Though not a million miles away sonically from her 2017 debut album ‘Weighing Of The Heart’, Nabihah Iqbal’s second long player ‘Dreamer’ does sound like the London based musician, producer and DJ has taken on a new creative direction, deconstructing her trademark sound of electronic shoegaze and dreamy synth-pop into its core elements. While sounding more mature and confident than its predecessor, the record also shows more vulnerability, as if past struggles (among them stolen equipment and a family emergency during the pandemic) have left her visibly exposed. The ethereal, otherworldly opener “In Light” is followed by a catchy dream pop number, the aptly titled “Dreamer”, before “This World Couldn’t See Us” introduces more electronic elements and spoken vocals without interrupting the sonic theme of melancholy that is undisputedly making its mark throughout the entire the album.
‘Dreamer’ sounds like it was written by someone who feels just as at home at an intimate gig as at a rave, but it manages to combine Iqbal’s influences so effortlessly that the album flows and never strays from what it set out to do, despite featuring tracks as wildly different as the introspective, stripped back “Lilac Twilight”, the haunting, beatless “Sweet Emotion (Lost In Devotion)” and the anthemic, trance influenced “Sky River”; one of the songs on the album that showcases her love for dance music. Awash with ambient synth pads, reverb laden guitars, textured melodies and big beats, ‘Dreamer’ manages to please both stargazers and night-time ravers. A truly beautiful record by an artist who is at a creative peak in her career.
With a family connection between them, the Chicago indie bands Horsegirl and Lifeguard have always been close. We would expect that Horsegirl guitarist and vocalist Penelope Lowenstein and her brother, Lifeguard drummer Isaac Lowenstein, would have had similar musical experiences growing up. The two bands are currently stablemates on Matador Records and they also are both enthusiastic about acknowledging their influences, such as when Lifeguard covered The Jam earlier this year. Now they have released a joint effort, covering The Stone Roses’ “I Wanna Be Adored.”
One of the many amazing things about The Stone Roses’ debut album is its certainty, right from this opening track. As soon as Mani’s bassline emerges from the sound soup at the start no doubt is broached. The Stone Roses do not want to become the biggest band in the world. They already are, but perhaps the world does not know it yet. Ian Brown and John Squire’s writing conceives of a world where there is no downside to being exalted, only how long it takes to be achieved.
1989 was a world without internet social media, the world was much less wary of the downsides of parasocial interactions. Perhaps it is natural then that Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein’s vocals are much less enthusiastic about the chance of being virtually or actually followed by those who love their work. Overall the tone is darker than the original. The musicianship is excellent but there is no hiding that the bands do not have the certainty of their predecessors, as ready for the world of 2023 as the original was for its time.
The Black Delta Movement Hailing from Kingston-Upon-Hull, could be the most inspired psychedelic heavy blues rock band we’ve encountered for some time in the UK. “The album’s a love letter to the band and all the emotions that come with it,” explains Matt Burr, chief creative force behind both this album, “Recovery Effects”, and the outfit behind it. This time recruiting celebrated guitar slinger Barrie Cadogan, also known as the frontman in Little Barrie, he joins familiar faces in bassist Lewis Wharton and Tony Coote on drums, with legendary producer Malcolm Catto (The Heliocentrics) also stepping up.
The result is intoxicating, it’s gritty, it’s weird and at times space-y, it feels like you’ve stepped into a dive bar at the right time to experience something raw, deep, hypnotic, but constantly evolving and engaging. A record that does what records should.
The Black Delta Movement’s new album ‘Recovery Effects’, out April 14 on Fuzz Club
“The brief, reflective ‘Another Year Gone’ pairs rueful, dissociative lyrics with a jauntily vintage sunshine-pop instrumental.” Flood Magazine “‘Another Year Gone’ is an anthem for these disorienting times. It’s a narrative of contrasts—between those grappling with stress, fear, and economic hardship, and those who profited from the chaos. Above all, this song is a musical embrace, a reassurance to hold close the ones you love and to tell them that, despite the world’s turmoil, everything will be okay.” – Rishi Dhir
Montreal’s Elephant Stone close out 2023 with ‘Another Year Gone’, the latest single from their upcoming ‘Back Into the Dream’ LP out February 23rd! 2024
The Telescopes have shared ‘(In The) Hidden Fields’, the second single from their incoming album ‘Growing Eyes Becoming String’ out February 9th on Fuzz Club Records Watch the video and pre-order the album on vinyl and CD now!
“This track was written before our 2015 album “Hidden Fields”. The lyrics originally accompanied a drawing I did of eyes growing in a field which was sold to a collector around the time. I managed to dig up a scan of the drawing and used that to make a DIY visualiser for the track, which feels like a nice cross between Fluxus art, Dogma film, early educational TV and the video diary of a psychopath…” – Stephen Lawrie
‘(In The) Hidden Fields’ is lifted from The Telescopes’ sixteenth studio album ‘Growing Eyes Becoming String’, out February 9th 2024 on Fuzz Club.
With Beach Fossils being one of the bands we’ve always come to champion over recent years. However, when on the first hearing of new album ‘Bunny’ floating along the speakers, we knew we were in for something special.
Lead single “Don’t Fade Away” is Beach Fossils at their very best – a perfect indie-pop track whose infectious melody you’ll be humming non-stop. Similarly with “Sleeping On My Own” and “Tough Love”, tracks that have so much jangle they’ll scratch any C86 (or should I say C23) itch.
Elsewhere on the album, “Anything Is Anything”, “Feel So High” and “Numb” all skirt the line of treading into shoegaze, with the latter culminating in an expansive and rousing wall of sound. “Run To The Moon”s slide guitar results in Slowdive-meets-country (yes it works), whilst “(Just Like The) Setting Sun” is a shimmering slice of dream-pop. As for “Dare Me” and “Seconds”, both fit nicely into the garage/post-punky sound Beach Fossils carved out on their second record ‘Clash The Truth’.
With Beach Fossils’ music in the past, there was always a sense that Dustin Payseur was making music that explored the nostalgia of a period he wasn’t able to experience firsthand. But with ‘Bunny’, Payseur is able to look back at Beach Fossils as a whole and reminisce on a nostalgia that he himself created. In turn, this results in a flawless Beach Fossils record that is undoubtedly their best yet.
“I’m always trying to do the exact opposite of what I’ve done in the past. We did the self-titled album and the ‘What A Pleasure’ EP, which were more relaxed and dreamy. Then I wanted to do something that represented the live Beach Fossils more and had more of the punk and post-punk stylings in it, so we did ‘Clash The Truth’. Then the opposite of that was something grand – the opposite of what Beach Fossils was – leaning into the baroque pop influences with strings and saxophone and pedal steel and harpsichord- just seeing how far we can take our sound.
When we started working on ‘Bunny’, I didn’t know what to do at first, but what felt the most natural was to go minimal – back to the original Beach Fossils sound – but pushing our song structure as best it can be and pushing ourselves to create something that had more pop sensibilities that we had ignored in the past.” Dustin Payseur (Beach Fossils).
We’re over the moon to have influential dream-pop band Beach Fossils back with a new album “Bunny” (2023) continues the stunning evolution of Beach Fossils’ sound, pulling elements from the jangly melancholy of the self-titled debut “Beach Fossils” (2010) and “What a Pleasure” (2011), the gritty, post-punk inspired tracks from “Clash the Truth” (2013), and the lush arrangements of “Somersault” (2017).
New Zealand-based indie legends The Veils returned after a seven year long absence with a new double album ‘…And Out of the Void Came Love’ and a single ‘No Limit of Stars’ to whet the appetite.
The single is a rich, luxurious delight – delivered with a preacher-like intensity that recalls Nick Cave on the pulpit, and cloaked in an anthemic statuesque finery with sweeping strings and shimmering, sparkling instrumentation. This is a grand presentation: an ebbing and flowing sonic embrace with an endless horizon and a celestial glory. ‘No Limit of Stars’ has the passion and euphoric glory of The National with an antipodean flavour that nods to the pop sensibilities of The Chills.
Finn Andrews says the track reflects the themes of his song writing going into recording the new album:
…the certainty of death, the power of new life, and the dizziness of contemplating your place in an unknowably vast cosmos.
Indeed, the song is expansive and thrilling: bold and imperial with a presence as awe-inspiring as the limitless universe.
Andrews is an enigmatic figure who was signed to Rough Trade at the age of sixteen – is a mesmerising figure fronting the band in the accompanying video directed by Alexander Gandar and produced by FrithArmstrong. Daubed in lush colours and against a stunning backdrop of the night skies and an engrossing melange of images projected on a screen, it is a compelling and immersive film that perfectly matches the celestial music. The band’s absence was the result of a series of unfortunate events.
Following the release of The Veils’ last album ‘Total Depravity’, Andrews released a solo album and began a worldwide tour. One night, while lashing out at a particularly intense moment on piano, he broke his wrist on stage: It sounds wild and Jerry Lee Lewis-esque, but it was an absolute fucking nightmare, e played on and finished the rest of the tour, but it wasn’t until he got it examined much later that he realized what a bad move that was. “
The scaphoid bone in my wrist had died, which I didn’t know was possible. My sister said that at least it was a really ‘on brand’ injury for me. Andrews’s convalescence meant a lengthy hiatus from touring, so he stayed at home and wrote songs. I was in a cast and couldn’t use my right hand. I sang the melody lines, then recorded the right hand piano part, then the left hand part. It might have been an interesting, avant-garde process if it wasn’t also just profoundly annoying.
The years of pent up creativity has resulted in a double album, beautifully entitled ‘And Out Of The Void Came Love’, hinting at a powerful resolve to the wilderness years. It is an album intended to be listened to in two sittings with a short break in the middle, or as Andrews instructs:
The Veils are:
Finn Andrews – Vocals and Guitar Cass Basil – Bass Tom Healy – Pedal steel Joe McCallum – Drums Liam Gerrard – Piano
In the past three-plus years, Australia’s King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard has self-released nine studio albums and more than a dozen live, remix, and demo collections, grown its audience by a factor of at least 10, jumping from clubs and theatre’s to packed shows in historic venues such as New York’s Forest Hills Tennis Stadium and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl, and somehow managed to find time to function as, you know, actual human beings with spouses, girlfriends, children, and lives not 102% devoted to the all-consuming art of music-making.
For many bands, creating that art can often feel more like work than pleasure. For King Gizzard, comprised of multi-instrumentalists Stu Mackenzie, Joey Walker, Ambrose Kenny-Smith, and Cook Craig, bassist Lucas Harwood, and drummer Michael “Cavs” Cavanagh, it’s nothing but fun and adventure. But where does a band in this privileged position go from there? Play the same hits every summer on the festival circuit? Make big bucks writing tracks for pop stars? No, that would be far too easy, and King Gizzard doesn’t do easy. Instead, its six members have pushed their maximalist aesthetic to a level simply unequaled by any of their contemporaries and now stand largely alone at the vanguard of forward-thinking modern music. After all, if you can’t challenge yourself to do something nobody else has done before, why bother in the first place?
“The maximalist aspect is probably just tied into our personalities and who we are,” chuckles Mackenzie over the phone from his home outside Melbourne. “King Gizzard definitely has a maximalist energy, generally. There isn’t a lot of subtlety. That’s not our strong point. From time to time, we’ll probably exercise it a little bit, but I don’t think that’s our resting place.”
With the June release “PetroDragonic Apocalypse or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation” and “The Silver Cord“, due Friday, King Gizzard has created two distinct but related albums out of an idiosyncratically specific conceptual framework — both are seven tracks long, with each song in the running order sharing musical and/or lyrical elements with its corresponding song on the other project. In both cases, each album’s names, song titles, and lyrics were written before a note of music was recorded, giving them time to seep into the band’s collective unconscious long before it turned on the amps.
And while “PetroDragonic” is 48 breathless minutes of thrash, prog, and metal sound tracking a linear tale of planetary destruction at the hand of an unstoppable dragon, “The Silver Cord” is a more nuanced reflection on the circle of life, its 88 minutes bursting at the seams with a studio’s worth of synthesizers and a litany of references to ancient gods and goddesses. “We were thinking about the soul and the spirit and existentialism and why we’re here, birth and death, and rebirth and spirituality,” Mackenzie says. KingGizzard has also edited those “extended mixes” into a more digestible 28-minute edition of “The Silver Cord”, in effect serving as its own remixers in the grand traditions of dance music pioneers such as Giorgio Moroder and Arthur Baker (for reference, opener “Theia” is 20:42 on the long version and 3:24 on the edit).
For fans more partial to Gizzard’s usual guitar-based rock’n’roll creations, “The Silver Cord” will be a dizzying listen, and one during which you’ll discover something new every time. One minute you feel like you’re on ecstasy in the Coachella dance tent (“Set” approximates the Cheshire cat-grinning, rhythmic syncopation of late ‘90s Underworld, with rapping by Kenny-Smith) or a slam-dancing in an underground leather bar (“Gilgamesh” conjures vein-bulging industrial dance/rock a la Nine Inch Nails). The next, you’re floating downstream with your stomach rumbling (“Extinction” is dominated by austere three-note trills that would have terrified Middle Ages aesthetes if played on a church pipe organ) or descending through the alien landscapes of a distant planet (the title track alternates between disturbing electronic vocalizations and moments of Autotuned, major-key beauty).
There are nods to the “hoot hoot” funhouse mirrors and fast-approaching freight train whistles of Kraftwerk, the smooth, synthetic soundscapes of Air, the hyperactive side of Daft Punk circa the TRON:Legacy soundtrack, LTJ Bukem/DJ Hype-style drum and bass, jungle, trance, and Detroit techno. Devotees will also have a field day identifying common elements shared between “Petro” and “The Silver Cord” — the same riffs and melodies turn up in multiple songs, albeit in totally unique musical circumstances, and turns of phrase about witchcraft, Gila monsters, and flamethrowers are woven throughout both albums.
Those with especially astute ears will be able to derive the origin of other shared musical tidbits as Gizzard’s increasingly jam-oriented live shows — for example, the key “Extinction” lyric “I can see everything I can be in the music” was sung on stage by Kenny-Smith as recently as three months ago. The stories of the albums themselves are now even more open to interpretation when viewed as companions, a notion Walker describes as Gizzard’s “main M.O: be didactic about what we want to get across, but leave it open for the fans to create their own lore surrounding what it’s all about. That’s really fun, and it’s definitely an intention of ours.”
It wasn’t clear from the beginning that “The Silver Cord” would be released in long and short forms, but that approach allowed the band to indulge its love of going to many places at once. In typical Gizzard fashion, there are also some musical surprises hidden on the vinyl version of the short “Silver Cord“, if you know where to look. “When we were recording, we weren’t thinking too much about arrangement,” Mackenzie says. “We were looking for what we call endless boogies — when you’re in the pocket and it feels like whatever you’re doing could go forever, like Can or Neu!. We were in there for hours on end just trying to find those pockets and exist in them. Within those endless boogies, we found nuggets that felt like quote-unquote songs, or what normal people think of as songs — not people like us who are happy for a song to just be 20 minutes of ambience.”
“Making two versions was incredibly liberating and freeing,” he continues. “It’s really tied up into the DNA of what the record is, because instead of making one decision for a song, we could make a bunch of decisions and find places for them. It always hurts to mutilate your song, but this time, we could kind of clone it and let it go in two different directions at once, which felt really fun. Maybe we’ll do this again one day.”
It’s all even more impressive given the band members’ admitted lack of skill on electronic instruments, which they’d really only featured once before when assembling the 2021 synth album“Butterfly 3000“remotely during COVID-19 travel restrictions.
“At that point, “Butterfly” was the most electronic record that we’d made,” says Mackenzie, who is partial to the Juno 60 the band bought while making the 2014 album “Oddments”. “But it was a nightmare trying to figure out how to play it, because it was pieced together part by part during the pandemic. Lately, our shows have become more improvised and loose. We’re listening to each other more, which makes it like spontaneous creation, but that’s with drums and guitars. We thought, how do we do that with electronic instruments? How do we birth two albums from the same world and then let them grow into their own shapes and personalities?”
The answer, as with “Petro” and guitars, was for band members to plug in every possible piece of synth-related gear they could find in their studio, press “record,” and lock in on the ensuing mayhem. Mackenzie recalls, “We did spend several days making very shit music. There were definitely times when I thought, I don’t think this is gonna work. This is just not very good (laughs).” The vibe changed once band members realized they were inhabiting the same dynamic ranges they do on stage, even though they were playing completely different gear.
“Lukey did still play the bass synth on this whole album, so he was still occupying his usual spot,” Mackenzie says. “Same with Cavs, even though he was playing an electronic drum kit. Joe and I are doing most of the top-line melodic stuff, and we’re harmonizing with each other a lot. Cookie and Amby are very much filling in the body of the song. We’re not doing crazy scales or moving our fingers real fast along the keyboard or anything. There’s no virtuosic playing here. If there is a skill in it, it’s things we’ve learned playing other instruments. We still are in our regular little niches, which made it feel like we knew what we were doing.”
What’s more, Mackenzie says the recorded-live aspect of “The Silver Cord” could lead to its material one day making it into the Gizzard concert repertoire, in contrast with the songs on “Butterfly“, only one of which (“Shanghai”) has ever been performed.
“I do think that we will find a way to play a lot of this material,” he says, acknowledging uneven attempts to incorporate a synth workstation into Gizzard’s summer 2023 shows. “Once we crack the nut on one of these songs, it’s possible we’ll crack the nut on all seven of them simultaneously. When we tried to figure out how to play the “Butterfly” songs and rehearse them as a band, we were instantly demoralized and it’s been very hard to go back there and pick it up. That was the seed to do something that just felt more straightforward in that particular sense, and more like a band. We’re a fucking band — let’s play like a band.”
If anything, “Petro” and “The Silver Cord” (the band’s 24th and 25th studio albums since its 2010 formation) reinforce what has become a kaleidoscope Gizzard listening experience — there’s truly something for everyone not only within the discography but also at a concert. “If you’re coming to a Gizz show, you probably wouldn’t have only listened to one of our albums,” Cavanagh says with a laugh. “You would have listened to at least two, and they’re all different. I always think about the people who didn’t want whatever we’ve just put out, but that’s what they got. It’s Gizz, so you’ve just got to prepare yourself for anything.”
It’s an idea the members of King Gizzard deal with on a daily basis, even though their lives are now being planned out some 18 months in advance. Although it was in the studio recording new music every day for a week earlier this month, the band is presently on a rare extended break from touring, which will last until next spring. Its summer 2024 itinerary includes another round of marathon three-hour shows at such locales as Forest Hills, the already sold-out 9,200-capacity Huntington Bank Pavilion outside Chicago, and the 21,600-capacity Gorge Amphitheater outside Seattle, the largest venue it has ever played in North America.
“I can’t just, like, put everything down. It’s not the way my brain is wired,” says Mackenzie, who is expecting his second child any day now. “If I stop making music, I start frantically doing some other non-productive activity (laughs). We’ve got a few projects on the go — not anywhere near completion or anything, but a couple of spinning plates.”
Mackenzie confirms it is “totally possible” King Gizzard will have a new album out by next summer, but even that hint of uncertainty feels unusual for him. “By the time it gets to October, I feel like I’ve got a very solid plan of how the releases are going to sit for the following year,” he reports. “As I’m here now thinking about next year, it’s just going to be what it’ll be. I’m saying that now. I might not be saying that tomorrow. Sometimes you’ve got to make your future and make your reality, and other times you’ve got to sit there cross-legged in Buddha pose and wait for the lightning to strike you. I think both methods in balance and harmony are valid.”
However it keeps happening, King Gizzard is actualizing even the zaniest ideas at an impossibly high level, and more and more fans keep jumping aboard the ride (if it’s any measure, the band’s robust Reddit feed has grown by 24,000 members alone in the past year). “From where I’m sitting, honestly, it all feels very abstract,” Mackenzie admits. “It’s insanely flattering and humbling and just freaky, but it sometimes feels like it’s happening to someone else and I’m just acting this part. Really, I’m extremely grateful, because we get energy from the whole thing. It’s like a beautiful spiral of positivity. As long as people are willing to come watch us play, I’m pretty sure we’re going to just keep playing.”
A brand new album of unreleased material from Black Country, New Road, recorded at the historic music venue Bush Hall, in London at a series of unique shows at the end of December 2022. Mixed by John Parish and mastered by Christian Wright at Abbey Road, the new album and material marks a new chapter for the band as a six-piece.
Last month, Black Country, New Road released a concert film called “Live at Bush Hall”. A new live album featuring recordings of all new songs from three shows at London’s Bush Hall last December is being released. It’s out digitally on March 24th and physically on May 26th via Ninja Tune.
The live album follows “Ants From Up There”, which featured frontman Isaac Wood but came out shortly after his departure from the group. The new songs were written by remaining members Tyler Hyde (bass, vocals), May Kershaw (piano, vocals), Jockstrap’s Georgia Ellery (violin, vocals), Lewis Evans (saxophone, vocals), Luke Mark (guitar), and Charlie Wayne (drums).
Fresh from the success of ‘Ants From Up There’ and with a full touring schedule ahead of them in 2022, Black Country, New Road aka Lewis Evans, May Kershaw, Georgia Ellery, Luke Mark, Tyler Hyde and Charlie Wayne, wrote an entire new set of material to perform. Playing to swelling crowds at festivals, including triumphant performances at Primavera, Green Man and Fuji Rock, they entered a new musical phase as they navigated and developed songs that were just weeks old. They also toured the US and headlined two sold-out shows in New York. These new performances have seen the band garner widespread support from across the board with Rolling Stone UK describing their Green Man set as “unmissable”, and the Guardian going on to say that they were “greeted by something close to rapture.” These performances have also attracted a profile from the NY Times, multiple glowing live reviews, and a nomination for Best Live Performer at the AIM Independent Music Awards last year.
The Fat Angel Sings 