Harmony’s (aka Harmony Tividad, formerly of Girlpool) debut solo EP, “Dystopia Girl”, is out next month, and the latest single is “Shoplifting from Nike,” a bright electro-pop track. “‘Shoplifting from Nike’ is about trying to function under the weight of all things and creating a personality that is so shameless that you believe you can survive it,” Harmony says. “It’s about modern spirituality, materialism and disassociation. And the 2008 housing crisis. And being annoying and epic. And having fun and not taking life too seriously… but also being deeply invested in reality.”
The world is a mad basket of spinning chaos, full of the most intense beauty & pain. Something in me has always craved the slow motion version, a distillation of ordinary struggle, something to hold close when the high blue wave of it all threatens to crest. I guess this is a deeply human hunger. We want so badly to see the mundane & the transcendent lit up, see in our stories glimpses of the heroic, the vital. Writing songs, for me, is a constant attempt at the distillation, a devotion to watching, listening & trying to hold the small gravity of experience up to the light. See how meaningful? See how moving? Let me try again to tell it another way. Let me try again to believe it.
Here are the songs from ‘Outsiders’ recorded live & unembellished by the magic veil of production & band sound. Just my good friend Jon Neufeld & I in his living room with two acoustic guitars wandering through the stories as they were first imagined. Jon plays guitar with singular feeling, seems to live inside the emotion of every line as it forms. He’s intuitive & tender, spacious & reverent. I first heard him at the Laurelthirst Pub in Portland long before I wrote songs & have been spellbound by his playing ever since. We sat facing each other in wooden chairs, closed our eyes, & just let the songs be as they are. Jon captured the recordings, then mixed & mastered them into being. For those of you drawn to things at their most unadorned, this one is for you.
The live version of Anna Tivel’s fantastic 2022 album “Outsiders” is out in August, and she’s shared another track from it, a pared-down acoustic version of “Invisible Man.”
“Invisible Man (Acoustic version)” is the second single from Anna Tivel’s forthcoming ‘Outsiders (Live in a Living Room)’, which is due for release on August 18th, 2023 on Mama Bird Recording Co. ‘Outsiders (Live in a Living Room)’ is an acoustic companion record to Anna’s critically acclaimed 2022 album ‘Outsiders’.
All Selections Written by Anna Tivel Anna Tivel: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar Jon Neufeld: Acoustic Guitar
releases August 18th, 2023 Mama Bird Recording Co.
Indie rock trio Longings will release their new album “Dreams In Red” on July 7th, 2023. The album was recorded by band member Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios. It’s Longings second full-length album, “Dreams In Red“, reveals a broad post-punk vision of haunting atmospheres and driving melodies. Eight new songs with a sense of urgency, range from the abrasive to the abstract.
From the woods of Western Massachusetts,Longings are a powerhouse trio featuring Cole Lanier (California X, Rogue Trooper), Meghan Minior (Siamese Twins, Ampere), and Will Killingsworth (Orchid,Vaccine). Self-Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered at Dead Air Studios.
Longings released the album’s first single “Expensive Graves”, The first single “Expensive Graves” – streaming everywhere now – is a breakneck tight two minute melodic pop gem that will demand several subsequent re-listens. Of “Expensive Graves” the band says: “When our lives are in chaos, what becomes of our dreams? Even our means of escape have become a hostile environment. While we may distract ourselves from the path ahead, the end remains certain.”
Longings have found their considerable power at the blackened cross-section of cold post-punk lurch and direct, brutal rhythms.” – Pitchfork
We are thrilled to announced the release of “Child Ballads: The Final Six“, a new album from The London Experimental Ensemble with Richard Thompson, Wesley Stace, Sivert Hoyem, Marissa Nadler and Gina Fergione.
The Child Ballads are 305 three to five hundred year old songs (originally broadsides) of the British Isles which have become synonymous with modern folk music since the 1950’s. However, the final six ballads (#’s 299-305) were never put to music.
Assembled here are Richard Thompson (Fairport Convention, Richard and Linda, et al), Sivert Høyem (multi-platinum Norwegian music giant), John Wesley Harding (British folk icon and novelist), Ed Pettersen (Award-winning singer-songwriter and producer), mezzo-soprano Gina Fergione and Marissa Nadler (Indie-rock high-priestess) weaving beguiling original melodies to these classic tales of love lost, magic, myth, fiefdoms and turf wars back by the London Experimental Ensemble live in the studio.
Out of a cornfield eden at the northern tip of Lake Winnebago comes Wisconsin’s Dusk, a unique country rock ’n’ roll group that blends their rural roots and love for 60s and 70s soul. Formed in 2014, the band has been a favorite of midwest and east coast stages, sharing bills and tours with the likes of Sheer Mag, Screaming Females, and Reigning Sound.
Dusk (whose line-up includes Amos Pitsch of Tenement) have announced new album “Glass Pastures”, due October 20th via Don Giovanni. Lead single “Pissing In A Wishing Well” is a dose of punky, ragged alt-country.
The outfit is six strong, each a song-er, sing-er, and multi-instrumentalist in their own right. Julia Blair’s tender howl floats atop the flurry of voices, fingers mincing the keys of her Wurlitzer piano. Ryley Crowe works the pedal steel guitar, gracefully gliding across the bandscape like a horse on ice. Tyler Ditter grips his electric guitar as a knight his sword, falling any vine or villain in his path. Bill Grasley is second-to-none guitar, an intelligent player who can kick back or blast off, his drape of hair prepared for either. Behind the kit is Amos Pitsch, whose hands draw melody from each drum like tufts pulled from carnival cotton candy. Ridley Tankersley is there too with a bass guitar, scrounging up the loose change from the green room couch.
Their newest LP “Glass Pastures,” the group’s first since 2017’s full-length debut “Dusk”, is not only a museum of earworms, but a crusade in the name of love and truth. Produced between 2020-2022 in the various rooms of the band’s recording studio, Crutch of Memory, a mid-century castle in the heart of Appleton, Wisconsin, the album showcases a range of writing and vocal talents. Therein is Dusk’s force– its spirit– the breadth of voice unified and concentrated like a beam of light on a ruby velvet curtain.
The Pretenders have announced a rare U.S. headlining club tour for this summer to fill in dates in between their opening slot on Guns N’ Roses’ 2023 stadium tour. Limited tickets for the nine intimate shows go on sale on July 21st .
The band have also shared a pair of songs from their new studio album, “Relentless”, coming September 1st, via Rhino Records. The album marks the band’s return to Warner Music Group after more than two decades having first been signed to Sire Records in America by the legendary Seymour Stein. The original album announcement, coincided with the release of the first single, “Let the Sun Come In,” featuring Chrissie Hynde’s usual tough-as-nails vocal. The band completed a tour of the U.K., Ireland and Europe in mid-July, that included a performance at BST Hyde Park in London.
“I enjoy seeing the various meanings and origins of a word,” says Hynde of the album’s title. “And I liked the definition: ‘showing no abatement of intensity.’ So when it came to an album title, it seemed fitting. You know…to keep doing it. I think anyone in a band is constantly questioning if they should keep going. It starts as a youthful pursuit and eventually, it makes you wonder, why am I doing this? It’s the life of the artist. You never retire. You become relentless.”
More from the announcement: Produced by multiple Grammy Award-nominee David Wrench (Courtney Barnett, David Byrne) at the famed Battery Studios in Willesden, North West London, “Relentless” marks the second consecutive full-length songwriting collaboration by Hynde and Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne following 2020’s acclaimed “Hate For Sale”.
The two are joined on the album’s twelve tracks by what Hynde has dubbed “The Pretenders Collective,” including Kris Sonne (drums), Chris Hill (double bass), Dave Page (bass), and Carwyn Ellis (keyboards and guitars). In addition, “Relentless” features a landmark collaboration with Academy Award-nominated composer Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead, The Smile), who provides the string arrangement and conducted the 12 Ensemble for the album’s closing track, “I Think About You Daily,”.
“I met Jonny a couple of times and we’re obviously big fans of him because he’s done some incredible music over the years,” Hynde says. “I saw him at the Phantom Thread premiere where the film was running on screen with a live orchestra playing. And we spoke afterward and he expressed an interest in doing something one day. I was thrilled and very surprised. So when we had the idea of getting strings on ‘I Think About You Daily,’ he was first choice. Legend!”
The Mountain Goats have announced a new album. Arriving October 27th via Merge Records, “Jenny From Thebes” marks the sequel to the band’s 2002 LP “All Hail West Texas”. Ahead of their new record, the Mountain Goats have release lead single “Clean Slate.” As frontman John Darnielle explains it, “JennyFrom Thebes” is a rock opera about a woman who buys a Kawasaki to ride as far away as possible from a town that she’s been carrying on her shoulders for too long. “‘Clean Slate’ sets the scene: This is the house Jenny rents; these are the people who crash there when they need a place to stay; this is where she’s at in the process of becoming someone other than the keyholder she’s been,” he said in a press release.
Produced by Trina Shoemaker and recorded at the Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, “Jenny From Thebes” features guitar by Bully’s Alicia Bognanno, horn and string arrangements by Matt Douglas, and backing vocals from Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s and Matt Nathanson.
The new LP follows the Mountain Goats’ 2022 album, “Bleed Out”, which was produced by Bognanno and drew inspiration from action flicks from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Darnielle described the tracks on that record as “uptempo mini-action movies” that were filled with their own “plots, characters, heists, hostages, questionable capers, getaway cars, all that stuff.”
Since releasing “Bleed Out”, Darnielle showed up in Natasha Lyonne and Rian Johnson’s crime comedy Poker Face, where he played a guitarist for a one-hit-wonder rock band called Doxxxology. The band is fronted by a character named Ruby Ruin—played by Chloë Sevigny.
“Clean Slate” by the Mountain Goats, off the album, “Jenny from Thebes”, out October 27th on Merge Records.
Hurry is an American indie rock band formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2012. The band is composed of Matt Scottoline (vocals, guitar), Joe DeCarolis (bass), Rob DeCarolis (drums), and Justin Fox (guitar).
Hurry began as a solo project for principal songwriter Matt Scottoline, bassist of emo revival band Everyone Everywhere. He wrote the first ten to twenty Hurry songs as a way to write his own material and play guitar rather than bass. Scottoline decided to release his home recordings on Bandcamp under the moniker “Hurry,” chosen as a self-deprecating joke about his writing process; he writes quickly and rarely finishes a song if it is not completed in a single session. After releasing the demos, Scottoline recruited other musicians to perform the songs live, including Everyone Everywhere guitarist Brendan McHugh and Univox bassist Rob DeCarolis on drums.
Hurry coalesced into a trio, adding DeCarolis’s cousin and Psychic Teens/Exmaid bassist Joe DeCarolis to round out the lineup. Hey everyone! Wanted to drop a line to say we’ve just released the second single from the new album “Don’t Look Back”
It’s called “Parallel Haunting,” and you can stream it right now on bandcamp,
releases August 11th, 2023
Matt Scottoline: Vocals, Guitar Rob DeCarolis: Drums Joe DeCarolis: Bass Justin Fox: Lead Guitar Zack Robbins: Aux Percussion Ben Grigg: Trumpet Logan Bloom: Trombone
With a Cure album eagerly awaited, Nick Cave in the studio and our cover star Siouxsie on a European tour, the time is right for us to present the Ultimate Genre Guide to Goth. Reviews and interviews with the legends of goth. Goth film. Goth in America. 50 goth disco classics. The full story of what happened when post punk went dark.
Less than an hour south of Chicago, along the shores of Lake Michigan, sits the Indiana Dunes, a protected expanse of shoreline recently designated a National Park. When Ella Williams first visited the Dunes, she was awed by the juxtaposition of its natural splendor within a surrounding industrial corridor. “Every time I go there, it changes my life,” she says, without a hint of hyperbole.“You stand in the marshlands and to your left is a steel factory belching fire and to your right is a nuclear power plant.” Across the water, Chicago waits, its glistening towers made possible by the same steel born here. Similarly, for as long as she’s been making music, Ella Williams’ songs have been products of the environments they’re written in, born out of the same world they so vividly hold a mirror to. This environment is where her magnetic new album, “Tomorrow’s Fire”, lives.
The music Williams makes as Squirrel Flower has always communicated a strong sense of place. Her self-released debut EP, 2015’s early winter songs from middle america, was written during her first year living in Iowa, where the winter months make those of her hometown, Boston, seem quaint by comparison. Since that first offering, Squirrel Flower amassed a fanbase beyond the Boston DIY scene and has released two more EPs and two full-lengths. The most recent, “Planet (i)”, was laden with climate anxiety, while the subsequent “Planet” EP marked an important turning point in Williams’ prolific career; the collection of demos was the first self-produced material she’d released in some time. With a renewed confidence as a producer, she helmed “Tomorrow’s Fire” at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville alongside storied engineer Alex Farrar (Wednesday, Indigo de Souza, Snail Mail). Williams and Farrar tracked many of the instruments, building the songs together during the first week, and then assembled a studio band that included Matt McCaughan (Bon Iver), Seth Kauffman (Angel Olsen band), Jake Lenderman (aka MJ Lenderman), and Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs) lending their contributions.
Before “Tomorrow’s Fire”, Squirrel Flower might’ve been labelled something like “indie folk,” but this is a rock record, made to be played loud. As if to signal this shift, the album opens with the soaring “i don’t use a trashcan,” a re-imagining of the first ever Squirrel Flower song. Williams returns to her past to demonstrate her growth as an artist and to nod to those early shows, when her voice, looped and minimalistic, had the power to silence a room. Lead singles “Full Time Job” and “When a Plant is Dying,” narrate the universal desperation that comes with living as an artist and pushing up against a world where that’s a challenging thing to be. The frustration in Williams’ lyrics is echoed by the music’s uninhibited, ferocious production.
“There must be more to life/ Than being on time,” she sings on the latter’s towering chorus. Lyrics like that one are fated to become anthemic, and “Tomorrow’s Fire” overflows with them. “Doing my best is a full time job/ But it doesn’t pay the rent” Williams sings on “Full Time Job” over careening feedback, her steady delivery imposing order over a song that is, at its heart, about a loss of control.
Williams cites artists like Jason Molina, Tom Waits, and Springsteen as fonts of inspiration for “Tomorrow’s Fire”, musicians who knew how to write into the mind of a stranger, who could tell you the story of a life in under four minutes. “The songs I write are not always autobiographical, but they’re always true,” Williams says. Nowhere is Springsteen heard more clearly than on “Alley Light,” an electrifying song narrated from the perspective of a down-on-his-luck guy whose car is fated to die any day now and whose girl just wants to escape. There’s a vintage sheen to it, but “Alley Light” captures the very familiar feelings of loss that come with living in a 21st century city, where you blink and the storefronts change. Williams notes, “It’s about a man in me, or a man who I love, or even a man who is a stranger to me.”
The album glides effortlessly over emotional states of being, lightness and heaviness. “Intheskatepark,” written in the summer of 2019, four years later sounds like a dispatch from a bygone world. The scuzzy pop production nods to Guided By Voices, as Williams sings about being carefree, crushing under summer sunshine. “I had a light,” Williams repeats mournfully on “Stick,” her voice at once aching and powerful, a sense of rage fermenting as the song goes on, until it explodes in the second half. “This song is about not wanting to compromise, just being at the end of your rope,” Williams says. “Stick” harnesses that exasperation and turns it into a battle cry for anyone who is exhausted but feels like they’re not working hard enough, who had to get a job they hate to make rent, who lost their light and can’t seem to find it again.
“Tomorrow’s Fire” might sound like the title of an apocalypse album, but it’s not. “Tomorrow’s Fire” references the title of a novel Williams’ great-grandfather Jay wrote about a troubadour, named for a line by the Medieval French poet Rutebeuf, a troubadour himself: “Tomorrow’s hopes provide my dinner/ Tomorrow’s fire must warm tonight.” Centuries on, the quote spoke to Williams, who describes the fire as a tool to wield in the face of nihilism. “Tomorrow’s Fire” is what we take solace in, what we know will make us feel okay in the morning, how we light the path we’re walking on.
Closing track “Finally Rain” speaks to the ambiguity of being a young person, knowing the earth has an expiration date. The last verse is an homage to her relationship with her loved ones — ‘We won’t grow up.’ A stark realization, but also a manifesto. To be resolutely committed to a life of not ‘growing up,’ not losing our wonder, our sense of expression, and our love while we’re still here.
