The Fat Angel Sings

American indie rock band Warpaint from Los Angeles, California, were formed in 2004. The band consists of Emily Kokal (vocals, guitar), Theresa Wayman (vocals, guitar), Jenny Lee Lindberg (bass, vocals), and Stella Mozgawa (drums). The original lineup consisted of childhood friends Wayman and Kokal alongside sisters Lindberg and Shannyn Sossamon. The band played around the Los Angeles area for three years, writing songs (“Stars”, “Beetles” and “Elephants”) which would eventually compose their debut EP. Warpaint’s style has been characterized as art rock, dream pop and psychedelic rock. They play expansive, lushly-harmonic psych-rock songs with enough time-changes to satisfy even the most beardy prog-rock bong-tokers. The band has also cited hip-hop as an influence of their work. Two songs have been named after their favourite rappers: Biggy and Dre.

To date, the band has released four studio albums: “The Fool” (2010), “Warpaint” (2014), “Heads Up” (2016), and “Radiate Like This” (2022).

“Exquisite Corpse” 

The band began recording their debut EP, “Exquisite Corpse”, in December 2007, with producer Jacob Bercovici. The sessions took over two months and concluded with mixing and mastering by Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist  John Frusciante, who was also Kokal’s boyfriend at the time. Former RHCP guitarist Josh Klinghoffer performed drums and guitar on the EP. Australian drummer Mozgawa (formerly of Mink and Swahili Blonde) joined the band in the winter of 2009. Shortly afterwards, Warpaint self-released the EP in 2008, In 2009, “Exquisite Corpse” was re-released worldwide by Manimal Vinyl, to critical acclaim.

If there’s one thing to be said of Warpaint’s debut EP, ‘Exquisite Corpse’, it is this: The whole thing oozes sex, seduction, and a drug-like haze. In fact, at times it can seem that everything is designed this way – but never overwhelmingly so, as the EP generally feels very spontaneous. Firstly, it is impossibly smooth, slick almost; though instead of feeling overly polished and manufactured, it feels wholly organic. Secondly, the breathy vocals of Emily Kokal (lead vocalist) and Theresa Wayman (back-ups, lead on ‘Beetles’) are siren-like, entrancing and inviting throughout.

Shimmering guitar melodies characterised by hammer-ons and gentle arpeggios flow in and out of another like water, simultaneously marrying tendencies from shoegaze, post-rock and psychedelica – sometimes in the space of one song (‘Elephants’). All of this is masterfully underpinned by the elegant bass lines penned by Jenny Lee Lindberg, often melodies themselves, as opposed to simple root-note progressions. The relationship between the guitars, and between guitars and bass is, at times, sensually breath-taking, and goes a long way to defining the album’s sound and feel. This tentative, but no less effective interplay between the two is especially gorgeous on the ‘How Strange, Innocence’-era Explosions in the Sky flavoured ‘Stars’. The rhythm section is completed by Jenny’s sister, Shannyn Sossamon, a competent drummer (Warpaint’s rhythm section would exponentially improve after the arrival of Stella Mozgawa after ‘Exquisite Corpse’s” release), but an effective one nonetheless. For example, it is her drumming which facilitates a mesmerising mood change in the EP’s opener.

“The Fool” 

In October 2010, the band released their debut album, “The Fool.” The album received a glowing review from various music magazine’s “Shadows”, the first single from their debut album, was released as 12″ vinyl on January 2011. A remix of the single, “Shadows (Neon Lights Remix)”, proved popular.  

Warpaint toured the U.S. and Europe in the spring and summer of 2011 to promote the album. They played at various major festivals including Glastonbury Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Rock Werchter, and Electric Picnic. In 2011, the rerelease of the track “Undertow” as a single.

On Warpaint’s debut album the LA-based quartet might be addressing their listeners directly. “Now I’ve got you in the undertow,” singer-guitarists Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman chime, in voices sweet and lethally seductive. The line feels apposite because Warpaint make music to submerge yourself in, Ripples of guitar rise above and sink beneath bold waves of bass, while drum lines surge hither and thither, pushing the songs to change their course. There is something subtly contrary about this band: their most enigmatic song bears the name Warpaint, while their least-composed song – which opens in a fury of shouted vocals and uncoils in a meandering jam of slowly detuned guitars – is called Composure. But if this slipperiness makes them intriguing, it’s the consistent sensuality of Warpaint’s sound that makes them mesmerise.

“Warpaint” 

As early as 2011, drummer Mozgawa, in an interview with NME, expressed the band’s intention to “experiment and write with one another” as the current line-up had never composed songs “from the ground up” together. Bassist Lindberg further indicated that most of the newer songs were written by “just jam[ming] and free-flow[ing] onstage”. In February 2013, Wayman confirmed that the band intended to create a minimalist sound on “Warpaint”, revealing that the band developed the songs at soundchecks, and experimented more with acoustic guitars and percussion instruments on the album. Lead vocalist Kokal noted that R&B and rap music were influences on “Warpaint” and stated that the album featured “things that have drum machines and ambience, music that’s more than standard rock”. Kokal added that the album was largely keyboards-based, which contributed to the overall sound being “definitely different” from the band’s previous album, “The Fool”.

Produced and mixed by Flood, except two tracks which were mixed by Nigel Godrich, A snippet of the album’s lead single, “Love Is to Die”, was featured in an advertisement for Calvin Klein and later as part of a teaser for an upcoming documentary of the same name about the recording of Warpaint. 

A music video, composed of a two-song vignette from the second album—“Disco//very” and “Keep it Healthy” Directed by Laban Pheidias, the video featured skateboarding from professional skateboarders Justin Eldridge, Kris Markovich and Patrick Melcher.

“Heads Up” 

On August 2016, Warpaint released a single titled “New Song”,and announced the September release of its third studio album, “Heads Up” they toured as special guest and opening act of Depeche Mode’s Global Spirit Tour. Their four dates opening for Depeche Mode at the Hollywood Bowl marked the first time a band played four consecutive shows at the famed Los Angeles venue. The band also toured in support of Harry Styles on a handful of dates.

After delving in various solo endeavors, including bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg’s solo debut, the members of Warpaint reconvened and began recording the new LP in January. Accompanied by producer Jacob Bercovici, who helped helm their 2008 “Exquisite Corpse” EP, they logged time in local studio House on the Hill as well as Papap’s Palace and their own home studios.

The Los Angeles dream pop outfit tried a new approach during the sessions for “Heads Up” for the first time ever, they recorded in pairs and alone rather than as a full band, a press release notes. “The doors were a little more open in terms of what was accepted and what wasn’t, because we were sharing ideas so rapidly between us,” says the band’s drummer Stella Mozgawa of the recording process. “The roles that each of us individually had or had established were a little more malleable.”

The band were largely inactive across 2020 and 2021, with Mozgawa returning to Australia and recording with Courtney Barnett. 

“Radiate Like This”

Warpaint then new album their first since 2016’s called “Radiate Like This” their first song from the album, “Champion” The song is about “being a champion to oneself and for others,” the band said in a press release. “We are all in this together, life is too short not to strive for excellence in all that we do.”

On “Champion”  Theresa Wayman started this in my room at my house in El Sereno. I actually sampled a Warpaint song “The Stall” – and that’s what started the whole thing. Then made the beat. I use logic and a program called geist to make beats… We went to Stella’s house/studio out in Joshua Tree to do some preproduction and I showed the girls my demo. We put it on and Stella started playing along with it…really brought it to life to have her layers over it. And then Jen wrote the acoustic guitar… This was one of the first songs we made for the album. 

As a drummer Stella Mozgawa in Warpaint,  she’s always leaned into her psych background and in this episode we hear how much it has helped her to navigate her way in Warpaint, and any other musical project or otherwise that she’s been involved with—from producing for Courtney Barnett to playing with Kurt Vile.a band with three strong lyricists, she knows her strengths are in the sonic production aspects of songwriting. But after 12 years of “being in each other’s pockets” through three albums she shares some of the struggles she experienced with completing songs like “Send Nudes” and “Champion” the standout opening and closing tracks of “Radiate Like This“.

This one was started by Em. We also worked on this in that first desert session. I wrote that guitar line in the verses really quickly..felt like I was channelling something..that can sound cliche but it’s not always like that! I really felt it with this one. In fact, everything about this song came together like that. Em’s vocals, that middle bridge section, all of it! I’m in love with this one! 

Hard To Tell you Em wrote this song on guitar originally. We recorded a version like that at an early recording session in Joshua tree at Rancho De La Luna. It had a much longer arrangement… We then re-imagined it with synths..leaned into an 80s synth ballad feel. This one also came together quickly. I had a lot of fun weaving guitar lines around the vocals in the verses… We did a lot of pre-production on this one at our rehearsal space downtown before we ever went to the studio. 

“Stevie” is a love song that was originally written by Emily. She started during the heads up album but it didn’t make it on there. She would play the chords during soundchecks from time to time and we’d all start playing along. Always found the progression very alluring. 

There was a little demo chasing with this one because the beat Stella did when we first started demoing just had this perfect feel that was hard to recreate. We got it in the end but re-recorded it 3 times in 3 different studios.

“Like Sweetness” was started this one on piano. Stella and I were working at our rehearsal space downtown, doing a lot of demoing and trying to find out where this album wanted to go. We did a few different demos of this one on piano and then moved it over to the prophet. The initial beat she played on this one was really laid back, a lot of ride. We changed it when we got to the studio… was too similar to another track so we had to dig for something else. Nice where it ended up. It’s a song about self-love. 

“Trouble” is another piano song that Em wrote a while ago… finally came together after a couple of different versions. We all played this in our rehearsal space and figured out the arrangement. Played our parts and fell into the song really easily. One of the only ones we recorded together as a band at the same time. Did it at the studio in highland park, 64 Sound. We tried to get the piano at the desert studio but that didn’t work out. And then we still didn’t have the right piano take. Emily re-did it and finally got it at a studio in Portland, Oregon during the pandemic. Also, love the harmonies on this one. We did a lot of work on honing those during the pandemic. 

Proof Love the harms on this one. And all the little sonic gems… Stella, Emily and I did a lot of work on this one at the rehearsal space downtown…throwing paint at the wall with my prophet 12 and piano and guitar. And then we arranged them all into the song and that generally helped structure the song. The proof is in the pudding melody was a funny little thing my brother Ivan (he worked with us on ‘Head’s Up’) and Emily made up during a party, years ago. Em realized that this was finally its moment to make it to actual song status! Love it. 

Altar is also from the very first batch of songs that were sprinkled with love during the Stella desert studio session. I wrote this song around the time I started champion. The drums, em guitars in the chorus and the bass was added right away. The structure was still very long when we went into the studio. We added more parts but it wasn’t until our remote arranging sessions during the pandemic that we really trimmed it up.  I went out to Emily’s house a couple of times during the pandemic and we added more guitar to a few songs. The ending em guitar part that really changes the tone of the song in such an interesting way, came from one of these sessions.

Melting is the only song on the album that came from a jam, written in true Warpaint fashion. It was arranged and written by all of us in the room together. We wrote and recorded this one a year before we did any of the other ones. Did a version with producer Jon Congleton in a studio in LA. I loved that recording but it was also such early days that we needed to breathe different life into it and make it match our other songs a bit more. Em, and I added more guitars during the pandemic at one of our home desert recording sessions. 

Send Nudes is a song written during the pandemic. I went on a camping trip with my family and this was written around a campfire. Initially called camping song. Inspired by Erykah Badu and her song, Phone Down. The incredible effective simplicity of that song is addictive. So I approached from that angle.  What was initially “send a cup of noodles” quickly became “send a couple nudes”..  Took it out of the PG zone once the kids went to bed ;).  Stella did her drums in a studio in Melbourne. One of those back and forth file sharing songs. Not ideal but do-able. At least I got to be in person with Jen to get the bass.  

Each of the 10 tracks on the LP were crafted layer by intricate layer, which has yielded a more refined and sharper sounding record overall in comparison to the groups previous releases. Emily Kokal, one-fourth of Warpaint elaborating that “Radiate Like This” captures what’s always been the magic of Warpaint—the delicate interplay of four separate parts coalescing in motion while somehow allowing each individual to shine a little brighter.” 

“Long before their entwined voices took them around the world — first as harmony singers for Jenny Lewis, then as leaders of their own critically acclaimed band — The Watson Twins grew up in the American South. They sang in the church choir. They listened to gospel classics and country standards. Those sounds became part of their musical foundation, connecting the siblings to their Kentucky hometown even after they relocated to Los Angeles and, years later, settled in Nashville. Chandra and Leigh Watson’s southern roots break through the surface once again with Holler. Recorded with their Tennessee-based touring band and produced by Grammy nominee Butch Walker, it’s an album that highlights the identical twin sisters’ songwriting chops and vocal chemistry.

Together, these 10 songs nod to the siblings’ old-school influences while boldly pushing forward into new territory. Captured during a series of live-in-the-studio recording sessions, Holler isn’t just The Watson Twins’ most collaborative album to date — it’s their strongest, too.”

The official music video for The Watson Twins’ song “Holler”, the title track from their forthcoming album available June 23rd on Bloodshot Records.

Celebrating twenty-five years of seminal San Francisco rock collective The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s seventh album “Strung Out In Heaven”, released on this day in 1998. The album is named after a lyric from the David Bowie song “Ashes to Ashes”.

Matt Hollywood contributed more to this record due to Anton Newcombe being incapable of writing as many songs as he was addicted to heroin at the time. After releasing a number of well-received recordings on the smaller psychedelia-focused Bomp! Records label, The Brian Jonestown Massacre were signed to a multi-record deal with TVT.  It was released in June 1998 and was the band’s first and only recording with the large independent label, TVT Records. The recording didn’t sell as many records as TVT had hoped, and they later mutually dissolved their remaining contractual obligations.

“Wisdom” is a re-recording of the same song that originally appeared on the band’s second album, “Methodrone”. “Dawn” is also a re-recording, with the original version appearing on “Take It from the Man!”. “Spun” is also a re-recording of the same song that appears on the band’s album “Thank God for Mental Illness”. It’s with typical perversity that the Brian Jonestown Massacre makes the leap from the indie ghetto into the majors with their least immediate, most restrained record to date; given time to sink in, however, “Strung Out in Heaven” proves as engaging as their past efforts, with a focus and cohesiveness often lacking from their more visceral work. Settling into a blissfully psychedelic drift, the album opts not for the Stones-inspired raunch of before but for Byrds-like guitars, muffled drums and pulsating Hammond organ lines, all topped off by Anton Newcombe’s half-stoned, half-shamanic vocals; thanks to standout tracks like “Going to Hell,” “Wasting Away” and “Maybe Tomorrow,”.

Listening to this album its hard to understand that it was recorded in 1997/98 it has a sort of timeless sound that could easily been made in 1968 or 1973 for that matter. The songs on this album very much fit together almost as a concept album and as theatre of the mind it work marvellously. You can hear the joy in some bits but mostly you hear the struggle, the struggle of a band who’s talent is greater than the infighting and insanity brought on by hard drug addiction.  

Critics praised the album, calling it “their least immediate, most restrained record to date “Strung Out in Heaven” proves as engaging as their past efforts, with a focus and cohesiveness often lacking from their more visceral work”, also calling it “the BJM’s most mature outing yet”. This truly is one of those albums that I can find no fault with. 

“The Endless Coloured Ways” is a collection of songs by the legendary singer/ songwriter, Nick Drake, performed and recorded by over 30 incredible artists from a range of different backgrounds, genres, age groups and audiences. From Fontaines D.C. to Guy Garvey, Aurora to Feist, and Self-Esteem and David Gray, each artist has offered their own incredible take on a timeless classic.

The latest track to be released from it is from former Czars singer-keyboardist John Grant. Drake’s music is inextricably associated with the acoustic guitar, so covers from keyboard players are particularly welcome as they reframe his music in new and interesting ways. Grant slows down the song to a crawl and slowly layers different synthesizer parts on top of each other. This time the feeling is more of impressionism than baroque (albeit impressionism via ambient.) Grant doesn’t start singing until over 90 seconds into the song, which gives you an idea of the pace since the original is around two and a half minutes.

“The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs Of Nick Drake” is out July 7th and here are two more songs from it: John Grant creates a baroque synth orchestra on his cover of “Day is Done,” “Day is Done” is one of Nick Drake‘s most sophisticated-sounding compositions from his debut album, “Five Leaves Left”. It consists of merely his voice, his complicated guitar pattern and an elaborate string part by arranger Robert Kirby. Though it’s a brief song, it has an air of neo baroque art music, due to the intricacies of the instrumentation.

Grant treats his voice with an echo. About three minutes in, some faux baroque keyboards kick in at a much faster tempo, and an elaborate keyboard orchestra places us in some kind of Tangerine Dream-meets-Switched on Bach space. That briefly drops out to Grant and just a single keyboard before many of the keyboards come back in to build to a climax.

As great as “The Who Sell Out” turned out to be setting the standard as one of the first true concept albums as well as becoming viewed as both a pop-art masterpiece and the turning point in The Who’s career even Pete Townshend thinks it could have been better.

“The songs we recorded in the six months after the album came out were better,” Townshend, say’s the band’s guitarist and principal songwriter . “If our label who were also our managers, by the way had just waited, maybe it could have been our greatest album. Ultimately, of course, “The Who Sell Out” came to be seen as a one of the band’s best. Released in December 1967, it elevated The Who, largely a singles band up to that point, into a league with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

“No one who saw The Who at that time could deny that they were the best live band going,” recalls Richard “Barney” Barnes, Who biographer and Townshend’s art school roommate who also named the group. “Even the biggest Kinks fan, if the Kinks and The Who were both playing in town, would go see The Who over the Kinks. They were a real show when no one else was putting on a show. And that album catapulted them into that rarified company.”

Available now in a hugely expanded, super deluxe box set — 112 tracks that include both the mono and stereo mixes of the original album, plus singles and B-sides from the era, as well as the band’s post-Sell Out /pre-Tommy recordings, and Pete Townshend’s demos from the period “The Who Sell Out” is nothing if not a band reinventing itself.

In place of the group’s early, “My Generation“-era mod leanings are a Swinging London pop-art sensibility, with Townshend’s most fascinating compositions up to that point linked together by advertising jingles and radio announcements paying tribute to mid-’60s England’s all-important pirate radio, all wrapped up in one of the greatest album sleeves from the golden age of rock and roll. In fact, in the context of the new box set, “The Who Sell Out” can now been seen as the origin story of everything The Who would later become in the aftermath of the huge success of “Tommy”, the band’s appearance at Woodstock and its “Live at Leeds” album.

But in 1967, as one of the most in-demand live acts in the world, The Who were running themselves ragged, shoehorning recording sessions in between a relentless schedule of shows, Barnes recalls. “How they accomplished anything is beyond me,” he says.

Meanwhile, Kit Lambert, who co-managed The Who with his partner Chris Stamp, had installed the band’s lead guitarist in an apartment in Knightsbridge, complete with a crude recording studio, where Townshend had begun exploring the art of song writing in just about every manner, if not with an eye toward writing hit singles, or even, necessarily, music for The Who.

“I think I was just writing for myself and hoped that if I wrote maybe 20 or 30 or, on a good run, 40 pieces of music, at least 20 would get recorded and then we could handpick maybe 10 to 12 for an album,” Townshend recalls. “It was like throwing shit at the wall.”   

The process had yielded an undeniable classic, but not much else that Townshend deemed worthy of release.

“I would write for myself, to have fun with it, and even ‘I Can See for Miles’ is probably one of those songs that I wrote for me, not for the band,” he says.

The Who’s managers, Lambert and Stamp, also ran Track Records, the band’s label — a conflict of interest between the group’s creative and business sides.

“It wasn’t ethical, of course it wasn’t,” Barnes says. “But Kit and Chris didn’t think it was going to last — none of us did and they had this great songwriter, and Keith Moon, who was a publicist’s dream, and they were doing what they could to keep things going as long as they could. But they were hugely important, as important as Brian Epstein was to the Beatles or Andrew Loog Oldham was for the Stones, and I think that sometimes gets forgotten.” 

“Chris Stamp, our manager, told me, ‘This album is coming out whether you like it or not,’” Townshend recalls. “I said, ‘Well, let’s try to dress it up in some way.’”

Worried that the material wouldn’t hold up against the remarkable albums — then new territory for pop bands being released at the time, which included the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Are You Experienced? and so many others, Townshend says Stamp’s pre-Christmas deadline led to a brilliant idea, even if it did arise out of near-desperation.   

“We were walking into the studio with a) not enough songs for an album, and b) most of them which were songs I had written for fun,” he says. “The only way that I felt that we could save the record was to turn it into a fun exercise, and so the idea of the commercials which came from a brainstorm session between me and Chris Stamp became the way to do that.” 

With pirate radio ruling the popular culture in the UK at the time thanks to boats moored off the English coast broadcasting pop music night and day, the album would become an homage to everything the BBC was not.

“I don’t know if Americans can understand how significant pirate radio was, but it was completely driving the culture, at least in London,” Barnes says. “And it was perfect for what The Who was all about: pop art.” 

“The BBC wasn’t playing any tunes,” Townshend says flatly at the memory. “Pirate radio was everything. It put us on the map in a big, big way. It helped everybody.”

The radio concept also allowed for outsized creative input from bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon, who were deputized into creating many of the jingles that linked Townshend’s pop songs and created the unmistakable feel of a live radio broadcast, in turn making The Who Sell Out one of rock’s very first concept albums, if only in spirit.

“The Beatles were in a class to themselves, and the Stones had their blues thing down, so first The Who went the Tamla-Motown route, but they needed to move on and develop,” Barnes recalls. “Kit really encouraged Pete to think in new and incredibly creative ways. His father was Constance Lambert [the British composer], and it was Kit’s idea for Pete to try to write in an operatic way or to tackle concepts bigger than the three-minute pop song, which opened doors none of us even knew existed.” 

And so, “The Who Sell Out” set The Who on a new course. But it was the obvious next step for the band, argues Barnes, who says the band had clearly outgrown the Modernist label that had helped them make a mark on the cut-throat UK music scene of the day.

“The Mod scene had grown out of the Teddy Boy scene before it and had given the band a natural and immediate audience,” Barnes, who wrote what is considered the Mod bible, says. “But they were quickly outgrowing that, and needed to.”

“I think people tend to see us in those days through the lens of the documentaries and the way the history was documented, but The Who were not really part of the Mod movement, the Mod movement was our support system,” adds Townshend. “We were able to observe it and use it and ride on it, and we were supported, as long as we stuck to a fairly straightened set of rules. One was that it was mainly a male audience, so we had to be pretty brutal, and then, there was the fact that we also had to have our hair short and not look scruffy like the Rolling Stones, and not care whether girls screamed at us like they did at the Beatles. And so, for a while, we tried to look like our audience. But then after a while, we realized that it was colourless.” 

“I remember I said to them, at least a year before “The Who Sell Out“, when they were starting to outgrow that scene, ‘Why don’t you do adverts?’” Barnes says. “Because I saw The Who not simply as Mod, but as a pop art, art pop, comic book sort of thing. I thought, that’s the thing they should be doing, and Roger said, ‘That’s a fucking great idea!’ Which was unusual for Roger to support me. But the thing is that Pete was much more articulate than Roger, and then Pete made this joke, and then they went at it. And they did end up doing an advert for Coca-Cola. But you could see they were chaffing at the confines of being labelled Mod, even early on. It gave them an audience, but then they’d become much bigger than the whole Mod movement, which didn’t last long originally, anyway.” 

It was also around that time that The Who started to drift away from some of the iconic Mod looks they helped popularize and that are still associated with them to this day.

“Chris Stamp and I, again, started to talk about how we could brighten it up,” Townshend says. “So when we started our residency at the Marquee, we appeared with target t-shirts, Union Jack jackets, Chevrons. This was early, but not so early. We’d already had our incarnation as faux-Mods with [previous manager] Peter Meaden, as the High Numbers. This was when we became leaders of the field, in a fashion sense, because immediately, the people around us on Carnaby Street, who were observing us very closely, like Trisha Locke, who had been working for Mary Quant. She brought Mary and her husband to come and see us, and immediately, they started to cop some of our designs into their designs. I’m not saying they stole from us. It just the way the drift was going. And that’s what made the Carnaby Street/Swinging London theme work and eventually become Austin Powers parody. It was amusing and light hearted. But the backdrop of it was that when the violence happened, as I wrote about in “Quadrophenia” the violence that happened on the streets of the seaside towns in the spring of ’65 — that was the end of Mod.”

“That was not what Mods did,” he continues. “They were too cool to fight. And the way that they were portrayed caused it to just disappear overnight. Pretty soon, we went from wearing Union Jack jackets — which we were wearing a few months before we appeared at Monterey — to me going on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival wearing something like a bed cover.”

That 1967 festival appearance not only introduced The Who to a U.S. audience, it helped set the stage for the band’s next act. 

“After the Monterey Pop festival, the Herman’s Hermits tour followed that,” Townshend recalls. It was another gruelling tour, with The Who at the peak of its auto-destructive art phase smashing guitars and amps and destroying drum kits opening for one of the poppiest pop acts ever. “But we got to go back to San Francisco a couple of times, and on one of those trips I was introduced to the teachings of Meher Baba, who had taken a stance against the use of psychedelic drugs, and even marijuana, as damaging for someone who is a sincere seeker. And from that day forward, I stopped smoking pot. I wasn’t a huge pot smoker, but I did occasionally smoke it. That made a real change.”

Townshend’s writing shifted dramatically. No longer writing songs from the point of view of an “angry young man,” his songs became imbued with the thoughts of a man on a spiritual journey, as the songs on Disc Four of the new box set, recorded in the months after the release of “The Who Sell Out“, show. Tommy, “The Seeker,” “Who’s Next” and, of course, a lifetime of songs about searching for the divine and a greater self followed. But it was the period around “The Who Sell Out“ that had kicked it all off and set The Who on a new course, away from being a singles band and onto bigger and greater things — growth that, in turn, inspired Townshend to write some of his greatest songs: “Pinball Wizard,” “Pure and Easy,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” and, of course, “Baba O’Riley.”

“I was always conscious of the fact that the band — the other members of the band — were hugely talented and hugely vital to me as a vehicle and, also, vital to me as a place where that Pete onstage that I don’t know, recognize, or have any empathy with to make sure that he has a day job,” he says of the period after “The Who Sell Out” which birthed “Tommy“. “These were real extremes. There’s always been this sense that what The Who could do onstage — and what it could do when it just let rip and riffed — was very different to what I often did in a room as a songwriter. So, did I write for myself or did I write to appease the band? I think the rift was under my skin, under the surface.”

It’s a tug of war that Townshend still wrestles with today, as recently as “WHO”, the band’s 2019 album, its first in more than a decade and one of only 12 studio albums the band has made in its nearly-60-year existence. 

“We just didn’t make very many albums,” he says. “One of the difficulties has always been trying to bridge the gap between what I wanted to do creatively and my song writing demos, and commissioning for The Who. I’m willing to accept that a few times I’ve written songs for commission for The Who, but it’s very rarely worked out. So, I think, from my position, I just see the whole story as being one of coming up with ideas that might help me to write songs when I’ve been in an exhausted period coming back from touring or whatever it has been, and needing to keep myself creative.”

Taken from the album “Yawning Abyss” by Creep Show, released 16th June 2023 via Bella Union: Creep Show are John Grant, Stephen Mallinder, Benge and Phil Winter. In the five years since Creep Show’s acclaimed “Mr Dynamite” album was released it’s fair to say that we’ve all been through a fair bit. Sitting here, in 2023, things don’t seem to be getting any better. There’s the cost of living crisis and political meltdowns; we’re in deep water with global warming and to top it all there’s a war on our doorstep.

Back in 2018 everything seemed less complicated. Sure, there was stuff to get riled about, but we knew nothing about what was to come. “Mr Dynamite” was a fairground ride into the dark corners of a world that was on the brink of being blitzed in a blender. It was a record teetering on the edge. Five years down the line you’d expect the follow-up, “Yawning Abyss”, would double-down and bring the white-knuckled, teeth-gritted fury of the last five years to the boil. And yet….

Wrangler + John Grant = Creep Show. And Creep Show? “A band of musical misfits who have found a voice or two”, says Wrangler’s Ben “Benge” Edwards, whose Bond villain studio on the edge of a moorland is Creep Show Grand Central as well as home to an analogue synth arsenal that could sink ships.

Wrangler have known each other for a while. Tunng’s electronics wizard Phil Winter and Cabaret Voltaire’s trailblazing, pioneering frontman Stephen Mallinder go way back, while Phil and Benge crossed paths in the 21st century when they seemed to be increasingly in the same venues at the same times. Meanwhile, Mal had been living in Australia since the mid-90s and when, in 2007, he returned to the UK his old pal Phil suggested he meet Benge and the three of them immediately began working together.

Wrangler collectively bumped into John Grant at their soundcheck for Sheffield’s Sensoria Festival in 2014 where they were playing with Carter Tutti. A friendship blossomed and when they were invited to perform together for Rough Trade’s 40th anniversary show at London’s Barbican in 2016, well, they jumped at the chance… and Creep Show was born.

“On this album”, offers Benge, feet firmly on the floor, “Wrangler wrangled some vintage synths, mostly Roland, Moog, and the ‘Crystal Machine’ – then John Grant joined in the fun at Memetune Studios where lots of musical experiments were carried out. Then Mal and John ran off to Iceland with the master tapes and recorded a load of madcap vocals. Back at Memetune, me and Phil were left to try and make sense of it all. Which wasn’t hard because what they did in Iceland was totally magnificent.”

Opener ‘The Bellows’ comes on like a modular ‘Radio Ga Ga’, the singalong ‘Moneyback’ (“You want your money back? / I didn’t think so”) sounds like Godley & Creme’s ‘Snack Attack’ meets Prince Charles And The City Beat Band (“Pennies, pounds, dollar bills, signed agreements, death wills”). ‘Yahtzee!’ is an unhinged electro breakdance party in four minutes and nine seconds.

Where “Mr Dynamite” was menace, a mélange of mangled voices, with Grant and Mallinder being heavily treated, pitched up or down, rendering their contributions largely indistinguishable, “Yawning Abyss” takes a more direct approach. You hesitate to say feelgood, but there’s a skip in the step here for sure. The title track plays John Grant’s vocal straight. Completely. It’s good, so very good. Like ‘Axel F’ covered by Vangelis. The delicious shimmering synths of ‘Bungalow’ also plays those Grant pipes with a straight bat. ‘Matinee’ delves into darker, very funky territory. With Mal upfront it comes on like ‘The Crackdown’. Choice lyric: “You are starting to breakdown / And it’s so fun for me to see / You should have thought of that / You should have come prepared / You can see what’s happening and you look a little scared”.

released June 16th, 2023

Anyone who watched MTV in the early 90s would not have missed the heavy rotation of The Connells‘ single ’74-’75″. The popular song was a top 10 hit across Europe and reached No 14 in the UK.

As it turns out, the North Carolina alt-rock band had a history that went back to 1985 and “Ring”, the 1993 album that features “74-’75”, was actually their fifth long-player and Mitch Easter had produced 1987’s “Boylan Heights”. The band built a following in the US and had a string of college radio hits, but ultimately while “Ring” received critival praise, it was only a modest commercial success and the follow-up single (the ‘New Boy’ EP) couldn’t repeat the ’74-’75 climb to the higher reachers of the charts. Therefore it’s hard to deny that, in most territories, The Connells are regarded as a bit of a one-hit wonder, however, that hasn’t stopped Craft Recordings from opting to give this record an impressive-looking deluxe reissue. Here is the official version of the classic music video for The Connells’ international hit single ’74-’75. The song nostalgically reflects on the passing of time and how people change across decades. The music video, directed by Mark Pellington, features students from Needham B. Broughton High School’s Class of 1975 and compares the photographs from their yearbook, with how they look and have aged since then.

The deluxe editions of the album have been newly remastered by Brent Lambert at Carrboro, NC’s The Kitchen, and include 21 bonus tracks, including rare B-sides and 12 previously unreleased demos. Rounding out the packages are new liner notes by the Raleigh-based journalist and author David Menconi, featuring new interviews with the band.

Underrated Los Angeles rock group Little Feat’s sophomore release “Sailin’ Shoes” stands among the finest of its decade. With a lineup including Roy Estrada and the late Lowell George both former members of Frank Zappa’s legendary freak rock outfit The Mothers of Invention—the group continued its unique fusion of rock, country, blues, R&B, and jazz, Estrada and George incorporating the unconventional sonic techniques they had contributed to the Mothers the previous decade.

“Two of Little Feat’s best “Sailin’ Shoes” and “Dixie Chicken” have been newly remastered for upcoming Deluxe Editions that will introduce unreleased live and studio recordings that capture peak Feat. “Sailin’ Shoes” Deluxe Edition opens with a newly remastered version of the original album, which included signature tunes like “Easy To Slip”, the title track and “Willin’. Several outtakes from the album’s recording sessions make their debut here, including alternate versions of “Cold, Cold, Cold”, 

Upon the release of “Sailin’ Shoes”, Little Feat took another creative step forward, crafting a far more consistent and cohesive album than its eponymous debut, leaning heavily into the burgeoning Laurel Canyon sound, which soon took ’70s radio by storm and helped to refine the imprint of Southern California upon the national psyche. The group, however, was far more experimental in style than many of its more prominent Canyon peers, placing it in league with the likes of Van Dyke Parks—himself an early proponent of the group and album, having covered its title track on his own sophomore release “Discover America” in March ’72. “Sailin’ Shoes”, while not Little Feat’s key effort, is a triumph nonetheless, having helped to secure the group an essential place in L.A. musical history.

The psychedelic twang of opening cut “Easy to Slip” introduces the album’s lively persona on a breezy wind of West Coast country rock, perfecting the sound further explored by peers such as Eagles. “It’s so easy to slip/It’s so easy to fall,” George confesses. “And let your memory drift/And do nothin’ at all.” The group’s finest moments, a few of which are featured here, reveal its music as being alive in ways rare even to the warmest California rock record. Subsequently, gritty blues rocker “Cold, Cold, Cold” and New Orleans-tinged “Trouble” showcase Little Feat’s wide-ranging influences, setting it apart as an unusually versatile musical act.

A far superior reimagining of the previous year’s “Willin’” stands as both the album’s and one of the decade’s finest recordings. On this notable country rock anthem, George weaves a tale of a freewheeling trucker as he wanders across the Southwest and on into Mexico, in search of “weed, whites, and wine,” promising, “If you show me a sign/I’ll be willin’, to be movin’.” Elsewhere, lazy, downtempo faux-gospel ballad “Sailin’ Shoes” conjures a hallucinatory realm, in which George sings of a “lady in a turban” and a “cocaine tree.” Here, he describes to his doctor his ups and downs, declaring, “This is the worst day I ever had.” Luckily, a prescription is offered, and sounds promising: “Put on your sailin’ shoes/Everyone will start to cheer/When you put on your sailin’ shoes.”

Its dopey comic sensibilities, perhaps more than anything, is what places Little Feat within an elite class limited to such avant-garde musical giants as Zappa and Captain Beefheart. George’s bizarre, often mischievous sense of humour, which rendered him a key influence alongside Zappa within The Mothers, is highlighted throughout the album, accounting for some of its charm. Along with his bandmates, George was, in his time, a highly intelligent, extremely talented artist with an extensive palate and iconoclastic tendencies.

Electric satire “A Apolitical Blues” and gyrating rock and roll number “Teenage Nervous Breakdown” also stand out. The former finds George distressed that Chairman Mao Zedong has phoned for him, insisting, “You got to tell him anything/‘Cause I just don’t want to/Talk to him right now.” The latter arrives hot with a sock-hop fever, transporting the listener to a “crass and raucous crackass place,” described as a “plague upon the human race.” With lyrics as tongue in cheek as these, it is all the more impressive that George managed to deliver them with such fury that one cannot help but feel tempted to take the track seriously. The closing “Texas Rose Café” is prime Little Feat as well, George reminiscing about the titular Austin hippie hangout, before closing on a note of grim humor, singing, “Yet the things around me stay just the same/‘Cause outside my hotel window is a sign that turns from green to red/It says chop suey and join the U.S. Marines.”

Little Feat disbanded in 1979, just prior to George’s untimely death at age 34. Eight years later, the group reunited once more, and has remained together since. The band is still going strong, having amassed an adoring following among critics and fellow musicians alike. “Willin’” has been covered by such major artists as Linda Ronstadt, Steve Earle, Gregg Allman, and Bob Dylan. Jackson Browne paid tribute to George and his daughter Inara (currently of indie pop duo The Bird and the Bee) on 1980’s “Of Missing Persons,” while the group itself has collaborated alongside the likes of Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Jimmy Buffett, Bob Seger, Chris Robinson, and Vince Gill. As made plain by the grand company kept by and within the band, Little Feat will continue to live on.

“Sailin’ Shoes” remains a classic release, its influence having touched any number of genres and relevant artists. It is an entirely unique head-trip into the dusty hills of Los Angeles, a high-speed race down that canyon road into enchanted darkness. Worth a listen even by younger inquisitors, the albumis likely to impress. You can leave your blues at the feet of Little Feat, before you “put on your sailin’ shoes.”

“A Apolitical Blues” and “Willin’, along a with a newly discovered and previously unreleased complete show recorded at the Palladium in L.A. on Aug. 28, 1971. “Dixie Chicken” Deluxe Edition contains the newly remastered album, which features classics like “Two Trains”, “Fat Man In The Bathtub” and the title track.

Several unreleased session recordings debut in the new set, including alternate versions of “Roll Um “Easy, “On Your Way Down” and “Juliette“, plus an unreleased live set recorded at Paul’s Mall in Boston on March 1, 1973.”

“Los Angeles” is the debut studio album by the American rock band X, released on April 26th, 1980, by Slash Records. It was produced by Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek and includes a cover of the 1967 Doors song “Soul Kitchen”. “Los Angeles” is best known for its city-defining anthem and the torrid tale of date rape called “Johnny Hit and Run Paulene” it also shows that punk and classic rock can be occasional friends.

X carved out their own punk sound with unconventional vocal harmonies, poetic lyrics, and their own dash of rockabilly influence. X is another band that proved that accomplished players could take the power of punk and filter it through different influences. This is incredibly apparent if you watch The Decline Of Western Civilization, a documentary about the early days of the Los Angeles punk scene. During interviews and live concert footage, X’s lifestyle, sources of inspiration, and performances all point to the idea that punk can be whatever you want it to be.

Once you listen to “Los Angeles”, you’ll see that the punk possibilities are endless. Most punk bands used their musical inability to create their own style, but X actually consisted of some truly gifted musicians, including rockabilly guitarist Billy Zoom, bassist John Doe, and frontwoman Exene Cervenka, who, with Doe, penned poetic lyrics and perfected sweet yet biting vocal harmonies. “Los Angeles” is prime X, offering such all-time classics as the venomous “Your Phone’s Off the Hook, but You’re Not,” and two of their best anthems (and enduring concert favourites), “Nausea” and the title track.

While they were tagged as a punk rock act from the get-go (many felt that this eventually proved a hindrance), X are not easily categorized. Although they utilize elements of punk’s frenzy and electricity, they also add country, ballads, and rockabilly to the mix.

“Los Angeles” was reviewed very positively from its first release. Rolling Stone quoted that it “is a powerful, upsetting work that concludes with a confrontation of the band’s own rampaging bitterness and confusion. The review concluded that the album is considered by many to be one of punk’s all-time finest recordings, and with good reason.

London based four-piece Palace are a self-described alternative blues-rock group with an extremely laid-back style. The band formed in September 2012 and comprised Leo Wyndham, Rupert Turner, Will Dorey, and Matt Hodges. Their debut EP caught the attention of notable DJs and fellow London-based artist Jamie T.

The “Chase the Light” EP was released in 2015, and led to the band being championed by Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe and BBC Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens. The release also caught the attention of Jamie T, who reportedly hand-picked the band to support him at his London comeback shows in 2015. This hyped-up London four-piece live, breathe and record in a musical squat, but their converted space might as well be keys to the kingdom. Given near-unlimited space for the first time (they cite hours and precious pounds spent on crummy Camden studios, back in the day), they’ve settled into their groove. “It’s a complete saving grace to have this place,” says frontman Leo Wyndham. “In the beginning, we hardly practised.

Straddling arena-ready indie with something more subdued and mellowed out, the songs on the four-piece’s ‘Lost in the Night’ EP inhabit their own space. They don’t burst into view. There’s no desire to get heard right here, right now. It’s a subtle kind of routine. Anthems by those who’ve stumbled upon them.

Palace’s music might not assault the senses, but the way it latches to the conscience is frighteningly effective.

On ‘Bitter’, their simmering away standout, they sound like Wu Lyf brought up by a planet-saving cult. ‘Lost in the Night’ doesn’t give a great deal away, in sum. Instead it points towards a group that are winning people over when they least expect it.

“So Long Forever“

Palace set about recording their debut album in 2016 at the North London space the Arch. “So Long Forever” was produced by Adam Jaffery (Mount Kimbie, Django Django) and received favourable comparisons to artists like Jeff Buckley, Wu Lyf, and the Maccabees upon its release in November of the same year.

Going all drifty and introspective on us, and verging on Fleet Foxes melodic territory at times, Leo Wyndham sings of loss and grieving over piling textures. “You’ll be just fine, I’ve seen holy smoke out the windows,” he sings, saying goodbye to a loved one.

“Someone once told me that when someone dies you have to open the window to let their soul escape,” Leo said in a press release. “The Holy Smoke“. This song is about being in that situation which I was, not that long ago. It’s about losing someone close to you, and experiencing something quite spiritual in the moments after death – when by their side.”

“Life After“

The follow-up to 2016 debut ‘So Long Forever’ finds London’s Palace in solemn mood. They describe ‘Life After’ as “an album about loss and a manual to moving on,” referring to broken relationships and the forging of new bonds. But while they claim it is a “deeply optimistic” album born of “hope” it’s not exactly a feel-good record. With the band now a three-piece, following the departure of bassist Will Dorey, there’s an organic warmth to the arrangements on “Life After”, Rupert Turner’s guitar and Matt Hodges’ drums foregrounding Wyndham without ever stealing the spotlight, even on the more strident “Running Wild” (don’t be fooled by the title: it doesn’t represent a departure into freewheeling debauched rock-piggery). If there is a criticism it’s that, “Martyr” and “Running Wild” aside, there’s too little that really grabs the attention. Still, not many bands do better emotionally literate, melancholic indie that good at the moment.

Palace’s songwriting is mature and poignant, and pervasively sombre – as clearly signposted by the titles of the opening and closing tracks, ‘Life After’ and ‘Heaven Up There’. Both provide standout moments, with the former’s grandiose strings providing a foil to Leo Wyndham’s yearning lyrics: “after she’s gone I’m fragile like porcelain, I’ve been writing this song to help you breathe again.” The latter, meanwhile, floats through dynamic peaks and extended plateaus for a brave seven minutes.

There are some moments of respite to the heavy atmosphere. The pulsing snare and clean guitar arpeggios on ‘Younger’ provide a brighter alternative to some of the album’s more lumbering moments. ‘Running Wild’, meanwhile, is the most carefree offering on the record – a mid-tempo pop nugget that even features a guitar solo at its climax.

While Palace’s 2016 debut, “So Long Forever”, was an accomplished enough slice of grown-up indie, it did feel a little half-hearted in places. Although the songs concerned themselves with bereavement, the marital breakup of frontman Leo Wyndham’s parents and similarly weighty topics, at times there was a detachment to his delivery that seemed at odds with the subject matter. Loss is once again a recurrent theme on the London-based group’s follow-up – not least on the opening title track (“She’s watching from heaven/ She’s always beside you”) and epic closer Heaven Up There – but pleasingly, Wyndham sings with far greater confidence and conviction this time.

With the band now a three-piece, following the departure of bassist Will Dorey, there’s an organic warmth to the arrangements on Life After, Rupert Turner’s guitar and Matt Hodges’ drums foregrounding Wyndham without ever stealing the spotlight, even on the more strident Running Wild (don’t be fooled by the title: it doesn’t represent a departure into freewheeling debauched rock-piggery). If there is a criticism it’s that, Martyr and Running Wild aside, there’s too little that really grabs the attention. Still, not many bands do better emotionally literate, melancholic indie at the moment.

“Shoals”

Brought to life by the UK’s scattered lockdowns, ‘Shoals’ embraces a far more existentially reflective side of Palace. The glassier tracks float freely through; ‘Gravity’ ironically spirals out into the atmosphere with pining guitar rings dancing under vocalist Leo Wyndham’s languishing passages, while album coda ‘Where Sky Becomes Sea’ brings us down neatly to solid ground. Cadence is established on ‘Fade’ and is not matched again in the project, but deftly exhibits the capability of Palace to mobilise their intensity into different shades.

Palace release their third album “Shoals” via Fiction. “Shoals” is a profound and pensive album, boldly exploring some of life’s greatest questions over its 12 mesmerising tracks. the album deftly explores three main existential dilemmas against a broader backdrop of wonder at the vastness and power of the ocean, concluding its arc with the stunning opus ‘Where Sky Becomes Sea’. through diving into themes of the subconscious, dreams and existentialism, “Shoals” is broadly a record about living with and processing fear. the album’s title is inspired by the seemingly unpredictable behaviour of shoals of fish, shifting rapidly in much the same way as our fears and anxieties of the world around us.

‘Shoals’ suffuses a sense of somnambulism, where Leo’s longing cries fill expanses of sonically rich moments, splashed with reverb-heavy chord progressions and speculative melodies. A more pure and intense sound, less manufactured and acutely heartfelt.

Palace have their biggest North American headlining tour to date, with 18 shows in 1,000+ capacity rooms across the US and Canada, including nights at Brooklyn Steel, DC’s 9:30 Club, The Wiltern in Los Angeles, and over a dozen more. Alongside the tour announce, the band shared “All We’ve Ever Wanted,” their first new music since the acclaimed 2022 album “Shoals“ “All We’ve Ever Wanted’ is about dreams and desires,” explains singer Leo Wyndham about the track that straddles the anthemic, lighters-aloft sentiment of Britpop’s finest and an artfully applied sheen of shoegaze noise.

“It’s about wondering if things ever can come to pass exactly as we’ve pictured them in our mind’s eye, and confronting the reality that things often don’t move in a predictable straight line. In the end, new growth seems to occur from the soil of the unexpected.” The track is taken from a new EP due for release this spring.

Palace have released the next single ‘How Far We’ve Come’. This song is the second track to have been taken from an as-yet-untitled EP, scheduled to be released sometime this summer. Speaking about the song, Palace frontman Leo Wyndham has said: “‘How Far We’ve Come’ is about an anxious and fearful glance into the future at what’s to come, with a sense of anger at the chaos we’ve created. It’s about the helplessness and hopelessness we can all feel sometimes knowing that time is ticking.” The previous single was ‘All We’ve Ever Wanted’, the first new music from the London band since their 2022 album ‘Shoals’, their third studio LP. 

“Lost In The Night” EP

Remastered version of the debut Palace EP. The blues is one of the most distinctive, instantly recognisable forms of music around. Yet this can often make it difficult to musicians to truly impact their own personality, their own beliefs over its legacy. Slowing down the tempo to a codeine funk, London newcomers and latest buzz band Palace have their own defiant take on the blues. Stumbling as if caught in syrup, the group have a spectral, sparse sound. It’s darkly beautiful, with twilight seeming to break through every note.

The blues structure is in there – from the deft triples on the drums to the slide guitar solo – but the group utilise this to craft something new, something strange and unerring. Think a mix of Buffalo Springfield and Come.

Released October 20th, 2014

On their second EP, ‘Chase the Light’, North London four-piece Palace go beyond initial buzz with a serious first step.

The follow-up to last year’s ‘Lost in the Night’ sees Leo Wyndham and co. furthering their spacious, romantic and effect-doused pop going up a few notches. Our second EP represents our development as a band really. It’s only our second ever EP and I feel it’s a more impressive body of work. It represents our progression musically, but also remains very much a Palace sound. It represents Palace in the present, how we feel and how our music seems to manifest itself, with lots of variation and range.

On the one hand, songs like opener ‘Head About The Water’ and stirring lead ‘Kiloran’ are potential arena-dwellers, but they’re also night lurkers, strangers tracing back their own steps when everyone else is fast asleep. It’s big, epic and ethereal – but also has it’s more tender moments, as heard on ‘Chase In The Night’ and ‘Settle Down“. It’s very much guitar music, a modern sound with a vintage twist.

Someday, Somewhere EP

‘I’ll Be Fine’ is out now to download and stream so go listen if you haven’t already. For anyone who’s been wondering what the artwork crops have been about for the last release ’Someday Somewhere’ and the latest track ’I’ll Be Fine’, they were taken from this painting, and these tracks are going to be part of an EP along with a new track called ‘Flesh To The Fallen’ that was released in October 2020. It’s going to be a digital release, but for the vinyl collectors out there we’re also doing a limited 12” vinyl edition which will include the bonus track ‘Trouble On The Water’ from the ‘Hoxa Sessions’ acoustic EP.

“Lover (Don’t Let Me Down)” 

Lover (Don’t Let Me Down) might be the band’s most affecting release to date. “Lover (Don’t Let Me Down)” opens the fold with wandering electric reverb, grounded by a softly secure drum pattern that reveals the 6/8 time signature. “Said it straight from the heart”, Leo Wyndham sings, like his life depends on it. In an interview with NME, the singer opened up the writing process, following a nine-month battle with COVID-19. “I felt very lethargic and heavy. I had terrible chest cramps. I started to fear it might even threaten my career”

The emotional significance of returning to music rings through in the dreamy track, giving the single a cathartic pull. Wyndham pulls in and out of falsetto, lifting your spirits up, and crushing them down all at once. Lyrically, the track deals in absolutes; “I love you I love you till the end of time”, offering profound proclamations of hope. However, all this powerful love is shrouded in Jeff Buckley-inspired electrics, shrouding the tale in melancholy.

At a galloping pace, the drums and gentle guitar embellishments ride us through the motions of love at its most intoxicating. You know it – that feeling when you can’t break free from the tunnel vision of one another.

The band have released an impressive array of 12″ singles

EPs

• Lost in the Night (2014)
• Chase the Light (2015)
• Someday, Somewhere (2020)
• Gravity (2021)
• Lover (Don’t Let Me Down) (2021)
• Fade (2021)
• Where Sky Becomes Sea (2021)
• Shame On You (2022)
• Friends Forever (2022)