“Swing From The Sean DeLear” is the new 4 song EP by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds on In The Red Records. It celebrates dreamlike bridge between life and memory. Recorded and mixed with Jim Waters, (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Sonic Youth etc.) at Waterworks Recording in Tucson AZ, “Sean DeLear”, is a tribute to the late, magical, and ubiquitous Los Angeles underground institution named Sean De Lear. The rocking song uses the metaphor of those passed on as swinging from a chandelier, a festive image we all hope is true!
Side Two of the EP is a 14 minute psych, Chicano groove titled “He Walked In.” The text is based on a visceral fever dream Kid had about his friend, and Gun Club bandmate, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, whom passed away in 1996. Leading us back to the theme of feelings sustained between life and memory, the song dreams on as the band spreads their monkey bird wings, Mark Cisneros on flute, and guest, tambourine queen Cesar Padilla lost in music but found in sound.
In such uncertain times, one thing is most certain; Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds will always bring the party.. and the other world.
Flyying Colours are a band that have perfected their sonic punch and ‘you never know’ is another infectious and highly rewarding listen of exhilarating sound and joyous harmony.
Shoegaze dreampop four-piece Flyying Colours release their stunning third studio album. formed in Australia in 2011, Flyying Colours released their debut single ‘Wavygravy’ in 2013, honing their sound on the Melbourne live scene and have picked up high praise along the way alongside heavy rotation across worldwide radio including BBC radio 6 music and kexp. the band released their critically acclaimed sophomore album ‘Fantasy Country’ in 2021 with the nme describing the release as “saturated dream-pop vistas”. recorded over a two-week period in the summer of 2021 at Red Doors Sounds with producer Woody Annison, Flyying Colours intended to capture a moment in time with recurring themes and sounds which feature throughout ‘you never know’. opening with the rollicking noise-rock of ‘lost then found’ and the catchy, upbeat melodies of ‘i live in a small town’, Flyying Colours are an unashamed wall of sound. ‘oh’ is a nod to ‘loveless’ era my Bloody Valentine while the sumptuous ‘Bright Lights’, beams with an ethereal beauty as floating melodies and shimmering guitars cascade.
Flyying Colours release their stunning third studio album. “Fantasy Country” is rich in sonic texture and shimmering atmospherics with a heavy dose of melody. From the swooning, sludgy ‘Goodtimes’ and urgent noise-fest of ‘Big Mess’, to the gorgeous melodic pop of ‘OK’, Flyying Colours look to redefine noise within the context of pop music. Elsewhere, ‘It’s Real’ is perfect, summery dreampop while the crushingly loud ‘White Knuckles’ and chugging ‘Boarding Pass’ is a hazy, echo-laden spaced-out affair. Having released their critically acclaimed debut album “Mindfullness” in 2016,
Flyying Colours are a band that have perfected their sonic punch and ‘You Never Know’ is another infectious and highly rewarding listen of exhilarating sound and joyous harmony. Elsewhere, there are grandiose pop moments in ‘Goodbye To Music’, ‘Modern Dreams’ a nd album closer ‘Never Forget’.
Our AU tour begins this weekend, followed (finally) by our rather belated EU/UK shows…I feel like I should say…and it feels strange to say…that these shows will be the last time we perform many of these songs (in these cities) live. After countless scrawled (and as we grew up printed) setlists placed conveniently just out of sight on sticky stage carpets, it is now time for us to say goodbye to much of our music (forever) – and hello to something (shiny and) new for our future. While this may sound odd and/or a little dramatic, this is just something we have to do that is very personal and important to us. We are forever grateful for the love and support given to this music and have revelled in every dropped chord, forgotten lyric and wrong pedal we have stepped on along the way. We look forward to sharing it all with you live one last time. For those places we haven’t been able to tour much (or any) of this music, we endeavour to make that happen and won’t retire “the hits” in these places until we do. This has felt particularly strange to type…see you at the show Flyying Colours
‘Tulsa Sound’, is a forthcoming limited edition JJ Cale 9LP coloured vinyl box set, which includes his first 8 albums and an LP of ‘early years’ rarities. The 50th anniversary of the career of songwriter and guitarist JJ Cale is marked by this release.
The unassuming Cale was raised in Tulsa, hence the ‘Tulsa Sound’ that he was crediting with originating. His work in this vinyl box spans the period 1971 to 1983. Cale’s influence was enormous, with many, many artists covering his work including The Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Johnny Cash, Eric Clapton, Captain Beefheart, Santana, Jerry Garcia and more.
This new package offers Cale’s first eight albums “Naturally”, “Really”, “Okie”, “Troubadour”, “5”, “Shades”, “Grasshopper”and “#8“ – and a bonus LP called “The Early Years” which is a collection of his 1960s singles.
One of the most important artists in the history of rock, quietly representing the greatest asset his country has ever had… His records are really minimal, light, it’s all about finesse. It’s almost like he’s whispering in your ear but you hear everything single word. I don’t know how he does it. It’s such a cunning technique.” Eric Clapton on JJ Cale
The audio has all been remastered at Abbey Road and this box also includes All have been a 40-pagehardcover book with a foreword from a certain Mark Knopfler.
“Tulsa Sound” will be released on 6th October 2023 via UMR.
When the Hives announced their first new album in more than a decade this spring, singer Howlin’ PelleAlmqvist told fans exactly what to expect. “There’s no maturity or anything like that bullshit, because who the fuck wants mature rock ’n’ roll?” he quipped. Almqvist continued, “Rock ’n’ roll can’t grow up, it is a perpetual teenager and this album feels exactly like that.”
Not only is that an impressive display of self-awareness, it’s also 100-percent correct. “The Death of RandyFitzsimmons” finds the Hives doing what they’ve always done: making catchy, frenetic garage-rock laced with a deadpan sense of grandeur. Now, there’s an argument to be made that, by doing pretty much the same thing they were doing on “Lex Hives” in 2012, and each of their previous albums all the way back to 1997’s “Barely Legal”, the Hives are just rehashing the same old sound. Two things about that. First, any person making that argument about this band probably hates fun. Second, the Hives have been a caricature of themselves from the start—that’s always been part of the point.
If the music is as bombastic as ever, “The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons” does advance the mythology of the Hives. The band has long claimed that Fitzsimmons was the behind-the-scenes mastermind who started the group and wrote all of the songs before supposedly disappearing after “Lex Hives”. When the band went in search of their mentor, they purportedly found a tombstone bearing his name, but all the grave contained was new suits and demos for the 12 songs comprising the band’s sixth LP.
There are no wasted moments here: The whole thing flashes by in a little more than half an hour, and eight of the songs are less than three minutes long. That’s plenty of time for a barrage of chaotic-sounding but deceptively tight garage rock. When Almqvist counts backward from four on “Countdown to Shutdown,” the guitars land like a detonation, with shockwaves that give way to a muddy bassline that powers the song between riffs. “Two Kinds of Trouble” has a more angular feel, as scabrous lead guitar lines spar with the riff while Almqvist lists off strings of trouble-causing counterparts (“Women! Men!” or, later, “Norwegians! Danes!”).
There are guitars on “Rigor Mortis Radio,” too, but the beat is the focal point there: Tom-toms and handclaps propel the song while Almqvist makes outrageous declarations about his appeal, possibly from the point of view of the dearly departed.roup. All Rights Reserved
Not every song hits with as solid a thump—”Crash Into the Weekend” revs and revs without ever quite falling into gear, while “The Way the Story Goes” doesn’t have as sharp an edge that most of these tracks do. Yet the Hives’ commitment to the bit is total, and “The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons” boasts some of the band’s most exhilarating material in a career that has never lacked any superheated songs or top-shelf showmanship. Maybe that counts as maturity after all.
The Hives new album ‘The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons’, out August 11th now:
Jilian Medford’s project Ian Sweet has announced a new album called “Sucker”. It’s due out November 3rd via Polyvinyl Records. She’s also shared a video for its first single “Your Spit,” featuring cameos from Saturday Night Live cast members Sarah Sherman and Martin Herlihy, as well as members of Nation of Language.
Of the new song, Medford said in a statement: “‘Your Spit’ is about the joy and fear that surrounds new relationships. The excitement that’s also accompanied by doubt. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say the song is just mostly about making out.”
Medford started working on “Sucker” in the fall of 2022 at an artist residency at the Outlier Inn in Los Angeles. She then worked on the demos with co-producers Alex Craig and Strange Ranger’sIsaac Eiger, as well as mixing engineer Al Carlson. Of the process, she said: “I was feeling very stuck in L.A. and was trying to get comfortable with spending more time alone again. I went there not knowing exactly what I wanted to do or make, but I knew I wanted to explore and get out of my comfort zone. I forced myself to make things on the spot, in the moment and not overthink it too much.”
“Sucker” features the song “Fight,” which appeared on the “Star Stuff” EP, released last year. Ian Sweet’s last LP was 2021’s “Show Me How You Disappear”.
According to a press release, Holly Humberstone’s highly anticipated debut represents the singer coming of age, growing from unknown singer at her parent’s piano to the most exciting alternative pop stars of her generation. “I feel like two different people half the time. My biggest challenge is always to make something I feel I haven’t done before, that reflects new parts of me,” explains Humberstone.
“‘Antichrist’ is about a break up I went through a couple of years ago. I genuinely cared about this person and wanted so badly to make it work, but I knew something wasn’t right and my heart wasn’t in it,” she shared.
She continued: “I knew that I was inevitably going to have to hurt the person who I wanted so much to love. At the time I wrote the song, I remember feeling like I was constantly letting those around me down. Like I was falling short of being there for anyone I cared about. I basically felt like the worst person in the world; like the “Antichrist”. I really felt that I was toxic to be around, and the guilt and self-loathing that came with that manifested itself in this song.”
Speaking of ‘Room Service’, Humberstone shared: “I wrote Room Service a little while ago when I’d just started touring full time. I was finding myself constantly stressed out and although I was having fun, I was really missing home and my friends. I felt like I was watching them live out their lives from a phone screen, like I was being left behind.”
“There was this swelling feeling that I was growing apart from that world that I was missing so badly, and I just didn’t want to be forgotten. All I wanted to do was to get a hotel room with my best friend, lock the world out and do stupid stuff like order room service.”
She continued: “To me, this song is a simple love song to the people I care about the most, and the seemingly basic experiences you share together that can so often be taken for granted. The busier I get, the more I treasure the precious time I get with my friends and family; the more I value them in my life.”
Both of the lead singles together serve as a revolving door into the visceral duality of the singer herself. ‘Paint My Room Black’ is set for release on October 19th via Polydor/Darkroom/Geffen.
Acclaimed NY-based singer-songwriter Jordan Lee aka Mutual Benefit announces ‘Growing At The Edges’ out October 6th on Transgressive Records, his first record since 2019 with ‘Little Ways’ single on Thursday 13th of July 2023.
“Growing at the Edges” is sonically expansive, artfully blending genres from country to classical with the help of multifaceted co-producer Gabriel Birnbaum (Wilder Maker) and critically acclaimed string arranger Concetta Abbate. The band, alongside Lee and Birnbaum, was made up of Wilder Maker members Sean Mullins (Andy Shauf) and Nick Jost (Baroness) and features help from Jonnie Baker of Florist and Eva Goodman of Nighttime among others.
“I approached “Growing at the Edges” as an act of world-building. It was a place we visited often over the past 5 years collaging and sonically redecorating until it reflected the joy and the pain of being human in a universe that will always be changing. I wanted to make music that could simultaneously mourn versions of the past but still find hope in the seedlings which could, perhaps, bloom into better futures”
The album cover is a purposefully “unfinished” weaving by fiber artist Natalie Phillips.
“I had this theme for “Growing at the Edges” where I was thinking about the first little life forms that pop up after something natural like winter or less natural like a disaster and kind of channeling their spirit for the art and music. That got me imagining one of Natalie’s beautiful weavings but in-process with stray yarn and loom still visible. Incomplete yet still beautiful. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.”
“No Fixed Point In Space”, the third full-length album by Jack Cooper’s Modern Nature, takes the palette of sound and themes that were honed on 2021’s “Island Of Noise” and launches them into an expansive world of openness and vivid technicolour. It’s a music that hasn’t been heard before; as melodic as anything Cooper has produced but framed by rhythms and instrumentation that reflect the chaos, unpredictability and colour of the natural world.
“With this record,” Cooper explains, “I wanted the music to reflect nature: beginnings and endings, arrivals and departures, process and chance. I wanted the music and the words to feel like roots, branches, mycelium, the intricacies of a dawn chorus, neurons firing, the unknown.”
“The way you see or hear music in your head is abstract and magic… far more beautiful than what eventually appears on tape. When you sit down with an instrument and begin translating an idea, it quickly conforms. I’ve tried to develop this music without thinking in terms of set rhythms, time signatures, folk or pop structures, syntax; the devices you associate with the music world which I come from. I wanted to make music that was abstract, free and honest, whilst still being predominantly tonal and recognisably song based. New music! It feels like time to make something that no one has heard before.”
Certain moorings – woodwind, percussion, strings and Cooper’s lambent voice – are still present and recognisable from “No Fixed Point In Space’s” predecessor, “Island Of Noise” but the new record marks a shift to utilising musical notation as a point of departure, from which the group explore the space around suggested notes and rhythms to create a semi-improvised, semi-composed ensemble performance. These explorations of partly organised chance were recorded live and directly to tape.
“Part of it is a reaction to what I hear out in the world,” continues Cooper. “Modern Nature’s music has certain threads that run through it. Music is increasingly sterile and informed by the grids and convenience of digital recording. Music needs the swing of humans for it to resonate on any level below the surface.
“I think the most important aspect of that idea is collectivism; the rhythm, melody, timbre, dynamics, all the aspects of music are not the responsibility of one instrument, they are the responsibilities of all the instruments. The vocals are no more important than the bass. That makes the music move in an organically unpredictable way. Like a flock of birds or school of fish, notes breaking the surface and then disappearing. A football crowd singing a melody swells and pulses with a microtonal monophony. That’s how I want this music to feel.”
This approach gives the music a remarkably fresh feel; songs pulse and evolve. The changes between movements, verse and choruses are almost all ambiguous. During the album’s opener “Tonic”, a verse of hushed brevity washes away into a passage of overwhelmingly vibrant orchestration.
Cooper devised musical notation for the players to follow in every song. Within this set of loose parameters or signifiers, they were able to explore the pieces on their own terms.
“Most of the arrangement and orchestration is notated, but the musicians are all imaginative interpreters’” he says – and for the record, they include: Anton Lukoszevieze, Mira Benjamin and Heather Roche of Apartment House, Alex Ward (This Is Not This Heat/Spiritualized), Dominic Lash, Chris Abrahams of The Necks, Julie Tippetts (FKA Julie Driscoll) as well as long-term collaborators Jeff Tobias (Sunwatchers) and Jim Wallis.
There is a perceptible but graceful tension audible in the record. This approach is remarkably effective on “Orange”, where voices merge together in the refrain ‘turning again we go round and recover’, a phrase that provides the piece with a sense of momentum, even as the instrumentation resists being confined to an equally circular repetition and pulls in contraflow against the vocal lines. The melodies and words move in a similar way to the music, partly improvised, dissonant poetry.
The swing of one particular human present on “No Fixed Point In Space” is especially noteworthy. The legendary Julie Tippetts (Driscoll) adds her distinctive voice to the record, on what is her first appearance on a recording for several years. Tippetts’ ability to evoke a landscape, whether physical or interior, has always been a feature of her vocal performances. Throughout this record her voice does the same to great, purposeful effect, not least on the closing track “Ensō“, where she takes the lead.
“Ultimately,” concludes Cooper. “This is music I’ve always wanted to hear. I read a quote of Einstein’s via Merce Cunningham that said there are “no fixed points in space” and that felt right. It felt like what I was trying to achieve here.”
All songs were written by Jack Cooper
“Murmuration” is taken from the forthcoming new album by Modern Nature
It’s been four years since Cherry Glazerr released their resplendent third album “Stuffed and Ready”, but Clementine Creevy has been in no rush. “I’ve spent these years taking a hard look at myself, at my relationships, and writing about it,” she says. “I guess I’m coming to terms with a lot of my bullshit.” Cherry Glazerr has been on the road more often than not since Creevy was still in high school, and when the pandemic hit, she immersed herself in a static existence she’d been deprived of. “When you’re always leaving, you don’t have a great sense of where your relationships stand, romantic or otherwise. You’re not thinking about the work that goes into maintaining them,” she says.
Creevy describes Cherry Glazerr’s ambitious new album, “I Don’t Want You Anymore”, as some of her most personal, raw music to date, a collection of songs that elaborate on this period of self-reckoning. It’s the first she’s produced since Cherry Glazerr’s garage rock debut, “Haxel Princess”, released nearly a decade ago when Creevy was a teenager. That album made Cherry Glazerr a Los Angeles mainstay act, and its follow up, 2017’s “Apocalipstick”, put the band on the national map. Cherry Glazerr’s rough and tumble sound coupled with Creevy’s witty, sarcastic, occasionally self-deprecating lyricism made the band a joy to watch live, their energy unmatched by the coolly detached bent of indie rock at the time.
Creevy describes “I Don’t Want You Anymore” as a “mature” album, more so in reference to her personal growth than a reflection of the record, which in true Cherry Glazerr fashion is best described as Extremely Fun. To make it, Creevy linked up with producer Yves Rothman, who’s best known for his work with Yves Tumor. “I knew I had to work with him,” she says. The collaboration began with a cover of Metallica’s “My Friend of Misery” and grew into this new record, which Creevy considers to be Cherry Glazerr, fully-actualized. “The songs on this one are songs I’ve dreamed of making,” she says.
Lead single “Soft Like a Flower” exemplifies that growth. A murky guitar riff inaugurates the track, before Creevy’s unguarded vocals enter the mix. She sings of a consuming obsession and is joined on the chorus by longtime bandmate Sami Perez. “I’m high on your something,” they wail. “I like you killing me/ I like you killing me/ I like you killing me.” It’s proudly emotive, what Creevy calls an “Evanescence moment.” “It’s a real ‘losing your fucking shit’ kind’ve vibe,” she says. “I wanted this album to be just heart and soul. Completely exposed.”
“I Don’t Want You Anymore” uses the element of surprise to its advantage; each track is a radical reimagination of what Cherry Glazerr is and can be. “Bad Habit” opens with a spiraling vocal loop that Creevy began recording at home and it expands into a delirious downtempo dance track without ever invoking a guitar. “I can’t wait to play that one live. Whenever I’m free of a guitar and I can just sing… I love having those moments on tour,” she says. The subsequent track, “Ready for You” is sung in funky staccato and the initially spare bassline on the opening verse is eventually overtaken by a massive, staticky guitar riff that reminds you this is, at its heart, a rock album. “At the start of the pandemic, I was writing a lot in the box, what I call ‘computer music’ since I’m technologically challenged,” Creevy says. “It was fun to experiment, but after a while, I just really missed rock. I love rock music – I love how it’s cathartic and brash and sometimes a little dumb.”
Though Cherry Glazerr’s latest offers some insight into Creevy’s private moments, it’s also a humorous album, one she hopes people don’t take too seriously. “This was a really therapeutic record to make, but it’s also self-aware, and I hope, funny,” she says. On “Touched You With My Chaos,” the album’s outright loudest song that begs for a scream-along, Creevy becomes a wildly dramatic narrator, one who slashes the tires of her own car, accompanied by strings and the unexpected squawk of a trumpet. She wrote it after watching Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, and wanted to mimic the sense of desperation the film inspires. “I said that I loved you!” she howls over and over again on the chorus.
Movies have always played a role in Creevy’s songwriting, and many of the songs on “I Don’t Want You Anymore” can be described visually. When she wrote “Sugar,” Creevy pictured playing it in a dark, seedy club, her deadpan vocal delivery mirroring the grim atmosphere. “That song tickles the part of my brain that loves driving really late at night,” she says. These are songs to soundtrack the listener’s life, a score to suit any occasion. The titular track makes a promise to an unnamed other, but the repeating lyrics on the bridge could just as easily serve as a love letter to listeners: “In the end, you’re always holding me.”
“Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling” is the latest addition to the Slaughter Beach, Dog cannon, following four full-length releases and a handful of singles, EPs and live albums. Since his days as one of the frontmen of the much loved and critically adored band Modern Baseball, Ewald has been a prolific songwriter and road dog, with an ever-expanding fanbase across the globe.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Ewald moved from Philadelphia, his home of a decade, to a house in the Poconos. With less distractions and a calmer mind, he filled his time taking long walks and listening to the likes of Neil Young, Randy Newman and Tom Waits. These classic songwriters inspired Ewald to take a quintessential approach to writing “Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling” and in July 2022, he gathered his bandmates at The Metal Shop, their longtime studio in Philadelphia. Ewald showed them songs he had written over the past two years on an acoustic guitar and the band played what they were hearing for each – emphasizing the instinctual, listening to each other, and above all adding parts to serve the song.
Craig Finn, of The Hold Steady, and also an acclaimed songwriter in his own right, says that on the record, “There’s beautiful space in everything. It’s patient and aware. I’ve always admired Jake’s eye for detail and it’s on full display here. It’s an album filled with gorgeous imagery and vivid worlds are built within each song. I see it all. Most impressively to me, he consistently finds the divine and sacred in the everyday,
It’s my opinion that every record is about growing up- we all have to get a little older before we make the next one. “Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling” examines a particular weightlessness that is part of spreading wings, putting down roots, trying to grab ahold of something. This is how it feels when you’re making the moves that you make while becoming the person that you’re going to be.”
“Strange Weather” is out releases September 22nd on Lame-O Records.
New album ‘At The Moonbase’ available now on Lame-O Records.
The Fat Angel Sings 