According to their press release, this Texan quartet’s live shows “serve as a parallel universe for the members to act out alternate identities and face the terror of vulnerability with their audiences”. Which frankly sounds like a fucking nightmare. However, after listening to The Mesmerist,
While they describe themselves as glam rock (and have the dramatic make-up and puffy sleeves to prove it), Siamese are less silver-booted stomp, more artfully wispy pirouette. ‘Hounds At Sunset’ is what Connan Mockasin might stick on the stereo while flicking through an old copy of Les Enfants Terribles, all warped grandeur and opiated lilt. In contrast (and despite the title), ‘Chromatose’ is more driven and direct, tightening the writing without losing any of the atmosphere. If they can deliver more tracks of this quality then you will, indeed, be mesmerised.
Over the past 17 years, the members of The Decemberists have gravitated toward a variety of genres, from indie pop to the complexity of progressive rock. But with their new project Offa Rex — a collaboration between the Portland, Oregon-based outfit and the English singer Olivia Chaney frontman Colin Meloy and band members are dipping their toes into folk.
The Queen Of Hearts is the title of Offa Rex’s debut album, which features the musicians in The Decemberists backing up Chaney, who assumes lead vocalist duties. It’s a match made in folk-rock heaven. Like similar team-ups before, most notably the similiar legendary pairing of The Albion Band and Shirley Collins in the early 1970s Queen Of Hearts is an interpolation of vintage British Isles folk music as filtered through electric guitars and a sinewy rock backbeat. The result is connecting the dots between contemporary indie music and a deeper cultural legacy.
The album draws heavily on the folk songbook, from the haunting drone of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” to the jangly melancholy of “Bonnie May,” a timeless ode to a love gone off to war. Tragedy, romance and the rhythms of everyday life inform Queen’s exquisitely curated playlist. “Dark Eyed Sailor,” a Steeleye Span favorite in the ’70s, coasts on gently strummed chords and OliviaChaney’s heart-piercing plea for fidelity. And on the disc’s sumptuous title track, a psychedelic energy suffuses the song’s otherwise primordial lilt.
Chaney takes gripping prominence on the album — her voice is an arresting, attention-demanding trill — but she doesn’t sing lead throughout. On “Blackleg Miner,” Meloy sings lead, breathing a tremulous righteousness into the song’s tale of the plight of striking coalminers in 19th-century England. Steeleye Span returned the song to prominence in 1970, and Offa Rex does justice to a classic ballad of injustice. And on “Constant Billy Eddington/I’ll Go Enlist Sherborne,” vocals are done away with entirely, leaving the ebullient jig to dance along on its own.
The Decemberists have long shown a fascination with the tragedy of folklore, and it was probably inevitable that they’d wind up making a traditional folk-rock album at some point in their careers. But by teaming with Chaney, they’ve surpassed delivering a mere homage. Instead, The Queen Of Hearts hums with the resonance of bygone eras and ancient ways, of doomed love and arduous hardship — all of it embroidered into the patchwork tapestry of life itself.
It was announced back in May that The National are officially back and will release their seventh studio album, “Sleep Well Beast” , on September. 8th. The announcement of the forthcoming record was accompanied by its first single, “The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness,”
The new song titled “Guilty Party,” which The National reportedly live-debuted a few weeks ago at a show in France, and it hints that the band is getting more experimental with this new record with its ambient, washed-out bleep sounds. This isn’t all that surprising, since over the last few years more and more bands have been flirting with “going electronic” and the concept of what technology means to humankind.
Band Members
Matt Berninger, Scott Devendorf, Bryan Devendorf, Bryce Dessner, Aaron Dessner
As half of the experimental electronic duo F—- Buttons, Benjamin John Power has spent most of his musical career pushing toward extremes. His solo affair Blanck Mass has been a little more subtle; while never shying away from overload, Blanck Mass‘ instrumental vistas have been less blinding and more illuminating—to the point where “Sundowner” from the project’s 2011 debut, was rerecorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and played during the 2012 Olympics. It was a perfect fit, seeing as how Power’s edgier, noisier impulses mask a symphonic scope of veritable Vangelis proportions. Those two sides of his aesthetic don’t vie for dominance as much as strike a nervy balance on Blanck Mass‘ third full-length, World Eater.
F—- Buttons was based in Bristol, England, but Power now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland. World Eater was recorded entirely in his home studio there, and there’s an immersive quality to the record that hints at the intimacy of the production. “John Doe’s Carnival Of Error” opens the album with a sparkling, playfully glitchy melody that comes across like an antique, windup music box — that is, until a sharp segue into darkness at the end of the song thrusts it squarely into the 21st century. From there, like an initiation, World Eater descends quickly into its harshest depth: “Rhesus Negative” is nine minutes of percussive abrasion, eroded loops, and blurry glimpses into a monochrome nightmare.
There’s an even more powerful approach taken on tracks like “Please” and “The Rat.” Each in their own way fuse fragmented melody, even soul — with the industrial-strength sound manipulation of Power’s work in F—- Buttons. There are no lyrics, but the mood being projected is unmistakable: In the U.K., as well as the rest of the world, alarming changes are underway, That’s not to say the album doesn’t succumb to outright beauty in spots; in particular, “Silent Treatment” and “Hive Mind” stray toward pop territory, even as they build and collapse in a carefully calibrated chaos of eerie, incoherent vocal samples and beckoning beats.
The album’s most intriguing song is also its most complex. “Minnesota / Eas Fors / Naked” is a triptych that encompasses all of Blanck Mass‘ sonic and emotional territory to date. Sprinkled with field recordings of everything from drums being pushed down a flight of stairs to the roar at the bottom of a waterfall, the track begins as a clattering onslaught of static before segueing into orchestral swells and then, finally, a section of melodic, shoegaze bliss.
There’s a great amount of tension and terror at the heart of World Eater, to be sure, but that anxiety is lightened by a desire to reconcile, heal, and find peace amid distress.
The new album by The Radiation Flowers it is frankly brilliant, along with the new album “Summer Loop” the band’s new split 12″ with fellow Canadians Hawkeyes, with the sunny upbeat nature of The Radiation Flowers’ track there. This is mostly replicated here on their full album release with similar effect of raising the mood from what feels to be a rather bleak time to be living in Britain.
This is a summer record, as the title alludes to… but its not just about chilling and running through fields of wheat. There is also a harder edge to this album which somehow sits perfectly with the mood and expectation of the time.
This is evident from the first bars of the first track ‘Just Go Away’ which suggest something harder than the wonderful drop into the vocals delivers. They drift in and stand, along with a laid back rhythm in a certain kind of tension with the heavier guitars that have a sharper edge. Together they form a concurrent light and shade that pulls you in different directions in a very absorbing way which, for me, nicely sets the tone of the album.
‘Walking Down The Street’ in many ways has the same overall vibe instrumentally and, while Shelby Gaudet’s voice on this track is in many ways doing the same thing as Chris Laramee’s on ‘Just Go Away’ the change from male to female provides a subtle but real change in tone which give the tracks a different interpretation of the same vibe in a way that really works .
‘Colours’ is one of my tracks of the year so far. In terms of approach it reminds me of last year’s excellent Heron Oblivion album. The vocal is simply melting, soulful and with a melody that is just crushing. This is mirrored by Lucas Goetz’s hammond organ which perfectly matches Gaudet’s vocal.
Another welcome change in pace comes with ‘Dancing In Flame’, far more heavy and upbeat this shakes away the melancholy of ‘Colours’ to a certain extent and gives the band a chance to rock out a bit. There’s some fuzz going on in the background and the rhythm section, Amber Ross (drums) and Jay Allen (bass), is given more of a free reign to express itself here as the track builds up to an exciting climax where even a sax breaks through the melee to good effect.
Then comes ‘Sunrise’. Like ’33 Floors Up’ on the split LP this is one that you’re really going to want to get up and dance to. It’s the sort of track that’s going to go down well on a balmy summers night . The hi-tempo repeato riff really gets the adrenaline going…definitely all about the sunrise of an ‘all-nighter’… can’t wait to stay up.
‘Summer of Burnout’, as the title suggests to me, seems to be about the other side of summer. This is an altogether darker track, with heavy stoner elements that bring the tone crashing down in a salutary way.
Last up is ‘Walking (reprise)’ which is a softer more acoustically driven version of ‘Walking Down The Street’.
This Radiation Flowers LP bears all the hallmarks of being one of the better releases this year. It somehow succeeds in having a common vibe throughout, holding together an eclectic series of track that will variously have you up on your feet jigging like there’s no tomorrow and down on your haunches in contemplation that sadly there is a tomorrow.
The Radiation Flowers ‘Summer Loop’ is release on vinyl LP on Cardinal Fuzz Records, Release Date – 9th July 2017
On “Hasta La Victoria,” The Myrrors win the fight by largely giving up, so to speak. By almost completely abandoning traditional electric guitar sounds, the band lives to fight another day and sounds all the stronger for it. Minimalist influences perfume the surroundings of the album as a whole, transforming the proceedings into a transformative platter in which sun-soaked dervishes ascend and descend, informed by interlocking influences, and instruments as well. “Hasta La Victoria,” in name and deed, embraces and is endowed by the potency of this unbounded approach, merging the sounds of Arizonan and Afghani heads into a single, satisfying whole.
And yet, not a moment of the album’s thirty-seven minutes ever feels anything short of natural, or even remotely rushed. Indeed, in the best possible way, “Hasta La Victoria” sounds like The Myrrors couldn’t be doing anything else—and by continuing to forge their own path, it’s further proof that the band has never done anything less. Perhaps it’s not the word “victory” in the album’s title that should focus our attention; perhaps it’s the persistent, propulsive “until.”
“Organ Mantra” opens the album in an appropriately mystical manner, ten minutes of The Myrrors shining at their brightest, somehow exhibiting the grace and power of a freely flowing river. “Somos La Resistencia” follows at a fraction of the length, but with no reduction in impact, its declaration that “we are the lost that want truth” understandable in any language. “Tea House Music” and “El Aleph” follow, sister-songs in solidarity with the solidly transcendental terrain traveled on the album. The title track, at nearly fifteen minutes in length, ends the album on a high note – if by “high” you’re referring to the daily waking consciousness of, say, Neem Karoli Baba. Because it brings the album to a close, it’s unfair to call the song the album’s “centerpiece.” But it certainly stands as the album’s emotional and musical core – unrefined, unrestrained and unforgettable.
Throughout “Hasta La Victoria,” the band sounds utterly propelled by an invisible force, by the indelible impression that their actions – as a band, as artists, as people. Be here now or be here later, but there’s little doubt that The Myrrors will be continuing to pursue the path at whatever time you arrive.
Ty Segall & The Muggers performing “Candy Sam / Squealer Two” live in the KEXP studio. Recorded January 21st, 2016.
Segall and The Muggers played Emotional Mugger in its entirety, front to back at his last live gigs. That might have disappointed fans hoping to hear more of Segall’s vast and often excellent back catalog, but still made for a pretty entertaining show, especially when the band’s guitarists, King Tuff’s Kyle Thomas (wearing an orange jumpsuit, and whom Segall introduced as Tang — “He tastes as fresh as he looks!”) and The Cairo Gang’s EmmettKelly . The rest of the band, a sort of Eastside psych-rock supergroup, was just as tight. Dressed like a refugee from an ’80s ska band in shades and a tan trenchcoat, Wand’s Cory Hanson occasionally added a third guitar to the ruckus, but mostly jammed on keys and synths, keeping a trippy backdrop of noise going even between songs. Wand’s Evan Burrows provided heavy metal muscle on the drums and longtime Segall cohort Mikal Cronin held down the bass.
From the quiet bedroom recordings on his debut Learning to the subtle ballads on Put Your Back N2 It to the pop swagger on Too Bright, the music Mike Hadreas creates as Perfume Genius has gotten bigger and bolder with every album. For his fourth album, No Shape, Hadreas continues his impressive streak with another record that retains his unique voice while incorporating new sounds and ambitions.
Perfume Genius has always explored the queer experience, especially the traumas on the path to embracing one’s identity. Even at its most exuberant, the music battles with a darker tension. The stellar single “Queen” from Too Bright, for example, projects a powerful confidence musically, but the song, according to Perfume Genius’s camp, is about “gay panic.” On No Shape, that tension is still present, but more subdued, subordinated by the extraordinary strength of love.
No Shapefeels more celebratory than any Perfume Genius record to date; that celebration often runs deliciously wild. Too Bright also swung for the fences, but its immaculately constructed pop songs always felt well under control. Both albums open with gentle piano, but No Shape opener “Otherside” can hardly contain itself. It explodes into glitter and euphoria after a minute, and then leads into the triumphant lead single “Slip Away.”
“Slip Away” just might be Perfume Genius’s finest song to date. The conflict between preserving your identity and survival, at the heart of so much of Perfume Genius’s work, is there. “They’ll never break the shape we take”—Hadreas is singing from the battlements, but there’s no doubt he’ll make it through to the morning. Even if the enemy is scaling the walls, this music remains triumphant.
Nothing else on No Shape matches the transcendence of “Slip Away”. That kind of brazen euphoria is anomalous on the album and Perfume Genius’s career in general. Much of the middle of the album follows slower, gentle ballads; the songs resemble Put Your Back N 2 Itin tempo and Too Brightin production value, but they follow a logic entirely their own. Hadreas follows his intuition, which leads him to peculiar rhythms and sudden bursts of sound that continually surprise. From the early burst of sound on “Otherside” to the hypnotic forward march of “Valley” (another album standout), No Shape surprises you with a constant intimacy punctuated by thwarted expectations.
All the music is characterized by a baroque sense of melodrama, but if No Shape has one defining quality, from “NoShape” to more delicate tracks like “Every Night,” it’s confidence. Hadreas is in complete control of his extensive gifts, trusting his instincts to guide to someplace at once comforting and foreign. He achieves both on nearly every track. Occasionally, No Shape can come off as somewhat saccharine, twee pushed past its melting point. “Just Like Love” is one such example, though it undoubtedly suffers from coming immediately after “SlipAway,” a tough act to follow. The danger of leading with such an incredible track is always that everything else seems smaller.
More often than not, however, this album brings you into its world and convinces you that love really is redemptive, that it can hold back the hounds at the gate. Hadreas, one imagines, knows this better than most. While the music of Perfume Genius has always had been richly authentic, it’s especially so in No Shape. Many of these songs are inspired in part by Alan Wyffels, Hadreas’s boyfriend, and musical collaborator for the past eight years. The last song on the album is named for Alan; it immerses you like a cloud, then lifts you up with it as Hadreas howls, “Rest easy, I’m here. How weird!” Like Perfume Genius, love is many things, weird in so many wonderful ways.
The Kite String Tangle is the solo project of alternative electronic artist and producer, Danny Harley. New single ‘Selfish’ out now.
Brisbane producer Danny Harley has returned with a new single called which is quite an unselfish thing to do, really. ‘Selfish’, which you can stream in full below, sees Harley revive his pop-tinged electronics, complete with vocal hooks, trap-tinged percussion and bright synthesizers.
Harley says ‘Selfish’ came about after he “realised that I wasn’t thinking about the people I love nearly as much as I should”. “It’s hard to admit you’re at fault but it’s also a good habit to get into if you’re wanting to be a reasonable human,” he says.
News of ‘Selfish’ comes as Harley announces that he has also launched his own independent record label called Exist. in collaboration with Unified, and has already signed producer Golden Vessel and Gold Coast siblings Lastlings to his roster.
“Exist. is a great outlet for my own projects but it’s main focus is to sign other acts and develop their music, talent and careers,” Harley says. “Having Golden Vessel and Lastlings as the first two acts on the label is huge for me.”
The official video for The Kite String Tangle’s new track Selfish
Glasgow legends Catholic Action have announced their debut album!
Titled ‘In Memory Of,’ the band’s first full length is set to come out later this year on Modern Sky Records, with an exact release date yet to be firmed up. We do know a few more spicy details, however; ‘In Memory Of’ is co-produced by Margo Broom (who also manned the production desk for Goat Girl and Dead Pretties) and the band’s very own Chris McCrory.
Along with lifting the lid on news of their long-awaited debut, Catholic Action have also shared a brand tune called ‘Propaganda,’ and we’ve got the first spin here.
