The Fat Angel Sings

Linked to the Ziggy Stardust story, Mott’s rendition of ‘All The Young Dudes’ remains the definitive version of David’s masterpiece. The album proved inspirational & is still a record that excites & resonates decades later. Over the years, Mott The Hoople has been cited as an inspiration by Queen, The Clash, Kiss, Primal Scream, Motley Crue, Cheap Trick & Def Leppard, whose frontman Joe Elliott remains a devoted fan.

Mott The Hoople occupies a unique place in the annals of international rock music. Oozing style, attitude & unpredictability, the band recorded a peerless legacy of songs combining homage, honesty & killer hooks. As Mott’s focal point, lead singer Ian Hunter was also among one of the toughest & most inventive writers of the early Seventies.

‘All The Young Dudes’, Mott’s 5th studio album, remains a special & vital record. Released in the UK on 8th September 1972, the title track (penned by David Bowie) became their highest charting hit single. Also including a spritely, ‘definitive’ cover of Lou Reed’s classic ‘Sweet Jane’, the inventive & suggestive ‘Momma’s Little Jewel’, the Stones-styled ‘Jerkin’ Crocus’ & Mick Ralphs’ heartfelt ‘Ready For Love’, the album has been termed “the ultimate document of an era.

* 2LP In Gatefold Sleeve – LP1 Remastered Album / LP2 Rare Mixes & Session Tracks, includes *12″ Single, With Rare ‘Unlocked Cars’ Version Of ‘All The Young Dudes’ + ‘One Of The Boys’ (Us Single Version)

* 72- Page Hardback Book With Liner Notes By Mott The Hoople & Ian Hunter Biographer Campbell Devine. 2 Posters, 3 Art Prints, ‘Sea Divers’ Fan Club Card & An Individually Numbered Certificate

“Mott the Hoople was the greatest rock’n’roll band ever.” JOE ELLIOTT (DEF LEPPARD)

“Raw, fun, angry, glorious & jagged… Mott was everything.” BRIAN MAY (QUEEN)

“If it hadn’t been for Mott, there would be no us.” MICK JONES (THE CLASH)

Rosali Middleman’s 2021 album “No Medium” is one of those great albums that kinda crept up on us–it was more of a slow-burning rise than an Event Album–but she’s since signed to Merge Records, built up a lot of anticipation for new music, and her new album “Bite Down” does already kind of feel like an event.

Rosali makes songs that take their time in revealing their full power. What might appear to be restrained, introspective compositions will stretch slowly outward, snagging your attention with a sideways guitar lead or an exceptionally raw lyric you didn’t catch the first time around. Her softly glowing music is deceptively fluid, able to appear patient and refined at the edge of unraveling.

Rosali made it with the same band that she made “No Medium” with, David Nance and Mowed Sound (who also released their own new album last month), and though they didn’t know each other very well when they made “No Medium“, they’ve since become super close, and it sounds like “Bite Down” was more collaborative from the start than its predecessor. “When we went to make this record, I went in with the songs less developed than I normally would because I wanted it to be a band record,” Rosali said.

Rosali and David Nance have a shared love of Neil Young, and “Bite Down‘s” mix of intimate folk music and electrified jams has already gotten its fair share of Crazy Horse comparisons, while Rosali’s warm, soaring voice has echoes of Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny (and, on “My Kind,” sounds a little like Stevie Nicks). With comparisons like those, it probably comes as no surprise that “Bite Down” sounds like something that could’ve come out circa 1967-1973, and it has the same transportive quality that the best folk rock albums from that era did. It doesn’t take you back in time so much as it takes you to another world entirely.

A lot of great indie albums came out last week, and this is the standout. This is coming from a huge fan of Waxahachie who put out a brilliant new album. “Bite Down” has everything: great music, great lyrics and a down to earth vibe.

“Big Sigh” is not only the name of Marika Hackman’s wonderful fourth album, it’s also a pretty perfect two-word descriptor for it. There’s a haze of melancholy that infiltrates everything on the album, from the lyrics, to the melodies, arrangements and Marika’s breathy vocals which are probably the biggest sigh of them all. It also plays like a comedown from 2019’s “Any Human Friend”, an album that was fun, extremely sex-positive, and found Hackman very comfortable in her own skin. “Big Sigh” feels like a hangover, or at least waking up with a shock wondering “what have I done?” Strings swirl around her like 1000 doubts on tracks like “No Caffeine” where she tries to distract her way out of tailspin: “Take a day off work / Call your mum / Have a glass of wine / Stay away from fun / Pretend like you don’t care.” At first glance “Big Sigh” is most like her first, 2015’s “We Slept at Last“, windswept and atmospheric, but with the skill, confidence and nuance that comes with nine more years of life.

Marika played every instrument on the album — apart from brass and strings — and clearly learned a lot making her previous records (including 2020’s “Covers”). You can hear echoes of her second and third albums’ sound here even if it’s employed in very different ways, including subtle electronics that bubble under many of the songs. For those missing the zesty, carnal delights of “Any Human Friend”, there is “Slime” — “Stranger I wanna rearrange you / Climb your spine and shake your mind / Slide back and feel your bones crack / So sublime, turn to slime” — but these two albums make for a satisfying meal, expertly pairing the bitter with the sweet.

Mannequin Pussy’s music feels like a resilient and galvanizing shout that demands to be heard.

Across four albums, the Philadelphia rock band that consists of Colins “Bear” Regisford (bass, vocals), Kaleen Reading (drums, percussion), Maxine Steen (guitar, synths), and Marisa Dabice (guitar, vocals) has made cathartic tunes about despairing times. “There’s just so much constantly going on that feels intentionally evil that trying to make something beautiful feels like a radical act ,” says Dabice. “The ethos of this band has always been to bring people together.”

“I Got Heaven,” the lead single and title track from Mannequin Pussy’s new album, was heaving and portentous; its follow-up “I Don’t Know You” is the complete opposite, sticky and sweet. Marisa Dabice’s singsong count-up threads itself throughout the song: “I know 4, 5, 6, 7 ways to get ahead/ But I wouldn’t know how to get you into my bed/ There are 3 little words/ That I wish I had said/ But I wouldn’t tell you.” Those three small words might have taken on a different from in an earlier iteration of Mannequin Pussy, but here they’re rendered in a swooning love song, one that filled with a hopeful anticipation at the possibilities of the unknown. 

Their new album, “I Got Heaven“, which is out via Epitaph Records, is the band’s most fully realised recording yet. Over ten ambitious tracks which abruptly turn from searing punk to inviting alternative pop, the album is deeply concerned with desire, the power in being alone, and how to live in an unfeeling and unkind world. It’s a document of a band doubling down on their unshakable bond to make something furious, thrilling, and wholly alive.

Following the 2019 release of their critically acclaimed third album “Patience”, Mannequin Pussy returned in 2021 for their EP “Perfect”. They toured that release relentlessly and added guitarist Maxine Steen to the band’s official line-up. The band changed their entire creative formula, choosing to write together in the studio in Los Angeles with producer John Congleton, over slowly crafting tracks at home. “Everyone felt empowered to speak up about their own ideas to make this thing the best it could possibly be,” says Regisford.

Ducks Ltd. begin their spring/summer 2024 tour this weekend, and to celebrate they’ve shared a new single. “When You’re Outside” features backing vocals from Ratboys‘ Julia Steiner and Moontype‘s Margaret McCarthy and was recorded during the same sessions as this year’s fantastic “Harm’s Way” album .

On “Harm’s Way”, the songs are better, the production shimmers more brightly, and the arrangements are more ambitious (piano, strings), with assists from Ratboys‘ Julia Steiner and Marcus Nuccio, Dehd‘s Jason Bala, Finom’s Macie Stewart and more. Most notably, they’ve added real drums to augment their arsenal of drum machines and that adds real punch to these breathless, pop nuggets, and ups their replayability. Effortlessly tuneful songs like “Hollowed Out,” “The Main Thing” and “Deleted Scenes” (there’s not a bum track here) may invite comparisons to The Go-Betweens, The Wedding Present, The Verlaines, and others, but they also hold their own against them.

McGreevy says it was their time on the road with Nation of Language, Archers of Loaf and Illuminati Hotties that made the biggest difference between this and their debut. “When we got signed, we had played maybe five or six shows ever. After last year, it’s in the hundreds. That experience can change your perception of your own music and songwriting. In the past when we got stuck on a song we had a tendency to look at our favorite records to see how they tackled it. But now, instead of asking ‘what would Orange Juice do?’, we’d ask, ‘what would we do?”

“When You’re Outside” is out now on Carpark / Royal Mountain Records.

A soulful masterstoke from the Alabama Shakes-er – ‘what now’ finds Brittany Howard dealing multiple modes: hip-flinging funk, devastating vocal gymnastics, sultry guitar licks, and hosting a dancefloor spectacular – all of which she manages to blend seamlessly despite their seemingly incongruent paths.

“[on this record], every song is its own aquarium, its own little miniature world built around whatever i was feeling and thinking at the time”. “with the world we’re living in now, it feels like we’re all just trying to hang onto our souls. everything seems to be getting more extreme and everyone keeps wondering, ‘what now? what’s next?’” – Brittany Howard

Brittany Howard found escapism from the strife of the outside world in the making of her second album What Now, the title reflecting the ever-present question she felt following the seemingly increasing chaos in recent years. Hence, in such a tumultuous world, the Alabama Shakes frontwoman created a piece of work where the only predictable element is her unpredictability, each track “its own aquarium, its own little miniature world built around whatever I was feeling and thinking at the time”, the singer-songwriter explains. As ever, Howard’s cavernous, soulful, venue-filling vocals are a standout, accompanied by polyrhythmic drumming and funk guitar – a sonic rallying cry perfect for an album in which she espouses for us to retain our souls.

“I’ve always railed against it when people ask if making a record is cathartic,” Bill Ryder-Jones says of his fifth solo album, “but I’d have to admit that this one really was.” The Coral co-founder, who’s been a solo artist longer now than he was in a member of that band, had a rough pandemic, including a bad breakup and close calls with substance abuse. He’s come through the other side, though, with one of his best-ever records. “Iechyd Da”, which is Welsh for “Good Health,” is one of those albums that seems to process joy and sadness as the same emotion, not unlike Mercury Rev’s Deserter’s Songs, The Delgado’s The Great Eastern or pretty much everything Spiritualized or Sparklehorse have ever done. Whether he’s singing “It’s noone’s fault, there’s sometimes nothing to be done / I just don’t see myself getting past this one” (“Nothing to be Done”) or “There’s something great about life” on the very next song (“It’s Today Again”), they all hit with a massive wave of beautiful sadness.

There are some wonderful pop moments, too, including “If Tomorrow Starts Without Me,” that bring on the warm-n-fuzzies while still keeping a dark cloud in the blue sky. The whole album washes over you with orchestral grandeur, swooning strings and choral backing (more than once via a children’s choir), and in lesser hands these towering creations would topple from schmaltz. But Ryder-Jones has such a sure grasp of tone, in all senses of the word, so that the songs never wobble. He’s got a soft, fragile voice that could carry the emotional weight of these songs all on its own but is also the perfect center for exquisite heartbreak he’s wrapped himself in. 

Beautifully produced and rich in scope – “Iechyd Da” is Bill Ryder-Jones’ most ambitious record to date. At times joyous and grand, at others intimate and heartbreaking, the past few years spent producing other artists have provided that gentle nudge to expand into new territory, from kids choirs and tender strings to dramatically re-contextualised disco samples.

“It’s been incredible making this,” he says. “Despite all the life stuff that’s happened, it has brought me immense happiness. I’ve always railed against it when people ask if making a record is cathartic but I’d have to admit that this one really was.”

Released January 12th, 2024

2024, Domino Recording Co Ltd

Lush cofounder Miki Berenyi has shared the debut single from her new group, the Miki Berenyi Trio, which includes her partner and Piroshka bandmate KJ ‘Moose’ McKillop (also of ’90s shoegazers Moose) and Oliver Cherer.

“‘Vertigo’ is about anxiety and the efforts to talk myself down from the precipice – the usual cheerful stuff,” Berenyi says of the single, which adds electronic percussion to the ethereal sound she’s honed with previous groups. “It’s a challenge to not have a drummer, and to use more programming,” she adds, “but the essence of the music is still guitars and melody – as it always has been, particularly in mine and Moose’s bands.”

Berenyi’s fantastic memoir, “Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success”, was recently released in North America.

“Oyster Cuts”, the Merge Records debut of Quivers, finds the Melbourne, Australia–based outfit awash in the kind of emotions people tend to fear losing themselves in. Finding love after grief, the outsized guitar pop of Quivers gleams like the surface of an ocean, beneath which lies a reef that is at turns beautiful and painful, its features alien and sharp enough to wound. Propelled by melodies that at times recall Galaxie 500 and The Pretenders, Quivers make music that is tender and tough, compelling the listener to dive in again and again, each song a new angle on all of your feelings.

The losses and loves that have informed Quivers’ music since their inception—the sudden loss of a brother in the cracked optimism of “We’ll Go Riding on the Hearses” (2018) and the life in and after grief of “Golden Doubt” (2021)—ripple into “Oyster Cuts”, which is committed to moving forward while accepting that some feelings, like grief, are a cycle. Crucially, Quivers committed to moving forward with each other. Paring away the choir and strings of its predecessor, “Oyster Cuts” is a showcase for what’s still possible when four people—Sam Nicholson (guitars), Bella Quinlan (bass), Michael Panton (guitars), and Holly Thomas (drums)—make music together.