Yo La Tengo have shared a new EP called “The Bunker Sessions”. It features five songs, including four featured on their new album, “This Stupid World”. Check out the EP, It’s out today via Matador, and features live recordings of four songs from their latest album, plus one highlight from 1997’s “I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One“.
Yo La Tengo the indie rock band that was founded in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984. With a career spanning over three decades, they have become one of the most influential and respected bands in the alternative music scene. Known for their eclectic sound and diverse range of musical styles, Yo La Tengo has released numerous critically acclaimed albums and established themselves as pioneers of indie rock. Their unique blend of shoegaze, noise pop, folk, and experimental sounds sets them apart from other bands in the genre. Whether it’s their dreamy melodies or energetic guitar-driven tracks, Yo La Tengo continues to captivate audiences with their innovative approach to music.
Since their formation, Yo La Tengo has consistently pushed boundaries and experimented with different genres and musical techniques. Their ability to seamlessly transition between soft introspective ballads and raucous guitar-driven anthems showcases their versatility as musicians. The band’s distinctive sound is complemented by the heartfelt lyrics penned by frontman Ira Kaplan, which often touch upon themes of love, loss, and self-reflection.
Following on from the release of recent “Death By Laundry” EP which came out in August through AWAL, along with recent single’s ‘What Do I Know?’ and ‘Wasted Youth’, Sarah Crean supported Bombay Bicycle Club on their UK dates.
The now Brighton-based artist, Crean debuts ‘The Subtle Art of Past”, a fine new song with an video inspired by cult filmsCorpse Bride and The Addams Family – starring Sarah and an invisible man echoing the song’s sentiments.
“This is my favourite song that I’ve released so far. The premise of it and its story both feel so simple yet were so extremely therapeutic for me to write. I can remember just feeling so bitter and honestly seething a little bit when we made this and the whole song came very quickly because of that for sure. But at its core it is a song about just how extraordinary a person’s impact can be both in how they come into your life and how they leave. It just might take a wee bit of extra time to accept that.”
Crean began pouring her deepest thoughts and feelings into song writing, self-releasing singles when she was in her late teens. And yet, just as she began to feel liberated, she suddenly found herself debilitated by chronic illness, with that dominating her life between the years of 19 and 21. Confronted by her own mortality, Crean’s mental health deteriorated too. Now Brighton-based and closer to her network, she continues to share her art.
Palace have released a new teaser track from their EP, ‘Part II – Nightmares & Ice Cream’.
It follows on from their recent drop ‘Part I – When Everything Was Lost’ from earlier this year, and is set for release on 5th December. Following on from earlier cut ‘Rabid Dog’, they’ve now shared ‘Make You Proud’.
There was a behind the scenes look at recording ‘Rabid Dog’ at Unwound Studios. This was a song that came to the studio fully formed. We wanted the track to have a laziness to it intertwined with a moody, understated nostalgia. We recorded it live together at the same time in the same room in order to capture a real moment in time of us playing off each other. We wanted that lovely live rawness to come through.
Lead singer Leo Wyndham explains: “‘Make You Proud’ is about insecurity in new love. Questioning oneself constantly and overthinking at every turn – but still having this incredible patience and support from a partner.”
Of the EP, he adds: “‘Nightmares & Ice Cream’ is another snapshot of life and moments of the past year. It’s Part II of the journey, and one that’s felt very significant. It’s a hazy chapter of intense reflection to past events, but also a sort of purgatory where we stumble forward, stunned, trying to find some kind of grip on reality.”
The music of Atlanta trio Omni has always swung fast and hit hard. And “Souvenir”, their fourth album and second for Sub Pop, packs their biggest punch yet. Inactive during the majority of the pandemic–the longest downtime in their history–they approached this recording with lots of pent-up energy. Guitarist Frankie Broyles, singer/bassist Philip Frobos, and drummer Chris Yonker converted their creative fuel into sharp, driving songs that land immediately, sporting chopping riffs, staccato beats, and wiry melodies.
Why does “Souvenir” sound so sharp? Because each track is a compact unit that stands on its own, reflecting the time and place in which it was created. That’s why Omni called the album “Souvenir” it’s a collection of audio objects, a stash of musical miniatures. Think of it as a family photo album, a binder of rare playing cards, a shoebox holding precious gems.
Take “Plastic Pyramid,” the first song Omni wrote after coming out of lockdown. Filled with twists and turns, it’s a journey unto itself, charged by clanging chords, spinning rhythm, and Frobos trading lines with Izzy Glaudini of Automatic, with whom Omni toured with last fall. (Glaudini sings on two other “Souvenir” tracks, the first guest vocalist the band has collaborated with). Or take opener “Exacto,” a slicing web of intertwined guitar and bass. Its razor-fine notes and syncopated beats perfectly match pointillist Frobos lyrics such as “Exacto, de facto, concise, quite right”–a line that could well be an Omni mantra.
The precision and clarity of “Souvenir” comes from some new Omni developments. For one, this is their first album with Yonker as their full-time drummer, and his forceful playing adds exclamation points to every pointed moment on “Souvenir”. In addition, the trio worked with Atlanta-based engineer Kristofer Sampson for the first time. Sampson pushed the band to a higher degree of power, with Frobos’s vocals more upfront in his pulsing mix and the rest of the music leaping out of the speakers.
You might notice that Frobos’ singing is a bit more emotional and even nostalgic this time around. The lyrics on “Souvenir” are also by turns funny, absurd, and even cryptic. A wry humour has always coursed through Omni’s songs, and this time, it comes in shades of both dark and light. In “Granite Kiss,” an “astronomical” love story concludes with the hope that “we can decay together,” while in “PG,” a romantic walk in the park includes a rose-coloured mugging.
Omni has truly crafted a musical keepsake–a set of songs that you’ll want to keep close, an aural memento you’ll cherish for the rest of time.
Pillow Queens are a 4-piece from Dublin, Ireland. Their debut album ‘In Waiting’ was released in September 2020. Their latest album ‘Leave the Light On’ was released April 1st 2022 on Royal MountainRecords. Our new single ‘Suffer’ is out everywhere now. This one is really special to us and we hope it resonates with you in the same way. The beginning of something completely new for us and we hope you love it.
When Neil Young’s 1973 live album release “Time Fades Away” arrived, it was obviously a left-field surprise. It was recorded with the then band the Stray Gators, and featured previously unreleased songs. At a time when the Young’s popularity was surging following his highly successful studio album “Harvest”, this new live album raised questions and even Young responded at the time, “Time Fades Away” was the worst record I ever made, but as a door of what was happening to me it was a great record.” In so many ways, this music is the perfect window on the unpredictable trajectory of one of rock & roll’s true pioneers.
It is impossible to pinpoint when a new album will become a classic. And while sometimes there are signals, often such a designation comes as a complete surprise. When Neil Young’s 1973 live album release “Time Fades Away” arrived, it was obviously a left-field surprise. It was recorded with the StrayGators, and featured previously unreleased songs. At a time when the Young’s popularity was surging the new live album raised questions. In so many ways, this music is the perfect window on the unpredictable trajectory of one of rock & roll’s true pioneers.
The 50th anniversary release of “Time Fades Away” is a true celebration of an era in time that marked music forever. In 1973 Young was writing songs that have lasted to this day, and taking bold changes with the way he presented them in-person. It’s a trademark of his that still continues. And with the Stray Gators performing with him — Jack Nitzsche (keyboards); Ben Keith (pedal steel guitar); Kenny Buttrey (drums), to be replaced by Johnny Barbata; and bassist Tim Drummond. David Crosby and Graham Nash also joined on harmony vocals and acoustic guitar. The real magic of this recording has always been how it was such an adventurous risk to take at a time when so much of the contemporary music then was driven by perfection. Recorded directly from the soundboard to 16-track tape and mixed simultaneously to LP cutting, in some ways Young and the band were travelling new sonic roads. “Time Fades Away” was recorded directly after the mega-success of Young’s album “Harvest”, and it feels like the blueprint of the twists and turns of a career where the blaster rockets are kicking.
“Time Fades Away” 50th Anniversary will be released on limited edition clear vinyl only this November 3rd, via Reprise Records. This definitive 9 song iteration of the album contains a bonus track of “The Last Trip To Tulsa,” which originally appeared on Archives Vol. 2 Box Set. This version of the song appears on vinyl only for the first time ever.
Marnie Stern has the cheekily titled “The Comeback Kid” finding the 45-year-old picking up right where she left off, serving us a heady mix of restless riffs and nervy rhythms that reveal the steady strokes of a seasoned songwriter. After years of painting by the numbers as a regular member of the 8G Band on TheLate Show with Seth Meyers, the effervescent new record is a return to form for an artist ready to dive back into a more boundary-pushing sonic approach: “The sound is hard to hear, right? / You can’t take it,” she wails on the blistering single “Believing Is Seeing,” upping the ante with her trademark maximalism. “What if I add this! And this! And this!”
But it’s not all big additions on “The Comeback Kid”. While its singular collision of math-rock and post-punk is most cogently expressed at the top of the volume dial, Stern’s long-anticipated follow-up continues a trajectory that has found the artist occasionally playing down the hi-octane, Eddie Van Halen-style guitar assault on which she first built her name.
Beginning with the mid-album cover of Ennio Morricone’s “Il Girotondo Della Note,” these songs increasingly find mileage in shade and nuance, with more spacious and straightforward arrangements like the side two standout “Til It’s Over” living effortlessly alongside livewire meltdowns like “The Natural” and opener “Plain Speak.”
On the latter, she offers a potential explanation for tapping the brakes on her trademark style: “I can’t keep on moving backwards.” Pound for pound, Stern’s latest offering is as urgent and electrifying as anything she’s managed in the 16 years since her disarming debut. With the record dropping via Joyful Noise, Stern walks us track by track through the release, detailing how most of the lyrics were born from getting back into the writer’s seat—this time around with a couple of kids to keep an eye on.
1. “Plain Speak” Sometimes you feel like things are conspiring against you. You keep working at something, and you don’t get the results you want. That’s what this song is about.
2. “Believing Is Seeing” I would love to do a concept record. This is conceptual, but also more literal. I’m walking through the steps of writing the song. At the same time, I’ve always wanted to create my own universe in a song. This is me taking a stab at it.
3. “The Natural” My favourite part of writing songs is adding guitar elements in and out and trying to lock them in together until they click. This was me blending a riff at the beginning that I didn’t really love, and trying to toughen up the song with some grit.
4. “Oh Are They” I never thought I would be able to put vocals over this. This was me trying to do less tapping and trying to pull in some classic rock. But I like the guitar parts a lot.
5. “Forward” This has an old-school classic rock feel, and I like its simplicity.
6. “Working Memory” This is about trying to keep your cool when your kids are going bananas!
7. “Il Girotondo Della Note” (Ennio Morricone cover) The original sounded messy and composed at the same time, and I loved all the voices floating above. So I tried to cover it and add a bit of myself in there.
8. “Til It’s Over” I don’t usually write songs like this, and sometimes I really like to. I wrote it on the bass. Sometimes I try to approach the songs from different angles to try and snap my mind out of its usual patterns, and the bass helped.
9. “Nested” I worked on this song for years. There’s something very sad about this song and very melancholy to me. When I hear it, it reminds me of all the time I spent on it and I’m not sure if that makes me feel happy, or drags me into the memories of all the times I worked on it.
10. “Earth Eater” This was me trying to get the guitar lines as concise as possible while still trying to find a vocal line on top.
11. “Get It Good” I’m really proud of the feel of this song. The guitar parts play with time signatures and took me a long time to come up with!
12. “One and the Same” This is another melancholy one. I really tried to come up with a decent melody line on this one. There’s a lot of tapping buried underneath that I like a lot.
Just as 1992’s “Delaware” casts a long shadow over the fan’s memories, the album cast a long shadow over the composition of “Hard Light“. The band, just as collaborative in their song writing as ever, sought out a sound that acts as a spiritual sibling to their legendary debut without a simple copy and paste. “Hard Light” certainly stands on its own; the songs are meticulous, dreamy but not lackadaisical, hazy but not occluded. “Delaware” was a successful attempt to capture lightning in a bottle through in-the-moment experiments revealing the band’s reverence for all things 4AD. It was confessional, sometimes even angsty. “Hard Light” benefits from a version of Drop Nineteens that can take their time composing just the right rock songs, even if that means the album lacks certain spikes that were once immense on their debut. That said, it’s hard to miss those spikes when the “Hard Light” sound is so arresting.
The album has plenty of guitar. While Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley’s vocals, from their lyrics to their interplay, are a world unto themselves, it’s hard to look away from the gnarly chord formations that swell and swirl. The title track—which also serves as the opener—offers a sonorous canon of guitars flashing above like celestial bodies before Ackell and Kelley enter in hushed repetition: “Time, it’s of the essence.” Lead single “Scapa Flow” enters with a slacker riff that feels lifted from Lush-era Snail Mail before erupting into syncopated conflagration. “Rose With Smoke” is all about the processed guitar, plodding its way through in a psychedelic march. Then there are more closely held lines, like those that open “T,” the seven-and-a-half-minute closer and one of two love songs dedicated to Ackell’s girlfriend. The other, “Tarantula,” is on the up-tempo side, brushing against post-punk, with a gorgeous optimism heard in the voice, the guitars and the drums.
So, what does a modern Drop Nineteens song sound like? If their follow-up “National Coma” is to be believed, a modern Drop Nineteens song can sound like, well, anything. “Hard Light’s” answer to the initial question should elicit a sigh of relief: A modern Drop Nineteens song sounds like a grown-up “Delaware” track.
The album’s 11 tracks play to the band’s strong suits as they return from an extended hiatus, dwelling in shoegaze territory while adding a handful of excursions into baroque pop and post-punk that prove the band has a strong compositional foundation. It’s a smoother ride than “Delaware”, for better or for worse, but not without edges. Drop Nineteens have not lost all of their style; if anything, they’ve gained some finesse.
The strongest songs on “Sucker” arrive when central relationships experience death by a thousand arguments, where embarrassing memories and indignities culminate into sorrow and resentment. With an ambient-inspired guitar lead and woozy synths, “Comeback” reminisces about how poor it can feel to try and capture the attention of someone you love. Lines about playing dead in a pool reverberate through the whole song, giving it a haunting sensibility.
Jilian Medford’s shift to a poppier sound is handled with confidence on her fourth record, which documents the giddy highs and reeling aftermath of a relationship. “Bloody Knees,” opens the album with a fear rooted in creativity and a new sense of self-preservation: “What if I die with this song in my head and I never get to sing it?”
On the title-track, with its slowcore acoustic guitars, Medford’s beloved spells her name wrong but it goes without mention. “Sucker” even manages to get away with pairing a burning hook melody with rote lyrics, one of the album’s sore spots. The closing ballad “Hard” has devastatingly simple language about having your thoughts occupied by someone bad for you: “Did you think of me on your way back to the city / While I was in the garden getting my hands dirty?”
“Your Spit” calls back to “Spit” from her 2018 release “Crush Crusher“, trading drifting surf-rock and the assumption a partner will leave for a hooky make out anthem about understanding that they still might take off, but going in for a kiss anyway. “Emergency Contact” suggests Beach House, but Medford’s voice itself breaks the trance, building from a breathy whisper to a darkly ironic scream as she reckons with codependency: “I don’t mind! I don’t mind!”
The messy, fun isn’t particularly cheery, but producers Isaac Eiger and Alex Craig manage to supply Medford with an anthemicness that’s needed. Much of this comes with drum programming—it starts nicely with a fill—that adds a jubilance to the consistent bummer of the lyrics, recalling the danciness of later Kississippi or the lushness of this year’s record by waveform*. The clearest analogous act for what IAN SWEET is doing is feeble little horse, where lead singer Lydia Slocum adds knotty, sickly details to the band’s garbled, infectious noise-pop. If that textured, dense indie pop is dime-a-dozen these days, Medford knows how to create images that ensure these songs stick.
There are few things more exciting in music than the sound of a teenage band who are destined for big things. Over the last few years HotWax, a trio of 18-year-old school friends from Hastings, have been steadily honing their craft and building a following through a handful of singles and increasingly buzzy gigs. ‘A Thousand Times’, their debut EP, now presents a band who are ready to thrill the world.
They largely achieve this by delivering roaring, distorted grunge songs about love, infatuation and the trials of teen life. EP opener ‘Treasure’ rushes from the verses’ jittery bassline and zips of melodic guitar to a wall of thundering noise in the chorus, as guitarist and singer Tallulah Sim-Savage bellows: “Pain is past pleasure, and time will heal treasure.” Each HotWax member gets their moment to drive the song forward: bassist Lola Sam leads the verses with her wiry lines and drummer Alfie Sayers takes charge as they exit its first chorus.
HotWax show their age on ‘Mother’, an anthemic juggernaut that grows from brittle, dirty bass to fully fleshed-out fuzz. “Oh, you’re so mean, I’m telling your mother,” Sim-Savage sneers deadpan, like a grungier Justine Frischmann. It’s a delightfully youthful moment, and the kind of thing that only a band at HotWax’s current phase of life could get away with writing.
If that song’s aggression is directed towards another, then the trio turn that feeling inwards on ‘Rip It Out’ . “I wanna rip it out my arm, then I’ll rip it out my chest / Then I’ll rip it out my head ‘cause we were the best,” HotWax’s singer promises first in a hush, then in a throaty wail; the quiet-loud dynamic in her voice matching that of her band’s instruments.
HotWax’s calling card so far might be blazing grunge, but they do offer up some softer moments on this five-track record. ‘All I Want’ still centres around Wall Of Sound layers of riffs and beats, but is punctuated by chiming guitars and lush vocal harmonies. The Wolf Alice-indebted ‘A Thousand Times’, meanwhile, alternates between sludgy and stripped-back as Sim-Savage declares wide-eyed: “It’s you, it’s you a thousand times.”
The fledgling trio might be one of the most exhilarating new bands around right now, but they’re still rough around the edges. Their lyrics can be basic, often sticking loyally to an AABB rhyme scheme rather than branching out into anything more advanced. But, given the appropriate time to gain more experience and mature as songwriters, HotWax are showing all the signs that they could be mind-blowers going forward.
