Peel Dream Magazine is the musical vehicle for NYC’s Joe Stevens, who launched the band in 2018 with the critically acclaimed album “Modern Meta Physic,” a mysterious, liminal tribute to the hazy end of ‘90s dream-pop that found its place on numerous “Best of 2018” lists. Now Peel Dream are back with “Agitprop Alterna,” an album that pays homage to sonic and spiritual influences ranging from early Stereolab and Broadcast through stateside groups like Lilys and Yo La Tengo.. “Agitprop Alterna” finds Stevens channeling the collaborative spirit of the band’s live incarnation in the studio, deepening the connection between the existential and the interpretive first explored on “Modern Meta Physic.” It is a rejection of manipulation in all its forms and a buzzsaw against complacency; it’s a rare trick to agitate without being obvious, and perhaps that makes “Agitprop Alterna” the most Peel Dream Magazine-like statement yet.
What have you wound up doing with your free time during lockdown? Some online yoga classes? A walk in the park? Maybe finish the the novel that’s been lying beside your bed?
Well, New York outfit Peel Dream Magazine embarked on an intimidating creative pull. Their rightly lauded album ‘Agitprop Alterna’ was a significant statement, a sign that their dreamy, effects-laden guitar pop contained some unexpected depths, as well as a commitment to emotional rigour.
Mere weeks later, however, Peel Dream Magazine dropped a surprise – an eight track EP that drew upon those same sessions, acting as a kind of parallel statement to ‘Agitprop Alterna’.
Taken as a whole, that’s more than 20 songs, a universe that moves from neat Neu!-esque cosmiche moments through to My Bloody Valentine leaning pedal stompers. Something to adore.
Joe Stevens – Vocals, Guitars, Organ, Synth, Drones, Drum Machine Jo-Anne Hyun – Vocals Brian Alvarez – Drums on Pill, Escalator Ism, Too Dumb, Do It, and Eyeballs Kelly Winrich – Drums on Emotional Devotion Creator, Brief Inner Mission, NYC Illuminati, and Up and Up
All songs written by Peel Dream Magazine Mixed by Peel Dream Magazine and Kelly Winrich
Late ’70s English New Wave was added to with the arrival of Japan. This band featured David Sylvian, who changed the band to Rain Tree Crow before its demise back in 1991. With their third studio album ‘Quiet Life’, David Sylvian and Japan completed their transition from glammy punk naifs to sleek art-house pop stars. Containing a stylish take on the Velvets’ ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’. Before they left for other fields, Japan issued five classic studio sets and one as Rain Tree Crow (for six). A handful of successful singles furthers the legacy of Japan.
On January 22nd of 2021, What was the third album from Japan, “Quiet Life”, originally issued in 1979, will be remembered with a 3CD/1LP Boxed set. The music will be half-speed remastered. The first CD contains the original album remastered as does the heavy-grade vinyl LP. CDs 2/3 contain a collection of alternative mixes, rarities, the remastered “Live In Japan” 4-track EP, and the rare “Live At Budokan” 16-performance track se from a March 1980 show. (Live in Japan was the cherry-pick of that live performance.) There will be a single CD issue of Quiet Life along with a 12-page booklet, and a single LP (heavyweight vinyl/gatefold jacket) with a four-page insert. DD will also be issued. All will feature photos, new liner notes, and more.
It’s also a solid proto-New Romantic synthesizer record, enhanced by Mick Karn’s superb fretless bass work and David Sylvian’s smooth, sneering vocals spread over pop hits like the title track and “Fall in Love with Me.”
Japan’s classic album ‘Quiet Life’ is the subject of a major new Deluxe reissue coming out on 5th March. Available to Order Here: https://Japanband.lnk.to/QuietLifeID Japan’s classic album Quiet Life metaphorically and literally ended the 70s and kick-started the 80s due to being released in the run-up to Christmas the album was released in certain countries in 1979 and others in 1980. Quiet Life was the third, final and most successful release for the band on the Hansa Records label. The album and its attendant singles; Quiet Life & All Tomorrow’s Parties as well as other non-album singles included on the new deluxe version; Life In Tokyo, European Son & I Second That Emotion acted as a forerunner for the alternative, new wave & new romantic sound of the early 80s. Quiet Life is now the subject of a major new reissue featuring a brand new half-speed remaster of the original album, alternate mixes, b-sides, singles, rarities and live material including an audience recording of the sought after ‘lost’ Live at Budokan show from March 1980 previously only available as the 4 track EP ‘Live in Japan’. The release features newly restored original album artwork, exclusive new liner notes with a foreword by original producer, John Punter, rare and unseen photography and memorabilia.
At the core of Widowspeak’s allure is the creative chemistry between singer-songwriter Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas, perennially anchored by warm, expansive arrangements, references to 90’s dream pop, 60’s psychedelia, and a certain unshakeable Pacific-Northwestness. It’s comfortable, lived-in: humble in structure, heavy on mood.
“The stone that’s buried: what the fruit is for.” So goes the title track from “Plum”!, Widowspeak’s fifth album. The line serves as an apt analogy for the record itself: the self-aware sweetness that the band employs to deliver the seed of a harder, sharper idea. Singer Molly Hamilton coats wry observations in a voice as honeyed as the sun-ripened fruit, and Widowspeak have always made a bitter pill much easier to swallow. From its opening strum, there’s a palpable warmth and familiarity to the music even as it hints at darker truths below the surface, questions about inherent worth. What value and meaning do we assign ourselves, our time, and how do we spend it?
With Plum, the song writing partnership rooted in the creative rapport between Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas continues to expand on shared visions, delving deeper into what was always there: dusty guitars, ear-worm melodies, warm expansive arrangements. Each entry to their catalogue has marked a subtle reimagining of Widowspeak’s sound, though perennial points of reference remain the same: 90’s dream pop, 60’s psych rock, a certain unshakeable Pacific-Northwestness. Speaking to the timeless feeling of each, the albums continue to be discovered well beyond their respective PR cycles, made beloved by new listeners through word of mouth.
More akin to the sunny spaciousness of “All Yours” (2015) than the darker, denser “Expect the Best” (2017), “Plum” carries a sense of unhurried self-awareness. It feels comfortable and lived-in: humble in structure, heavy on mood. Perhaps that came taking time off from the touring grind, instead working full-time jobs and settling into the rhythm of daily life in a small upstate New York town. Plum was recorded over a handful of weekends last winter by Sam Evian (Cass McCombs, Kazu Makino, Hannah Cohen) at his Flying Cloud studio in the Catskills, and was mixed by Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, Perfume Genius). In addition to Hamilton (vocals, guitar) and Thomas (guitars, bass, synth), it features instrumental contributions by Andy Weaver (drums), Michael Hess (piano), and Sam himself (bass, synth). Plum nestles into the band’s canon like it was always there, but with new textures coming to the fore, like the polyrhythmic pulse of “Amy” and “The Good Ones”, or the watery, Terry Riley-influenced track “Jeanie”
The broader themes that run through Plum are almost eerily prescient for the time of its release, written and recorded in the eve of a global pandemic. Hamilton couldn’t have predicted the relevancy of mesmerizing track “Breadwinner”, with its central analogy of bread as time as money, or the song’s yearning pleas to a partner who’s “always bringing their work home”. And on “Even True Love”, Hamilton acknowledges the imminent loss of those closest to us: “In the deepest wells, in the shallow sick/I can see you shaking in the great unknown/Will you learn to live with what you chose?/Even true love, you can’t take it with you”. They’re songs for our time to be sure, but Plum reckons with existential pain that was always there, that will endure well beyond social distancing and into our collective new reality.
Still, Plum isn’t weighed down by crushing angst. The approach is humble and frank, like a friend sharing intimacies. These are songs made to be listened to, enjoyed. “Money” is particularly hypnotic, built around a repeating, cyclical motif that serves as both skeleton and body. “Will you get back what you put in?” Hamilton asks over an insistent guitar riff. The line is delivered with a knowingness that transcends its surface critiques of late-stage capitalism, asking both herself and the listener whether this is, in fact, the world we want to live in. A world that increasingly sees monetization as the greatest goal, even at such great expense to ourselves, and especially our future. What does it mean to contribute? And what is the cost of “selling out”?
Hamilton cites a crisis of meaning as being central to the origins of Plum. “I didn’t want to write for a long time; I didn’t even really want to listen. I stopped believing in ‘music as a career’ and the distorted idea of what it had become in my mind: building and projecting a personality, promoting it, selling it. Losing that sense of purpose… it made me question my own value, usefulness.” She looked methodically for ways to reframe those thoughts about overconsumption, and found inspiration in the writings of MFK Fisher, in the Danish film “Babette’s Feast” and David Byrne’s “True Stories”, and in YouTube playlists of pop songs remixed to sound like they’re being played in abandoned malls. She also found a book about wabi-sabi principles by Leonard Koren (who founded WET magazine): “So much of it is centered around allowing things to be what they are, and just noticing. I tried to notice more, and I think those observations became the songs.”
Plum is an album that navigates the spaces between the lesser emotions of modern life. From the creeping dread that “things are getting worse” to the resigned but sanguine recognition that “no one is old, nothing is young,” Hamilton’s lyrics speak to the unique turmoil of anyone who creates as their work, who must somehow survive off such “fruits of their labour.” With its release, Widowspeak have brought something into the world that seems to know its own worth, even as it wonders aloud about what is to come. Like the wabi-sabi tenant that lead to the song that became the album, all things are devolving to, or evolving from, nothingness.
This record was recorded, mixed and mastered by Ben David in his studio house in the Adelaide Hills in Australia in February 2020. Lande Hekt of UK based punk band Muncie Girls has released a new song. The song is called “80 Days of Rain” and is off of her upcoming solo album Going to Hell due out January 22, 2021 via Get Better Records. Lande Hekt released her last album Gigantic Disappointment in 2019.
All instruments were played by me except for percussion which was by Ben. He also sang on the songs. “80 Days of Rain” is a chiming track about a constant downpour that keeps you down. Its chorus is especially gripping, Hekt’s muffled voice singing: “Is this another string of bad luck?/ Is this just another week where we don’t fuck?/ This is where I think I go insane/ I can’t do this again/ 80 days of rain, 80 days of rain.” Hekt says the track “is about moving away and missing someone, and how that person taught me to get angry about climate change,”
Get Better Records 2021 Releases January 22nd, 2021
Janis Joplin’s final studio album, “Pearl”, will be the subject of a variety of 50th Anniversary releases, overseen by the Joplin Estate and Columbia/Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music. The album, her final studio LP, was originally issued on January 11th, 1971, via Columbia Records it was released three months after Joplin‘s passing on October 4th, 1970, and eight days before what would have been her 28th birthday on January 19th.
JanisJoplin.com will be releasing an exclusive capsule collection which includes a fine art collaboration with the estate of Barry Feinstein, the acclaimed celebrity photographer who lensed the iconic Pearl album cover; further details will be announced soon. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland is also curating a special exhibit devoted to Joplin, “Pearl” and more, scheduled to open May 21st, 2021.
Genesis Publications has announced the upcoming publication of a new limited edition book, Janis Joplin: Days &Summers – Scrapbook 1966-68. During her career, Joplin created a personal record of her meteoric rise to fame and the flowering of Sixties counterculture, including posters, souvenirs, press clippings, photographs and records, and annotated them with her comments. Featured alongside are previously unpublished items from her personal archive, including letters she wrote home to her family and a preceding scrapbook from her senior high school years, 1956-59. The book’s in-depth text provides a new account of the singer’s extraordinary life. It’s available to order at Joplin’s above website.
From the January. 8th announcement: The only album Joplin ever recorded with the Full Tilt Boogie Band, the touring ensemble that had backed her on the Festival Express (a mythic 1970 concert tour by railroad across Canada with the Grateful Dead, the Band and others), “Pearl” included canonical studio recordings of songs she’d introduced to audiences on tour.
Peaking at #1, a position it held for nine weeks, Pearl showcased some of Janis’s most familiar and best-loved performances including her cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” and the off-the-cuff a cappella “Mercedes Benz,” the last song she ever recorded.
Pearl has been certified 4 times Platinum by the RIAA with Janis Joplin’s overall album catalogue–including greatest hits compilations–accounting for 17 Platinum and 3 Gold certifications (approximately 18.5 million records) in the United States. Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits was RIAA certified 9x Platinum on November 22, 2019 while “Piece of My Heart” (her breakout single from Big Brother & The Holding Company’s Cheap Thrills, one of 1968’s top-selling albums) More than 31 million Joplin albums have been sold worldwide.
Scheduled release for April 2021, Vinyl Me, Please, the “best damn record club out there,” in association with Columbia/Legacy, will release a collectible 50th anniversary limited edition of Pearl pressed on white “Pearl” colour 180g vinyl.
In July 2021, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, in association with Columbia/Legacy, will also release a limited edition 50th Anniversary Edition of Pearl as an UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2-LP box set. Mastered from the Original Master Tapes with Mobile Fidelity’s One-Step process.
Janis Joplin: Days & Summers Scrapbook 1966-68
‘I’m sure you’ve heard that I’m a new breed swinger now, the idol of my generation, a rock’n’roll singer. Yes fans, yes, it’s true.’ – Janis Joplin
As the first-ever female rock star who dazzled listeners with her powerful voice and fierce uninhibited style, few musicians have attained the same iconic status as Janis Joplin. Now, Janis’s personal scrapbook is revealed for the first time, compiled between 1966-1968, as the singer found her star rising.
‘We’ve had Janis’s scrapbook for a long time. It was really important to her. Scrapbooks may sound quaint and old-fashioned today, but by sitting down, cutting these things out, sticking them in place and annotating them, Janis has given us a unique record of the period.’ – Michael Joplin
In her handmade scrapbook Janis Joplin created a personal record of her meteoric rise to fame and the flowering of Sixties counterculture in which she was to play a lead role. From the singer’s earliest intimate blues gigs in local coffee houses, to her first appearances with Big Brother and the Holding Company, to the band’s breakthrough performance at Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, Janis’s story is remarkable. Throughout it all, she collected posters, souvenirs, press clippings, photographs and records, and annotated them with her comments.
More than 50 years later, Janis’s scrapbook is revealed for the first time. Featured alongside are previously unpublished items from her personal archive, including letters she wrote home to her family and a preceding scrapbook from her senior high school years, 1956-59. Collectively, they offer a brand new perspective on the Port Arthur girl that transformed into a rock goddess, setting the world on fire with her talent.
‘Her voice was so powerful it would cut through a rock… Right away we knew she was the one. We said to her, ‘We’re working next weekend, hope you’re ready.’ – Peter Albin, Big Brother and the Holding Company
Written by the people who really knew Janis and those inspired by her, the book’s in-depth text provides a fascinating, new account of the singer’s extraordinary life. With an introduction by Grace Slick and an afterword by Kris Kristofferson, the book’s list of nearly 40 contributors includes Big Brother bandmates Peter Albin and Dave Getz, Jefferson Airplane members Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen, musicians Mick Fleetwood, Chrissie Hynde, Tom Jones, Taj Mahal, Michelle Philips and Jimmy Page, talk show host Dick Cavett, as well as siblings Laura and Michael Joplin.
Other figures interviewed exclusively for the project include Woodstock Festival organiser Michael Lang, American artist Stanley Mouse, writers Ben Fong-Torres, Richard Goldstein and David Dalton, plus legendary rock photographers Henry Diltz, Bob Gruen and Elliott Landy.
‘An amazingly talented human tornado who just whirled her way into our consciousness. We try to describe her but, like being in love, it’s difficult telling someone else how stunning the impact is. You know when you feel it, and Janis was probably the best at translating those all-consuming emotions.’ – Grace Slick
Janis Joplin was an American singer, songwriter and arranger, from Port Arthur, Texas, who moved to San Francisco in 1966 to join local band Big Brother and the Holding Company and pursue her dream of becoming a musician. She died aged 27 on October 4th, 1970. She is one of the most influential icons from the Sixties and considered one of the best female blues singers ever. ‘There was just nothing else like her – total rebelliousness, abandon, musical excellence, and connection with everyone in the audience. Pure magic. Everybody just loved her. She gave us a voice that was anti-establishment, and I’ve lived by it ever since.’ – Chrissie Hynde
THE SIGNATORIES
Each book in the Days & Summers edition is estate-stamped with Janis Joplin’s signature, and hand-signed by the following contributors:
Laura Joplin: Janis Joplin’s sister Michael Joplin: Janis Joplin’s brother Peter Albin: American musician, guitarist and bassist. Founding member of Big Brother and the Holding Company Dave Getz: American musician, teacher and visual artist. Drummer in Big Brother and the Holding Company Jorma Kaukonen: American blues, folk, and rock guitarist. Founding member of Jefferson Airplane
THE COLLECTOR COPIES
Collector copies are numbered from 351 to 2,000, authenticated with the Janis Joplin estate stamp, and hand-signed by the contributors.
Limited to only 2,000 copies worldwide, each book in the Days & Summers edition is hand-numbered, estate-stamped with Janis Joplin’s signature, and hand-signed by her Big Brother bandmates Peter Albin and Dave Getz, Jefferson Airplane’s Jorma Kaukonen, and Janis’s siblings, Laura Joplin and Michael Joplin.
The large-format book (325mm x 305mm / 12¾” x 12″) is printed on heavyweight 200gsm paper with gilt and deckled page edging. Collector copies are quarter-bound in a navy, vegan leather, and light blue binding cloth blocked with gold, pink and blue foiling. Days & Summers is the name Janis Joplin gave to the scrapbook she kept during her high school years, and the book’s cover design is similarly inspired by Janis, featuring her own hand-drawn lettering and decorative linework.
All copies in the limited edition include a special 7″ single containing two exceptionally rare recordings: two blues tracks from The Typewriter Tape recorded in 1964 by Janis Joplin and JormaKaukonen (‘Daddy Daddy Daddy’ by Janis Joplin, and the blues standard ‘Trouble In Mind’). Capturing Joplin at a pivotal moment, before joining Big Brother & the Holding Company, The Typewriter Tape has attained mythic status among bootleg recordings. Given the historic nature of the two tracks, the single is pressed on 180-gram audiophile vinyl.
The Collector signed book and vinyl record set is presented in a navy, cloth-bound slipcase.
Extras: 7″ vinyl with two blues tracks from The Typewriter Tape recorded in 1964 in Santa Clara, California by Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonen: ‘Daddy Daddy Daddy’ by Janis Joplin and ‘Trouble In Mind’. Foreword by Grace Slick and Afterword by Kris Kristofferson with a stamp of his signature.
The porcelain figurine on the cover of this album tells you enough: if you want to smile, you better not do it with this music in your ears. We don’t expect anything else from Keaton Henson. This troubled musician always brings us convulsive emotions into his compositions, but oh, he always does that more than well. He agrees in opener “Ambulance”, where he sighs: ‘I’m empty but don’t it sound so good?’ “Monument” released through Play It Again Sam is Keaton’s first album since 2016’s Kindly Now. Keaton Henson’s new album “Monument” is a rare thing. It is an album about loss, and dealing with losing the ones we love, but told, in incredibly candid detail, through the aspects of our lives that surround the trauma itself, about love, ageing, recovery, life, seen through the prism of grief.
With the posting of an enigmatic and cryptic goodbye in 2016; Epilogue, Henson’s next project ended up becoming Six Lethargies, a complex and ambitious symphony for string orchestra, dealing with the minutiae of mental illness. He put away the guitar and retreated to his home for three years to compose it. Monument now finds Keaton re-emerging with an album of songs about grief, and how it permeates our lives. The record began when, having recovered from both Six Lethargies and the circumstances that inspired it, Henson moved from London to the wilds of the English countryside, spending long days outside chopping wood, tending to the grounds, and watching birds of prey soaring above. It was from this remote outpost that he finally felt ready to look at a subject he had been avoiding for his entire song writing career; the decades long illness, and imminent death of his father, who passed two days before he finished recording the album.
While the singer normally opens up about heartache or fear of people in his lyrics, Monument has a possible even more personal theme: the death of his increasingly ill father. This is most strongly confirmed in “The Grand Old Reason”, where he writes some of his most heart breaking sentences: ‘But like you / I have tried for so long not to cry / That I don’t even know if I can when you die’. Yet we gasp most when, after “Prayer,” an excerpt from an old home video is heard saying Keaton’s father “Keaton, wave to daddy.” This spirited, delicate folk hits a whole new set of strings, with Henson only expanding his emotional empire even more.
Monument” released through Play It Again Sam Records,
“Dull ache turned sharp / Short breath, never caught,” Joe Casey repeats through the closing minute of “Day Without End,” his voice turning from detachment to anger, struggling above the hammering drums, guitars and horns as they remain largely unchanged except in their steadily building, brutally indifferent noise. This begins Protomartyr’s fifth album, Ultimate Success Today, and in many respects encapsulates the mission of the Detroit post-punk veterans’ music. From their first LP No Passion All Technique to their latest release especially, Protomartyr have had a preoccupation with failure, the volcanic eruption of small, petty lives confronting the overwhelming forces, both external and internal, that bind them to their insignificance and vice versa. Ultimate Success Today places that theme on an apocalyptic and disturbingly prescient scale. These tracks paint sketches of authoritarianism creeping dully into everyday life, soulless populism rooting its way into confused masses, animals trapped between choosing death or the pain that comes with surviving, and above all, the illusory promise of success in a world collapsing in on itself. It is, to put it lightly, not a happy world for Protomartyr.
Protomartyr’s fifth album is perhaps the most accurate representation of the protest year we’ve heard. It is an emotional rollercoaster of sheer aggression, chaos, stuffiness and sorrow. The occasional rest points only contrast with the continuous tension that is present on Ultimate Success Today. For the rest, screeching guitars and tight drum lines are ubiquitous, complemented by the talking vocals of Joe Casey and on occasion a groovy bass line. For the first time there are also woodwinds present, which provide an extra dimension. The nihilistic atmosphere and intense instrumentation fit with the dystopian story that the record tells. A story that, eerily enough, has been written for corona for a while. The best moment is the seamless transition between “Tranquilizer” and “Modern Business Hymn,”, which makes up for some fatigue among all that threat of war. At least one of the more interesting albums of the year.
Protomartyr – “Bridge & Crown”, taken from ‘Ultimate Success Today’, out now on Domino Record Co.
A seven-year reflection period with time for other musical projects has not given The Strokes any wind. In early April, the New York-based cult band released their new record. Each new album was invariably compared to their iconic debut album Is This It and then concluded ‘that it wasn’t like it was in their early days’. But let’s leave that out for a second at The New Abnormal. On the record, fresh synths are regularly given way and we hear Julian Casablancas sing like never before. “Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus” and opener “The Adults Are Talking” embody the new path the band is taking. Fortunately, the rattling guitars are not completely discarded and sound a lot more inspired than on their previous musical throws. Renewing without denying their roots, The Strokes did quite well on The New Abnormal.
The Strokes playing a slow-motion, dramatically heated game of baseball against a team of Terminator-like robots — possibly for the fate of the free world, possibly just as a Beer League scrimmage? Sure, why not: Like every other successful move The Strokes have made in their middle age as a band, the “Adults Are Talking” video follows its own logic and just goes for it, making sense sheerly through the group’s singular brand of try-not-that-hard self-confidence. Patterning their uniforms after the Houston Astros instead of their (maybe?) beloved Mets is one decision they’re gonna have to answer for back home, though.
Normally we don’t like ghosts, but The Australian A. Swayze & the Ghosts is a fine exception to this rule. The band around front singer Andrew Swayze blew a fresh new wind through the punk landscape in September with their debut album “Paid Salvation”. Their high-profile combination of cut lyrics and raw instrumentation produced twelve razor-sharp songs that become even more powerful with each listening. Paid Salvation is an almost flawless debut full of highlights (“Connect To Consume”, “Suddenly” and “Beaches”), with which A. Swayze & the Ghosts has earned its place in the Best Of 2020.
Since their earliest entrance back around the cusp of 2016/2017, you had the feeling A. Swayze & The Ghosts were in it for the long run. Their 2017-released, self-titled debut EP presented a vision you wouldn’t expect from a band just starting out; the band’s namesake and frontman Andrew Swayze leading the rest of the Tasmanian-raised outfit – Hendrik Wipprecht, Zac Blain, Benjamin Simms – through the highs and lows of DIY, rough-around-the-edges alt-rock with the rush of their sound at its most manic but also the subtlety of them when stripped-back and intimate.
Since then, the group have shared singles at a near-yearly rate – one at a time, emphasising quality over quantity – and it’s clear it was all paying off; the group soon crossing into international waters they are now a mainstay of the rock/punk festival world, performing at institutions such as The Great Escape and Shaky Knees Festival. Back home in Australia, they’ve played everything from Splendour in the Grass to BIGSOUND, and their recordings show why they’ve become such a favourite on the live stage – it’d be hard to see their live show as anything but explosive, considering the work they put out.
They’re a group that have put in the work to break free of Australia’s isolation shackles and emerge in the greater international rock market; every move they do – from singles and tours to festival appearances and god knows what else – reflective of a band that have this clear vision and will put everything into making it become real-life. On their debut album “Paid Salvation” – which arrives after a lengthy, incredibly hyped wait this all begins to pay off, at least on a level A. Swayze & The Ghosts haven’t seen in the past.
Paid Salvationis a definitively A. Swayze album so jam-packed with their charm and spirit that it would be impossible for anyone else to make the exact same record. Across the space of 12 tracks, they encapsulate their career thus far and the sounds that have gotten them to the point they’re at today – full of energy, flavour and just down-right fun – while showing potential future paths, always keeping things open as they dance in their versatility and range that on this record, stretches from the foundations of 90s-era rock worthy for a stadium right through to punchy punk and the slightest smattering of indie.
It’s an album that’s always concise and focused, rushing with an energy and pace that’s full of these blink-and-you-miss-it bursts of brilliance. “Nothing Left To Do” whips up a storm of thick-layered guitar and frantic percussion that quietens down before just three minutes, while “Marigold” – a song that would unexpectedly slap you for six and leave you rattled – doesn’t lose its rush until its sudden end. Every song is as fierce and elevated as it can possibly be, but at this point, would you expect anything less from a band that have come to champion this over the last few years?
It’s why A. Swayze & The Ghosts’ debut album feels exactly like a representation of the band’s most brilliant moments distilled into 12 tracks. It’s not afraid to tackle the big stuff – the tall poppy syndrome encountered being an international break-out; social media’s grips on the world; herd mentality and echo chambers – but it’ll always do so with a ruckus-inducing fun that charades its often-heavier lyricism, encouraging you to listen it when you want to, but just kick up and have a great time when you don’t want to think about all the worries in the world.
“It really shits me off when bands have this pedestal and they have the ability to influence so much around them and they waste it by singing about stupid shit. If you’re given this audience, I think you have to have something to say. And I definitely intend on abusing that right,” says Andrew on the record. “I want people to go, ‘I love that song it makes me dance but I also appreciate the honesty’. I want the melodies and the instrumentals to be accessible for people from all sorts of backgrounds, but I also want everyone to fucking listen to what I’m saying as well.”
It’s difficult to coat heavier themes like the ones Paid Salvationembraces with another lightness that people will still want to listen, but A. Swayze & The Ghosts do it with ease. Take a dive into the band’s heralding moment of a debut album below, and underneath, learn about the album’s inner themes and creation with a track-by-track walkthrough from the band themselves.
It’s Not Alright
Starting in 2017, women were forced to travel from Tasmania to Melbourne in order to have elected pregnancy termination, and upon arriving they’d potentially be accosted by imbeciles protesting against their right to have the treatment at all. I believe in a person’s right to have autonomy over their body; I consider abortion to be a part of that. On face value, this song seems to be very ‘pop’ and lyrically shallow, but I like the accessibility this style gives the listener while delivering a message they can choose to read into however they like.
Suddenly
Written in one session, listening back to the original phone recording, not much has changed. It’s really important to all of us that we capture the urgency of our live shows on record, and with Suddenly we found a balance between some of our more garage-y punk roots, and the more complex and interesting writing styles that we have been striving for.
Nothing Left to Do
I don’t generally write love songs as they’re so predictable and can bore the shit out of me. This one was tough to finish, it took me months and tens of iterations before I ended up coming full circle and sticking to the lyrics and melody I’d first written.
I’m conflicted between two entirely different personalities which can produce a lot of blurred lines between fact and fiction and then what I choose to present to people. The sole person who has complete access to behind the scenes of Andrew Swayze is my wife Olivia, I cannot hide or look away from her.
Connect to Consume
We have exchanged honesty, beauty, ugliness, boredom–reality–for an abstract museum inside a digitised screen, curated by big business but sustained by us. We have volunteered to pace the halls blindly, loudly. We are promised the pain of life will numb. We are given a rule for everything. We submit, we succeed. We do not feel; we do not need to anymore. We have accepted the prison and adorned the uniforms under the guise of convenience. We have connected and now we will consume.
Marigold
I read an article published by the BBC that made me feel nauseous. In August 2018, two men, Ricardo Flores and his uncle Alberto Flores, were beaten and burned to death by an angry mob in a Mexican town called Acatlán – a place known for its marigold and walnut trees. The two men were falsely accused of kidnapping children in the local area. As it turns out the kidnappings didn’t even happen. It was all just vicious rumours and community hysteria trafficked through WhatsApp and Facebook. The men were thrown onto the steps outside the local police station where they had been housed for their own safety, then executed. There was no trial, just violent retribution – all because of a rumour.
Paid Salvation
I took the theme of a great flood, which takes place in the Bible, and imagined it as a reality in the world we live in today. The selection process of people who would make it onto “god’s” ark is a simple one – the wealthy and the self-appointed religious, who’ve killed god and used its name to justify action/inaction. These false-profits would survive while the poor and disadvantaged become martyrs in the drowning of the planet. The people on the ark paid for their salvation while we all die along with our belief in the morals they preach.
Mess of Me
This song discusses inheritance. Not the conventional heirloom, but the type of negative trait you may learn as a child voyeur of your surroundings. Hendrik brought the song to us with the chorus “you’re always trying to make a mess of me”. Since I don’t have any saboteur but myself, I changed his lyrics and wrote the rest around the new chorus.
Rich
Tall poppies.
Our band comes from a small community, which is generally supportive but some members can also very quickly brand you as a sell-out with any kind of commercial success. It’s petty, but I hate that shit so much and I wish their keyboards would burst into flames and engulf them. When we started touring more and getting played on the radio we’d hear things people would say about our band behind our backs that were so inaccurate it was actually comedic, hence writing this song completely tongue-in-cheek as if to “submit” to their accusations of our motives.
Funnily enough one of the people I wrote this song “for” came up to me after a set we played and told me he loved the track… I couldn’t be happier hearing that.
News
I don’t have a problem with people consuming news or their need to remain updated. I do, however, have an issue with pseudo-journalism and a flow of information directed by corporate or political agenda. It’s not their fault, but people base far too much of their opinion off bias hand-fed to them by media outlets without questioning who benefits from the spread of this misinformation.
Beaches
Hendrik and I wrote the guitar parts for this song one afternoon on his bed. Originally it comprised of two guitars interlocking throughout the track, though when playing it as a band I couldn’t manage to keep up while singing too. Hendrik messed with the tuning on his guitar so he could play both his and my part simultaneously.
Lyrically the track has themes of subservience, politics, ecocide and immigration. All very topical in modern-day Australia and infuriating to witness. The chorus vocal delivery is the most brutal amongst the record – it had to be an anger-fuelled explosion from me to the listener to stress how fucked the people and policies are behind these topics, while the middle section is slow and moody to emulate feelings of hopelessness and defeat.
Cancer
There’s no point in trying to give meaning to this song, it’s meaningless.
I love this track’s elements of early house music in it’s Oberheim DMX drum machine, repetitive bass-line and guitar silence in sections, which were suggested by our producer Dean. The original version of the song was far more ‘rock’, and frankly not nearly as interesting. With the change of style it just needed a fun melody, so I gave it one with a focus on phonetics rather than what’s actually being said.
Evil Eyes
This was brought to us by Hendrik one night at in our studio as a short fun song he’d written years before. The lyrics were his too. I’m fairly sure they alluded to the paranoia you feel when smoking pot, but I read into them as a weird homage to the delusions of mental illness so I re-worked them and added the ‘psycho passion’ section to fit that description.
“Paid Salvation” released on Sunset Pig Records under exclusive licence to Ivy League Records Released on: 2020-09-18 A. Swayze & the Ghosts
Following on from their stunning 2017 debut record ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’, horror punks Creeper have announced that the title of their second album will be ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ which they describe as a ”new era” for the band.
Dispelling any rumours of a split, the forthcoming record will include their impassioned single ‘Born Cold’. ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ will be available on CD and purple vinyl, released by Roadrunner Records on May 22nd.
“The real-life time travel that music can achieve is almost supernatural. In a moment you can be transported from a bedroom in the south of England to another dimension entirely. With our latest album, we attempted to perform a similar magic. The concept behind the artwork came to me when I was considering the ways I first discovered music. Both Ian Miles and I have similar stories of discovering our parents’ records. Holding in our hands these battered relics of the past, playing them for the first time and experiencing the magic of them coming to life over the speaker.
This being the case, our album cover attempts to live up to that promise. It would fit in with our parents’ records of the past, you could find it in a dusty attic, blow off the cobwebs, play it at any moment in time and be transported.” – Will Gould.
Southampton born emo revivalists Creeper scared the life out of fans when they hinted that their sold-out show at Koko in 2018 might be their last. In fact, it was just the end of the past as they usher in a new era with the arrival of second album ‘Sex, Death & the Infinite Void’. “The infinite void was literally where we were drifting for some time while making this album. I didn’t know if Creeper was going to come back, I didn’t know if we were over. I was floating through California with the shards of a broken relationship and a band that I’d just broken up on stage that had been my life’s work.” – Will Gould
Is emorock dead? It is a question that we have been able to answer wholeheartedly with ‘no’ since this year. At the beginning of this year there would be the great return of My Chemical Romance, which our good friend corona put a stop to, but fortunately there is a new bond with the abilities of the latter. Creeper is the name and with Sex, Death & The Infinite Void they release the perfect emo-rock record. They do this by telling a story in a quirky way. A story that goes from great “Annabelle” that touch you to the deepest of your heart to solid rockers like “Napalm Girls”. Unlike the debut, the band doesn’t go anywhere too brutally, and that ensures that every song on this second record contains the necessary drama, accessibility and melancholy. The perfect record for the end of the world and let 2020 have been just a bit.
Creeper will be hitting the road during March next year, heading out on a huge tour to promote the new material
Creeper will show off the new material on their spring tour,
The Fat Angel Sings 