Four years after they went all the way to “Antarctica”, Flat Worms are back in gen pop with the rest of us— but, as intoned on the album opener “Sigalert,” “back again like I never was.” Is this a nod to the way time passes over our sorely vexed synapses? Or are we to believe that there’s hope to be found in this broken world? Kick back with “Witness Marks” and see what other traces Flat Worms have left us in the dust.
The album title alone leaves a foreboding impression. But look closer—“witness marks” aren’t something out of a forensic analysis—they’re actually practical; scratches placed in old clocks designed to aid continued maintenance further in time.
Hitting flat and hard with their bass-drums-guitar and vocals alignment, Flat Worms use a buzzing combo of blunt force and surreal lyrics to hammer the absurdity of the status quo, as it deserves. Our social experiment continues to implode before our eyes; “Witness Marks” offers both critique and compassion, with songs that corkscrew through shades of exhilarating, dizzying and ambiguous spaces in between times of crisis and complacency.
Working once again with Ty Segall, Flat Worms continue to find new answers by digging into themselves and playing their kind of rock: hard and flat, bass and drums thrusting stalwartly forward with conviction, guitar twisting and spinning in outrage, deadpan vocals decrying a dire set of circumstances.
The democracy of working together, so often messy and frustrating, was found to be a powerful release for Justin, Tim and Will. Acting as one, Flat Worms navigated challenging times by coming together, finding release in the clockwork repetitions of practice and the shared creative space they occupied together against the encroaching world.
Recorded at Harmonizer Studios in Topanga Canyon Mixed by Ty Segall and Flat Worms
from the LP/CS/CD “Witness Marks,” out September 22nd, 2023 on God? Records.
Woods are in bloom again, inviting you to disappear into a new spectrum of colours and sounds and dreams on new album “Perennial”.
Formed in Brooklyn in 2004, Woods have matured into a true independent institution, above and below the root, reliably emerging every few years with new music that grows towards the latest sky. Operating the Woodsist label since 2006 and curating the beloved homespun Woodsist Festival for the musical universe they’ve built, “Perennial”is the sound of a band on the edge of their 20th anniversary and still finding bold new ways to sound like (and challenge) themselves.
“Perennial” grew from a bed of guitar/keyboard/drum loops by Woods head-in-chief Jeremy Earl, a form of winter night meditation that evolved into an unexplored mode of collaborative songwriting. With Earl’s starting points, he and bandmates Jarvis Taveniere and John Andrews convened, first at Earl’s house in New York, then at Panoramic House studio in Stinson Beach, California, site of sessions for 2020’s “Strange To Explain“. With a view of the sparkling Pacific and tape rolling, they began to build, jamming over the loops, switching instruments, and developing a few dozen building blocks.
The album’s resulting 11 songs, 4 of them instrumental, are in the classic Woods mode–shimmering, familiar, fractionally unsettling–but with the half-invisible infinity boxes of Earl’s loops burbling beneath each like a mysterious underground source. From source to seed to bloom, each loop unfolds into something unpredictable, from the jeweled pop of the aching “Little Black Flowers” to the ecstatic starlit freak-beat of “Another Side.” They are blossomings both far-out and comforting, like the Mellotronic cloud-hopping of “Between the Past,” or sometimes just plain comforting, like the widescreen snowglobe fantasia of the instrumental “White Winter Melody,” touched by Connor Gallaher’s pedal steel.
Woods have long used the studio as a place of song writing, naming 2007’s “At Rear House”after their shared dwelling and recording space. But “Perennial” also carries with it an even longer view of Woods. Emerging from the process alongside the music was Earl’s reflection that “perennial plants and flowers are nature’s loops,” an idea rolling under the album’s lyrics like the loops themselves. It certainly applies to the band, too, who have quietly tended to a long, committed project of being a band in the weird-ass 21st century, both individually and communally. Though separated by coasts, the communal sprit carries through Earl, Taveniere, and Andrews’ collaboration, a living embodiment of the freedoms rediscovered every time a new collectively created piece of music emerges.
For nearly two decades, Woods have survived subgenres, anchored in the fertile soil below hashtags like lo-fi and freak-folk and psychedelic and indie, and built a shared history that’s something to marvel at. As the flagship band for Woodsist, they’ve accumulated a striking extended family of collaborators (and Woods alum) that have made the label one of the most dependable imprints in the kaleidoscopic low-key underground. It’s a glow that’s transferred whole to the blissed-out Woodsist Fests held in Accord, New York in recent years, which have folded in a wide range of diverse sounds, from the the jazz cosmoverse of the Sun Ra Arkestra and adventurous legends Yo La Tengo, to a hard-to-even-count family tree of contemporaries, like Kevin Morby (who served a few tours of duty as Woods bassist) and Kurt Vile (who released his 2009 debut on Woodsist), a living community in sound.
“Perennial” carries all of this, shaped by decades, but made in the moment, and here right now.
the album “Perennial” out September 15th, 2023 on Woodsist.
Get ready for the next special release of Chapterhouse, one that could embezzle you out of your pockets for a while but that will surely be worth it, because we are talking about a box with all your long albums, EPs, singles, remixes, B-sides and six CDs.
The title of the boxset is “Chapterhouse: Chronology” and if everything goes according to plan, it will be next May 26th when it goes on sale with the Sonic Cathedral label. In addition, for their fans shoegazers more nailed, we have more good news, translated into 20 surprises of recordings never before shared, notes of notes, unpublished images and new interviews with the members of the group.
The band formed in 1987, a young band from Reading were in the process of taking their first tentative steps onto the music scene. One where a sea of distorted guitars, wah-wah pedals and subsequently amp stacks, created this sea of sound that would be termed shoegazing. This band rehearsed for well over a year, before finally committing these sounds to a demo tape so that it would find its way to the newly formed Dedicated record label. Dedicated was to release the band’s first EP, “Freefall”, which was soon to be followed by the “Sunburst” EP. Released in 1990, “Freefall’s” cover was to feature Andrew Sherriff, Gibson 335 guitar in hand, his long hair something that came to identify early shoe gazers, crowning this frontman.
The band were Chapterhouse and would record two studio albums, “Whirlpool” in 1991 and “BloodMusic” two years later. Listening to the band again, it’s like slipping on that favourite pair of denims, and discovering they still fit as comfortably as they did in 1991 . Following their split in 1994, in 1996 label Dedicated released “Roundabout”, a double album compilation, which featured 38 tracks highlighting the band’s career. Sony was to release a 15-track best-of compilation in 2007. But in May 2023 Cherry Red provides this band with the compilation they deserve, giving fans a 79-track, 6-CD collection, which has been curated by the band themselves and includes 20 previously unreleased recordings, including written interviews with the band, along with memorabilia and imagery from the group’s own archive.
For Chapterhouse fans, this is The Holy Grail, but we should note this is not just for fans of the band that this release may find listeners.
As previously mentioned the band’s two released albums find a place here, along with B-sides, remixes and demos, 20 of these being previously unreleased. Otherwise, these could be numbers of a later Chapterhouse, rather than their raucous beginnings, although the much-lauded track ‘Die Die Die’, where nearly 12 minutes of hard noise were played with a simple, if not grinding riff, is also included on disc 5. The same goes for the once-withdrawn (for copyright reasons) “Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis”, which has now been remastered to clear these issues. Having bought “Bloodmusic” in 1993, where the original “Pentamerous Metamorphosis” was included, this original recording is a prize in my record collection, albeit now slightly shorter than the remastered version. If you were about in the early to mid-90s or perhaps wished you were, this very reasonably priced collection of tunes is a must. These recordings document a band’s history during these burgeoning times in indie music, and I would hope that once a shoegazer, then always a shoegazer.
Graham Nash said he often wonders what he did right to achieve his level of success, while others didn’t make it. At 81 he’s set to release a new album, “Now”, which explores a series of reflections about his life, his regrets, his doubts about the present and his optimism for the future.
Asked in a interview if he thought about how he achieved so much success, Nash laughed, “Yeah, because there are so many people that are much better musicians than I am that are nowhere. And I particularly feel it when I go back to Manchester in England. I still see my old friends in there still digging graves, and they still hate their boss and they still hate work. And I go, ‘Why me? Why was it me that left and got rewarded by all this success?’”
He admitted he never came up with an answer, although he kept asking himself. However, he reflected that what he learned over the years was that “life is short.” He argued that “your time goes insanely fast, and we must make the correct choices for our lives. Do I go left? Do I talk to him? Do I do this? That’s all life is: choices that you make. And you have to make the correct choices to get to be 81 and still rocking.”
Remaining hopeful was important, Nash added. “I am, because what else can you do?” he said. “You’ve got to hope it’s going to be better. You’ve got to. You’ve got to reflect the times in which you live. You’ve got to talk about what’s going on politically and environmentally.” He said that’s why he faced some personal demons on “Now”, including the death of former bandmate David Crosby. “I have to be courageous. I have to open up my heart. I have to be courageous enough to put my heart on my sleeve and hope people don’t knock it up with a billy club. … Sometimes you can just hope for the very, very best of what life throws at you. You better deal with it or else you are hopelessly out of tune.”
Graham Nash has released a video for the song “A Better Life.”
The track comes from his latest album “Now”, his first studio release in seven years. He previously revealed the album’s opening track, “Right Now.”
Speaking when the LP was announced, Nash said, “I believe that my new album “Now” is the most personal one I have ever made. At this point in my life, that’s something to say.” “it is the duty of all artists to reflect the times in which they live, which is why there is MAGA stuff on “Now“, and songs such as ‘Stars and Stripes’ that discuss what Trump has done to the truth.”
He recalled that when he “first came to America, I’d already learned to write melodies that you could sing back to me if I played it a couple of times. … [Soon] I knew I had to make an effort to write better lyrics for the melodies I was creating. Thank God that I do live in America – a very beautiful country with many faults, and so much more going for it. I know that here that I have the right to speak my mind, even if people don’t agree with me.”
Legendary artist Graham Nash, as a founding member of both the Hollies and Crosby, Stills and Nash, is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. He has seen rock history unfold at some of its seminal moments – from the launch of the British Invasion to the birth of the Laurel Canyon movement a year later. An extraordinary Grammy Award winning renaissance artist – and self-described “simple man” – Nash was inducted twice into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, for his work with CSN and his work as a solo artist. His latest effort, “Now”, was just released worldwide on May 19th.
Towering above virtually everything that Graham Nash has accomplished in his long and multi-faceted career, stands the litany of songs that he has written and introduced to the soundtrack of our lives for nearly six decades.
Graham Nash will be joined on stage by his long time musical partners, Shane Fontayne (guitar and vocals) and Todd Caldwell (keyboards and vocals), performing favourites from across his sixty-year career.
Dusty 4 Track A side project that has quickly become their favourite way to waste time. Will Jeffery and Ben James, Dusty 4 Track hail from Nottingham. In 2022 a side project was born from Will Jeffery and Ben James and has quickly turned into their favourite way to waste time. Their last hurrah as it might be. In a world where likes and follows mean more than the music itself wouldn’t it be great if these musical misfits could make it work. Recent additions of Tom Dempsey on drums and Russ Clark on Bass have made them a force to be reckoned with.
Signing up to local independent label “I’m not from London” will surely help get their foot in many doors.
The stories of Tom Waits’ unusual studio antics are legendary, but I don’t think I’ve heard this one before. “I was impressed by the amount of weirdo instruments he had hanging around. It’s an amazing collection. I thought, ‘Hello!’ He had a Mellotron, like an early version of the synthesiser, which was loaded entirely with train noises.”
This revelation, incidentally, is shared with us by none other than Keith Richards, who tells Uncut about his long, predictably colourful friendship with Waits as part of our cover story – from one old devil to another. Besides Richards’ warm and insightful recollections, there’s a deep dive into “Swordfishtrombones“, “Rain Dogs” and “Franks Wild Years” an extraordinary trio of albums that recast Waits as a master of creative daring. “I asked Tom if there was anything he was looking for,” one collaborator tells Graeme Thomson. “He put his hands up to his mouth and stretched them out in front of himself, and said, ‘I need more…’ and made a long whooshing sound.”
There are, I hope, a lot of other creatively daring artists to be found in this issue of Uncut – but I’d quickly like to draw your attention to Tom Pinnock’s Album By Album interview with the great saxophonist Charles Lloyd. It’s no bad thing when an interviewee starts off quoting advice he was given by Duke Ellington… Among other jewels, there’s Peter Watts’ piece on David Bowie’s final Ziggy gig – an oral history from the fans’ perspective that reads more like social history than a music magazine feature.
As we know by now, Neil Young kinda just does his own thing. ‘Chrome Dreams’ was originally supposed to be released in 1977 but Young changed his mind. Although it has been heard on bootlegs and, weirdly, Neil Young has subsequently released the sequel ‘Chrome Dreams II’, this is the first time the complete album has been released how Young intended it.
For decades, an acetate copy of Neil Young’s lost 1977 album—“Chrome Dreams” was heavily circulated in fan circles, but it never went any further than that. Initially, the project was meant to be a proper follow-up to his 1975 Crazy Horse record “Zuma”. It was Young, who’d put out “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere”, “After the Gold Rush”, “Harvest”, “On the Beach”, “Tonight’s the Night” and “Zuma” all in a six-year period, that was still on fresh legs and at the pinnacle of his game.
1977 was meant to be a banner year for Young. He’d just released “Long May You Run” with former CSNY bandmate Stephen Stills the previous autumn, but he’d also compiled numerous songs between 1974 and 1976 and had nowhere to put them under his own name. From what we know now, because of Young’s vault of bootlegs and “lost” projects, he also recorded “Homegrown” and “Hitchhiker” around that time, too—but both albums went unreleased for decades. “Chrome Dreams“, despite being banished to a similar fate, feels like the most fully-formed of the three.
Recorded everywhere from Indigo Ranch Studio in Malibu, California to Quadrafonic Sound Studios in Nashville, Tennessee to Hammersmith Apollo in London, “Chrome Dreams” is not just a living, breathing full moon; it’s a document of a prolific, all-time era in Young’s career that never truly was. In 1977, he released the middle-of-the-road “American Stars ‘n Bars” which was heavily shouldered by “Like a Hurricane”—and then, in 1978, he put out his country-focused “Comes a Time” which was headlined by “Four Strong Winds,” a song Young didn’t even write. To make full sense of this recent run of the unvaullted “lost” album releases. We got “Hitchhiker” in 2017 and then “Homegrown” in 2020, two projects that feature much of the same content as “Chrome Dreams” and have also been deemed as “lost records.”
Madder Rose belongs to the forgotten cult bands of the 90s, but just like on the comeback album from 2019, the American band also shows on No One Gets Hurt Ever that it is capable of great deeds The American band Madder Rose delivers its sixth album with No One Gets Hurt Ever and it is their sixth excellent album with very melodic songs and the great guitar work of Billy Coté and by the beautiful voice of singer Mary Lorson, who would make two great albums after Madder Rose as SaintLow.. After the four unsung masterpieces from the 90s, the band surprisingly returned in 2019 and four years later there is fortunately another new album by Madder Rose.
Billy Coté and Mary Lorson still manage to inspire each other in which 90s indie rock and a touch of psychedelics merge beautifully. The band will probably never rise above cult status.
The band’s new album also revolves around the guitar work, production and songs of Billy Coté and the still beautiful voice of Mary Lorson. Madder Rose also quotes from the music it made in the 90s on her sixth album, but this time the band sounds just a bit less gritty, although the guitar work is certainly there and there is room for modest guitar walls here and there.
Especially when the guitars sound a bit more psychedelic and Mary Lorson sings full of incantation, the comparison with Mazzy Star is again obvious, but Cowboy Junkies also provides absolutely relevant comparison material. With this I have two of my favorite bands of all time, but No One Gets Hurt Ever ultimately sounds like Madder Rose,
When I think of the name Madder Rose, I first think of the four great albums that the American band released in the 90s. With 1993’s Bring It Down, 1994’s Panic On, 1997’s Tragic Magic and 1999’s Hello June Fool, the New York-based band delivered four classics.
Stolen Jars is a band from Brooklyn, New York, that impresses on its new album “I Won’t Let Me Down” with an inventive mix of indie rock and indie pop cast in catchy but also inventive pop songs, the fourth album of the band, The beautiful combination of the voices of Cody Fitzgerald and Sarah Coffey, but then the songs of Stolen Jars. They are songs that are particularly easy to hear and occasionally come eerily close to the perfect pop song, but the songs of the Brooklyn band are also full of pleasant surprises.
Exuberant in its melancholy, kinetic in its longing, “I Won’t Let Me Down” is a record of self-discovery, the open space between losing love and finding it again. Lead vocalists Cody Fitzgerald and Sarah Coffey sing to each other across the gap — on “Reality TV,” they align for each chorus, on “In The Bad Times,” they’re literally split in the stereo field. In melody and harmony, their perspectives intertwine — as the band put together the record, Fitzgerald was beginning a new relationship while Coffey was exiting an old one. There are no contradictions here: every moment of acceptance erupts with energy, every moment of tension passes with peace.
Stolen Jars was originally a solo project by American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cody Fitzgerald, but the band has flourished since working with singer-songwriter Sarah Coffey, guitarist and songwriter Elias Spector-Zabusky, drummer Isaiah Hazzard and keyboardist Grant Meyer.
The guitar work is often combined with electronics, which results in a nice full sound. It’s a sound further enriched by inventive drum parts, which also show that Stolen Jars digs deeper than most other bands in the genre. You can hear that the band now has three songwriters in its ranks, because the quality of the songs on “I Won’t Let Me Down” is an excellent listen. It will be even more fun when Greta Kline, known as Frankie Cosmos, contributes, but even without this contribution,
Stolen Jars is Cody Fitzgerald, Sarah Coffey, Elias Spector-Zabusky, Grant Meyer, and Isaiah Hazzard
Cody Fitzgerald – Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Keys, Drums, Banjo, etc. Sarah Coffey – Vocals Elias Spector-Zabusky – Guitar, Bass, Keys Grant Meyer – Keys Isaiah Hazzard – Drums Greta Kline – Vocals on “Run It Wild” Joe Reinhart – Guitar, Bass Sumner Becker – Saxophone Dorothy Carlos – Cello
Does a song need a chorus? This new tune of ours that came out today, it’s really not appropriate big single material, but somehow we felt compelled to give it its own stand out moment. “Speech Bubble” is a series of verses, rolling round the same repeated melody. It feels like one of the weightier tracks on this record despite its small stature.
The lyric initially started as a narrative to a successful romantic endeavour, each line stating “I’ll be your this” and “I am your that”, but thankfully it morphed into a yearning plea, beckoning hopefully, into the future. We were stuck writing this for some time until the full twist of the lyric revealed itself in the “let me” that starts off every line.
This is a love song that asks for permission. And once permission is asked, almost any declaration comes across in the right tone of voice, nothing feels cheesy. I quickly jotted down the bulk of the final lyrics whilst stashed in a basement flat with a rather bad bout of covid. The bed in that flat was absolutely too short to stop my feet from sticking out the end. London and indeed that basement flat is very much a central character.
I don’t know how much of a secret this is as I believe places like Apple Music have the full track list already visible, but “Speech Bubble” is the album opener. As track one, it starts by asking questions before the rest of the record then moves chronologically through single life into not so single life. Much like our previous record, we’ve tried to make it a linear story. Anyway, yet again I’ve waffled.
Oh but also, I’ve recently realised that you as the email receiver, can reply to these emails. So here I am now, encouraging you to reply to this – anecdotes, covers, photographs, gentle thoughts, not so gentle thoughts, anything really, and I could include a few the next time I write.
Hope you’re all safe and sound wherever you’re reading this
The Fat Angel Sings 