Eighties synth-pop legends OMD return with a new album called “Bauhaus Staircase”.
The 12-track long-player is their first since 2017’s “The Punishment of Luxury” and is said to be “the band’s most explicitly political record” and the crowning achievement of their “desire to be both Stockhausen and ABBA – born from the impetus to kickstart new explorations during lockdown when, as Andy McCluskey admits: “I rediscovered the creative power of total boredom”.
Andy says “The song is a metaphor for strength and artist passion in the face of criticism and adversity. When times are hard, there is a tendency for Governments to look at cutting funding for creativity, just at the moment when the arts are most needed to nourish our souls. It seems appropriate that the song and its eponymous album were created during Covid Lockdown.”
The album is being issued on CD and as a special 2CD deluxe which offers every track as a demo (including a bonus second demo of the title track). Various coloured vinyl versions are also available.
“Bauhaus Staircase” will be released on 27th October 2023 via 100%
“Nashville’sBe Your Own Pet made a triumphant return to both the stage and airwaves this past year after nearly 15 years apart. Following a whirlwind two-year career in the late ’00s that saw the four teenagers release two records (via Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace in the U.S. and XL Recordings in the U.K.), become magazine cover stars, and play to ravenous sold-out crowds around the world, it became clear that the flame burned too quickly and they needed to call it quits. Now, a decade and a half later, the band haven’t skipped a beat.
Their long-awaited new album “Mommy” was written and recorded by the three founding members Jemina Pearl Abegg (vocals), Jonas Stein (guitar), Nathan Vasquez (bass), and long time drummer John Eatherly. “For better or worse, we all were slapped in the face that it wasn’t as easy on our own,” Stein says of their hiatus. “We were all moderately successful, but nobody found that Be Your Own Pet chemistry.”
Inspired by the band’s one-off, 2022 Halloween show at the Encore Theater at Wynn in Las Vegas, “Danse Macabre” is a spooky, ghoul-inspired 13-song collection. Duran Duran “Danse Macabre” album October 27th, 2023. The 13 song collection includes 2 new DuranDuran songs, “Black Moonlight” and “Confessions In The Afterlife” as well as their cover versions of songs by Talking Heads, Billie Eilish, The Specials, Rolling Stones, and Siouxsie And The Banshees,Rick James and Cerrone, as well as reinterpretations of the title track “Danse Macabre” and some of their own classic songs. The idea was born out of a show we played in Las Vegas on Oct. 31, 2022,” keyboardist Nick Rhodes explained in a press release. We had decided to seize the moment to create a unique, special event the temptation of using glorious gothic visuals set to a dark soundtrack of horror and humour was simply irresistible.”
Guest artists include original band member Andy Taylor and former guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, producer/guitarist Nile Rodgers and Victoria De Angelis of “Maneskin”. the track listing — which includes an update of the rare B-side and fan favourite “Secret Oktober”
“I hope you take a journey with us through the darker side of our inspirations into where we’re at in 2023,” drummer Roger Taylor added. “Maybe you’ll leave with a deeper understanding of how Duran Duran got to this moment in time.”
Singer Songwriter Hozier has achieved his first UK No.1 album, “Unreal Unearth” has debuted at the summit today. “It’s a special feeling to receive this kind of support in your home country,” said Hozier. “A massive thank you to everyone in Ireland for all the love and support shown has me absolutely thrilled.”
The album features “Eat Your Young,” released as its lead track in March, and “Damage Gets Done,’ with a guest appearance by Brandi Carlile. Hozier is one of the set‘s many co-producers, In a five-star review, the Daily Telegraph’s Neil McCormick lavished praise on the album, describing Hozier as “a singer-songwriter who deserves to be considered among the very best of his peers.
Operating as Hozier, “Unreal Unearth” is only his third album in nine years, but it is further evidence of an artist who takes pride in every aspect of his craft, concocting songs of emotional and philosophical depth in richly detailed sonic environments that push this venerable genre into thrilling new spaces. He plays guitar deftly and sings beautifully, drawing on folk, blues and roots forms to marry flowing melodies to meaningful lyrics.”
The Guardian wrote: “Irish singer-songwriter Andrew Hozier-Byrne’s third album is a lot. A teetering stack of soul and rock teeming with furrow-browed, denim-jacketed, glass-cased emotion. It should come with a reading list – its 16 songs are patterned by way of Dante’s Inferno and he has said that epic poetry such as Metamorphoses inspired him.”
It’s been a decade since Andrew Hozier-Byrne (better known as just Hozier) landed on listeners’ radars with the viral, now diamond-certified track, ‘Take Me to Church’ and since then he’s amassed a devoted online fanbase.
In celebration of 50 years of Frank Zappa’s widely-acclaimed “Over-Nite Sensation”, a newly expanded 50th anniversary edition will be released on November 3rd via Zappa Records/UMe in a variety of formats, “Over-Nite Sensation” turns 50 years old. To celebrate this iconic album, we present a 4CD + 1 Blu-ray Audio Super Deluxe showcasing 88 total tracks with 57 unreleased tracks & mixes. Featuring the 2012 remaster of the original album by Bob Ludwig along with additional masters, highlights and mix outtakes from the original 1973 sessions mastered by John Polito. It was also the first album by Zappa to be released in quadraphonic surround sound. the album signaled a change in musical direction for the Mothers, with Frank handling the bulk of the lead vocals and being the only guitar player. It was a new band, a new sound and eventually the album went gold. over the years, almost every song on “Over-Nite Sensation” would go on to become live staples and fan favourites. 50 years on, the album is still one of the highlights of the Zappa catalogue.
‘Over-Nite Sensation’ has turned 50 years old; an absolute classic – for some, a gateway to Zappa, a place to start.
In 1973, Frank Zappa and The Mothers were once again on the move. Coming off a year laden with a pair of well-lauded high watermarks — July 1972’s jazz-fusion solo masterstroke “Waka/Jawaka” and November 1972’s big-band Mothers progression “The Grand Wazoo” — Zappa wanted to next convene another revised Mothers collective, rethink some long-throw compositional tracts, and begin exploring the differences inherent in the form and function of his songwriting. In turn, Zappa also decided to bring his own singing voice more to the lead vocal fore than ever before, as well as refine the scope of his guitar playing.
And thus, September 1973’s “Over-Nite Sensation” was born. A stone cold classic, “Over-Nite Sensation” has long been viewed by both the cognoscenti and layman as being a gateway album entry into the Zappaverse at large, serving as a mighty grand place to enter into the breach along with his follow-up March 1974 solo release,“Apostrophe”. It was also the first album by Zappa to be released in Quadraphonic surround sound, an ever-evolving sonic medium Zappa would continue to explore throughout his career on the cutting edge.
Not only did “Over-Nite Sensation” signal a change in musical direction for The Mothers at large, but Zappa handled the bulk of the lead vocal duties and staked his claim as the album’s only guitarist. It was a new band with a new sound that resonated widely, eventually going gold in 1976. Over the ensuing years, almost every song on “Over-Nite Sensation” became indelible live staples and longstanding fan favourites, with “I’m The Slime,” “Fifty-Fifty,” “Zomby Woof,” and “Camarillo Brillo” immediately making their respective presences known in the setlist. In the here and now, 50 years on, “Over-NiteSensation” remains both one of the top-tier highlights of the vast Zappa catalogue as well as one of his most consistent bestsellers.
The new group of Mothers heard on “Over-Nite Sensation” was comprised of virtuoso musicians rooted in jazz (keyboardist George Duke, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, drummer Ralph Humphrey, and trumpeter SalMarquez) and serious music (wind instrumentalist Ian Underwood and percussionist Ruth Underwood) alike, all polished off with the Fowler brothers duly in tow (with Bruce Fowler on trombone, and TomFowler on bass). As a result, the instrumentation of this aurally palpable Mothers lineup was akin to having a mini orchestra in a rock format — and Zappa utilized them brilliantly, crafting arrangements for existing material like “Cosmik Debris” and “Montana” in addition to writing a large number of new compositions to maximize their strengths.
The truly crazy, over-the-top vocal stylings of Ricky Lancelotti catapulted songs like “Fifty-Fifty” and “Zomby Woof” into the stratosphere. For his part, Kin Vassy (of Kenny Rogers and The First Edition) added numerous, tasty tidbits all throughout. But perhaps the most legendary guest turns of them all would be those by Tina Turner and The Ikettes. With Zappa tracking at Ike Turner’s Bolic Sound studio in Inglewood, Calif., it only seemed logical that Tina and Frank’s paths would eventually cross. Although famously uncredited, Tina and The Ikettes’ background vocals were draped all throughout the record and are undeniably unique —and spot-on perfect.
If you dropped the needle on “Over-Nite Sensation” for the first time in 1973, it was immediately apparent something new, different, and exciting was happening in Zappa’s ever-expanding musical universe. The material was funky, funny, challenging, and mighty — and, yes, even more accessible than his output of the prior few years.
Also included are live recordings from 1973 showcasing the same band that recorded the album, one from the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles and the other recorded at Cobo Hall in Detroit.
On March 23rd at the Hollywood Palladium, fans got early tastes of the “sort-of” guru blues of “Cosmik Debris” and the sleazy, slow-rolling funky grease of “Curse Of The Zomboids (I’m The Slime).” Nary a few months later on May 12th at Cobo Hall in Detroit, the odds-busting, horn-driven instrumental sneer of “Fifty-Fifty” and the “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow,” “Nanook Rubs It,” and “St. Alphonzo’s Pancake Breakfast” troika medley were all served up with patented Zappa narrative aplomb.
The 2Lp 180-gram black audiophile vinyl reissue features the album cut at 45 rpm for the first time ever from the original analogue tape by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman mastering in 2023 and a bonus 24” x 12” poster of the complete cover art.
The Blu-ray contains the album newly re-mixed in Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround by Karma Auger and Erich Gobel at Studio1LA, Zappa’s original 4-channel Quadraphonic mix (available for the first time since 1973), and the Hi-Res stereo 2012 remaster at 192K24B and 96K24B. The package features unseen photos from the album cover shoot along with liner notes and essays by Mark Smotroff and Vaultmeister Joe Travers.
Roger Waters has released another song from his upcoming “The Dark Side of the Moon Redux” album. He has rerecorded all of Pink Floyd’s classic 1973 album without any of his former bandmates. Waters released the first song, “Money,” last month.
Waters says ‘when we recorded the stripped down songs for the “Lockdown Sessions, the 50th anniversary” of the release of “The Dark Side Of The Moon” was looming on the horizon. It occurred to to me that “The Dark Side Of The Moon” could well be a suitable candidate for a similar re-working, partly as a tribute to the original work, but also to re-address the political and emotional message of the whole album. I discussed it with Gus and Sean, and when we’d stopped giggling and shouting ‘You must be ****ing mad’ at one another we decided to take it on. It’s turned out really great and I’m excited for everyone to hear it. It’s not a replacement for the original which, obviously, is irreplaceable. But it is a way for the seventy nine year old man to look back across the intervening fifty years into the eyes of the twenty nine year old and say, to quote a poem of mine about my Father, “We did our best, we kept his trust, our Dad would have been proud of us”.
“I’m immensely proud of what we have created, a work that can sit proudly alongside the original, hand-in-hand across a half-century of time,” Waters said in a press release announcing the album. “The original “Dark Side of the Moon” feels in some ways like the lament of an elder being on the human condition. But Dave [Gilmour], Rick [Wright], Nick [Mason] and I were so young when we made it, and when you look at the world around us, clearly the message hasn’t stuck. That’s why I started to consider what the wisdom of an 80-year-old could bring to a re-imagined version.”
Drummer Mason was given a preview of the album and highly praised it. “He actually sent me a copy of what he was working on,” Mason said earlier this year. “And I [wrote] to him and said, ‘Annoyingly, it’s absolutely brilliant!’ It was and is. It’s not anything that would be a spoiler for the original at all, it’s an interesting add-on to the thing.”
“The Dark Side of the Moon Redux”includes all 10 songs from the original album plus a new 13-minute original composition. It will be released on October 6th.
The National are a Brooklyn-based five-piece hailing from Ohio. The group contains two pairs of brothers — Bryce Dessner (guitars), Aaron Dessner (bass, guitars), Scott Devendorf (bass, guitars), and Bryan Devendorf (drums) — and features Matt Berninger on vocals.
The National unveiled two new tracks, “Alphabet City” and “Space Invader.” The latter comes accompanied by an evocative visualizer crafted under the creative direction of Noah Sacré and Pauline de Lassus – both songs come hot on the heels of their LP“First Two Pages of Frankenstein”, which was released on April 28th.
Within the melancholic embrace of the seven-minute “Space Invader,” frontman Matt Berninger weaves a tapestry of contemplation and introspection. His distinctive and emotive voice croons out alternate scenarios, pondering the roads not taken: “What if I stayed on the/ C train until Lafayette?” he muses.
Similarly, “Alphabet City” receives the visualizer treatment on which de Lassus lends her artistic prowess to the animation and drawings that enrich the animated interpretations and resulting visual journey. Notably, both videos feature photographs by Brent Walter-Ballantyne. On “Alphabet City,” Berninger’s voice is just as vivid this time crafting a tale of presence: “I’ll still be here when you come back from space/ I will listen for you at the door.”
On October 27th Prince & The New Power Generation’s iconic 1991 album the “Diamonds And Pearls” deep dive exploration will be released via all physical, digital, and streaming partners, with the classic album remastered for the very first time, and featuring 33 previously unreleased studio tracks, live audio, as well as a previously unreleased 2+ hours of video concert performances from Prince’s legendary vault.
Ranging from alternate versions of album tracks, to numbers Prince gave away to other artists, and songs recorded while on the road in 1990. The double-platinum “Diamonds and Pearls” found Prince and his new backing band the New Power Generation trading drum machines and keyboards of his ’80s work for a more organic analog sound. This change helped him quickly recover from the relatively poor commercial and critical performance of 1990’s “Graffiti Bridge”. The 1991 album spawned several successful singles, including “Gett Off,” “Cream” and the title track.
The set offers a newly remastered version of the album, plus 15 of the incredible remixes and B-sides from the era, including the never commercially released “Gett Off (Damn Near 10 Min.)” mix.
In celebration of the reissue’s unveiling, Prince’s estate shared a previously unreleased track titled “Alice Through the Looking Glass.”
The reissue comes with a 120-page book equipped with a foreword by Chuck D, photos, essays, a Dolby Atmos mix of the LP on Blu-ray, and two hours of concert footage shot at the late artist’s Minneapolis club, Glam Slam, in 1992. The collection will arrive as a 7xCD or 12xLP set.
Notably, “Insatiable (Early Mix – Full Version),” which contains lyrics and instrumentation that Prince had decided to cut, is featured in the collection and has been released. Along with the liberated tracks from the vault and aforementioned material, the reissue also holds remixes and B-sides from the era.
Listen to “Alice Through The Looking Glass” and “Insatiable (Early Mix – Full Version)” and watch the trailer promoting the collection
Prince & The NPG previewed the “Diamonds And Pearls” Tour at Prince’s Minneapolis club, Glam Slam, on January 11th, 1992. The sweaty, sold-out, last-minute show captures the sheer joy and sense of endless possibility that came to define this era. This previously unreleased live concert performance has been mixed from the 24 track master and rounds out the audio content of the 7CD and 12LP sets. This same previously unreleased concert is also presented in stunning 2K video on the Blu-ray disc that accompanies both Super Deluxe Edition formats, in Stereo, 5.1 Dolby True HD, and Dolby ATMOS audio formats. The Blu-ray also features Prince & The New Power Generation’s performance at The Special Olympics at the Metrodome in Minneapolis in July 1991 (also in Stereo, 5.1, and ATMOS), as well as a previously unseen soundcheck. The Blu-ray is completed by the long out of print “Diamonds And Pearls” Video Collection, originally released on VHS and LaserDisc in 1992.
The 120-page hardback book which accompanies the set features unseen photos by Randee St. Nicholas, and essays by: author & broadcaster Andrea Swensson; Archivist and Senior Researcher for the Prince Estate Duane Tudahl; British music critic and Prince expert Jason Draper; De Angela L. Duff, an Industry Professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering in Brooklyn; Social Media Personality KaNisa Williams; and an introduction from Public Enemy founder, Chuck D.
The singer-songwriter follows up her latest album ‘Strays’ with a three-act project: “Act I: Topanga Canyon” features Buck Meek, Jonathan Wilson, and Ny Oh.
Beyond excited to share Strays II, a 3 part journey and follow up to my album “Strays” that came out earlier this year. Join me on “Act I: Topanga Canyon“, as we head back to where “Strays” all began. “Strays II” is out everywhere digitally on 13th October,
Listen to “Act I: Topanga Canyon” via Loma Vista
“Strays II” expands the original LP with nine new songs that will arrive in the form of three distinct acts, each telling its own unique story of love, grief, and acceptance. On “Act I: Topanga Canyon“—available now via Loma Vista Recordings—Price is joined by “Strays” producer Jonathan Wilson, as well as other collaborators .
Recorded at Wilson’s Topanga studio during the same sessions as the rest of “Strays”—and also partially written amidst the six-day psilocybin trip that Margo Price and her husband Jeremy Ivey took the summer prior—all three acts of “Strays II” further complement the initial album from earlier this year.
Regarding the new single “Strays,” Price wrote: “The title track is the story of how my husband Jeremy and I met and fell in love in Nashville two decades ago. I wrote most of the words and Jeremy wrote the chords and melody. It also reflects how we have always tried to stay true to who we are as people: ‘Love and pain it comes in waves but it was quite enough in those early days, we were wild as wolves my darlin’, we were strays.’”
A. Savage, of the rock band Parquet Courts, has announced his second solo album, “Several Songs About Fire”. The project is set to arrive on October 6th via Rough Trade Records. To celebrate the news, he’s shared its lead single “Elvis in the Army,” a rollicking, guitar-led cut with galloping drums and Savage’s signature sardonic delivery. “Most things are over, the old world is gone,” he deadpans.
“Several Songs About Fire” is bolstered by the support of Jack Cooper (Modern Nature, Ultimate Painting) and Cate Le Bon, as well as members of Kamikaze Palm Tree and caroline. “Elvis in the Army” follows the previously shared “Thanksgiving Prayer” and is accompanied by a music video shot in Paris and directed by Emile Moutaud.
Of the track, Savage explained: “We often describe ourselves in geographic terms. American, New Yorker two terms that I’ve used to identify myself that have to do with being from or of a certain place.
So ‘Elvis in the Army’ is a bit of an inventory of those labels. They have less to do with geography than we realize. Really we’re just talking about ourselves, then framing certain characteristics geographically. No matter where I live I’ll have an American psyche until the day I die, for better or for worse. I’ll always be of America. And I can’t imagine a time where New York doesn’t feel like home. But despite that, I’d rather not be associated with a place, at least for now.”
Savage’s second solo album will be released on October 6th via Rough Trade.
The Fat Angel Sings 