Ladanyi. The recording is more sparse and open than its predecessor, Heyday, which featured orchestral arrangements with brass and strings. Many of its songs have seen heavy rotation in live set lists, and the album remains a favourite among many fans. The song “Under the Milky Way” was co-written by Kilbey with his then-girlfriend Karin Jansson of Pink Champagne. When drummer Richard Ploog was unable to find the right feel for the song, the band played to a click track and session musician Russ Kunkel was brought in to add the drums and percussion later.
The album’s title was taken from singer/bassist Steve Kilbey’s nickname for friend/ musical partner Donnette Thayer, who signed herself that way on postcards she sent to Kilbey. Kilbey contributed a long untitled poem to the album’s liner notes. “Hotel Womb” has dream-themed lyrics relating to an imagined wedding. Music videos were filmed for “Under The Milky Way” and “Reptile.” The fifth season of the US TV show, Miami Vice, featured two songs from the album. “Under the Milky Way” was used in an episode called “Asian Cut” and “Blood Money” was showcased throughout the episode “Heart of Night”. Starfish, The Church’s sixth and possibily their best LP, is about the spaces between the faces and about the tensions that fill those spaces. “Our instruments have no way/Of measuring this feeling,” Kilbey sings with edgy resignation in “Destination,” heightening the icy picking of guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper with visions of musty old bones, stormy weather and “clapped-out swingers. “Blood Money” could be about nothing more sinister than a whore and her john (“She says, ‘Why can’t you get hard/Because you paid for this now in cold hard cash?'”), although the dripping sarcasm in Kilbey’s voice and the metallic sting of the guitars hint that this sexual transaction has more to do with emotional piracy.
There is certainly a lot of betrayal “Reptile” and dislocation “Lost” on tap on this album. At times, it’s hard to reconcile Starfish’s richly appointed production – pillowy strumming, aqueous reverb, the sunshine blast of synthesized bagpipes in “Under the Milky Way” with the negative energy charging some of these relationships. But it’s the very contrast of otherworldly ambiance and sly baroque lyricism with the earthy erotic tug that lights up songs like “Hotel Womb” and Willson-Piper’s “Spark.” On “Hotel Womb” the urgent guitars stoke Kilbey’s vocal despair like a “White Light-White Heat” for distraught young lovers.
For a number of other dates on the American tour, the band was paired with another of their heroes: Tom Verlaine of Television. Verlaine supported The Church. For their encore every night (“You Took”), they brought Verlaine on stage with them for a three-way guitar duel. Some fans consider the Verlaine/Church shows to be some of the best live performances they’ve ever witnessed. Starfish set up the band’s well-deserved breakthrough in the States,” and added that the performances throughout “are at the least fine and at the most fantastic.
During the tour drummer Richard Ploog became gradually disengaged from the band during this tour, even though he stayed with The Church for another two years. The exact nature of his malady is unknown but most agree that LSD exacerbated his condition. There were degrees of internal strife within the band and a high pressure of expectation from Arista Records. Because of this, Kilbey smoked more pot on this tour than at any other point in his life – such large quantities that he routinely coughed up blood. By the tour’s end, The Church had performed 94 shows across the US, Canada, Europe, the UK and Australia.
The Church:
Steve Kilbey – bass, lead vocals
Peter Koppes – guitars, lead vocals
Marty Willson-Piper – guitars, lead vocals
Richard Ploog – drums, percussion
Additional musicians:
Greg Kuehn – keyboards
Russ Kunkel – drums and percussion
David Lindley – mandolin
“Awesome Welles” – Synclavier
Waddy Wachtel – Guitars backing vocals
What sets Starfish a notch above other distinguished Church hymnals, like 1986’s Heyday and the 1982 import beauty The Blurred Crusade, is its remarkable musical unity and refined dramatic poise. “Under the Milky Way” is the closest the band has come to adapting its expansive guitar chorales to potential-hit-single form since “The Unguarded Moment” .
While my hope at this point is that these LPs are in stock and shipping in June, I’m calling it summer of 2021 and crossing fingers and toes that it comes sooner. I am so sorry for this delay! The test pressings sound AMAZING, the artwork will be stunning and you will be thrilled!
Artist-Approved 2X LP Expanded Edition!, 8 Bonus Tracks Not Included On Original Vinyl Release!
Flyying Colours have announced a brand new album. The Melbourne group are set to release their second album, “Fantasy Country”, on Friday 26 February.
“This album was supposed to now be 6-12 months old,” said songwriter and guitarist Brodie J Brümmer of the album.
“We take touring and supporting our music live quite seriously so it would have been very difficult for us to put out this album in the early stages of the pandemic… but here comes a time now where we need to get these songs out there and make it work in any way that we can.”
The band have announced a tour in celebration of the release, which will kick off at Adelaide’s Grace Emily on release day. They’ll then head to Melbourne’s Corner Hotel, Brisbane’s The Brightside and wrap up at Sydney’s Lansdowne Hotel.
“Big Mess” by Flyying Colours Released via Club AC30 (UK & Europe) and Poison City Records
Burr Oak is the new project of Chicago based singer-songwriter Savanna Dickhut who merges together brutally honest, story- driven lyrics with raw, dreamy vocals. With just two singles out this past year, the Chicago Tribune wrote her songs “show the promise of a songwriter sure of her voice and sound, one that is piercing and deeply relatable and authentic.”
Based on her efforts in the first few months of 2020, Burr Oak could easily have appeared on this list last year. The project of Chicago’s Savanna Dickhut, Burr Oak was in the process of recording her debut album with producer Nick Papaleo, as well as opening shows for the likes of Twain and Buck Meek, until spanners were thrown into the global works. It wasn’t all bad news, as Savannah found time to release a pair of well-received singles, tracks that hinted at just how special her debut album might be, whenever it finds its way into the world.
Burr Oak formed following the ending of Savannah’s previous project, Elk Walking, with Savannah finding the confidence to launch her solo-project and allow her song writing to really shine. Debut offering Trying, is a straight talking depiction of her Savannah’s struggles to maintain her mental health and tendency to self-medicate with alcohol, delivered via fizzing-guitar lines and an impassioned vocal delivery as she sings, “some days I can’t get out of bed but I’ll keep trying, until I drop dead”.
That was followed in November by Flower Garden, which took the seasons as a metaphor for the ebbs and flows of a relationship and set them to a soundtrack of rolling drums and languid meanders of guitar that feel like an extension straight from the soul of their songwriter. There’s an open-hearted quality to Savannah’s song writing, the sound of someone with a story to tell, opening her lungs and letting it all out, whenever it does arrive Burr Oak’s debut album is going to be a record well worth keeping your eyes on.
Released November 18th, 2020 music & lyrics by Savanna Dickhut
By the time Chicago had their first number one single in 1976, “If You Leave Me Now,” they were a far different band from their early days. Although their hits from that mid-1970s era onward were, by any measure, well-crafted pop songs but middle of the road, as the phrase went in those days, Chicago had left behind the horn-powered, soul-infused innovation of their earliest days. And they were very far removed from the music heard on “25 or 6 to 4,” recorded live at Tanglewood . Watch the Classic Video and you will witness one of the hardest rocking bands of its time. It’s actually difficult to imagine that this is the same band that cut those later hits.
In fairness, they weren’t quite the same. As you watch this seven-minute performance of “25 or 6 to 4” take note of what happens just before the three-minute mark. Terry Kath, the group’s guitarist, tears into a two-and-a-half-minute solo that has to rank among the most insane of the era. He’s so numbingly good that Jimi Hendrix reportedly stated that Kath was a better player than he was. To understand how Chicago became what it did, it’s informative to know where they came from. They formed in 1967 as Chicago Transit Authority, with guitarist/singer Kath, keyboardist/singer Robert Lamm, bassist/singer Peter Cetera, saxophonist Walter Parazaider, trumpeter Lee Loughnane, trombonist James Pankow and drummer Danny Seraphine. Signed to Columbia Records in 1968, they released their self-titled debut album the following spring. The group, which happened to come around at a time when rock bands were beginning to incorporate horn sections Blood, Sweat and Tears and the Electric Flag were two others.
Two singles culled from the James William Guercio-produced album, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is?” and “Beginnings,” reached the top 10 in 1970 and ’71, respectively, but by that time the group had shortened its name to Chicago and released its second LP, another double, this one simply titled “Chicago”. (From that point onward, most of their albums, for the rest of their career, would be titled with consecutive Roman numerals at last count they were up to Chicago XXXVI in 2014.)
Like its predecessor, Chicago struck a balance between soul, hard rock, ballads and what might be called nascent jazz fusion, although its center-piece was the 13-minute suite “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon.” From that, the undeniably catchy “Make Me Smile” written by Pankow and sung by Kath, it became Chicago’s first top 10 hit in 1970, but it was the follow up, “25 or 6 to 4,” written by Lamm and sung by Cetera, that showed their ability to rock as hard as anyone else on the scene. It reached No#4 in the summer of ’70, the period seen on this Classic Video.
So what exactly was “25 or 6 to 4” about? Who knows?! In its time, there was speculation that the “25” part of the title was a reference to LSD, whose full pharmaceutical name was LSD-25. The “6 to 4” was said to be a ratio involved in the manufacture of the drug. Lamm laughed off those suggestions, stating that it was simply inspired by a time of day: 25 or perhaps 26 minutes before 4 o’clock.
Still, with lyrics such as these, one can understand where some listeners might have come up with the idea that it was about an acid trip:
“Should have tried to do some more, Twenty five or six to four, oh yeah Feeling like I ought to sleep, Spinning room is sinking deep Searching for something to say, Waiting for the break of day, ohh”
As early as Chicago III the first of the numbered albums the band began losing its original driving focus but its increasingly mainstream sound benefited Chicago commercially. “Saturday in the Park,” in 1972, was the last gasp from the original Chicago before they morphed entirely into a more disciplined pop outfit.
They continued to release an album per year and had recently put out Chicago XI when tragedy struck. On January 23rd, 1978, Terry Kath was in California at a party when he began playing around with guns. Although he was an experienced gun user, he did not know that the pistol in his hand had one round in its chamber. Kath pointed the gun at his head, pulled the trigger and died instantly. He left behind a wife and young daughter. Chicago briefly considered quitting, but they soldiered on, replacing Kath on the dance music-oriented Hot Streets (before returning to numbers on their next album) with guitarist Donnie Dacus. Chicago is still an ongoing outfit today, with four original members still on board: Lamm, Loughnane, Pankow and Parazaider. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016.
If they ever had a more incendiary moment than this one from 1970 though, we haven’t seen it.
The band Chicago performs “25 or 6 to 4” and “You’re the Inspiration” as part of the “Be Chicago, Together We Can” fundraising event on April 29th, 2020, benefiting the Chicago Community COVID-19 Response Fund to aid the on-going efforts by the United Way of Metro Chicago and the Chicago Community Trust in the fight against COVID-19
The Soup Dragons were a Scottish alternative rock band of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Named after a character in the 1970s children’s television show The Clangers, the group is best known for its cover of the Rolling Stones’ song “I’m Free”, which was a top five hit in the United Kingdom in 1990, and “Divine Thing”, a Top 40 hit in the United States in 1992. The Soup Dragons were formed in Bellshill, a town near Motherwell, in 1985.
The line up was Sean Dickson (vocals, lead guitar), Jim McCulloch (guitar, second voice) who replaced Ian Whitehall, and Sushil K. Dade (bass). The original drummer, Ross A. Sinclair, left the group after the first proper album, “This Is Our Art”, to pursue a career in art, and was replaced by Paul Quinn. Most of their songs were written by Sean Dickson. The band recorded their first demo tape, You Have Some Too, after playing a few local gigs, and this was followed by a flexi disc single “If You Were the Only Girl in the World”. The band signed to The Subway Organization in early 1986 and their first proper single (The Sun in the Sky EP) was Buzzcocks-inspired pop punk.
The band’s big breakthrough came with their second single for Subway, “Whole Wide World”, which reached No. 2 on the UK Indie Chart in 1986. Dickson and McCulloch also moonlighted in another band BMX Bandits at this time. The band were signed by former Wham! co-manager Jazz Summers’ label Raw TV with further indie hits (and minor UK Singles Chart hits) following during 1987 and 1988. Over the course of six singles (the first three collected in 1986 on a U.S. only compilation, Hang Ten), they gradually developed a more complex rock guitar sound, which culminated in their first album proper “This Is Our Art”, now signed to major label Sire Records. After one single from the album “Kingdom Chairs” they then returned to original label Raw TV and Big Life Records. In the year following “This Is Our Art” their sound underwent a change from an indie rock sound, to the rock-dance crossover sound, this was mainly due to being without a drummer and buying a sampler and drum machine and experimenting with sound with the release of the album “Lovegod”.
This change can be attributed to the rise of the ecstasy-fuelled acid house rave scene in the UK. In 1990, they released their most successful hit single in the UK, “I’m Free”, an up-tempo cover of a Rolling Stones song with an added toasting overdub by reggae star Junior Reid, which reached number five. The single also appeared on the soundtrack to British science fiction comedy film The World’s End. Subsequent albums continued in their own style and In 1992 they enjoyed their biggest U.S. hit with “Divine Thing” It also hit number three on the Modern Rock chart and its video was nominated by MTV as one of the year’s best, though beaten by Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. The Soup Dragons disbanded in 1995. Paul Quinn joined Teenage Fanclub. Sushil K. Dade formed the experimental post rock group Future Pilot A.K.A. and is now a producer for BBC Radio. Sean Dickson formed The High Fidelity, came out as gay, had a breakdown, then met his husband and established a successful career Djing as HiFi Sean.
Jim McCulloch joined Superstar, wrote and recorded music with Isobel Campbell, and formed the folk group Snowgoose.
The Albums: Hang Ten!(1986) This Is Our Art (1988) Lovegod (1990) Hotwired (1992) Hydrophonic (1994)
Ross A. Sinclair had a successful career in art, winning a number of international awards and becoming a Research Fellow at Glasgow School of Art. He still makes music The story of The Soup Dragons is traced as part of 2017 documentary Teenage Superstars.
As unexpected as it is to find Luluc closing out 2020 sharing a producer with pop behemoth Taylor Swift, it seems like a fitting end to this liminal, otherworldly year. The kinetic Aaron Dessner beat that opens the Australian duo’s fourth album is as much of a departure from the more muted tones of their previous work as its siblings brought to folklore – and yet, just as those propelled Swift’s heroine east from St Louis, this synthesised pulse also takes the listener on a journey.
The opening “Emerald City” began in a world halfway between the Melbourne of Luluc’s beginnings and the Brooklyn the duo have since come to call home: in Berlin in August 2018, where, on an invitation from Dessner,Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett flew out to perform at the PEOPLE festival. There, in an old East German radio-station-turned-venue-and-studio, the frequent collaborators – together with drummers JT Yates and Jason Treuting, and CJ Camerieri on trumpet – sought to translate the restless energy of the streets of New York into music.
Friends, festivals, transatlantic flights: the “Emerald City” origin story couldn’t be further from the Australian coast where Randell and Hassett finished mixing the album, seeing out the pandemic in isolation. And yet the thread that runs through “Dreamboat” is primarily an introspective one: of wild horses and weatherbirds, Wizard Of Oz metaphors and waking in the night. Luluc’s dream world, like the real one, is still complicated: at times as idyllic as the vision of “blue water and sunshine” in the Carpenters-esque “Dreaming”; at times a claustrophobic nightmare roping you in against your will.
The frantic buzz of that opening track is straight from the fast-paced, pre-pandemic world in which it was occasionally played live – but the anxieties tied up in its frenetic layers, punctuated by panicked bursts of trumpet, will be familiar to anyone who has lain awake these past few months, “tumbling and twisting” with “too much” in their head. The song is a stream of consciousness set in those anxious moments before sleep; above the noise, Randell’s voice a steady ship, with lines that seem prescient now. “Like Dorothy on the run,” she sings, “breaking my will, I stay in”.
The track is one of two to feature a Dessner co-production credit, Randell and Hassett handling the majority of the album solo. Combined with their decision to release independently rather than through long-time label Sub Pop – an amicable decision, Randell explains, driven by the duo’s desire to release this music into the world at their own pace – the implication is of full creative control. The simplicity at the core of the duo’s song writing remains intact, but the confidence that comes with experience allows them to lean into different choices as the songs dictate, be it duelling drummers, tenor saxophone or a touch of New York jazz guitar.
Wurlitzer and walking bass lend “Hey Hey” a vintage country feel, jazz drummer Dalton Hart working with Hassett to keep the song at a simmer until a melodic burst of sunshine shoots through the middle. “Weatherbirds” is built around another Dessner beat, but it’s the brightness of Hassett’s guitar and backing vocals that carry the song; and Arcade Fire touring member Stuart Bogie’s saxophone brings the pink flush of sundown to “Out Beyond”, a harmonious Randell-Hassett duet from the edge of the world.
But sometimes, the songs call for nothing at all. “All The Pretty Scenery”, a feather-light beauty in which the narrator’s gaze turns from her own interior world to that of another, features only Randell and Hassett, some vocal doubling the closest thing to trickery. “Gentle Steed”, recorded live in Berlin with Hassett on piano and Caimin Gilmore on double bass, falls somewhere between old folk song and mythology, Randell’s vocals timeless and pure. Her voice carries something of a myth-making quality in its timbre, making the everyday details that creep into her lyrics – a reference to “booze”, an affectionate “my man” designation for a partner – twice as charming.
The real world creeps in as it must: as the sound of cars “rolling their way into my notebook” among the diary-esque lyrics of “Hey Hey”; in the shape of an arachnid in “Spider”. But behind it all, a self-possessed Luluc in isolation, daydreaming of friends apart until they can once again cross the sea.
“Dreamboat” released through Sun Chaser Records October 23rd, 2020
‘Meddle’ didn’t have a very auspicious start, having evolved out of a series of experiments in music making with everyday objects titled ‘Nothings,’ ‘Son of Nothings’ and then ‘Return of the Son of Nothings.’ Yet, in exploring so far outside of the realm of the every day, they were clearly onto something. ‘One of These Days’ and ‘Echoes’ (both featuring weirdly involving instrumental elements) became signature favorites, while an unused song evolved into ‘Brain Damage’ for ‘The Dark Side of the Moon.’ They were mere steps away from greatness.
Arriving bereft of ideas, Pink Floyd did something that was becoming increasingly rare on Meddle: They collaborated together in the studio.
At first, this didn’t lead to much. The album, before its arrival on October. 31st, 1971, was actually known as Nothing, Parts 1-24. Recorded in a series of locales around London between concert dates, Meddle eventually came together with help – both instrumentally and lyrically – from all four members, a stark contrast to the Roger Waters-dominated albums to come in the ’70s.
“When we started on Meddle, we went into it with a very different working basis to any previous album in so much that we went into the studios with nothing prepared, and did a month of – well, we just called them nothings,” NickMason said Ted Alvy of KPPC-FM in 1971. “I mean, they were ideas that were put down extremely roughly. They might have been just a few chords, or they might have been a rhythm idea, or something else – and this was just put down, and then we took a month and examined what we got.”
What emerged was the bridge between their earliest recordings and the career-making triumph of 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon. Meddle still boasted the wide-open improvisational gumption of transitional albums like 1968’s A Saucerful of Secrets, 1969’s Ummagumma and 1970’s Atom Heart Mother, but their focus started to narrow. In some ways, the LP represents the best of both worlds.
They got there together, swapping musical ideas and – in the case of the album-opening “One of These Days” – even swapping places. David Gilmour took up the bass as the song opens, before being joined by Waters. (You’ll notice the second double-tracked instrument has a flatter sound. “We didn’t have a spare set of strings for the spare bass guitar, so the second bass is very dull sounding,” Gilmour told Guitar World in 1993. “We sent a roadie out to buy some strings, but he wandered off to see his girlfriend instead.”) Mason takes a rare vocal turn on “One of These Days,” as well.
A swirling breeze links that song to the tender “A Pillow of Winds,” which was inspired by time spent by Waters and Mason with their wives in the south of France. Waters’ “San Tropez” – the only song here not co-written with Gilmour – also recalls trips to the French Riviera. Together, Pink Floyd bring an impish humor to songs like “Fearless,” which features a field recording of a Liverpool soccer club singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – forcing Pink Floyd to co-credit Rodgers and Hammerstein – while “Seamus” includes the howling of Small Faces/Humble Pie vocalist Steve Marriott’s dog, whom Gilmour was watching.
Meddle will always be defined, however, by its side two-encompassing closing track, “Echoes.” The song, which stretched to 23 minutes, again grew out of a collaborative moment – this time onstage, when the song was reportedly introduced as “Return of the Son of Nothing.”
Richard Wright wrote the long piano intro and the chord progression, while Waters added lyrics – after coming up with the idea of running Wright’s original “ping” sound through a Leslie rotating speaker. Gilmour achieved the seagull sounds by reversing the inputs on a wah pedal.
“Things like ‘Echoes’ would be all of us in a rehearsal room, just sitting there thinking, playing – working out ideas to see if they went anywhere,” Wright told Rolling Stone in 1987. “It’s a nice way to work – and I think, in a way, the most ‘Floyd-ian’ material we ever did came about that way.”
“Echoes,” which later provided the title to a career-spanning retrospective, was Pink Floyd’s breakthrough moment. An complex and stirring finale, “Echoes” holds together as one narrative piece, unlike the lengthy title track from Atom Heart Mother.
‘Meddle’ (1971): “Echoes”
Pink Floyd spreads way, way, way out on this extended epic – at 23-plus minutes, the length of an entire side of vinyl. It’s not the duration of “Echoes” that’s noteworthy, only that the extra running time allows for such a wealth of noises and ideas. If the early, psychedelic Floyd stuff was “space rock,” this is “deep sea rock,” and just as enchanting. Wright creates a submarine-like “ping” while Gilmour dreams up a pod of whales by plugging a wah-wah pedal in backwards. Nick Mason guides the ever-changing song, and Roger Waters writes of wind, water and, more importantly, humanity. The band believed this mix of outward-looking lyricism and dynamic sounds was the stepping stone to full album suites, like Dark Side of the Moon. (And, if you agree with Waters, this descending chord motif led to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera.)
“I think ‘Echoes’ is the masterwork of the album – the one where we were all discovering what Pink Floyd is about,” Gilmour told Guitar World. “Meddle is really the album where all four of us were finding our feet – the way we wanted Pink Floyd to be, much more than on Ummagumma or Atom Heart Mother. Although Atom Heart Mother has some pointers and directions as to where we would finally go, it’s not as important as Meddle was.”
Even though Meddle reached No. 3 in the U.K., the U.S. was proving a tougher market to conquer. The album actually finished 15 spots further back from Atom Heart Mother, at a paltry No. 70. Still, the stage was set – as evidenced by the appearance in these sessions of “Brain Damage,” which would later help close out The Dark Side of the Moon.
“All those stages are part of a general evolution, made of progression and dead times,” Mason mused in 1973, as Pink Floyd found themselves finally on the cusp of superstardom. “They weren’t exactly succeeding experiments, but rather exercises about a particular aspect of music, so you could evolve after that. Anyway, we never did an album saying, ‘That’s it, we reached the zenith.’ On the contrary, we always asked ourselves: ‘What will we do next?’”
Pink Floyd’s sixth album was a turning point of sorts, as the band inched closer to more structured songs, as opposed to the atmospheric set pieces that dominated their previous records. ‘Echoes,’ ‘Meddle”s highlight, still runs more than 23 minutes, but its mix of long instrumental passages and vocal patches is a precursor to the career-changing ‘The Dark Side of the Moon.’
Pink Floyd, released on 31st October 1971 by Harvest Records.
I think we all had a tough time of it last year. I felt myself going through the mill, along with so many others. However, the experience resulted in a new collection of songs. Songs about love, loss and ultimately hope. And so my new album ‘The Fray’ will be released March 26th on Commoner Records/Thirty Tigers worldwide. Recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire and produced by Sam Lakeman and myself, ‘The Fray’ features guest performances from Sarah Jarosz, Bill Frisell, Lisa Hannigan, The Milk Carton Kids, Jess Staveley-Taylor and Courtney Hartman. Ordinarily I would hit the road for fifty nights to tour a new record. For this release however, I’ve put together a bunch of special signed pre-order packages, available only through my website. There are T-Shirt bundles, exclusive recordings, guitar lessons, private concerts, a high-quality ticketed livestream event on the weekend of release and more. ‘The Fray’ comprises twelve of the most personal and, I think, the most honest songs I’ve ever written. I can’t wait for you to hear it.
Born in Essex, raised by the Devon seaside, and making his bones in the bars and clubs of Liverpool, John has released five albums with over 33 million Spotify streams. He has played to audiences all over the world in living rooms, festival tents and sold-out concert halls. He is a genuine folksinger, an inquisitive truth-seeker, devoted song interpreter and enchanting writer.
Steeped in the lineage of British folk, taking his cue from Richard Thompson and John Martyn, Smith has evolved a transatlantic blend of fingerstyle and slide guitar techniques. John’s intimate takes on love, loss and the journey we make, combined with his innovative guitar work, have won him a loyal following. His honey-on-gravel voice and mesmerizing fingerstyle guitar are undeniable. Sometimes using a slide, sometimes with guitar on his lap, sometimes detuning mid-song, John Smith’s obsession with the instrument has made a master of him. Whether by way of album or concert, he leads the listener, enthralled in his presence, on a viscerally emotional journey.
My new record ‘The Fray’ will be released March 26th on Commoner Records/Thirty Tigers worldwide! Ordinarily I would hit the road for fifty nights to tour a new record, but for this release I’ve put together a bunch of special signed pre-order packages, available only through my website.
Craft Recordings continue their salute to the enduring musical legacy of Creedence Clearwater Revival with the official release of half speed mastered editions of the band’s two final albums: 1970’s Pendulum and 1972’s Mardi Gras.
Continuing the 50th anniversary celebration of America’s all-time greatest rock ‘n’ roll band, with the release of 180-gram, half-speed mastered editions of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s final two studio albums; 1970’s Pendulum and 1972’s Mardi Gras. Both LPs were mastered at Abbey Road Studios and come housed in beautifully crafted jackets replicating the albums’ original packaging.
Pendulum marked CCR’s second release of 1970—following Cosmo’s Factory—and was the group’s sole record to feature all original material. The album found the guitar-heavy group expanding their sonic palate—experimenting with new sounds (including the use of saxophones, vocal choirs, and keyboards) and even venturing into psychedelia. Pendulum spawned two global Top Ten hits: “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” and “Hey Tonight.”
CCR’s seventh and final studio album, Mardi Gras, followed the departure of founding member and rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty. Highlights off the album include a cover of the rockabilly classic “Hello Mary Lou,” as well as the John Fogerty-penned rocker “Sweet Hitch-Hiker.” The poignant “Someday Never Comes,” meanwhile, marked the group’s final single.
Roughly half a century later, fans can enjoy a new vibrancy when they revisit these albums, thanks to the exacting process of half-speed mastering. Working from high-res transfers from the original analogue tapes, the half-speed mastering technique allows more time to cut a micro-precise groove, resulting in more accuracy with frequency extremes and dynamic contrasts. The result on the turntables is an exceptional level of sonic clarity and punch.
Both titles are available now via Craft Recordings.
Pendulum
50th anniversary pressing of the penultimate studio album from America’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band; first released in 1970 at the peak of Creedence’s prolific career. Includes the hits “Have You Ever Seen The Rain,” “Hey Tonight” and more. The album was mastered at half-speed at Abbey Road Studios, benefiting from an exacting process that allows for an exceptional level of sonic clarity and punch. This 180-gram vinyl comes housed in a tip-on jacket replicating the original pressing packaging. During 1969 and 1970, CCR was dismissed by hipsters as a bubblegum pop band and the sniping had grown intolerable, at least to John Fogerty, who designed “Pendulum” as a rebuke to critics.
He spent time polishing the production, bringing in keyboards, horns, even a vocal choir. His songs became self-consciously serious and tighter, working with the aesthetic of the rock underground Pendulum was constructed as a proper album, contrasting dramatically with CCR’s previous records, all throwbacks to joyous early rock records where covers sat nicely next to hits and overlooked gems tucked away at the end of the second side. To some fans of classic CCR, this approach may feel a little odd since only “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” and maybe its B-side “Hey Tonight” sound undeniably like prime Creedence. But, given time, the album is a real grower, revealing many overlooked Fogerty gems. Yes, it isn’t transcendent like the albums they made from Bayou Country through Cosmo’s Factory, but most bands never even come close to that kind of hot streak. Instead, Pendulum finds a first-class songwriter and craftsman pushing himself and his band to try new sounds, styles, and textures. His ambition results in a stumble — “Rude Awakening 2” portentously teeters on the verge of prog-rock, something CCR just can’t pull off — but the rest of the record is excellent, with such great numbers as the bluesy groove “Pagan Baby” the soulful vamp “Chameleon” the moody “It’s Just a Thought,” and the raver “Molina” Most bands would kill for this to be their best stuff, and the fact that it’s tucked away on an album that even some fans forget illustrates what a tremendous band Creedence Clearwater Revival was.
Mardi Gras
50th anniversary pressing of the final studio album from America’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band; first released in 1972. Highlights include a cover of “Hello Mary Lou,” as well as the Fogerty-penned rocker “Sweet Hitch-Hiker”a Top Ten hit in the US, Australia, Canada, and across Europe. The poignant “Someday Never Comes,” marked the group’s final single. Mastered at half-speed at Abbey Road Studios, benefiting from an exacting process that allows for an exceptional level of sonic clarity and punch. This 180-gram vinyl comes housed in an embossed jacket replicating the original packaging. Pared down to a trio, Creedence Clearwater Revival had to find a new way of doing business, since already their sound had changed, so they split creative duties evenly. It wasn’t just that each member wrote songs they produced them, too.
Doug Clifford and Stu Cook claim John Fogerty needed time to creatively recharge, while Fogerty says he simply bowed to the duo’s relentless pressure for equal time. Both arguments make sense, but either way, the end result was the same: “Mardi Gras” was a mess. Not a disaster, which it was dismissed as upon its release, since there are a couple of bright moments. Typically, Fogerty is reliable, with the solid rocker “Sweet Hitch-Hiker” the country ramble “Lookin’ for a Reason” a good cover of Ricky Nelson’s “Hello Mary Lou,” and the pretty good ballad “Someday Never Comes” These don’t match the brilliance of previous CCR records, but they sparkle next to Clifford and Cook’s efforts.
That implies that their contributions are terrible, which they’re usually not they’re just pedestrian. Only “Sail Away” is difficult to listen to, due to Cook’s flat, overemphasized vocals, but he makes up for it with the solid rocker “Door to Door” and the Fogerty soundalike “Take It Like a Friend.” Clifford fares a little better since his voice is warmer and he wisely channels it into amiable country-rock, yet these are pretty average songs by two guys beginning to find their own song writing voice. If Clifford and Cook had started their own band (which they did after this album) it would be easier to be charitable, but when held up against Creedence’s other work, Mardi Gras withers. It’s an unpretty end to a great band.
Pendulum was the follow-up to the band’s chart-topping Cosmo’s Factory, and peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200. The accompanying Mardi Gras is CCR’s swan song, with it being the only album the band made without rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty, who left the group in 1971
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The Fat Angel Sings 