The Fat Angel Sings

Karl Wallinger Welsh-born musician and composer also played with the Waterboys and worked on Sinéad O’Connor’s debut album singer-songwriter who was best known for World Party, his almost-solo outfit, has died aged 66, it has been announced. Wallinger first came to prominence as the touring keyboard player in The Waterboys although his role grew by the time of 1985’s “This Is The Sea” and Mike Scott has acknowledged his significant contribution in terms of arrangements and his skills as a multi-instrumentalist (Wallinger also co-wrote opener ‘Don’t Bang The Drum’).

Born Karl Edmond de Vere Wallinger in Prestatyn, Wales in 1957, he began his musical career as a keyboard player with various bands, before a job in music publishing and a brief stint as the musical director of The Rocky Horror Show. In 1983, Wallinger joined the Waterboys and played on their first three albums as a multi-instrumentalist, including on the folk-rock band’s biggest hit, “The Whole of the Moon”.

Karl left during the This Is The Sea tour to pursue his own solo career (what would become World Party) and the first album “Private Revolution” was released in 1986. His first album release under the World Party name, was released in 1987.

The second single from that long-player, ‘Ship of Fools’ was a significant success, especially in America where, remarkably, it reached No 27 in the Billboard Hot 100. In the UK, the song underachieved, peaking frustratingly just short of the UK top 40 at No 42.

Neither ‘Put The Message in the Box’ or ‘Way Down Now’ – both superb pop songs – from World Party’s undoubted 1990 masterpiece “Goodbye Jumbo” were a hit, which seems unfathomable now, but Wallinger was probably just too far ahead of the curve with his fusion of sixties songwriting idealism and one-man-band recording techniques.

But “Goodbye Jumbo” is a truly wonderful album. Following him because of the Waterboys connection There was something special about World Party being quite good. Karl Wallinger could write brilliant tunes with great hooks and lyrics, but it was the sound and the production that made everything work so well. ‘Ain’t Gonna Come ‘Til I’m Ready’ is pure perfection; so many tiny sonic details placed, layered and mixed with precision and Karl sings beautifully with that Prince-like falsetto. He could build a song for days, weeks, months with that studio craftsmanship and then write an achingly simple tune like ‘Love Street’ or the piano ballad ‘Sweet Soul Dream’.

Almost a year later, Ensign (part of Chrysalis) issued ‘Thank You World’ as the third and final UK single but any hope that it might give the album a late boost was dashed by it’s failure.

In spring 1993, a couple of years after the “Goodbye Jumbo” campaign ended, World Party returned with their third album “Bang!” and, somewhat against the odds, it was a commercial success! This was all down to the first single, the brilliantly languid and lovely “Is It Like Today?“, which was a hit. ‘Is It Like Today?’ actually only got to No 19, World Party’s “Bang!” entered the UK album charts at No 2 and only “Automatic For The People”, R.E.M.’s follow-up to “Out Of Time“, denied them a number one album.

On reflection, the second single, the funk-rock of ‘Give It All Away’, was perhaps not the song to shoulder the responsibility of maintaining this hard won territory inside the actual pop charts and World Party were back to their old ways of peaking just outside the top 40. It was borderline criminal that the commercially catchy pop of ‘Sooner Or Later’ wasn’t the second single from “Bang!” and by the time the sunny ‘All I Gave’ was released, in the autumn of 1993, the moment was gone.

The wait for the next album, “Egyptology”, seemed very long at the time, but was actually only four years. ‘She’s The One’, which was famously a No 1 hit for Robbie Williams in 1999, features on “Egyptology”, but was only released as a promotional single and at the time with Chrysalis opting for ‘Beautiful Dream’ as the lead track from the album “Egyptology” had its moments, weighed down by solid, if not outstanding numbers.

What we now know as World Party’s last album, “Dumbing Up“, was released on Karl’s own imprint Seaview label in October 2000. One single, ‘Here Comes The Future’, was put out to little fanfare. Not long after this, in early 2001, Wallinger suffered an aneurysm that left him unable to speak and it took almost half a decade for him to be well enough to make a return, albeit only on stage. The next decade featured a series of sporadic tours, normally in America, although World Party did support Steely Dan in Australia in 2007. They played festivals, vineyards and the like and by all accounts had a very pleasant time of it!

Karl was always disinterested in reissues, What Karl did approve, in 2012, which now seems like an amazing gift, was the release of “Arkeology“, a 70-track anthology (“it isn’t a box set” he insisted). This 5CD set contains no studio album tracks which illustrates just how prolific Karl was, even if he seemed reluctant to actually release anything as old B-sides, live cuts and covers,

“Arkeology” included what were new recordings at the time, songs like ‘Everybody’s Falling in Love’ and ‘Photograph’ (finished in 2011). In November 2012, World Party played their first UK show in 12 years at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

The Waterboys lead singer, Mike Scott, paid tribute to Wallinger on Monday in a social media post on X, calling him “one of the finest musicians I’ve ever known”. He added: “Travel on well my old friend.”

Rest in Peace, Karl Wallinger. thanks to sde for the words

“It’s 33 and a third years since the seminal band Giant Sand and its country cousin The Band Of… Blacky Ranchette entered the studio to lay down their second albums. Yes. Both bands had recorded their second albums each. Two sides of the multi-faceted hyper-productive Howe Gelb. “I was turning 28,” he recalls, “and had been wanting to make and release albums since my early 20s, but only recently had figured out how. It was time to make up for lost time.”

Time was of the essence. That thin line between then and now has seen journeymen Giant Sand release 27-ish albums, their latest, ‘Recounting The Ballad Of The Thin Line Men’ turning the clock back to 1986’s ‘Ballad Of A Thin Line Man’, picking over the bones and making a whole new soup.

All these years on, the latest incarnation of Giant Sand: Howe Gelb (guitars, piano) Tommy Larkins (drums) and Thøger Lund (bass), have dusted off the old vinyl and re-imagined those heady days – they’ve polished these buried gems, reignited some truculent tirades and rekindled an ageless angst. The revamp re-orders the tracks, drops a couple and adds ‘Reptillian’, a previously lost song hailing from their album’s 25th anniversary re-issue, a tune that opens proceedings and basks in all its crinkly glory. There’s also two takes of ‘Tantamount’. The unique thing about Giant Sand’ is they make it all their own, they sound like no-one else. The songs remain the same, but somehow completely different. Howe: “We were a fine storm. The greatest storm in terms of tumultuous velocity and pelting bluster. It proved unstoppable… for a minute”.

Mitski has covered the Pete Seeger–popularized, Peter La Farge-written, environmentally-conscious folk song “Coyote, My Little Brother” for the Spotify Singles series, along with a stripped-back acoustic version of her own “Buffalo Replaced.” Mitski has covered the environmentally-conscious folk song “Coyote, My Little Brother” at least a couple times before, including at an acoustic NYC show and on BBC Radio 2 last fall, 

The stripped-back acoustic version of her own “Buffalo Replaced” taken from “The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We”, They were recorded in NYC with frequent collaborator/producer Patrick Hyland on acoustic guitar and Jeni Magaña on double bass, the same line-up she had at those acoustic shows 

Mitski’s cover of “Coyote, My Little Brother” original by Pete Seeger.

This week, Cola shared a new song, “Bitter Melon,” via a lyric video. The single is out now via Fire Talk and is available as a flexi disc (accompanied by a zine).

Cola consists of ex-Ought members Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy and Evan Cartwright (drummer with U.S. Girls and The Weather Station). Their debut album, “Deep In View”, was released in 2022.

Montreal band Cola are back with this laid back new single. Says frontman Tim Darcy: “

Darcy had this to say about the new song in a press release: “This one started with a demo brought in by Ben. The vocals and lyrics came naturally from the backlit, brooding atmosphere of the music. I wrote what was almost a piece of fiction (fleshed out in the accompanying zine we’ve released) where a person is up in the middle of the night studying ‘the gloss’—additional comments written in the margins of a book. In my mind the text was like the rind of a fruit surrounding something, maybe even written at an earlier point by the reader themselves. The motorik drums and chiming guitars are guided by the bass on this song, something not unusual for us but the bass really provides a compelling longform melody on this song. The track has the energy of a full moon or some kind of fertile dark / gaia-facing productive spirit to me.”

Cola, Out now on Fire Talk.

UK darkwave duo The KVB release their new album “Tremors” in April and new single “Overload” pairs pulsing synths, acoustic guitars and breathy vocals for an alluring, windswept, ’80s goth vibe.

Will be out April 5 via Invada Records. The band says this one has “expanded on previous album themes of dystopia, apocalypse and the human condition, but with a more pessimistic outlook and deeper distrust than before. It also touches on themes of loss, and the resistance, lament and acceptance of inevitable change,” all via their brand of new wave noir.

The new single from the album is “Overload,” which pairs pulsing synths, acoustic guitars and breathy vocals for an alluring, windswept, ’80s goth vibe. “Overload embodies the dystopian pop aesthetic of the album,” say The KVB. “It’s about the dilemmas of the creative process, being dependent on when inspiration strikes, never being content with your own creations and striving to make something new and better. Ultimately, it’s relinquishing fear of failure, and asserting the desire to create.”

‘Tremors’ released worldwide via Invada Records on 5th April 2024

The former Loft and Weather Prophets frontman rescues deep cuts from his past and reworks them for a wonderful new album. “Twenty Twenty-Four” marks the 40th anniversary of Pete Astor’s musical career, which started with early Creation Records bands The Loft and The Weather Prophets, and later The Wisdom of Harry (who were signed to Matador) and a long and rewarding solo career. To mark the occasion, he’s gone back through his discography to re-record and rework a few songs. To help him do it, he’s got an amazing band: drummer Ian Button (Death in Vegas, Go Kart Mozart), bassist Andy Lewis (Paul Weller), guitarist Wilson Neil Scott (Felt, Everything But the Girl) and keyboardist Sean Read (Beth Orton, Iggy Pop, Edwyn Collins, etc).

Where most artists would pick their most well-known material, Astor eschews singles like The Loft’s “Up and Down the Slope” and The Weather Prophets’ “Why Does the Rain” in favour of songs that meant more to him and that he felt would benefit from dusting off and getting a new coat of paint. “Throughout this record I was able to revisit the songs,” Astor says in the album’s detailed, thoughtful liner notes, “which allowed me to sit inside what I’d written in a way that I felt I was able to balance the way that they still made sense to me now, looking to the future and that big, new country, the past.”

Astor’s voice has aged like a fine wine, and I don’t think he’s ever made a better-sounding album; rich and warm with inspired production touches like the arpeggiated synths and spaghetti western guitars on one-chord-wonder “Chinese Cadillac” that was originally a Weather Prophets b-side, and the sun-dappled folk of “The Emperor, The Dealer and The Birthday Boy” (originally on his 1991 solo album, “Zoo”). He’s managed to flip a few of his own forgotten properties into something truly special. Sometimes, the best cuts are the deepest.

released March 15th, 2024

James Hoare of Veronica Falls, Ultimate Painting and The Proper Ornaments has a new solo project called Penny Arcade and is gearing up to release his debut album. It’s titled “Backwater Collage” and will be out May 3rd via Tapete, It is his first new music in four years.

James Hoare said about the Track: “Don’t Cry No Tears” was one of the last songs written for the record. I had the chord sequence knocking around for awhile then one day I realised what the song was about and wrote the lyrics down quickly. The lyrics are partly self referential and in part a message to someone else. My friend Toby Kidd played guitar on the track and helped with the arrangement. I used a guiro effect on a late 70’s Roland drum machine and built the song around that. The initial recording was done over the space of a couple of hours with the end section done later on, layering up organs and guitars.”

Both “Don’t Cry No Tears” and the album’s opening track, “Jona,” are warm, melodic and gently psychedelic, and if you have liked any of Hoare’s other projects you’ll dig this. 

Hailing from a place of ancient mariners’ secret coves and vast moors beaten by the wind and rain, “Backwater Collage” is James Hoare’s first solo album under the name of Penny Arcade. Despite leaving London for the West country he grew up in, the Englishman is no stranger to the scene.

For this dreamy, hand-stitched record, Hoare has taken his time. Maybe because he had to rescue his songs from various recording sessions tinged with a number of mishaps he amusedly admits he is accustomed to: broken multitracks, failing tape machines, rarely available drummers living in the capital. The eleven intimate and solitary songs which make up the album, delivered in the greatest home recording tradition, are nonetheless cautiously produced. James unfurls pure, uncluttered melodies in which his gentle, melancholic voice mingles with smooth, warm vocals by Nathalia Bruno. Barely saturated guitar solos sometimes disrupt the clear, unpolished musical line. Hopping onboard, longtime friend Max Claps has added keyboard parts which manage to embrace the minimal nostalgia of the tracks while preventing any teary pathos. Similar to Jack Name or Syd Barrett – only less psychedelic – in terms of songwriting and stripped back atmosphere, Hoare is sitting on the Velvet Underground’s black-and-white sofa and gives his album a subterranean feel.

At times restless but light-footed, deprived of any unnecessary effects, the record follows in the steps of a less noisy but just as raw and unadorned Jesus and Mary Chain. With “Backwater Collage”, alone at the helm under a stormy sky, James Hoare invites his listeners to settle in the sheltered comfort of a cup of tea.

Track is taken from the upcoming album “Backwater Collage” out May 3rd 2024!

King Crimson’s 1969 debut album, “In The Court of the Crimson King”, is being celebrated with a brand new star-studded tribute album.

“Reimagining The Court Of The Crimson King” will feature a variety of artists reinterpreting the album’s classic tunes. Those contributing to the record include King Crimson alumni Mel Collins and Jakko M. Jakszyk, as well as guitarist Chris Poland, Deep Purple‘s Ian Paice, Rainbow‘s Joe Lynn Turner, guitarist Marty Friedman, Dream Theater‘s James LaBrie and drummer Carmine Appice.

Fans are getting their first preview of the record with the release of the album’s lead off classic track, “21st Century Schizoid Man,” featuring vocals by Todd Rundgren and Arthur “God Of Hellfire” Brown, Collins on sax, Poland on guitar and Paice on drums.

“Reimagining The Court Of The Crimson King” will be released on April 19th digitally and on CD with two bonus tracks.

“21st Century Schizoid Man” feat. Todd Rundgren, Arthur Brown, Mel Collins, Chris Poland & Ian Paice
“I Talk To The Wind” feat. Mel Collins, Django Jakszyk & Jakko M Jakszyk
“Epitaph” feat. Alan Davey, Paul Rudolph, Nik Turner, Adam Hamilton & Danny Faulkner
“Moonchild” feat. Joe Lynn Turner, Marty Friedman, Jah Wobble & Chester Thompson
“The Court Of The Crimson King” feat. James LaBrie, Carmine Appice & Steve Hillage

Bonus Tracks
“21st Century Schizoid Man” feat. Arthur Brown, Brian Auger, Chris Poland & Ian Paice
“21st Century Schizoid Man” (Instrumental Version)

One of the hardest working singer-songwriters in the game is named Katie Crutchfield.

She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead her here, but after six critically acclaimed albums, she’s never felt more confident in herself as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo-fi folk to lush alt-tinged country, her voice has always remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. Much like Carson McCullers’s Mick Kelly, determined in her desires and convictions, ready to tell whoever will listen.

And after years of being sober and stable in Kansas City-after years of sacrificing herself to her work and the road-Crutchfield has arrived at her most potent songwriting yet.

On her new album, “Tigers Blood”, Crutchfield emerges as a powerhouse-an ethnologist of the self-forever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses. But now she’s arriving at revelations and she ain’t holding them back.

‘Tigers Blood’, out on March 22nd, 2024