The Fat Angel Sings

Beirut frontman Zach Condon has shared another new single, “The Tern,” ahead of his new album “Hadsel”. Out November 10th on his own Pompeii Records, the LP is the project’s first in nearly five long years, named after the life-changing Norwegian location that inspired its creation.

Regarding the track, Condon explained, “The base of this song comes from an old Roland synthesizer and drum machine part which I had lying around from a previous Berlin session. The lyrics I improvised on the spot and finished the song off by adding layers of church organs and hand percussion. I stacked the parts high despite always being afraid of overdoing it.

In the end I was confused how I had written such a seemingly positive and even hopeful song, but once I took a closer look at the lyrics, I saw the real nature of the hidden defeat and triumph of caution rather than of hope.”

Bristol-based band IDLES have announced their fifth album, “Tangk”. The 11-track follow up to 2021’s “Crawler” was co-produced by Nigel Godrich, the band’s Mark Bowen, and Kenny Beats. Speaking about the album, lead singer Joe Talbot said, “I needed love. So I made it. I gave love out to the world and it feels like magic. This is our album of gratitude and power. All love songs. All is love.”

Lead single “Dancer” kicks off with an infectious swell of cinematic strings before pulsing bass notes and interlocking guitar lines ride on the back of a drum beat. “‘Dancer’ is the violence that comes from the pounding heart of the dancefloor and rushes through your body and gives you life from music, from love and from you,” Talbot shares of the track, which features backing vocals from LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Nancy Whang.

‘Dancer’ out now on Partisan Records from the upcoming album, ‘TANGK’.

While it sounds more like something that could’ve taken place in one of the parallel timelines addressed in Slothrust’s most recent LP, in reality the project fronted by Leah Wellbaum (and which has since added multi-instrumentalist Will Gorin as a core member) returned last month with a riff-heavy yet surprisingly earnest cover of Ginuwine’s definitively late-’90s anthem “Pony.” The track preceded the four-song “I Promise” EP . “We leaned heavy and didn’t shy away from ornate drum fills and guitar solos,” Wellbaum shares of the new direction the release takes. “These are definitely songs meant for rocking out.”

Ahead of that EP, we’re getting one last teaser in the form of its second track, “Maybe Maybe,” which takes a more slow-burn approach to the duo’s rock agenda, while its lyrics address a very different form of horniness. “‘Maybe Maybe’ is about feeling a stronger erotic connection to nature than to other people,” Wellbaum continues. “Lyrically it’s born from a non-dualistic space and a deep desire to be in connection with the cosmos and dramatic weather. I’ve always loved a big storm. This song considers what it means to be a human caught in the forever wheel of neurosis, and the possibility of finding peace and sovereignty in the alchemy that occurs when we become intimate with our natural surroundings.”

The track notably features drummer Gorin on bass. “He’s always had a knack for great bass lines… He has a great holistic understanding of how to craft a rhythm section that supports the songs I write,” Wellbaum notes. “He always offers something groovy.” 

Leah Wellbaum and Will Gorin’s new EP “I Promise” is out in full tomorrow via Dangerbird Records.

New York-based pop-punk group Charly Bliss have shared a new single called “I Need a New Boyfriend,” which arrives alongside a video directed by the band’s Dan Shure. The anthem is highlighted by Eva Hendricks’ snarling yet approachable delivery, a hard-charging drum groove, and a stadium-ready, half-time chorus. Regarding the song, Eva Hendricks said, “I think the best breakup songs are celebratory. Thankfully, decades of dating the wrong people has prepared me to write the emo, palm-muted breakup song of my dreams.”

Regarding the visual component, she continued: “I was in Australia when Dan had the idea for this video, so we had to create a fictional Bliss Bar where we could all be together for Speed Dating Night. I bought the entire clay aisle of our local craft store and had a lot of fun creating a miniature version of the set that we could all be green-screened into. Dan is the world’s best director and editor and did an incredible job pulling everything together.

Please contact CB Worldwide if you believe you may be entitled to a new boyfriend.”

The National vocalist Matt Berninger’s baritone adds a gorgeous harmony to this alternate version of Wilderado’s single “In Between.” “Matt is one of my favourite lyricists and singers of all time,” Max Rainer says, “plus he’s in one of the coolest bands ever. We’re incredibly grateful and honored to feature him on this track.”

The collaboration came about thanks to one of the song’s producers, James McAlister, who works closely with The National and their affiliated projects. When McAlister and Chad Copelin first recorded and produced the single with Wilderado, all parties involved thought Berninger would be a great fit on the track. Berninger received the song shortly after, and recorded his contribution.

The result is an exciting new rendition of the Wilderado single. “Matt is one of my favourite lyricists and singers of all time, plus he’s in one of the coolest bands ever,” said Wilderado’s Max Rainer. “We’re incredibly grateful and honoured to feature him on this track.”

Bright Antenna Released on: 25th October 2023

While 11 months out of the year it likely comes across as flattering, the thought of hearing your own name mentioned in someone else’s song in the dead of October may send chills down your spine. Such was the case with indie-folk mainstay Matt Pond PA upon hearing Alexa Rose’s 2021 single “Wild Peppermint” though, based on context clues, it doesn’t seem like it was the eerie type of spine-tingling that Pond was experiencing. “I couldn’t believe that a wildly talented musician would mention my name in a song,” he recalls. “It was almost spooky. Hearing her music flipped the switch on the low-level self-hatred I had humming in the back of my head.

Fast-forward to the present day and the two songwriters have teamed up on an actual Halloween-themed single, although it isn’t quite as scary as that may sound. “Halloween Two” is a brief duet calmly peddling in horror-film clichés and other Halloween-y imagery applied to interpersonal relationships. Embellished by cello and a viscerally autumnal music video, the track exhibits the strength—and ease—of collaboration between the two artists.

“A couple of years [after hearing ‘Wild Peppermint’], I asked Alexa if she’d like to sing on a song I’d written,” Pond continues regarding the collaboration before seemingly unintentionally returning to seasonally appropriate language. “Then I started sending her tons and tons of music. Which can be scary you don’t want to frighten your new friends off by being a psycho. But she listened to it all, and the demo she pulled out of the dustbin was ‘Halloween Two,’ a little duet about being the source of our own fears the monster is me/us.” 

While the track only clocks in at two minutes, Pond notes that a full EP is on the way,

Flyte, the indie-leaning folk-rock duo of Will Taylor and Nicolas Hill, have been accruing fans from all walks of life, some of which happen to be extremely famous. Last month, they shared a live performance video of “Tough Love,” which featured backing vocals from none other than Florence Pugh, who covered Laura Marling’s studio part. 

Heavy-hitting collaborators aside, it’s clear on the band’s self-titled new album why they’ve become so popular. The melodies are catchy but never saccharine, the backing instrumentation minimal and sparse yet clever and interesting. It’s the aforementioned “Tough Love” that serves as the album’s emotional core, built around delicately strummed acoustic guitar chords, weeping strings, and yearning vocals. “Even on bad days, the world is gonna spin,” sings Taylor, affirming that even during low moments love perseveres.

To celebrate the duo’s new album, we had Flyte break down each track on their new LP, 

1. “Speech Bubble”
This song is a plea for love. It’s a mission statement for a relationship that’s yet to start. The song seeks redemption. It’s certain that love—in all its simplicity, empathy, joy, sadness, and darkness—will be the cure. I sat down on the recording studio floor and sang and played it through a single microphone with Billie Marten, actress Lily Newmark, and photographer Katie Silvester singing hauntingly in the background. The intention of the female voice was to sound like it was responding from the future, as the couple in the song hadn’t yet met.

2. “Defender”
“Defender” is written from the perspective of someone trying to care for a partner with poor mental health, even though they may be unqualified, not necessarily any stronger, but trying nonetheless. We wrote this with our friend and next-door neighbor, [South African songwriter]] M Field, around our sitting room table with some classical guitars and a drum machine.

3. “Press Play”
We wanted this song to encapsulate the pure joy of love as it begins to blossom—a fireworks display of happiness and nervous excitement. It was a full room of beautiful musicians—Suren De Saram (Bombay Bicycle Club) and Matt Ingram (Laura Marling) both drumming simultaneously, Jack Watts (Memorial) on accompanying guitar with Will, Nick playing bass with Billie Marten on piano, and Her Ensemble provides a string section. Everyone playing together in the same room cemented the kitchen sink jubilance of the song itself.  

4. “Don’t Forget About Us”
The very beginning of a beautiful relationship and wanting to snapshot every detail. Let’s never forget this early, fragile version of us. It was written very quickly in bed one evening to cheer up a very sad Billie Marten.

6. “Even on Bad Days”
An ode to relationships in your early thirties. It started as a poem, a wedding vow even, but it fit perfectly to music. This performance was the first and only take, with one guitar overdub added by William Rees of the Mystery Jets.

5. “Perfect Dark”
The toxicity and addiction of sex and love in a city apartment. The grace that can be found in darkness. The harp, french horn, and cello strike the right balance of sinister and beautiful.

7. “Tough Love”
This song asks how two people might rattle free from a closed loop of bad habits and codependent tendencies. It takes two people to prop up an unhealthy relationship, so a duet seemed appropriate, and Laura Marling felt like the perfect fit.

8. “Amy”
Written while sharing a flat with a group of deflated musicians during the summer of 2020. It’s an ode to struggling songwriters and was maybe the most fun track to record. Almost every musician friend we know plays in the tape loop at the end. There are some excellent alternative lyrics written by poet laureate Simon Armitage.

9. “Chelsea Smiles”
This was a melody that we’d been sculpting and playing with over many years. The final lyrics were achieved by writing several versions of the song—multiple themes including romance, football violence, football, and London were all written out then cut up and spliced back together at random.

10. “Better Than Blue”
Came from a true state of bliss. The line “Love is a tangerine healer / That makes life an easy peeler,” found written on a forgotten napkin in a pocket of one of Will’s less-circulated jackets, became the catalyst for writing the whole thing. The curious chord progressions are made to offset the bliss with Jess Stavely Taylor’s almost alien vocal overdubs, placing you fully in the dreamstate of early love.

11. “Bedtime Reminder”
A lullaby written with Will’s partner, Billie Marten, one sunny morning in Los Angeles.

The Tubs Featuring current / former members of Joanna Gruesome, Ex-Void, GN, Sniffany and The Nits.

London group The Tubs return to Trouble In Mind Records with their hotly anticipated full-length album entitled “Dead Meat”. The band were formed in 2018 from the ashes of beloved UK post-punk band Joanna Gruesome by former members Owen ‘O’ Williams and George ‘GN’ Nicholls. By incorporating elements of post-punk, traditional British folk, and guitar jangle seasoned by nonchalant Cleaners From Venus-influenced pop hooks and contemporary antipodean indie bands (Twerps/Goon Sax, et al).

“Dead Meat” is resplendent in hi-fidelity strum & thrum, incorporating fleeting elements of post-punk and indie jangle, but the group’s penchant for trad British folk and Canterbury folk-rock takes a noticeable, caffeinated step forward. Echoes of Fairport Convention’s decidedly English chime cross swords with singer Owen Williams’ lyrics directing Bryan Ferry’s “thinking man’s libertine” persona into a more dolorous outlook. Many songs (like “Round The Bend” and “Duped”) soar with an urgent strum under Williams’ acerbic lyrics, recalling a younger fiery Richard Thompson. They languish in an aching, bitter resignation (of both the situations described and the protagonist’s place in it), particularly near the album’s second half.

Others like the previously released “I Don’t Know How It Works”, “Two Person Love” and “Illusion” (re-presented here as “Illusion Pt. II” and all rerecorded from their original 7-inch versions) up the urgency, implying that the journey for the person described in each tune is not over and may be even more desperate than before.

The band has never been tighter and more dynamic, often imperceptibly ratcheting up the tension, an extra guitar strum overdubbed, a barely audible organ / synth cranking under a chorus or bridge, or unexpected backups from current Ex-Vöid (and ex-Joanna Gruesome) vocalist Lan McArdle. The Tubs are poised to take over your stereo – there’s no point in resisting.

released January 27th, 2023

Emma Anderson, the co-founder of shoegaze icons Lush, is releasing her debut solo album, “Pearlies”, on October 20th via Sonic Cathedral. She shared the album’s second single, “Clusters,” via a music video. Kieran Evans directed the video.

Anderson had this to say about “Clusters” in a press release: “It was the first track I worked on with James and it’s the one we found our feet with. I guess it’s the pop one on the album but, although it’s upbeat, I think lyrically it’s actually quite dark.” Of the song’s lyrics, she adds: “It’s about some young people at a party at the end of summer, seeing some signs on a wall…. Discovering a kind of underlying threat during something that should have been quite fun.”

Some of the songs for “Pearlies” were actually written for a Lush reunion album that wasn’t meant to be. Lush reformed in 2015 for some touring and released a new EP, “Blind Spot”, in 2016. But the reunion came to a somewhat abrupt end that year, with plans for a new album or any more touring scrapped.

“I thought we were in it for the long term, so some of these songs—or even just parts of them—were actually going to be for Lush,” explains Anderson. “That didn’t happen, so I had these songs and bits of music that I didn’t know what to do with.”

At first Anderson worked on home demos with cellist and string arranger Audrey Riley. Then Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins (who produced Lush’s 1992 album, “Spooky”) helped with some further recording, but insisted Anderson sing her own songs. Initially she had planned on getting another singer involved, which she had done with her post-Lush band Sing Sing.

“He basically said, ‘If you don’t sing, I am not going to do it,’ so I decided I would,” says Anderson. “I am not someone that feels comfortable in the spotlight, so for me to take centre stage, metaphorically speaking, was quite a big leap.”

Then Sonic Cathedral suggested James Chapman produce the final album. “He turned out to be exactly the right person,” says Anderson. “People tend to view James as primarily an electronic producer but he has a lot more strings to his bow. He has a wide range of tastes and also an encyclopedic knowledge of music, which meant he was able to bring a huge amount to the album. He really got it.”

One of the final pieces of the puzzle was some additional guitar contributions from Suede’s Richard Oakes.

“I didn’t know Richard back in the ’90s, but it turned that he was a bit of a Lush fan,” says Anderson. “I have a part-time day job as a bookkeeper, and I do bits of work for the Suede camp. I got to know him through that and we became friends. I asked if he would play some guitar on the record and, to my delight, he said yes!”

Previously Anderson shared the album’s first single, “Bend the Round,” The first single from ‘Pearlies’, the debut solo album by Emma Anderson from Lush, released via Sonic Cathedral on October 20th, 2023.

James Chapman (aka Mute Records artist Maps) produced “Pearlies”.