With a talent for recollecting intimate feelings and thoughts, London based singer-songwriter, Billie Marten transforms introspection into tender tunes held up by minimalist instrumental scaffolding. In her music, Marten explores topics of love, loss, and growing up all through a lens of folky naturalism. Marten’s crystalline Audiotree Live performance, beset with pastoral plucks and soothing warbles, takes us on a journey through her heart’s deepest recesses.
Interviewed by resident Audiotree Live host, Psalm One, Billie shares treasured moments from her U.S. tour, opens up about her love for alpacas, and sheds her insights on the things we do for love.
Ty Segall has announced his latest solo album, “Three Bells”, due January 26th. He accompanied the announcement with the project’s latest single, “My Room.”
“Three Bells” was co-produced by Segall and Cooper Crain, who worked together on 2021’s “Harmonizer” and 2022’s “Hello, Hi”. The 15-song release includes five collaborations with Segall’s wife Denée Segall as well as appearances throughout with members of his backing FreedomBand including bassist Emmett Kelly.
Segall also dropped “My Room,” the third offering from “Three Bells” following the seven-minute jam “Void” in August and the September single, “Eggman.”
The song offers plenty of the Segall’s signature movies like a twisty acoustic riff and screechy guitar effects, and yet the singer-songwriter still manages to get pelted by bananas in the accompanying music video.
“Three Bells” arrives on January 26th via Drag City
MGMT (Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser) officially announced their new album, “Loss of Life,” and shared its first single, “Mother Nature,”
“Loss of Life”is due out February 23rd, 2024 via Mom + Pop Records and will be the band’s first new album in six years. Long time collaborator Jordan Fish directed the “Mother Nature” video, which combines animation with live action. In a press release, MGMT collectively say that “Mother Nature” “outlines the archetypical MGMT mythology of one hero attempting to get the other hero to come on the journey that they ‘must’ go on. One part sounds like Oasis.”
The song’s video is about two animal friends, simply named Dog and Turtle, who “team up to take down an evil pet collector,” according to the press release.
“I hope the story makes people happy and feel connected to family, friends and the animal kingdom as well,” says Fish.
“Loss of Life”is the band’s fifth album and the follow-up to 2018’s “Little Dark Age”, which many viewed as a return to form and was released via Columbia (as were their previous albums). “Little Dark Age’s” title track became a viral hit during the pandemic and is the band’s third most streamed song of all-time, behind their early hits “Electric Feel” and “Kids.”
This time the duo worked with producer Patrick Wimberly (Beyoncé, Lil Yachty) and longtime collaborator Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Spoon). As he’s done with all their previous albums, Fridmann mixed “Loss of Life”. There also additional production work done on the album by Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never), Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) and James Richardson. Miles A. Robinson was also an associate producer and engineer on the album.
“Loss of Life”includes the first ever feature appearance on an MGMT album when Christine and the Queens appear on the song “Dancing in Babylon.”
MGMT had this to say about “Loss of Life”: “All joking aside (never!), we are very proud of this album and the fact that it was a relatively painless birth after a lengthy gestation period, and are happy to be releasing this baby into the world with Mom+Pop. Musically speaking, we are running at around 20% adult contemporary and no more than this, please.”
Writer/director/The Best Show co-host Tom Scharpling has written an essay about “Loss of Life”and had this to say: “Simply put, the guys did it again! They’re now five-for-five, which last time I checked gets you into virtually any Hall of Fame. This record projects an aura of undeniable warmth throughout, an album brimming with comfortable confidence. There are epic tracks and intimate portraits, a little bit of glam here, some psych-folk there. It’s a slice of magic that fits perfectly into the MGMT oeuvre while expanding the boundaries once again.”
‘Loss Of Life’, set to arrive on 23rd February via Mom + Pop.
The latest from album reissue The Black Crowes is here! “The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion“, the band’s second studio album, is now available to pre-order in a variety of editions, including a deluxe edition 4LP box set complete with album notes, unreleased recordings, and more. Upon it’s initial release in 1992, the band topped the Billboard 200 and was one of the few albums to feature four number one hit songs.
The Deluxe 4LP box set includes a reproduction of the original 60 page promotional hymn book featuring insights on the record and band’s state of mind from both Chris and Rich Robinson. It also contains sheet music for the 9 Chris and Rich compositions.
The project has been overseen by Chris and Rich Robinson and album producer George Draklouias. There are 14 unreleased recordings including 2 studio recordings, A live concert from February 1993 and the never heard before live in-studio performance recorded at the end of the “Southern Harmony” session along with b-sides and the original album, now remastered.
we’re excited to send you exclusive content from the band. Take a behind-the-scenes look into the creative process that brought this record to life. Join Chris and Rich with producer George Drakoulias in the legendary Los Angeles Village Studios as they unearth multi-tracks for the very first time since the recording!
This exclusive experience will be the first episode of a three-part series, stay tuned for more.
Also Along with the box, there are 4 12″x12″ lithographs of images from “The Southern Harmony” photo shoots. The project has been overseen by Chris and Rich Robinson and album producer George Draklouias. There are 14 unreleased recordings, including 2 studio recordings, a live concert from February 1993, and the never-heard-before live in-studio performance recorded at the end of “The Southern Harmony” session along with b-sides and the original album, now remastered.
The Blinders make their return today with ‘Brakelights’, the first track to be taken from their forthcoming third album, “Beholder”, which is released on Friday 1st March 2024 via Funhouse Recordings/ EMI.
One of the most exciting live bands out there right now, they recently played two explosive, sold-out low-key warm up shows at the Dublin Castle in London and The White Hotel in Manchester and have announced a run of headline shows in early spring next year. With a visceral urgency live to more than match the likes of contemporaries IDLES or Fontaines DC, they take their brooding and intense live show,
The perfect introduction to their new album ‘Brakelights’ drips with a dark atmospheric intensity whichequally lurks across the album. The Doncaster via Manchester 4-piece’s previous albums were championed by the likes of 6Music and Radio 1 and the last couple of years have seen them make appearances at the Glastonbury and Benicassim festivals amongst others and play sold-out shows, including one at the Manchester Academy in their adopted home-town where they packed in almost 3000 fans.
The track listing of the 10-track album, produced by Adam ‘Atom’ Greenspan & Nick Launey and recorded in LA in early 2023
On Wednesday, buzzed about new British five-piece The Last Dinner Party announced their debut album, “Prelude to Ecstasy”, and shared a new song from it, “On Your Side,” via a music video.
“Prelude to Ecstasy”is not out until February 2nd, 2024 via Island Records and features all of the band’s previous three singles. Cal Mcintyre directed the “On Your Side” video.
The Last Dinner Party are Abigail Morris (vocals), Georgia Davies (bass), Lizzie Mayland (guitar), Aurora Nishevci (keys), and Emily Roberts (lead guitar). James Ford produced “Prelude to Ecstasy”, as he did all the band’s previous singles. Not only is he a member of Simian Mobile Disco and The Last Shadow Puppets, but as a producer he has worked with an impressive array of artists, including Depeche Mode, Arctic Monkeys, Jessie Ware, Everything Everything, Gorillaz, HAIM, Florence + The Machine, Foals, and Pet Shop Boys.
The Last Dinner Party collectively had this to say about their debut album in a press release: “Ecstasy is a pendulum which swings between the extremes of human emotion, from the ecstasy of passion to the sublimity of pain, and it is this concept which binds our album together. This is an archeology of ourselves; you can exhume our collective and individual experiences and influences from within its fabric. We exorcized guitars for their solos, laid bare confessions directly from diary pages, and summoned an orchestra to bring our vision to life. It is our greatest honor and pride to present this offering to the world, it is everything we are.” Of the new single, the band say: “‘On Your Side’ is a love song with its hands tied. It’s about being so devoted to someone that no matter what they do, no matter how much it hurts, how much you know you should leave, you can’t escape. The outro came from a wonderful improvised moment in the studio; James Ford had this synthesizer that warped and delayed and played with the fabric of whatever you put into it. So Aurora and Abigail sat in the studio after lunch and improvised some piano and vocal lines, letting the sounds build on top of each other until that final gasp. It turned into this wrenching shimmering section that sounds like the end of a poisonous relationship; dissolving, fragmenting, painful but also ultimately freeing.”
The Last Dinner Party were getting a considerable amount of buzz in their home country based mainly on their live performances, but in April they released their debut single, “Nothing Matters,” via a music video. Then in June they shared their second single, “Sinner,” as well as a video of them performing the song live. “My Lady of Mercy” was the band’s third single.
“This is an archeology of ourselves; you can exhume our collective and individual experiences and influences from within its fabric. We exorcised guitars for their solos, laid bare confessions directly from diary pages, and summoned an orchestra to bring our vision to life. It is our greatest honour and pride to present this offering to the world, it is everything we are.”
Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express’s first proper live album was originally available on CD at the merch table on their 2023 EU tour. Like the cover says, it was recorded on the band’s Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins tour in Paris, France and the band is on fire.”
Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express’ first proper live album originally only available on CD on their 2023 EU tour.
This was recorded on the band’s Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins tour in Paris, France and the band is on fire. There is a very limited number of CDs and 2xLPs available today on Bandcamp. Once these are sold, they will be gone for good.
Torres is back with “I got the fear,” the new single from her forthcoming album “What an enormous room” is Torres’ sixth studio album (her third with Merge). The album contains 10 songs. Mackenzie wrote all of them. Sarah played bass guitar, synths, drums, organ, and piano. Mackenzie sang vocals, played guitar, bass, synths, organ, piano, and programmed drums. Additional synth bass, tambourine, and shakers were played by TJ Allen.
Scott had this to say about the song in a press release: “A collective dread has been mounting. Everyone I know is having a brawl with the universe, with themselves…wars, climate catastrophe, a pandemic, the worldwide regression on human rights, the political hellscape—it affects everybody, and I know we’re all feeling it in waves of varying degree all the time. I think it’s really important that we find a way to get our hopes back up. I’m here to try to help light the way if I can. Most days I really believe humanity will find a way. But there’s a nagging anxiety that maybe that won’t happen. One has to wonder if it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that a species that believes it’s doomed will doom itself.”
releases January 26th, 2024
Mackenzie Scott: vocals, guitar, bass, synth, organ, piano, drum programming Sarah Jaffe: bass, drums, synth, organ, piano Additional synth bass, shakers, and tambourine by TJ Allen
It was recorded in September and October 2022 at Stadium Heights Sound in Durham, North Carolina. It was engineered by Ryan Pickett, produced by Mackenzie Scott and Sarah Jaffe, mixed by TJ Allen in Bristol, UK, and mastered by Heba Kadry in NYC.
“What an Enormous Room” is out January 26 on Merge Records
A mix of memories, music, and inspiration from Wilco front man and New York Times bestselling author Jeff Tweedy.
What makes us fall in love with a song? What makes us want to write our own songs? Do songs help? Do songs help us live better lives? And do the lives we live help us write better songs?
Following publication of Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) and How To Write One Song, both New York Times bestsellers that cemented and expanded his legacy as one of America’s best-loved performers and songwriters, Jeff Tweedy is back with another disarming, beautiful, and inspiring book.
Featuring over fifty songs that have both changed Jeff’s life and influenced his music —including songs by the Velvet Underground, Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding, Dolly Parton, and Billie Eilish—as well as thoughts on Jeff’s own songs, World Within a Song asks why do we listen to music, why we love songs, and how music can connect us to each other and to ourselves.
Angie McMahon impressed in the summer of 2019 with the raw and gritty “Salt” and does so again with the much fuller and more versatile “Light, Dark, Light Again”, on which she once again impresses as a singer and as a songwriter I was certainly charmed by Angie McMahon’s debut album in 2019, but I can’t remember the album causing as many goosebumps then as the reacquaintance earlier this week. Angie McMahon has not made Salt 2.0 with “Light, Dark, Light Again”, but opts for a more versatile, fuller and more polished sound. It all sounds great and once again the Australian musician impresses with her passionate vocals. It may take some getting used to, but the songs on “Light, Dark, Light Again” are so good. Angie McMahon was still a bit of a rough diamond in 2019, but shines brightly on her new album.
It’s been more than four years since Australian musician Angie McMahon made her debut with the excellent Salt. It was an album full of rough guitar lines and remarkably passionate vocals and it was also an album with intense songs, which sometimes rattled pleasantly, but usually grabbed you roughly by the throat. It is an album that could count on very positive reviews in the summer of 2019, but that was hardly to be found in the annual lists at the end of that year.
When I picked up the album again last week, I was surprised that “Salt” didn’t make it to my annual list in 2019, because what a great album it is and how Angie McMahon interprets her songs with a lot of feeling and passion on her ultimately somewhat underrated debut album. In 2020, another EP was released with a number of tracks by “Salt”, but with only a piano and the voice of the Australian musician and that also tasted like much more.
We had to wait quite a long time for that lake, but this week Angie McMahon’s second album was finally released. After I had fallen under the spell of the incomparable “Salt” last week, I started Angie McMahon’s second album with high expectations and “Light, Dark, Light Again” certainly did not disappoint me. And that’s despite the fact that the musician’s second album has become a completely different album than “Salt” or the “Piano Salt” EP.
“Light, Dark, Light Again” opens with an almost overwhelming sound, which, apart from Angie McMahon’s powerful voice, hardly reminds us of her debut album. It is a fully coloured sound, which is supplemented with nature sounds. They also appear in the second track, but this time they have opted for a slightly more subdued sound with both piano, guitars and synths. When the guitars start to sound grittier, you can hear some tentative echoes of Salt, but compared to the debut album of the Melbourne musician, Light, Dark, Light Again sounds fuller and richer and also a lot more varied.
It took me a while to get used to it after the recent listens to Salt, but I was quickly impressed by Angie McMahon’s new sound. The Australian musician has coloured her songs fuller, but also very tastefully and still has a quirky indie sound, which fits well with the indie pop and indie rock of the moment. The musician from Melbourne has once again written a series of personal songs, which she interprets with heart and soul. The vocals sound a bit less rough than on “Salt”, but also the vocals on “Light, Dark, Light Again” come in pretty hard.
Angie McMahon recorded the basis of her new album in her home base of Melbourne, but then moved to Durham, North Carolina, where she worked with renowned producer Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Snail Mail, Jess Williamson, Indigo De Souza), who brought a number of top musicians to his studio. “Light, Dark, Light Again” sounds a lot more produced than “Salt”, but it is a beautiful production, which provides Angie McMahon’s songs with a more varied sound, which can gently caress the ear, but fortunately the music of the Australian singer-songwriter can also occasionally go off the rails.
The Fat Angel Sings 