Bella Union are very pleased to share with you all the new album from Icelandic quintet Mammút. KinderVersions’ intense character is obvious from the get-go, with opening tracks ‘We Tried Love’ and the title track the album’s two longest, at over seven and six minuted respectively, embodying everything that is thrilling about Mammút’s ebbing and flowing dynamic. “With those lyrics and the soundscape, those songs had to be the introduction,” Katrína vouches. “And with the [the sparser, gentler] ‘Bye Bye’ following, it’s the most honest way into the album.”
With stints in Throwing Muses and The Breeders behind her, Tanya Donelly was more than ready to front her own alternative rock band, and Belly captured the spotlight even more firmly than those previous groups. Filled out by three musical cohorts from Donelly’s Rhode Island home base, Belly made an impressive debut with “STAR” the 1993 Sire set included a Modern Rock chart-topper in “Feed The Tree,” another MTV favorite in “Gepetto,” and brought the quartet two Grammy nominations. These 15 originals give indie dream pop plenty of appealing hooks – even if the album’s sweet-sounding vocals sometimes sing about rather strange stuff. Today we’ll wish upon a Star in honor of Tanya Donelly’s birthday.
Star was borne out of artistic restlessness, Donelly having blossomed as a songwriter in her first band, ThrowingMuses, by the sessions for their fourth album The Real Ramona, becoming an equal to the band’s heretofore leader, and Donelly’s stepsister, Kristin Hersh. Donelly came to the sessions with more than her requisite pair of songs, quickly realising elsewhere would be a better fit for the bulk of them rather than the latest Muses’ album. Initially, that home was ostensibly The Breeders’ sophomore release:
“The songs I brought to The Real Ramona were the two that ended up on there (“Not Too Soon” and “Honeychain”), “Full Moon, Empty Heart,” “Slow Dog,” and “Gepetto” (all songs that would appear on Star). This was around the time [the early quartet lineup of Throwing Muses] had started to dissolve so I thought, I’ll have the two on there and save the rest for The Breeders. They had several home options for about six months there.”
In the time off between Throwing Muses albums at the turn of the 1990s, Donelly and Pixies guitarist Kim Deal collaborated on a new project, The Breeders, who released their debut Pod in 1990 largely consisting of Deal’s songs with the plan of the follow up featuring largely Donelly’s songs. As luck would have it, that second Breeders album would become Belly’s first.
“Everything that is on Star was intended for the next Breeders album. All the old reels I have in my basement of the demos are labeled The Breeders. The Pixies had announced a year long, worldwide tour and Kim signed on for that. I sort of got antsy, had already left the Muses and so I thought, I’m taking my songs and making my own band!”
In retrospect, with such a flurry of activity occurring in such a compact timeframe, the aesthetic groundwork for Star appears to have been laid in Donelly’s final pair of Muses tracks; the off-kilter, chipper pop of “Not To Soon” and the harrowing dreamlike beauty of “Honeychain” portending the two ends of Star’s spectrum. Indeed, Donelly views the latter as forming “the bridge between my Muses and my Belly life.”
Star’s appeal is clear; its tone is impeccably balanced between oblique jangle-pop and moody dream-pop, tracks that individually would appear at odds with each other benefitting by this balance to achieve an unwitting congruity.
That said, with the exception of REM’s Automatic For The People, the upper echelon of the UK albums chart in and around February 1993 was continuously peppered with compilations of legacy pop acts with nary a blink at rising alternative acts until Suede’s debut would chart a couple months later, so how and why Star? .
Indeed, few albums can as deftly move from the Eastern European flavours of “Angel” to “Gepetto”s jangly bounce, veering over to “White Belly”s gorgeous murk and back around to the countrified folk of “Untogether”.
While truthfully a rather sprawling album at 15 tracks over 51 minutes, Star plays small owing to its constant shift in tone reinvigorating the listener track to track. “Dusted”s razor wire riff belongs chiseled on a Rushmore of indie rock hooks while there is nary a chorus as exuberant in the annals of indie rock as “Slow Dog”.
It’s Donelly’s unsuspecting vocal prowess that threads Star together as an album rather than a collection of songs. Wafting vaporously into view on opener, “Someone To Die For”, she proceeds, throughout the album, to emit just enough grit and force to stay atop her band’s thunderous patches while reining back at precisely the opportune respite points.
We described Stevie Parker as a thoughtful indie pop gold and compared her to London Grammar and The Japanese House last year. Tough standards you might think, but her debut album “The Cure” has gone down a treat, especially with The Guardian describing it as ‘one of those idiosyncratic British heartbreak albums that has the potential to go far’.
There should be a mutual support organisation for those exes who are the subjects of famous heartbreak albums. If it all goes to plan, Stevie Parker’s errant former girlfriend could end up sitting in a corner at this theoretical get-together, a little agog. Parker’s debut is mostly about this one ex is one of those idiosyncratic British heartbreak albums that has the potential to go far.
Parker’s manager is the fabled ex-punk Jeannette Lee , “The Cure” is an intriguing dose of romantic misery, full of atmospheres, self-flagellation and a little bunny-boiling. Front and centre is Stevie Parker’s voice and Parker herself, whose jeans’n’trainers “anti-styling” strives to downplay the visual side upon which so much pop is sold.
Originally from Frome in Somerset, Parker is now based in Bristol, and you can tell. The city’s sound infuses songs such as “Better Off” a slow-burner whose minor key verses and encroaching electronics neighbouring Portishead with much more aplomb than usual. “I will keep you safe,” promises Parker. The instrumentation suggests the situation might not be so straightforward.
Over 12 tracks there are break-up cliches Parker can’t help but stumble into ,“I’ve been blue over you” is the revolutionary gist of a song called “Blue” but there is enough viscera on show here to make up for these well-worn sentiments.
“Stay” voices a pretty common-or-garden feeling. But this particular garden has a sharp axe left lying around. “If she told you she loves you, I’ll hunt her down and have my way,” sings Parker, “If she tells you she missed you, it’ll be the last thing that she’ll say.” Parker sings all this with a winsome and tremulous flutter. Then, finally, she bares her teeth. “I want you to stay, stay, stay!” comes as a pent-up yell.
For Twinsmith, the occasion to make a third album came with an opportunity to distill their process down to its essential parts, and to re-focus the band’s perspective in order to fully embrace their sound. Longtime friends Jordan Smith and Matt Regner had written a pair of records as Twinsmith, starting with 2013’s self-titled debut and then 2015’s “Alligator Years” which earned lots of press attention . While the lineup would grow to include bassist Bill Sharp and other hired guns to round out the stage, the songwriting core learned to vary their approach while relying on each other to push the plot forward. Starting as DIY tinkerers in a basement, Smith and Regner would evolve their sound from hazy surf rock to a fuller, more dynamic guitar-and-keys pop appeal, making good use of the perks like recording studios and engineers that often come with progress. But as it came time to begin again for a new album, they found themselves looking back to the beginning, stripping back their process and recording in the dining room of their house using old synths and ‘80s drum machines.
Produced by friend and Omaha neighbor Graham Ulicny (Reptar, The Faint), this limitation on personnel would remain the only thing strict during the process. By removing distractions and relying on their own prowess, as well as pealing back the sound to create shorter, more direct songs, Twinsmith found that this laid back approach allowed them to focus on the same goals and to create something entirely for themselves. “The main goal was to make something a bit more personal to us,” Smith says. “The last album was kind of in-your-face pop music and that’s why we made this so short and sweet; we wanted listeners to hear the small, distinct sounds we were working on. Because there were only a few people involved, we could make our decisions more directly. We wanted to make something we could use to relate to a bigger mass and bring people back.”
Stripping the words, the music, and the players down to their raw parts, Twinsmith have created a work of con dent determination. Melodies soar and rhythms sway, the beats pulse with a laid back but urgent immediacy, and the simplicity of it all stitches the songs together in its mysterious way. From the simple three-color design of the cover to the process that created the sounds underneath, “Stay Cool” rewards with its ability to connect.
Frankie Rose recently announced a new solo album, “Cage Tropical”, with a single called “Trouble” we’ve got a second track with the watercolor-dreamy “Red Museum.” The song opens with chiming guitars, as Rose’s gently acidic voice assures us that nothing’s true and nothing can last. At the chorus, “Red Museum” opens up, channeling original Twin Peaks muse Julee Cruise’s ethereal classic track Falling.
According to Rose, ‘Red Museum’ is a love song. It is a portrait of the kind of fearful thoughts that can run through a person’s head upon the possibility of caring for another person.” The video, directed by and co-starring L.A.-based musician/performance artist Geneva Jacuzzi , situates the track in a gallery filled with veiled figures, textile sculptures, and video monitors.
Cage Tropical is out August 11th from Slumberland/Grey Market.
Co-fronted by the ethereal Sara Bertuldo and the whispered baritone of Mathew Carroll, See Through Dresses work bits of Cocteau Twins, The Cure, and other reverby ’80s bands into their new album “Horse of the Other World”. Its instant, urgent, and bursting at the seams with sentimental angst, “Lucy’s Arm” is a brilliant next-step…a sonic explosion of guts and glory that hits like a hammer. Sara Bertuldo’s vocals absolutely soar, but the heavy bass line and looping guitars keep her tethered. The track sounds like an authority figure hit with a glitter bomb, a moment of levity for a person who can’t quite fully give in to it and divorce themselves from the world.
“Violet,” the first single from See Through Dresses’ upcoming sophomore album, comes out swinging with a towering, shimmering riff that threads itself throughout the song. Their new album, Horse Of The Other World, alludes to their shoegazier past, but most of the songs have a vibrancy and urgency that’s difficult to walk back from. “Violet” in particular is an absolute monster of a track.
Over the past couple years, Sheer Mag have run one of the tightest ships in music. The Philly rock quintet released three 7” singles in three years—each with four songs, grainy black-and-white punk-flyer cover art and a retro band logo. They named these EPs I, II and III, then compiled them into a self-titled 12-song LP. Now comes the first official full-length, which finds Sheer Mag trying to navigate the leap from underground heroes to rock ‘n’ roll rat-race runners. The record is built on twin pillars: Guitarist Kyle Seely’s wellspring of gritty riffs and licks, which sound like they were unearthed from a late-’70s time capsule but somehow never got old, and Tina Halladay’s vocals, imbued with a combination of tenderness and tough talk that doesn’t come along too often. This is one of the best guitar-rock bands going right now.
Its catchy, hook-heavy protest rock that shows at least one band paid attention during history class.
Key Lyric: “I’ve been reading the news, and you’ll surely regret/ If you don’t give us the ballot, expect the bayonet!”
At a time when rock and roll’s relevance couldn’t be lower, Sheer Mag not only stir excitement for the dying genre with “Expect the Bayonet”, but remind us that rock and roll’s job traditionally has been to speak truth to power and afflict the comfortable.
Sincerity plays a key role in powerful pop music — candor is the catalyst for connecting an artist with their listenership. For indie-pop purists The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart , that’s never been a problem. From the band’s dreamiest shoegaze influences to its most lucid lyricism, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart the brainchild of Kip Berman, has found strength in heart-on-your-sleeve songwriting. Now, as the band gets ready to release its fourth full-length LP, The Echo Of Pleasure, that vulnerability has shifted away from its roots in the complexity of youth. Instead, Pains’ idealism is grounded in real adult love, expressed in its most ordinary and fantastic way on the band’s latest single, “When I Dance With You.”
The song opens with sweet harmonies courtesy of Jen Goma from A Sunny Day In Glasgow similar to those in Pains‘ 2014 single “Simple & Sure,”“When I Dance With You” tackles head-on. Berman repeats the line, “When I dance with you / I feel OK, feel OK,” in the song’s chorus — a pure, unassuming reflection of true love. The line has a sort of somber quality when placed next to the mature (and overtly practical) concerns later on: “I don’t know how I’ll make money / Just want enough so you never have to worry.” Love in pop music is often painted in grandiose gestures and massive moments, when sometimes it feels truest in just feeling “OK.” “It doesn’t look like a lot on paper,” Berman says of the song, “but the sentiment is the underpinning of what love is.”
Mutual Benefit’s full album cover of Vashti Bunyan’s “Just Another Diamond Day”,
Mutual Benefit’s contribution to SOUNDS DELICIOUS is the third entry in the series and is expected to ship at the end of June. Songwriter Jordan Lee said of the album:
“When I was approached about covering a full album, it was a no-brainer to attempt reinterpreting Just Another Diamond Day by Vashti Bunyan. Since my school days it’s been one of those pieces of music that has been able to transport me to a calmer, more magical world than the one we currently inhabit.” . The band premiered two tracks “Jog Along Bess” and “Glow Worms,” saying, “Bunyan and Mutual Benefit bandleader Jordan Lee are ideally matched, with a similar affinity for gentle introspection.”
This release is exclusive to SOUNDS DELICIOUS and is vinyl-only (although the record includes a MP3 download of the album) – so the only way to get a copy is by joining the subscription service.
Lomelda is the pseudonym of the songwriter Hannah Read, based out of Silsbee in Texas. This week as well as sharing tour dates with Pinegrove and Florist, Lomelda has detailed the release of her upcoming album, Thx, as well as sharing the first single from it, Interstate Vision.
Backed by prominent tumbling bass lines and bright, easy guitar strums, Hannah’s voice is left to carry much of the melodic lifting, a trick she achieves with an effortless aplomb. Lyrically, it seems to touch on one of those relationships, be it love or otherwise, where you keep stumbling back despite knowing it’s doing you nothing but harm, as she sings, “we were young, oh I was so young, still I sit with you in parking lots, acting like I’m not falling for it”. Lomelda’s music is a place of juxtapositions; sparse yet powerful, beautiful yet bruising, timeless but none the less very 2017 – her upcoming record could be very special indeed.
“Music connects me with people who I wouldn’t have an easy way to talk to otherwise,” Read says. Her hometown of Silsbee — the small Texas town where she grew up and currently resides with her family — but Read likes the open road. You sort of have to when you’re from a place where long drives are usually the only way to get around, especially if you’re interested in pursuing music as passionately as Read is. There were a few other bands around growing up — “Everybody needs some rock ‘n’ roll in their lives, even small town Texas folks,” she jokes — but the four-hour trek to Austin has become a regular facet in Read’s life,
“Interstate Vision” by Lomelda off the LP/CD/Cassette/Digital album ‘Thx’ out on Double Double Whammy Records September 8th, 2017.
