The Fat Angel Sings

In the Summer of 2022, a 10-year journey came to an end in Amsterdam. Its final score, as the curtain closed and the lights came up, was comprised of the orchestrations that preceded and followed the final act: the buzz of a barber’s razor, the droning resonance of a tattoo machine, and the brush of electric sound from the surprise gift of a friend.

For a decade, a leading figure and frontwoman of post-punk staple band Against Me!, Laura Jane Grace,

A musical force since Against Me!’s debut in the late 90’s, Laura Jane Grace has never shied away from themes of political commentary, environmentalism, social critique, and candid self-exploration. Following the 2012 public announcement of her gender transition in the pages of Rolling Stone, Laura Jane Grace racked up several accolades. Against Me! released its most acclaimed record to date, “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” in 2014, which was followed by an Emmy-nominated 10-episode companion documentary, . Hole In My Head is Grace’s twelfth album and an exciting hallmark in her colourful and extensive career.

Recorded at Native Sound in St. Louis, Missouri the album is a sonic curio cabinet containing multitudes. “Hole In My Head” features warm 50s-rock-influenced guitar riffs, saved-for-later lyrics, love letters to St. Louis, dysphoria apparel, and thoughtful reflections on a punk life lived.

The record’s title track “Hole In My Head” takes off with a driving guitar-heavy approach that will be welcome to long-time fans of Against Me! Electric machinations drive the song for about 10 seconds before launching into the first verse and punctuated by two lines that serve as the chorus as the song progresses, “I won’t learn to feel less/ I need a hole in my head”.

The lyrics are captured visually in the album’s cover art done by the talented Australian artist and designer Annie Walters. Walters contrasts a black and white photograph of the crumpled, short-haired figure of Laura Jane Grace against a barrage of bright colour and illustrative imagery that bursts upward from Grace’s splitting head.

Baby what’s the scene?
I’ve got places to be
Something left unsaid
will explode if not released

I need a hole in my head
I won’t learn to feel less

Keeping up the pace, “Hole In My Head” is followed by “I’m Not a Cop” and “Dysphoria Hoodie” in that order. “I’m Not a Cop” continues in the themes of self-examination and is backed by a 50/60’s rock style melody a la Jonathan Richman and Eddie Cochran. Richman’s influences make several appearances throughout the record. Grace replicates Richman’s distinctive musical styling in the form of jangly guitar rhythms and staccato response harmonies. As the melody is juxtaposed against present-tense ruminative lyrics, the song creates a melodic microcosm of sorts. A space in which the listener cannot stop themselves from examining the progression of rock music as a constant form of counter-culture form of expression.

The first single from the record is one which audiences who have seen Laura Jane Grace play in the last couple of years may be familiar with. “Dysphoria Hoodie” (released on October 4th), has been a staple in Grace’s setlist, and one which is as personal as it is pertinent in today’s climate.

Falling away from the comforts of “Dysphoria Hoodie” and following “Birds Talk Too”, the album pivots back to the influences of Jonathan Richman in the following song “Punk Rock in Basements”.

As the album’s sound begins to settle, Laura Jane Grace’s writing shifts to reflect her surroundings. For the last couple of years, Grace has split her time between Chicago and St. Louis, Missouri. And despite her 2018 song “I Hate Chicago”, Grace wants it known she, in fact, does not hate the Windy City. As a parent, home is wherever Grace’s daughter is.

But after spending the pandemic cooped up in an apartment where she was unable to make music the way she wanted, she needed to get out. Shortly after, Laura Jane Grace landed in St. Louis and (quite serendipitously) posted up in a studio that formerly belonged to Jay Farrar, frontman of Son Volt and founding member of Uncle Tupelo.

The first couple of songs on “Hole In My Head” are straightforward, stripped-back punk-rock-‘n’-roll affairs, but the majority of the album is more bare-bones even than that. Most of the tracks feature an acoustic guitar, accompanied often—though not always—by drums played by Grace herself, as well as a bass guitar courtesy of Matt Patton of Drive-By Truckers. The effect of this rudimentary instrumental arrangement is that many of the songs sound almost cutesy—certainly that’s the case with “Tacos And Toast,” whose subtle yet triumphant refrain, “I ain’t got nowhere I gotta be today” makes it a perfect ode to gentle self-indulgence. 

Grace’s greatest achievement on “Hole In My Head” is to impart the notion that her ability to write with such unerring, toe-curling honesty is dependent upon her willingness to understand the inner machinations of her mind down to every last synaptic firing. There is a potent power in knowing yourself this well; it rises above the anxiety and uncertainty that it illuminates and flows out of the record beautifully, in a way no one song can aptly summarize.

Life can be complicated and often painful, Grace seems to say on “Hole In My Head”, but if strength and optimism are to be found anywhere, it’s in seizing your identity—warts and all—and refusing to shy away from it.

It was in St. Louis that Grace celebrated her 42nd birthday, a day commemorated in “Hole In My Head’s” seventh track “Tacos and Toast”. This track in addition to its predecessor “Cuffing Season” slows down the tempo of the record moving forward as its lyrics delve into Grace’s renewed ability to make music in a new place. Grace follows up this love for St. Louis in the album’s ninth track, “Keep Your Wheels Straight” as well. Immortalizing a night of CBGB’s and nonalcoholic beers, a city plagued by urban decay is brought back to life.

“St. Louis really opened its arms to me and I just have such a great time when I’m there… it’s a really special city … It’s like, to me it feels like the way every city in America felt when I first started touring in the late 90’s. And this crazy mix of like, fun and adventure, but danger and possibility”

Backed by her own drumming, Grace’s forward vocals complement her skills as a guitarist on “Hole In My Head“, while the added contributions of Drive-By Truckers bassist, Matt Patton, bolsters a full-band sound throughout the album. Patton, who was recruited through a brief conversation with Grace over Twitter, brought a smooth and collaborative experience to the project, despite the genre differences between the two. When asked, Matt said:

“I would say that our working relationship was immediately comfortable just in the way that she was able to articulate you know, what it was that she wanted me to do.

And you know, she had the musical cue and vocabulary to get her points across to where we can work efficiently without any confusion or disagreements. It was a, you know, it was a different level for me.”

Patton’s playing is all over the record, but really took his moment to shine when given a blank slate with the song “Mercenary”. According to Laura Jane, “Mercenary” is the oldest song on the record and had been workshopped on and off over the years. Patton had wrapped up his time in the studio with Grace and was headed home when Grace sent him the track and told him to do whatever he wanted with it. “Mercenary” has a more roots-based sound with a metronomic sliding bass sound which allows it to stand out on the album. Grace’s ever clear vocals keep it consistent with the rest of the songs though. There is a sharp edge in her voice, almost as if she’s breathing out a challenge as she sings:

If there’s money on the table
you can take it and leave
If there’s a seat in the car
no one rides for free
I’ve got gold, solid gold
Come on and shine with me
Go on and take all you want
There’s nothing here that I need

Writing from life is easy to do but it’s difficult to master. Life is strange, it’s messy, and for all the talk of it being short, living is the longest thing we can do. How do we get to the point of it all? Writing about it is just one way to make sense of it all. In taking these strange moments, it’s tempting to crowd the story with metaphor or description in an effort to entertain others as we invite them to these parts of our lives. Laura Jane Grace has honed her craft as a songwriter, and takes on the difficult task of telling her stories without losing the details.

In the final two tracks of the album “Hard Feelings” and “Give Up the Ghost”, there is almost a stream of consciousness where Grace flows between apologies and regrets to seemingly embellished experiences. Except when she sings “I’m standing at the center of the universe/ screaming at god, I’m not done” in the final track “Give Up the Ghost”, she’s being serious.

The Center of the Universe, an auditory phenomena on a footbridge in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. A place where tourists can stand at its center and yell yet not be heard by those standing outside of them. It is an isolating experience for some, where in one space you can say everything or nothing and maybe only god will hear you. Or not. “Give Up the Ghost” is relatively sparse compared to the rest of the record. As it was in the American Hotel in Amsterdam and the bedroom of her childhood, it is just Laura Jane Grace and a guitar, setting her time and memory to melody the hard-edged yet honest way she’s mastered.

“Hole In My Head” is a record which captures the nuances of humanity and experience in a strangely optimistic manner. The lightness of its influence and the journalistic recollection of experience set against a battered and warm folk-punk delivery from beginning to end makes “Hole In My Head” a fun comfort. It is a welcome embrace of life and just the start of a new chapter in Laura Jane Grace’s raucous journey. 

releases February 16th, 2024

All songs written & performed by Laura Jane Grace, 

On June 25th, 1999, R.E.M. took the stage at Glastonbury for the very first time. A historic performance from the group from Athens, Georgia, who remain one of the most influential and successful bands in rock music.

R.E.M. took to the iconic Pyramid Stage at the end of long sunny day at Glastonbury 1999 and dazzled the crowd with a powerful and rousing set, encompassing some of their biggest songs including “Daysleeper”, “The One I Love”, “Losing My Religion”, “Everybody Hurts” and “Man On The Moon”. They played after bands like Blondie, Bush and Hole.

“Hole did such a great set, I was like — I’ve got to ramp this up, I’ve got to be great. I think it was maybe a moment for R.E.M. and the U.K. where we had kind of been forgotten or pushed aside by younger bands, and that was a particular moment at Glastonbury where I think we pulled ourselves back to the front of the line and actually proved, this is what we’re capable of.” – Michael Stipe

Filmed at the Pyramid Stage Glastonbury Festival, 25th June, 1999. Listen to the full show as part of ‘R.E.M. at the BBC’,

Setlist: 1:45 Daysleeper 5:16 The Wake-Up Bomb 10:34 The One I Love 14:05 Sweetness Follows 19:44 At My Most Beautiful 23:45 Losing My Religion 28:53 Everybody Hurts 35:45 Walk Unafraid 40:26 Star 69 43:36 Finest Worksong 47:53 Man On The Moon 56:05 Why Not Smile 58:13 Crush With Eyeliner 1:03:04 Tongue 1:08:24 Cuyahoga

A copy of the vinyl bootleg “Tales From The Who” recorded live from The Spectrum, Philadelphia, possibily from the  Soundboard or an excellent audience recording. A sell-out crowd of 19,500 packed the Spectrum for a gross of $135,000. The show was recorded for broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour, as was the following night in Largo, Maryland.

One of the most famous bootlegs in rock history, “Tales from the Who” came from the King Biscuit Flower Hour broadcast of a Long Beach concert taped following the release of “Quadrophenia”. The Who, as usual, rely on taped backup for all keyboards and any other instruments except guitar, bass, and drums. Roger Daltrey is in great voice as the band revisits “Can’t Explain,” “Summertime Blues,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Pinball Wizard,” “See Me, Feel Me,” and “My Generation.”

After a lengthy version of ‘My Wife’ followed by a superbly fast and hard performance of ‘My Generation’, which maintained its energy through seven minutes and some brilliant guitar soloing from Townshend, the “Quadrophenia” section of the show was less impressive. Pete said “The better part of an album what we wrote about ourselves being Mods, when we were little. The story about the Mod kid and we call it “Quadrophenia”... Being Mod meant a lot more in England I think than it ever did in America. I think you think of it being a Carnaby street thing… And it’s not just a looking back, it’s a kind of bringing up to date. 

“Quadrophenia’s” about where we all are today, maybe you too. The story is set on a rock in the middle of a stormy sea. In Quadrophonic, as well!” Pete started playing a bit a little too soon before the tape of ‘I Am The Sea’ had finished. Explaining ‘I’m One’, Pete said: “The next song is called ‘I’m One’, what I sing and it’s about the way I felt, ’cause I wrote it. When I was a nipper I always used to feel that the guitar was all I had… I wasn’t tough enough to be in a gang, I wasn’t good looking enough to be with the birds, not clever enough to make it at school, not good enough on my feet to be a good football player, I was a fucking loser. I think everyone feels that way at some point. And somehow being a Mod – even though I was too old to be a Mod really – I wrote this song with that in mind. Jimmy, the hero of the story, is kinda thinking he hasn’t got much going for himself but at least he’s one.”
‘Sea And Sand’ slowed down into a single guitar riff and built up again as Daltrey sang ‘I’m The Face’, and ‘Drowned’ featured some fine ensemble playing. ‘Bell Boy’ sounded rather clumsy but Keith Moon enlivened the song with his funny amendment of the lyric to “remember the place in Canada that we smashed.”

Pete Townsend, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon are in good form and please the crowd with their performances. Over half of this two-record set is devoted to selections from the then-newly released “Quadrophenia”, and there’s an amusing story about this recording. Normally when the King Biscuit producers put out live concerts for commercial broadcasts, they carefully bleeped out any obscenities, but in this case they overlooked some.

The New Orleans radio station that aired this program was unaware, like the show’s producers, that “Dr. Jimmy” contained a four-letter word, and it was duly broadcast. However, whichever station provided the broadcast that served as the source material for this bootleg had a station manager or program director familiar with the song, so they duly dubbed the KBFH disc to reel-to-reel tape and spliced out the offending word prior to airing the program (producing the bizarre line “Her fella’s gonna kill me/Aww, f-ill he”), but even they missed another one slipped into “My Generation.”

The bootleg label’s claim that this is a quadraphonic release was a bit laughable, because it couldn’t been taped off the radio in quadraphonic, and trying to convert it after the fact would have had all the success of the pseudo-stereo records of the 1960s. According to William Stout, who designed the colourful cover that was a knockoff of classic horror comic book covers, only 120 copies of this two-record set were released, as the operators of TMOQ knew that the FBI was on their trail and, in a fit of panic, they destroyed all other copies of the release (as quoted in Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry by Clinton Heylin). Like most King Biscuit broadcasts, the sound isn’t quite as good as typical commercial live rock records, but this collectable is far better-sounding than any other bootlegs featuring the Who, and its extreme rarity makes it a very valuable recording to own, superseded only by the original King Biscuit Flower Hour LPs distributed to the network radio stations for the broadcast.

The average quality of the “Quadrophenia” performances was more than compensated for by ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, a fine ‘See Me, Feel Me’ and ‘Pinball Wizard’. Townshend introduced the latter as ‘Pineball Blizzard’.

The radio broadcast omitted ‘My Wife’, ‘Punk And The Godfather’, ‘5:15’, and ‘Love Reign O’er Me’. The remaining show had the four letter words in the announcements edited out, as well as from ‘Dr. Jimmy’, although Daltrey had slipped a “fucking” into the last verse of ‘My Generation’ which seemingly was broadcast unnoticed!
The 16-track master tapes of the show (and Largo, MD, the two night later) have been carefully preserved by King Biscuit Flower Hour for future use, but The Who have always considered them unsuitable for release. Pete’s Guitar got destroyed, A Gibson Les Paul Deluxe – Cherry Sunburst.

This is from the Philadelphia Spectrum, December 4th, 1973, which was broadcast as part of
the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show. Although this material was also captured on
vinyl on Decidedly Belated Response, “Tales From The Who“, and the CD’s “Taking The Capitol” and “Pinball Wizard” are from the same show(s) with the former containing several tracks on neither of the afore-mentioned CD’s.

However, several sources familiar with the circumstances of recording of this show (and disc) have in-
dicated that this is indeed from the Philadelphia show with perhaps the last 2 songs
from the Captiol Centre, Largo, MD. An alleged FM broadcast offers excellent sound of
this set appear to be Tales From The Who (CD) (Super Sonic SS 200021).

Setlist:

1. I Can’t Explain
 2. Summertime Blues
 3. My Generation
 4. I Am The Sea
 5. The Real Me
 6. I’m One
 7. Sea And Sand
 8. Drowned
 9. Bell Boy
10. Dr. Jimmy
11. Won’t Get Fooled Again
12. Pinball Wizard
13. See Me, Feel Me

The Inflated Edition of “Bursting Out”, who caught the show back in 1978. Sandwiched between shows at The Madison Square Garden and the first Satellite broadcast. The first show at MSG on the 8th was marred by bolts and firecrackers being thrown towards the stage. It almost caused the following show not to happen.

This was Jethro Tull’s first live album, 1978’s “Bursting Out”, has now been reissued in an expanded 3-CD/3-DVD format, remixed by Steven Wilson. The new “Inflated Edition,” “bursting” with an array of extras, arrived June 21st, 2024, via Rhino Records. 

The album was recorded at various locations during the European “Heavy Horses” tour in May and June 1978 and released as a live double album several months later on September 22nd. It contained material from ’78’s “Heavy Horses” as well as live versions of songs from “Aqualung”, “Thick As a Brick”, “Songs from the Wood”, “War Child”, and other albums from the Tull catalogue. In the expanded edition’s April announcement, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson notes:

“A live extravaganza from the 70s Jethro Tull, this was recorded over several nights in different venues on a portable 8-track tape recorder and transferred to 2” multitrack when I got home after the tours.  I had to listen all through to many shows and pick the best live versions. But much of it was, at least, from the concert in Bern, Switzerland, where dear Claude Nobs came to introduce the band in his inimitable style. Also featuring on this box set collection is the live concert from Madison Square Gardens recorded a few months later and shown live on BBC TV in the UK. A scary experience for the band as it was, we were told, the first time a live rock concert had been the subject of a live satellite broadcast.

“The band line up at this time was a fine-tuned machine and, although missing the unwell John Glascock for the MSG show, it serves as a fine testimony for the many wonderful shows we did in the 70s before general touring fatigue and burn-out began a year or so later. 

On the original, Ian Anderson (vocals, flute, acoustic guitar), was joined by Martin Barre (electric guitar, mandolin, marimba), John Glascock (bass guitar, additional electric guitar), John Evan (piano, organ, synthesizers, accordion), Dee Palmer (portative organ, synthesizers) and Barriemore Barlow (drums, percussion, glockenspiel).

When it was first reissued on CD in 1990, “Bursting Out” was available as a double-disc CD in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, but as a single CD release in the United States, with three tracks (“Quatrain,” “Sweet Dream” and “Conundrum”) omitted to fit the 80 minutes CD length, while the double-disc 1990 CD version in the United Kingdom (and Europe) incorporated the first track for both discs (the Introductions) in the song that follows. In 2004, the complete album was released worldwide as a two-disc set with the Introductions as separate tracks.

CD 1: Jethro Tull live: Bursting Out (Part 1) – A Steven Wilson stereo remix
Soundcheck recordings – A Steven Wilson stereo remix. Tracks 7, 10, 11 (full version) & 12-16 previously unreleased

CD 2: Jethro Tull live: Bursting Out (Part 2) – A Steven Wilson stereo remix
Soundcheck recordings – A Steven Wilson stereo remix. Tracks 11-13 previously unreleased

CD 3: Contains an edited version of the 1978 Madison Square Garden Show which was issued in 2009 but now mixed by Steven Wilson.

DVDs 1 & 2 have the remixed tracks in 96/24 stereo and 5.1 surround plus the flat transfers of the original album at 96/24 stereo.

DVD 3 has the full 93-minute MSG show, including 50+ minutes of video which was part of a transatlantic broadcast with the BBC and Radio 1. The audio is 48/24 stereo and 5.1 surround.

The Kinks “Village Green” LP is now rightly regarded as a great LP and one of the best records from the 1960s. However when first released in November 1968 it sold poorly, a situation exacerbated by Ray Davies refusing to let Pye Records release a single in the UK or the US. Virtually the only promotional activity undertaken by the band was an appearance on folk singer Julie Felix’s Saturday night BBC TV show. These are some of Pete Quaife’s last appearances with the Kinks – he would leave to form his own band Maple Oak in April 1969. “The Last Of The Steam Powered Trains” makes no secret of its debt to Smokestack Lightnin’. “Picture Book” was the B side to “Starstruck”, a European-only single released in January 1969. “Big Sky” is a memento of the US tours that the Kinks were able to undertake when a lengthy union ban finally ended, this version demonstrating that the band was capable of effectively re-creating the complex “Village Green” songs in a live setting.

From the same gig comes the rarely played “Autumn Almanac“, one of the 15 songs considered for inclusion on the “Village Green” LP. Ben Rosenblatt, a student in the audience, knew the song and offered to play the piano part. The Kinks were always keen on audience participation…

Side One recorded for BBC TV Once More With Felix on January 7^th  1969 and broadcast on February 1st

Side Two recorded live at Colden Center Auditorium, Queens College, New York on March 27^th 1971 and broadcast on WLIR-FM

Goat Girl – Lottie Pendlebury , Rosy Jones and Holly Mullineaux release their third album “Below The Waste” released on Rough Trade Records. The album was co–produced by the band and John Spud Murphy (Lankum and black midi).

Pieced together like a collage over an extended period of time, the instrumentation was tracked mostly over a ten-day stint in Ireland at Hellfire Studios, in the shadow of the infamous Hellfire Club itself. They also used Damon Albans, Studio 13. Additional strings (Reuben Kyriakides and Nic Pendlebury), woodwind instruments (Alex McKenzie) and vocals (including a choir made up of family and friends) were added to this framework at a number of locations, from a barn in Essex to Goat Girl’s own studio in South London.

Singer Lottie on lead track: “I was listening to lots of music at the time by Phillip Glass and Deerhoof that plays with the relationship between tension and resolution which definitely influenced this song. I was yearning for honesty and authenticity in relationships I held with people, probably partly because at the time, like everyone, we were so isolated from one another. But it also felt deeper than that, like the conversations I dreamt of stripped away all of the etiquettes we desperately clung onto and went below the surface to where the most interesting parts of ourselves tend to be suppressed.”

With the release of the London art-punk trio’s third full-length is out now via Rough Trade. The three members of London’s Goat Girl have been through the wringer in the time since they released their breakout punk-blues debut in 2018—both in a collective sense, regarding line up changes, as well as in a personal sense, as established by the band members’ individual struggles with addiction referenced in passing through their new record “Below the Waste”. The Edenic world they sing about on the LP, then, has only become conceivable to them after passing through this rocky period, allowing them to envision a similar positive development on a societal level.

Meanwhile, the instrumentation found across “Below the Waste’s” sprawling 16 tracks emphasizes the “waste” part of the album title. While fairly upbeat, the innovative sounds ranging from twisted noise-rock to surrealist avant-folk conjure images of Lottie Pendlebury, Rosy Jones, and Holly Mullineaux making the most of some post-nuclear landscape, as if the toughening-up they underwent before global decimation hit prepped them for this new world. Aided by producer John “Spud” Murphy, the droning neo-folk flair he brought to recent LPs from Lankum and caroline feels ever-present, to say nothing of the utter unpredictability found on other projects he recently worked on, such as the gonzo prog of black midi. All of which lays the groundwork for Pendlebury’s slacker-rock lead vocals, often recalling the deadpan delivery of Miranda Winters.

With the record landing today via Rough Trade, Pendlebury (and, on one song, as noted, Mullineaux) took us track by track through the new LP, noting how each composition came together both instrumentally and lyrically. 

1. “reprise”
This little vignette came about on a rainy day when I was playing through the chords from the chorus of“wasting”really slowly. I started singing “time” over and over, referencing from “wasting” yet taking this new lullaby canonical form. Taking this as an idea to Hellfire [Studios], we fleshed it out with some organ, and Spud found a crackly sample of a sound he’d noticed inside a tube station and had recorded on his phone.

2. “ride around” 
Like so many songs on this record, “ride around” was born out of a newfound obsession I’d [Lottie] been having with my guitar over lockdown. I found a way of working with my instrument where I’d approach it quite visually, experimenting with different hand shapes and allowing myself to be led by intuition rather than familiarity. I came to a chord that really resonated and ended up being the opening phrase to the song, which had quite a dissonant minor feel to it that repeatedly resolves itself.

3. “words fell out”
This song came out of being stuck in a bit of a creative rut. I don’t know how to play piano, which is always where I like to start with a project that I have no preconceptions about, naturally gravitating towards my Casio keyboard that, in its limitations, free’s me up. I figured out the main riff that at first sat disjointedly amongst a Casio drumbeat, that began to make sense once I laid down some bass. The song talks of a time that felt really hard to find words for, in watching Rosy struggle with addiction and the helplessness we felt as friends in our attempts to nurture them.

4. “play it down” 
This song was probably the one that went through the most iterations of itself on the album. An idea for a bass riff was what initially started it all. Trying it out with the band was what really allowed this idea to develop into a song, but not without its difficulties. After a few attempts of figuring out what direction we wanted to take it in, through stages of prog-rock, psychedelic solos to a sombre ballad, we landed back at what we originally liked about it which was the lo-fi electronic fuzziness. It started to become clear, lyrically, that I was depicting an internal suppression that in turn affected my relationships to nature, love, sexuality, and death.

5. “tcnc”
Initially written during lockdown, this song transformed from a bonkers instrumental I made while really drunk to a tale of recovery and strength. I’d just learnt how to use FL Studio, and my thing at that time was making tracks that went all over the place and nurtured the chaotic energy that I was feeling inside. The lyrics are reflecting upon a dark time in my life, when my struggles with alcoholism and addiction came to a head. “tcnc” means “Take care, not crack”—which is something my mum said to me (she loves to make abbreviations) at the end of an intervention after one of my binges.

6. “where’s ur <3”
During lockdown one of our favourite music venues, Sister Midnight, was under threat of closure, and so in an attempt to try and save it, a few friends came together to make a compilation tape of local artists to sell and raise money. “where’s ur <3”was a bare-bones track at that time with not much other than some drones and an electronic drumbeat. As a band, this was one of the early songs that we decided to work on together. Holly took the original pitch-shifted guitar riff and translated it onto the bass, while Rosy added weight and accentuation to their hits which embeds the track in heavy noise rock.

7. “prelude”
It was important for us to create moments that let the album breathe, and so early on we decided that we wanted short links between tracks that reference songs before and after. With “prelude,”I [Lottie] re-recorded the acoustic guitar from “tonight”through a 4-track tape machine. The idea was for this moment to feel kind of uncanny, and so Lottie decided to tape-bend the guitar to give it a wavering tuning, almost like a vinyl that’s been warped.

8. “tonight”
With this song it became more about how the instruments were played than what they were playing. Taking that as the important element, I had fun trying out different ways of sounding the guitar, settling on quite an erratic plucking of the chords that speed up and slow down. When writing the lyrics, I had a specific place in mind: a favourite pub of mine that always has a log fire going, and the idea of friends huddled around it telling each other stories covertly. This group is planning something disruptive that sees the song ending with them watching their city “going up in smoke.” Like the final scene of Fight Club, there’s a beautiful bittersweetness and romanticism to watching it all unfold.

9. “motorway”
“motorway” was born out of a desire to write a song where the focal point was the voice after listening to lots of music where the vocal line commanded all the attention through unexpected turns and developing melodies. Instrumentally, we naturally gravitated to a more electronic sound, which suited the pop-esque style of the track. As a band we have a shared love for pop music of the 2000s and would reference tracks like Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness”or “Day ’n’ Nite”to try and reflect in the song. We really leaned into the epic-ness of this track and its pop sensibilities through Holly’s melodic sub bass synth that constantly weaves between the vocals, Rosy’s drum beats that in their space create heaviness, and the Juno-60 that chimes away throughout the chorus.

10. “s.m.o.g”
Spud’s Moment of Glory. 

11. “take it away” 
This is a song that almost wrote itself. I [Holly] was playing piano and this sad but uplifting melody seemed to tumble out. The lyrics followed almost instantly—just the one line, repeated over and over again. It really encapsulated the love and desperation I was feeling at the time in wanting to ease the pain that I could see Rosy going through in the face of addiction and feeling a little helpless at the same time. 

12. “pretty faces”
Written about an old neighbor who used to live across the street from me growing up. Her and her husband would routinely drive around the neighbourhood in their little campervan that was stuffed full of trinkets and accumulated bits. As kids we’d make up stories about what went on in the house, letting our imaginations take hold. This song is a revisit to those tales, dark and light, and the world-building you naturally delve into when you’re young that as a creative adult I’m constantly trying to revert back to. 

13. “perhaps”
“perhaps” was written over a long period of time stretching from 2020 up until before recording final vocal takes. I’d been reading a lot of Octavia E. Butler, which had a profound effect on me—in particular her novel Parable of the Sower. Butler’s writing massively guided the concept of this song, which talks about imagining a world where formalities and inherently oppressive designs are banished.

14. “jump sludge”
This started as an attempt to experiment with weird rhythms. I [Lottie] wanted each part to individually have a disorientating pattern that doesn’t really make sense until everything plays together as one. The point is to feel dizzy, something that I wanted to emphasize and develop on throughout the song with choir stabs and arpeggiated melodies. I really love how all the parts to this piece feel disparate, yet make total sense together—especially the main motif that constantly rises and falls on prepared piano and banjo that in its chaos sounds like something from a Yellow Magic Orchestra record.

15. “sleep talk”
“sleep talk”—f.k.a. “mellotron improv”—was a chunk taken out of an hour-long improvised session. I was messing around with sounds and came across a doubled accordion that I took down a few octaves, which gave it a really growly bass tone, which we ended up using in the final edit. The song talks about having been with someone for a long time and celebrates the joy within that while recognizing its complications. There are contradictions in this loving relationship, with the positivity of comfort alongside the potential for mundanity in routine as we subconsciously exist “sleep-talking down the phone.”

16. “wasting”
I [Lottie] started writing this song with a simple rising bass line that I had going through a whammy octave pedal. At the time, I was listening to lots of music that utilized space as a tool for heaviness. Arranging and mixing this song was a really important process in allowing all the parts to shine. In this period of writing, I’d often write down dreams as soon as I woke up, and an image that became a common theme was of a house that was slowly disappearing into a sinkhole. I wanted to express the aliveness that exists both in nature and the house here, and how they both sort of feed off one another in order to survive.

On paper, the Vancouver-via-Calgary ensemble Crack Cloud feel like a pandemic-era hallucination. The septet (and change) wafted into the picture in 2020 with a unique take on the Canadian tradition of art-rock projects with more band members than there is space on most stages, swapping the twee-accented indie-pop of Broken Social Scene and New Pornographers for something straddling the line of first-wave punk and its immediate aftermath. Following 2022’s sophomore release “Tough Baby”, they’re already back with their third LP “Red Mile”, which is set to arrive in July, and the project’s second single does plenty to sharpen both their punk and post-punk influences. 

“The Medium” swerves from the lane of new wave the group explored on previous single “Blue Kite” and instead pairs Johnny Rotten–esque vocal snarls with an irreverently composed and polished bed of sound welcoming of cello, bells, and other baroque flourishes. As the bandmates take turns on lead vocals, the project feels like contemporary rock’s equivalent to Brockhampton, begging the question as to why Wu-Tang’s nebulous lineup never quite inspired guitar-based music.

“The Medium” by Crack Cloud from ‘Red Mile’, out July 26th on Jagjaguwar.

The Dublin band have released the second single from their album “Romance”, after ‘Starburster’ in April. ‘Favourite’ is a song that finds the band at their most Whipping Boy-esque with a sound that feels like a /throwback late 80s Irish indie rock and ’90s UK indie touchstones like early Stone Roses. It closes the record…the new Fontaines D.C. song called “Favourite” The new song features the band interpolating some Americana touchstones into their own brand of propulsive post-punk, giving some serious Springsteen and War on Drugs vibes to their venomous concoctions. When the chorus comes around, though, we get ourselves right back to OSFDC (old-school Fontaines D.C.) territory.

The song will be featured on the band’s upcoming fourth album, “Romance”, out August 23rd via XL Recordings, and it comes alongside a music video directed by the band and shot in Madrid. Cool city. I’ve been there.

The Irish band’s fourth record will arrive on August 23rd via XL Recordings.

Released in May 1974 following the break-up of Family, the album was the first project by Chapman and Whitney in what would become the band Streetwalkers.

Joining vocalist Roger Chapman and guitarist Charlie Whitney in the sessions were such luminaries as bassists John Wetton, Ric Grech, drummers Mike Giles and Ian Wallace, keyboard player Max Middleton and saxophonist Mel Collins.

This new expanded 50th Anniversary edition of this classic album has been newly remastered from the master tapes and also includes seven bonus tracks comprising ‘The Crack’, a rare single B-side, a previously unreleased mix of ‘Call Ya’ and a complete BBC Radio 1 John Peel session from June 1974. This new expanded remastered release also features an illustrated booklet with a new essay.

“Released in 1974 after their band Family disbanded, the Chapman-Whitney album “Streetwalkers” was the first post-Family album by Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney, following the late 1973 dissolution of that band.

Streetwalkers, the band, put out three consistent albums of funky booze rock in the mid- to late ’70s, but the origin of the band was not a mediocre affair. Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney led their previous outfit, Family, through eight LPs of limited success, breaking up the band in late 1973. But their partnership continued and months later they set out to record a one-off album as a duo. A number of colleagues contributed to the project, including alumni of Family (John Wetton, Rick Grech, Poli Palmer, Jim Cregan) and King Crimson (John Wetton, Mike Giles, Boz Burrell, Ian Wallace, Mel Collins). The resulting LP, “Streetwalkers”, was released in May 1974. The mixture of rockers and ballads was not Family; yet there was added depth to the music, stemming from the evolved songwriting and from the involvement of so many musicians. “Roxianna” and “Showbiz Joe” were part New Orleans jazz, continuing the Americana feel of Family’s last album. “Systematic Stealth,” a lovely textured ballad, and the slinky “Creature Feature” demonstrate the range of Roger Chapman’s unusual voice, from gravelly crooning to just plain gravel. The album’s most stunning moments, “Parisienne High Heels” and “Hangman,” are brooding and hair-raising in their energy and dark themes. Chapman and Whitney kept drummer Ian Wallace and horn player Mel Collins to form a touring group, adding bassist Phil Chen and guitarist Bob Tench. Only Tench would stay for the full-fledged Streetwalkers band, which embraced funk and hard rock in a less subtle way than this first venture. Whitney’s biting lapsteel guitar would become a signature sound of the Streetwalkers, but the songwriting never matched what was accomplished on this album.