It took Norwegian songstress Susanne Sundfør six albums and several collaborations (including Röysksopp and M83) to reach pop perfection, but when she did on her latest LP Ten Love Songs, she brought the big guns.
It’s quite rare to stumble across an album both ambitious and accomplished. Mixing all sorts of instruments, genres and influences, Sundfør creates a record so detailed, emotional and grand that you are left feeling like you’ve fallen in love and then got heartbroken at least a couple of times during these epic 47 minutes.
Obvious standouts are James Bond-esque “Delirious,” the 10-minute-long dark Scandinavian fairytale “Memorial” and the pulsating electropop banger “Kamikaze” that can satisfy our hunger for the next Robyn album. And don’t forget the haunting organs in “Accelerate” that makes you double check if there’s a Phantom of the Opera lurking somewhere in the shadows. “Don’t tell anyone that we’re having fun,” Sundfør begs on the cryptic closing number “Insects.” Sorry, Susanne, but I have to
“Anthems For Doomed Youth” – the new The Libertines record is released on September 4th 2015.
It would be inappropriate for us not to mark this occasion with a celebration of the highest order, so we will be indulging in a week of folly around the UK in which you will all be invited to partake. By signing up via www.thelibertines.com you will be the first to hear of these activities. You absolutely do not want to miss these announcements. That’s also where you can order some special limited edition deluxe versions and vinyls.
Listen out for the first track from the album at 7:30pm on Radio 1.
Gunga Din’ – taken from the new album ‘Anthems for Doomed Youth’ – released 4th Sept 2015. Get the track instantly from 3rd July when you pre order
This former Drive-By Trucker has been steadily and quietly improving since he first went solo in 2007, and we’re now to the point where he completely overshadows his old band. This album does a great job showing why. Isbell’s lyrics are warm and incisive and empathetic — quick, economical sketches of people in go-nowhere towns who rarely get to hear themselves depicted with this level of real-talk dignity. And his music is intuitive and lived-in. Isbell’s miles-deep baritone can be conversationally pleasant on the verses, but when he hits the chorus, it always wells up into something huge.
Jason Isbell — Something More Than Free (July 10th, Southeastern Records)
Former Drive-By TruckerJason Isbell is one of alt-country’s most reliable voices, particularly in light of his modern classic Southeastern. To follow-up that 2013 LP, Isbell reunited with its producer, Dave Cobb, for a collection of songs that examine life’s small details and big questions with the same level of astounding sincerity and humble wisdom. Isbell oftentimes sounds like frequent tourmate Ryan Adams during his Cardinals era, particularly when Isbell strips down his sound and lets himself get real blue in the spirit of the Southern literary tradition (see “Speed Trap Town,” then have a good cry). But he also sounds quite different (and traditional, in a classic country sense) when backed by a full band, oftentimes topped off by a piano, a fiddle, and strings.
Indiana alt-rockers Houndmouthreleasedtheir sophomore record, “Little Neon Limelight”. It was released on March 17th via Rough Trade Recordsand was recorded in Nashville with producer Dave Cobb. It’s the follow-up to their impressive debut album “From the Hills Below the City”, which was released in 2013.
The 11 new, original songs on ‘Little Neon Limelight’ are the band’s best to date, blending their signature four-part harmonies with the gritty foot-stomping rock swagger of their live shows and a loose confidence in the studio. “I’ve grown up a lot since our first record,” reflects frontman Matt Myers (guitar / vocals), adding, “the inspiration falls close to the struggle of figuring out exactly what it means to be a man, let alone an artist.”
Highlights of ‘Little Neon Limelight’ include the live fan-favorites “By God,” “My Cousin Greg,” and “Say It,” and the acoustic track “For No One,” which recently premiered on NPR Music, and is unlike anything else Houndmouth have ever recorded. Ann Powers called “For No One” an “epic ballad, stuffed full of vivid imagery.” On “Gasoline,” Katie Toupin (keyboard / vocals) barbs the confessions of a perennial party girl with the specter of mortality (“Maybe I’ll meet my maker on a bedroom floor”). Shane Cody (drums / vocals) leads vocals on the album’s heartbreaker, “Honey Slider,” and the group embraces their garage-rock influences on the thrilling, needle-in-the-red cut, “15 Years,” which finds Zak Appleby singing one of the album’s most infectious refrains (“15 Years on the county line / Enough to make a man nearly lose his mind.”)
Today’s announcement also included the release of the music video for first single “Sedona.” The video is wonderfully directed by Naomi Yang, and features the gang hanging out at a scenic hotel in Southern California, and rocking out in some red neon lights.
“Sedona” itself is a song rooted in classic Americana rockers, taking it’s time to build itself up, only to deliver one of the hardest rocking moments of the bands short career. It’s an impressive return, a confident reminder of why I fell in love with these guys in the first place.
From the EP by Noah Gundersen, titled “Twenty-Something”. the 5 song EP we have been selling exclusively on tour from Singer-songwriter Noah Gundersen who released his excellent latest album ” Ledges”earlier this year, and while the momentum seems to continue pushing the Seattle native to city after city on a seemingly non-stop touring schedule, he has a couple more tracks up his sleeve. Gundersen has released “Twenty-Something”, a five-song EP of four originals and one cover, as a gift to his fans. The release will be for sale exclusively at his shows. Listen to the EP’s only cover, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” in the player above, it is now available online as part of a deluxe edition of Ledges. www.noahgundersenmusic.com.
It’s impossible to encapsulate the various themes that Jenny Hval invokes on her anthemic offering, Apocalypse, Girl, but above all else, this album is an exploration of sexuality. “I’m six or seven and dreaming that I’m a boy,” Hval sings on “Sabbath,” before interrogating exactly what it means to be that: a girl displaced by her own body and the carnal desire that it inspires. Hval’s sound is performative and spoken-word heavy, but her earnest, prose-driven monologues inevitably descend into melodic choruses. Hooks jut out like elbows and knees in the tangled bed sheets of her narration as she questions what true intimacy should look like: “It would be easy to think about submission, but I don’t think it’s about submission. It’s about: holding and being held.
Taken from the album “Apocalypse, girl” out June 9th on Sacred Bones. & Su Tissue (Norway).
Think big, girl, like a king, think kingsize. Jenny Hval’s new record opens with a quote from the Danish poet Mette Moestrup, and continues towards the abyss. “Apocalypse, girl” is a hallucinatory narrative that exists somewhere between fiction and reality, a post-op fever dream, a colourful timelapse of death and rebirth, close-ups of impossible bodies — all told through the language of transgressive pop music.
When Norwegian noise legend Lasse Marhaug interviewed Jenny Hval for his fanzine in early 2014, they started talking about movies, and the conversation was so interesting that she asked him to produce her next record. It turned out that talking about film was a great jumping off point for album production. Hval’s songs slowly expanded from solo computer loops and vocal edits to contributions from bandmates Håvard Volden and Kyrre Laastad, before finally exploding into collaborations with Øystein Moen (Jaga Jazzist/Puma), Thor Harris (Swans), improv cellist Okkyung Lee and harpist Rhodri Davis. All of these musicians have two things in common: they are fierce players with a great ear for intimacy, and they hear music in the closing of a suitcase as much as in a beautiful melody.
And so Apocalypse, girl is a very intimate, very visual beast. It dreams of an old science fiction movie where gospel choir girls are punks and run the world with auto-erotic impulses. It’s a gentle hum from a doomsday cult, a soft desire for collective devotion, an ode to the close-up and magnified, unruly desires.
Jenny Hval has developed her own take on intimate sound since the release of her debut album in 2006. Her work, which includes 2013’s critically celebrated Innocence Is Kinky (Rune Grammofon), has gradually incorporated books, sound installations and collaborations with poets and visual artists. For Hval, language is central, always torn between the vulnerable, the explosive and total humiliation.
Jenny Hval has just finished the first run of US shows w/ St Vincent, which was truly AMAZING, Thanks to everyone who came to see us, cheered, got a bit terrified by the bananas, bought Soft Dick Rock shirts (or bought Soft Dick Rock shirts for their friends/girlfriends/boyfriends/kids! WORD!). Most of all: a big thank you to the amazing St Vincent + my exquisite band: Håvard Volden, Zia Anger and Annie Bielski. LOVE. Shows continue in a few days when we meet up w Perfume Genius.
“Meshes of Voice”, my collaboration with the wonderful Susanna, will finally be released on vinyl! Please support this very special release by pre-ordering here.
“Meshes of Voice” by Susanna and I won the Norwegian Grammy in “Åpen Klasse” (Open Category)! We were very surprised and grateful and very, very close to completely speechless. Thanks to everybody who were involved in the project, both back in 2009 (when it was a concert piece) and for the 2014 record!
Meshes of Voice will be performed at CTM festival in Berlin, and we’re also doing a Scandinavian mini-tour in February (see above). What will it be like? Take a look at these beautiful sneak peaks: 1 &2.
Susanna (Wallumrød) and I have released a collaboration album, ‘Meshes of Voice’ (via Susanna’s excellent label SusannaSonata). We recently performed the project at Ultima Festival in Oslo, at (the excellent! feminist!) magazine FETT’s 10 year anniversary in Bergen, and at UNSOUND Festival in Krakow…and hopefully there’s more to come. There have been some excellent reviews:
“Falling From The Sky” by Calexico from the album ‘Edge of the Sun,’ out now via Anti- and City Slang, ‘EdgeOf The Sun’ is a big party in the desert heat with many friends, a great composite work and probably their best album to date. Joey and the boys have re-found their Mojo. I’m pleased to say gone are the sombre sobering sounds of Algiers, to be replaced by vibrant up tempo songs that soar with the joyous melodies that made Hot Rail and Feast of Wire such originals. The sweeping Leone instrumentals are back along with the Mariachi Horns & strings. There are still shades of Dark and Light here, but even the slower numbers smoulder with energy and the band sound re-energised by their experiences in Mexico, with the album far more engaging for it. A wonderful mix of the classic Calexico sound, more latin influenced this time around with even a touch of Mexi-Skali to get the feet tapping. Oh, and make sure you get the special 2 disc edition, the bonus tracks are wonderful! This one is going to be a stayer on the Turntable for some time…order has been restored in Americana
Calexico has a special place in my heart, they put on a awesome set earlier this year , the familiarity of a beloved old friend, albeit one who lives on the US/Mexico border. Calexico are a band Ive followed for such a long time, Follow the River is a sad, wistful song that offers hope,
Sufjan Stevens, June 4, 2015, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, California
Sufjan Stevens has never been known for his dissonance. Though he’s flexed wiry post-punk muscles in the past, and has never shied away from angularity, he built his considerable reputation on coherent stacks of pillowy sounds.
That should change. Just as he has for the duration of his Carrie & Lowelltour, Stevens ended his Thursday night set with album closer “Blue Bucket of Gold.” It’s a beautiful, gentle song on record, a dedication of faith and resilience in the face of death. Live, Stevens and his five-piece band draw the song to a near hush. Two stationary disco balls hide behind the stage’s massive video boards, their light refracted and still. Then, as the group builds away from this moment of incredible stillness, the stage lights begin to pop and flash in every color and the video board goes strobe and the band are suddenly playing at Hecker-like levels of volume and dissonance. It’s death, imagined, and it’s not a horrible thing or a scary thing. It’s tragic and mournful. And it’s incredibly moving in a way that music this abstract rarely is.
“Blue Bucket of Gold” was the thematic cap of Stevens’ very emotional set at L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He played the entirety of this year’s Carrie & Lowell, and at several moments he was so overcome with emotion that he was nearly unable to sing: he flubbed notes and had to catch himself in “Eugene,” and he stopped playing entirely for a suspenseful second in the middle of “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross.”
But the catharsis that came with the Carrie & Lowell songs seemed to loosen him up, too. He was funnier and more easygoing than he had been earlier on the tour, taking the long way around to a joke about Top Gun before launching into the Seven Swans track “Sister.” He even poked fun at his own preoccupation with death and suffering. And then he went and broke our hearts anyway.
Set List
[Set 1]
“Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)”
“Death With Dignity”
“Should Have Known Better”
“Drawn to the Blood”
“All of Me Wants All of You”
“Eugene”
“John My Beloved”
“The Only Thing”
“Fourth of July”
“No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”
“Carrie & Lowell”
“The Owl and the Tanager”
“For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti”
“Heirloom”
“To Be Alone With You”
“Futile Devices”
“Sister”
“The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!”
“Blue Bucket of Gold”
[Encore]
“Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois”
“Chicago”
This mammoth new 30 track collection, curated by Ear to Ear Records and Gerpfast Kolektif, may be the best tool at the revival’s disposal to hammer this point home, featuring artists from 16 different countries – this is a truly global phenomenon – all operating under the ever-expanding shoegaze umbrella. And while there are certainly traces of the influence of the genre’s trailblazers, this is far from hollow imitation of a bygone era, with a diversity which shows just how much potential the genre has to grow now that it can see past its own fringe.
So aside from the massive guitars and reverb-sodden layers of vocals that one traditionally associates with shoegaze, you’ll also find wistful dreampop, neo-psychedelia, post-rock, traces of 4AD that run the spectrum from This Mortal Coil to the Pixies, and in Clustersun’s excellent “Hipgnosis” there’s even an unlikely Pink Floyd tribute, which is an absolute stunner.
The curators have been careful to avoid covers in their desire to demonstrate that this is a vibrant scene all of its own, and the quality and diversity on display here is unmistakeable. Detractors will be eating their hats, while the rest of us can simply enjoy a superlative collection, on a free/name your own price basis. This collection, fully deserving of its definitive title, should be your first step to understanding, and immersing yourself in the shoegaze revival.
“Revolution – The Shoegaze Revival” is an amazing international (16 countries!) compilation of new shoegaze bands which does an amazing job of showcasing just how strong and vibrant the new scene is. And it’s FREE!
Full review and download/streaming link here: http://active-listener.blogspot.co.nz/2015/06/revolution-shoegaze-revival.html
This documentary feature the band Slowdive offers an oral history of the classic shoegaze album “Souvlaki”, with intimate interviews examining the stories behind this modern classic. This episode tells the story of Slowdive‘s 1993 magnum opus “Souvlaki“. their ability to make uncomplicated yet beautiful soundscapes, impressionistic, emotional songs reminiscent of a Turner painting rendered in audio, While the guitars of My Bloody Valentine roared, Slowdive made theirs sing. “Souvlaki”, was their definitive album. Though I don’t think of every track as perfect, the truly great songs on this album make it a classic. “Alison” is a gorgeous start, languorous and atmospheric. “40 Days” is even better, with a simple but stunning guitar line that is simply transcendent, and Neil Halstead’s vocal seems deadpan on the surface but strikes me as full of emotion. Above all, the peak moments could very well be the brilliant “Souvlaki Space Station” and “When The Sun Hits”. Both are absolute masterpieces. In the former, Rachel’s vocals are somewhere between waking and dreaming, and are more another instrument than anything else, complementing the washes of guitars perfectly.
Souvlaki was released on May 17, 1993 in the UK and on February 8, 1994 in the U.S. Widely regarded as their best album, it benefits from synthesizer contributions from co-producer Brian Eno on Sing (which he co-wrote) and Here She Comes . The album’s U.S. release includes the previously unreleased cover of Some Velvet Morning (written by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra in 1967) and three tracks from the band’s 1993 5 EP, all of which feature on a reissued edition availble at Amazon.
The film follows the band as they come up in the flourishing Thames Valley shoegaze scene and chronicles the making of the album. It features interviews with all of the band members as well as Creation Records’ Alan McGee, producer Chris Hufford, and engineer Ed Buller.
It took Norwegian songstress Susanne Sundfør six albums and several collaborations (including Röysksopp and M83) to reach pop perfection, but when she did on her latest LP Ten Love Songs, she brought the big guns.
