The Fat Angel Sings

English band Blueboy were part of the Sarah Records roster, making a style of indie rock that was usually toned down and emotionally nuanced but sometimes shot through with enthusiastic jangle. A strict label policy for Sarah was that singles were not included on LPs, but were a separate space for songs to be experienced with exclusive focus. Blueboy took this edict to heart, releasing eight singles in addition to three studio full-lengths during a run that lasted the majority of the 1990s. The compilation “Singles 1991-1998” collects all of the band’s non-album singles and their respective B-sides, presenting them in chronological order and all in the same place for the first time.

It’s an excellent singles comp in the tradition of Singles Going Steady, Louder Than Bombs, or Push Barman to Open Old Wounds, offering up some of the group’s best tracks in a long playing format but also showcasing how much Blueboy evolved as the years went on. The earliest singles are spare, often led by lilting acoustic guitar and finding vocalist Keith Girdler evoking the same soft melancholy that the Zombies’ Colin Blunstone found on his solo albums.

A Colourful Storm presents Blueboy’s singles collection and the band’s final retrospective release. Beautiful gatefold sleeve designed by Sarah Records’ own Matt Haynes with original artwork insert, postcard and liner notes by Paul Stewart.

“One Sunday afternoon in 1990, I had a phone call from Keith saying that Sarah Records had received the demo cassette the two of us had recorded on a 4-track in a friend’s shed and were interested in putting out two of the songs as a single. They were “Clearer” and “Alison“.

Delighted by this news, we booked some recording time with a studio we’d regularly used in our previous incarnation as Feverfew, the White House in Weston-super-Mare. This was the first time we’d ever played a note of music that was using someone else’s money, so the pressure was being felt. We recorded “Clearer”, “Fearon” and “Chelsea Guitar”, with “Clearer” becoming Sarah 55, the first of eight singles for the band across two labels.

This is especially true on slight spacious tracks like “Chelsea Guitar” and “Stephanie,” but the band picks up the energy with the addition of chiming guitars and peppy drums on relative rockers like “A Gentle Sigh” or with the bright cello and vocal harmonies of “Meet Johnny Rave.” As the compilation goes on, Blueboy try on some different styles, experimenting with drum machines and synths on “Hit” and “River,” delving into ambient formlessness on instrumental track “Nimbus,” and eventually resembling something more like Britpop on later songs like “Looney Tunes,” but they never fully let go of their melancholic indie pop core.

“Singles 1991-1998” is an excellent primer for Blueboy, with no shortage of tracks that stand on their own, but the songs also fit together for a continuous listening experience as good as (if not better than) some of the band’s official albums.

Genn are an Anglo-Maltese quartet whose multi-national background has inevitably shaped their sound and style. This was evidenced by their debut album, “unum”, released in 2023 which draws on all their collective influences and experiences as well as channelling their unfazed attitude of mixing personal issues with the political amidst their constant push towards championing more minorities within the music industry. “unum” the Latin word for oneness, unity, a sense of being whole. The debut album of Ġenn is a hard-earned statement of evolution, woven from the band’s four distinct threads of influence and identity to reveal an arresting tapestry of ambition. It follows on from their 2021 debut EP “Liminal” which was born of isolation, a fragmented jigsaw puzzle put together at a distance in the pandemic era. The project triumphed against all odds, but Ġenn knew that the EP walked so that something far greater could run. “unum” is the product of that long-awaited togetherness; it captures that lightning in a bottle which strikes when four distinct strains of talent – four best friends – are free to create. Ġenn have never sounded so limitless.

Their sound moves from the abrasive to the quiet and subtle as they deliver an eclectic mix of sounds which cover post-punk, art-pop, psych-rock, noise rock all the way through to jazz and folk. It’s a sumptuous mix which caters for all tastes and with a UK headline tour planned for February 2024, the stars seem to be aligning to finally bring Genn into the wider public consciousness 

Leona (vox), Janelle (guitar) and Leanne (bass) are originally from Malta and moved to the UK to complete their lineup with drummer Sofia.

Listen closely, and you can hear a melting pot of cultures, genres and timings in one sitting, as this sisterhood of psychadelic textures takes you on a veritable listening journey.

The Gas Kunst are a cracking new band that put the fun back into the music scene with their blend of surf rockabilly, EODM, QOTSA, The Cramps and the sadly disbanded C33s. Newly added from said band Judy has transferred her own arsenal of backing vocals and powerhouse drumming. A breath of fresh air from the brilliant Rare Vitamin Records. Label boss J Davies recently quoted – “If I was any more DIY I’d be fuckin’ B&Q” 

Music Video for the song “PCSO No No No (You’re Wrong)” by Gas Künst.

Wild, weird apocalyptic lounge music – a twisted amalgamation of angular art rock and transgressive post-punk populated by grotesque imagery and vivid symbolism. They are going to be as adored and revered as cult bands the Cardiacs and Virgin Prunes whilst having the potential to be Muse or (early) Queen (saleswise). Debut album “Mondo Maleficum” is scheduled for release in January 2024 and is a masterpiece, 

‘Utterly Rudderless’ is the next single from the upcoming album “Mondo Maleficum”. The song plunges into your sensory organs on 4th January.

Dark and frantic, the track was inspired by this quote from author Alan Moore:

“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theories, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Illuminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening – Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.” Dark and frantic is what we do best.

the debut album “Mondo Maleficum” releases January 25th, 2024

“Old Death” is a seven minute odyssey/autobiography disguised as a pop song, in which Charles Bissell (of indie rock heavyweights The Wrens) reflects on the opportunity cost of two decades spent perfecting, yet never releasing, the sequel to The Wrens’ near-mythologically revered 2003 album “The Meadowlands”. The ensuing years brought a battle with cancer, mental health struggles, the breakup of a band of brothers, and the underestimation of Father Time. Bissell released some music during that time, but promised a lot more. “Old Death” is worth the wait.

Like any great protagonist, our hero is relatable, vulnerable, courageous, broken, whole, and lovable. And like all great epics, the parable of “Old Death” is one I’ll keep close to heart. I’ll sing this song from the top of my lungs, I’ll remember to put away my futile devices, and I’ll hold my kids tight while they’re still young.

About The Song: First, I’m joined here by Jeff Lipstein (original wrens drummer(!), Mercury Rev, Sandy Bell etc.), who played & recorded the drums on this song and others – fantastically. “Old Death” is, like the rest of the album (coming 2024), sort of a sequel to the meadowlands and like that one, is about time, how one chooses to spend it, what those choices cost. That means for me, the song (and album) is also about making the album itself. It’s about death, maybe obviously, but it’s really about my dumb life. And because so much of that life, over the last decade especially, lined up weirdly well to the Odyssey, it’s all sorta hung on Homer’s narrative framework (unlike say, Ulysses, in my case it’s all very non-fictional/auto-biographical). However like Ulysses, every song is written in a stream-of-consciousness mode. Or for me, really more of a stream-of-memories: that time this happened, that other-time-this-reminds-me-of happened etc. Hence, the parenthetical dating throughout the lyrics as those memories pop in&out.

This track is like a big fat diner burger with fries: plentiful, familiar, satisfying, and designed to fill you up. Featuring cleanly arranged rock elements building to a full, rounded out chorus that’s just begging to be blared out of your car speakers, steering wheel drumming is absolutely mandatory on this one. Recent rock transplants from Connecticut to LA, Milly are the indie outfit your old stack of rock CDs have been willing into existence.

Milly make songs that simmer and spark. The Los Angeles-based band, led by songwriter Brendan Dyer, finds power in the slow burn: their music carries the tension of a lakes surface moments before a storm hits, or a cracking pane of glass moments before it shatters. 

MILLY is:
B. Reid Dyer – Guitars/Vocals
Yarden Erez – Bass Guitar
Conner Frankel – Drums

The new single, “Grab The Wheel”, out now on

The first bite of your favourite long-awaited dessert, the sight of your destination ahead after a long journey, a whiff of your lover’s perfume… these pale in comparison to the first listen of a band you just know is gonna be a new favourite listen. Fresh off of a tour with Built To Spill, Goon are the Los Angeles alti-indie group here just in time for all the fans of analogue rock to swoon over.

Click play for shoegaze riffs, solid fuzz, and chilled-out vocals couched in reverb. Official video for our new single “Emily Says” off our second album ‘Hour of Green Evening’ is out now!

Come along and wake up on the way,” sings Goon frontman Kenny Becker, “orange shapes arrange and change again/quiet Isaac in a mild dream.” The lyric evokes the hazy dreamscape spaces occupied by the band’s new album, “Hour of Green Evening”. It describes an in-between time, the pre-dawn quiet over a still-sleeping suburban neighborhood, insects buzzing and the creatures just stirring awake.

Goon began as Becker’s Bandcamp solo project in 2015. At a friend’s encouragement, Becker compiled the best of his tracks and released them as an EP, 2016’s “Dusk of Punk”. He recruited bandmates from his college buddies and released a second EP, all the while working on the band’s first full-length, 2019’s “Heaven is Humming” on Partisan Records, followed by the self-released “Paint By Numbers 1”, a collection of his mid-pandemic home recordings. After several band members departed for other jobs, cities, and life experiences, Becker recruited a new band Andy Polito on drums, Dillon Peralta on guitar, and Tamara Simons on bass—and set about recording a second LP, “Hour of Green Evening”, in Tropico Beauty studio in Glendale, California, working with producer and engineer Phil Hartunian. Alex Fischel from Spoon also sat in on the session, providing piano and keyboards.

“We tracked ten days in the studio to start, and ended up working a total of twenty,” says Becker. “For the first six or seven days we did it live, the four of us in the room, with Phil in the control booth, tracking straight to two-inch tape. It was isolated deep pandemic vibes. We felt like we had enough days booked away from the world to really take our time.”

The evolution of Goon has come to full fruition on “Hour of Green Evening”. It’s the band’s most complete statement, engaging all aspects of their sound to stunning effect. The album thrums with mystery, with the half-remembered past hazy as dreams, the mixed sense of comfort and longing for freedom so essential to youth. The world of “Hour of Green Evening” is lush and strange, populated by people dreaming, sleeping and waking, existing in that in-between space of the night time world.

The dew-soaked morning maw of “Angelnumber 1210” blurs the space between waking and dreaming as distorted guitars cut through the atmospherics. “In a past life you softly slept through waking hours” sings Becker, “and in the boughs beams of sound play a welcoming.”

The light, rangy “Ochre” is a deceptively dark song. Again, Becker calls to the imagery of the half-asleep times, singing, “I wandered out of bed/cuz there’s a firing line in my head/and it worked for a minute/opened my evil eye.” The calmness of the music and the ease of Becker’s delivery belies the anxiety at the core of the song, with images of fire, destruction, and pain drifting by, accented by Alex Fischel’s manic piano flourishes.

The quiet, beating heart of the record is “Emily Says.” The title references both the Velvet Underground and Becker’s wife, Emily. Distorted guitars alternately sludge and sparkle while Becker sings his best melody, gliding soft as a bird over the maelstrom, a strange, idiosyncratic take on the traditional love song. “It’s about how falling in love can save your life,” says Becker, “but it doesn’t fix any of your problems. The chaos of life will persist, but it’s a little bit better, because we’re not facing it on our own anymore. We’re together.”

“Hour of Green Evening” stands as the most powerful statement from Goon yet. The songs have a melancholy to them, but they never succumb to hopelessness, knowing at the heart of the darkest night there is still light, goodness, and maybe even someone else there to help you wander through.

Also check out The “Red Ladder” EP Unreleased B-sides, alternate versions and demos from “Hour of Green Evening” and it includes a re-vamped version of ‘Another Window’ Some sweet new takes on slightly less new tracks. “Flower Bell” is a painfully good (and short) track that captures the best of a “feel good” Boards of Canada track, while still being distinctly Goon. The production choices and lo-fi aesthetics combine to form a different-but-totally-valid take on what “sounds like nostalgia” actually sounds like.

The Del-Lords’ debut album, “Frontier Days”, sounded too sparse and didn’t kick hard enough, and the follow-up, “Johnny Comes Marching Home”, sounded too slick and was weighed down with clichéd 1980s drum and guitar sounds. In the grand tradition , the band’s third LP, “Based on a True Story”, was where they finally got the proportions just right. While Neil Geraldo returned as producer after “Johnny Comes Marching Home“, he applies a much lighter hand on “Based on a True Story”, and Frank Funaro’s drums sound a lot more natural and have regained their natural hard-swinging grace on this set. A number of guest musicians were brought in for “Based on a True Story”, but this time they add new textures rather than cluttering the arrangements, and Johnny Powers’ wailing harp on “River of Justice”, Lenny Castro’s beatnik bongos on “The Cool and the Crazy,” and the uncredited but wildly honking sax on “Whole Lotta Nothin’ Goin’ On” are welcome additions that help the songs come alive. Mojo Nixon’s addled preaching on “River of Justice” is both hilarious and kicks up the song’s righteous energy, and if Geraldo pushes Pat Benatar’s backing vocals too high up in the mix, hey, they were married and she was probably working for free.

And though Scott Kempner was always a fine songwriter, “Based on a True Story” is the most solid and consistent set of tunes he ever crafted for the Del-Lords, and whether he’s wistful “Cheyenne”, righteously pissed-off “Crawl in Bed”, taking a stand (“I’m Gonna Be Around”), or just getting goofy “Whole Lotta Nothin’ Goin’ On”, he brings his A game.

Hard touring had turned the Del-Lords into a tight, impressively powerful band, and they rarely sounded better than they did on “Based on a True Story”, with Kempner and Eric Ambel’s guitars roaring like a fine-tuned machine, and Funaro and bassist Manny Caiati laying down the rhythm with fury and precision. If they never made an album that quite captured the glory of their live shows, the Del-Lords never had a finer hour in the studio than on “Based on a True Story”, and it tells their story remarkably well.

The term “D.I.Y.” gets thrown around in music a lot these days, but London alt-folk singer-songwriter Rozi Plain is the real thing. Coming up through open-mic nights as a teenager in her hometown of Winchester, she quite literally forged her own sound through the electric guitar she built during a uni-mandated work experience program at a guitar shop. These days, you can still find her posted up at London’s Total Refreshment Centre, a recording studio/venue/cultural hub for the city’s emergent jazz vanguard — that is, when she’s not busy touring with the likes of Paramore, Devendra Banhart, and K.T. Tunstall as a solo artist, or making music as a member of Kate Stables band This Is The Kit.  

Community is central to the spirit of Plain’s craft, with a vast range of collaborators — from Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor to saxophonist Alabaster DePlume — contributing to songs that lull you in and keep you hooked with subtle layers of complexity. Plain’s fifth studio album “Prize” invites you onto its wavelength with light-touch production and instrumentation (plus plentiful jazz chords) that put her aural and lyrical storytelling front and centre. 

Constant through all of this (teen years included) has been her friendship with This Is The Kit’s Kate Stables. To this day, they each play backup in each other’s bands. 

In the spirit of sharing, Plain brought her band — Stables (bass and backing vocals), Lucien Chatin (drums), Michael Hilger (keyboards), and Jordan Blackman (guitar) — to make their U.S. radio debut with KCRW, featuring “Prize” cuts like “Complicated,” “Agreeing for Two,” and “Spot Thirteen.”

There’s basically two kinds of artists: There are the ones who follow in the legacies of the sounds we know and love and help move them forward. And then there artists who etch out new space in the aural universe, expanding the experience and possibilities of what music can be. 

Since helping pioneer shoegaze in the late ‘80s, Slowdive have been the latter, and have kept their eyes (and ears) set on the sonic unknown ever since.  The UK quintet stopped by KCRW’s Performance Studio on the heels of their acclaimed new fifth album — and their second since returning from a decades-long hiatus in 2014 “Everything Is Alive”.

The record ranked in most of the Best Albums of 2023, landing at No. 9 on Spotify’s global Top Debut Albums chart. Three decades into their tenure, Slowdive is selling the most albums of their career. 

Watch the performance video for expansive live renditions of “Everything Is Alive”