No matter your age or station, “Supermodels” is the sort of record you can hear yourself in. Claud’s engrossing and poignant second album is a confident diary of the mercury of life and love in one’s early 20s, whether it’s the self-doubt that creeps through its tunes or the place of compromise they try to find. It’s an exacting map of the emotional and logistical vicissitudes they’d encountered in their early 20s. Fissures in romances and friendships, pressures of recording careers, the casualties of growing up:
Each of these 13 songs is another articulated diary entry, threaded together with scant regard for genre and with the roller-coaster of feeling that gives each tune such specific gravity. These are familiar topics for Claud, covering some of the same terrain as 2021’s “Super Monster”. But there is a newfound confidence to the ideas here, rendered in structures and hooks that do not equivocate as they move from frowning folk to boisterous pop to twisted piano curios.
Where “Supermodels” was rendered mostly in their childhood bedroom, this was cut in a place of their own, with a team of confidants and collaborators building them into resplendent productions. “Supermodels” takes its name from “Screwdriver.” “You caught me looking at photographs of supermodels,” they sing, voice rising slowly over the elegiac line penned on that free and broken piano. “Trying not to cry when I look back at myself.” It’s a staggering moment, a reminder of the ways we’re all working to stop seeing ourselves as less than and not equal to, to beat back a dozen different insecurities that we try to store in the deepest recesses of our facade. But Claud doesn’t hide anything on “Supermodels” They are kernels of despair, redemption, and, ultimately, insight, here to remind us we’re neither the first nor the last to face these blues and keep going.
Partisan Records is thrilled to announce the signing of Los Angeles-based artist, Sam Burton. Sam was born and raised outside of Salt Lake City in what he calls a “truck stop town,” but moved to LA to pursue music. In the last year he toured with Loving and Jose Gonzalez. He recently wrapped up a three-week residency at Los Angeles’ Club TeeGee, and will head out on the road with Weyes Blood and Indigo Sparke in the coming months.
“Dear Departed”, the second album from Burton, is set to release July 14th. Sam describes the album as being wracked with pain and loss, and he spends much of the time saying goodbye to a version of himself.
“Dear Departed” is the follow up to Burton’s acclaimed 2020 debut “I Can Go With You”. With production from Jonathan Wilson (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty, Margo Price), Burton achieves a sound that never descends into retro pastiche, but rather becomes an evocative echo, a dream of the past.
Like Sam and his band are crammed onto the corner stage of a smoke-filled bar in a long-lost time. Exemplified best by lead single “Long Way Around,” smoldering melodies are met again and again with ripples of piano and swells of orchestration – headlined by Sam’s evocative, velvet-lined vocals.
“Dear Departed”, the new album by Sam Burton, out July 14th, 2023:
Maple Glider has announced her anticipated sophomore album, “I Get Into Trouble”, This announcement is accompanied by the release of “Dinah” alongisde a new music video. This is the second single from the record, following “Don’t Kiss Me” released earlier this year.
On “Dinah,” Maple Glider pulls a wickedly clever bait-and-switch: fully embracing the pop side of her trademark psych-folk like never before, but pairing it with lyrics that turn the song into what she considers the scariest – and perhaps angriest – thing she’s ever released. The titular “Dinah” refers to the bible story ‘Dinah Gets Into Trouble,’ where a young woman is victim-blamed for being sexually assaulted. In the song, Maple Glider expertly dissects the double standards within her own experience growing up in Christianity; and the accusations leveled at “non-believers” whilst the church itself was not a safe space.
On the track, Tori says: “For me, “Dinah” is the scariest thing I’ve ever put out. It’s probably the most pop feeling song I’ve released, but it’s really quite an angry song. I have felt incredibly disturbed and frustrated and sad in the process of writing and putting it together.”
Palehound’s new album “Eye On The Bat” charts something that divides you into “before” and “after” – the danger of fantasy, of heartbreak, and the pain of growth. How we can surprise ourselves. It’s a documentation of illusions shattering, both of yourself and of others. A tangle of raw nerves coming undone amongst swelling, propulsive instrumentation, it’s the biggest – and best – Palehound has sounded on record.
From Palehound’s critically-acclaimed debut album “Dry Food” (2015) to “A Place I’ll Always Go” (2017), and “Black Friday” (2019) and then, “Doomin’ Sun” (2021) by Bachelor (a collaborative project with Jay Som’s Melina Duterte), El Kempner’s songwriting has always been generous and personal, dispatches from a deep inner world. On “Eye On The Bat”, though, we meet Kempner anew: a guttural howl; white-hot and blistering catharsis; a feverish and visceral and painful present.
As Palehound, Kempner’s guitar playing – their sinewy and off-kilter riffs – has always been front and center across the project’s discography, like smoke unfurling around anxiety-laden lyrics. It’s cerebral, trying to make sense of grief in a grocery store or an argument in a parking lot, plumbing the anxious depths of the interiors.
Introspection, retrospection, whatever you’d like to call it, has threaded together Kempner’s songwriting, the bruising aftermath of trying times, since the very beginning. Here, though, we’re trapped in the immediate: witnessing the tiny details that build or break a relationship, and the flood that comes after.
“It’s about me, but it’s also about me in relation to others,” Kempner says of the album. “After hiding for so long – staying inside and hiding your life and hiding yourself from the world – I was ready. I think I flipped.” Recorded in brief stints across 2022 at Flying Cloud Recordings in the Catskills, the space between each session gave Kempner more time to breathe, to revisit the songs after time away.
Kempner co-produced “Eye On The Bat” alongside Sam Owens (Big Thief, Cass McCombs), who was also crucial to the process — lending assistance yet allowing Kempner to take the reins on producing, to call the shots on the session and step into their own as a producer. Kempner also credits multi-instrumentalist Larz Brogan, who they refers to as “their platonic life partner” and longtime member of Palehound since the Boston DIY days, as a vital part of making the album come together the way it did. They make Kempner feel seen – allow them to be vulnerable, to experiment, to push themself in the studio. After playing together for so many years, Brogan and Kempner both wanted to push themselves to make a record that sounded less produced, one that simply captured the raw energy of Palehound live. Stand-out track “U Want It U Got It” was almost entirely self-produced by Kempner at home, save for Brogan’s drumming, the first time anything of the sort has made it onto a Palehound record.
“In the past, I’ve taken myself really seriously in the studio, and I’ve ended up with really serious-sounding records,” Kempner explains. “This one – it’s a break up record. I wanted it to sound raw. I wanted it to sound like I was feeling – very much in control, and out of control, at the same time.”
Opening track “Good Sex” charts trying to make a relationship work, the desperation to recapture something, in searing detail; before dissolving into “Independence Day,” its chaotic counterpart, where you realize you can’t and find yourself breaking someone’s heart in the glow of fireworks. “The Clutch” flies by red flags, plunging forward even though it shouldn’t, even though it’s speeding toward heartbreak; while “My Evil” is about being the heartbreaker, hurting someone you never could have imagined hurting. Accepting that, even if unintentional, we all act as villains in someone else’s story.
The poetry is still present – full of aching and shrine-building to minutiae – but it feels genuinely diaristic and authentic. In the past, Kempner admits to hiding behind poetic notions, burying the hurt in metaphors.
But here, El’s at their most open and vulnerable. “I was trying too hard to figure out who I am – what kind of musician I want to be, what kind of person I want to be,” Kempner explains. “And now I’m just embracing my instinct, and bucking what other people’s expectations are. These songs are truly just for me. I was really intentional in processing every detail. For my own sake, frankly.”
“Eye On The Bat” is not a hopeful record in content, but it’s immediately recognizable as the sort of totem you come out clutching on the other side of profound change. It feels like a promise to yourself – if you made it through that, you’ll handle whatever comes next.
Ada Lea shares a new song “hometown (edit),” It’s her first release since 2022’s “One Hand on the Steering Wheel” , The Canadian songwriter Alexandra Levy, publicly known by the moniker Ada Lea. Ada Lea has followed up the creative, indie-rock songcraft of her album with surprising arrangements and new perspectives.
The resulting sounds range from classic, soft-rock beauty to intimate finger-picked folk passages and night-drive art-pop. And the textures are frequently surprising due to the collage of lo-fi and hi-fi sounds that tastefully decorate the album without ever clouding the heart-center of the song. The songs flow together with ease into one big, romantic dream for Levy’s silken vocals to float above.
Lead Vocals: Alexandra Levy Vocals: Felicity DeCarle Electric Guitar: Harrison Whitford, Christopher Hauer, Alexandra Levy Bass Guitar: Harrison Whitford Drums: Tasy Hudson Percussion: Marshall Vore Keyboards: Marshall Vore, Alexandra Levy
Northern California-based quintet Soft Science is “deeply invested [and] honest in their approach to find something new” (The Chicagoist) while maintaining their pop sensibilities. Once described as having “the potential to become one of the great Left Coast power pop bands” (Popmatters), the band’s sonic evolution has led to an exploration of the noisier side of dream pop with glimmers of dark wave on their fourth LP, “Lines” (Shelflife Records – US | Spinout Nuggets – UK | Fastcut Records – Japan).
Soft Science began working on their recently completed album “Lines” in 2019, forging the record in their home studios together and at times in isolation from each other during the height of the pandemic, swapping tracks and making adjustments from a distance for what felt like an eternity. Reuniting in person to finalize the mix created a palpable excitement, an energy that can be felt throughout the record. Lines addresses living and loving within the complexities and challenges of everyday life in our fast-paced digital world.
released July 12th, 2023 Katie Haley – vocals Ross Levine – guitar, synths, backing vocals Matt Levine – guitar Tony Cale – drums, percussion Becky Cale – bass, backing vocals Hans Munz – electronics
On “Jupiter”, Brooklyn trio Upper Wilds voyage deeper into the cosmos, mapping out the overwhelming enormity of the universe in soaring hooks and blistering noise. The third installment in the trio’s exploration of our solar system looks to its largest planet for a daring exploration of scale and perspective. New York underground mainstay Dan Friel’s melodic gifts and wry lyricism are magnified and propelled ever outwards by the thundering rhythm section of bassist Jason Binnick and drummer Jeff Ottenbacher, all immersed in rippling fuzz. Just like its namesake, “Jupiter” stands as Upper Wilds most colossal offering to date in their catalogue. The raw power of their music is amplified to titanic proportions, sky-clawing riffs invoking the sheer awe that the heavens inspire.
Throughout “Jupiter”, Friel makes canny use of shifting perspectives to make sense of the universe’s infinite expanse and our place within it. The buzz-saw groove of “Drifters” mirrors the relentless forward-motion of the NASA Voyager space probes pushing out to the edges of the known universe, Friel musing on the likelihood that they outlast the existence of the earth and our sun. “Short Centuries” pays homage to the oldest married couple on Earth, Julio Mora and Waldramina Quinteros, and love’s ability to echo out through the eons, rising from a slow shuffle to ecstatic peaks bolstered by guest vocals from Katie Eastburn (KATIEE) and Jeff Tobias (Sunwatchers). Album centerpiece “10’9”” liquifies the trio’s fizzing distortion into molten sludge in an ode to the tallest person on Earth, still a mere speck from the perspective of the cosmos. “Books About UFOs” turns instead to the legacy of science-fiction in punk music, their bounding cover of the Husker Dü original amplified by Tobias’ screeching saxophone. The juxtaposition of strange true stories of the human experience alongside grand interstellar narratives brings the enigmas and mystery of space home to the more familiar and mundane.
More than any Upper Wilds album before it, “Jupiter” makes humanity’s endeavors in space exploration an inseparable part of its sonic DNA . Recorded with Travis Harrison at his studio Serious Business in Brooklyn (Guided By Voices, Dope Body, The Men), the trio’s live recordings are augmented throughout with samples inspired by the Voyager Golden Record – a double LP launched with the 1977 Voyager probe spanning field recordings to compositions by J.S. Bach and Laurie Spiegel.
“Greetings” opens with greetings to the universe in 55 languages, a cascading choir calling out to the void. “Voyager” blends the field recordings of wild animal calls and morse-code bleeps into a rollicking pulse before erupting into galloping riffs. “Permanent Storm” opens with sounds of storms, echoing “Jupiter’s” eternal storm aka the Eye of Jupiter’s unending turbulence in its searing guitars. While the Voyager Golden Record’s intended audience may have originally been the extra-terrestrial beings that might encounter the probe, Upper Wilds bring cosmos-seeking sounds back to earth with a record made for and about humanity.
“Jupiter” finds comfort in space’s unending expanse. Far from feeling defeated by the smallness of our existence in the face of an uncaring universe and ever-expanding infinite, Upper Wilds capture the power of creativity to extend our lifespans far beyond our limited time on earth.
Personnel: Dan Friel Jason Binnick Jeff Ottenbacher
I’d like to announce and invite you into the world of our next album “Growing at the Edges” with the first single/video “Little Ways”. ‘Growing At The Edges’ is the first studio album in half a decade from JordanLee’sMutual Benefit. It ranks as Lee’s most sonically diverse record ever, making all manner of genres from classical music to Americana submissive to his template, with his backing band made up of members of Baroness (heavy metal) to Andy Shauf’s band (indie-folk) by way of illustrating this diversity.
This song is about admiring the weeds along with the flowers and never fails to cheer me up. A big shout-out to Gabriel Birnbaum for co-producing and being on the whole journey with me.
The video was shot/directed by Vidhu Kota and is an ode to the trash and treasure (and turtles!) of prospect park in Brooklyn.
Where there was a wasteland, something new…
Jordan Lee: sounds + ideas Gabriel Birnbaum: co-producer Concetta Abbate: string arranger
Jordan Lee: singing, acoustic guitar, piano, synth Gabriel Birnbaum: saxophones, electric guitar, singing, organ Concetta Abbate: violin, viola, mandolin, singing Sean Mullins: drums, percussion Nick Jost: upright bass Eva Goodman: singing Jonnie Baker: guitar Noah Klein: flute Johanne Swanson: singing Adam Brisbin: additional guitar Justin Randall: additional guitar LP: additional singing Steven Head: additional synth
Courtney Barnett announced the release of instrumental album “End Of The Day”. The 17 songs were originally part of the score to the documentary about Barnett titled “Anonymous Club”. The album will be released via Barnett’s own label Milk! Records & Mom+PopRecords. It will be the final release on Milk! ahead of the label closing after more than 70 releases and more than a decade.
“End Of The Day” is described as a “meditative, slow-burning record, prioritizing atmosphere, tone and texture over traditional song structures and melodic hooks. It’s a fearless and stunning turn for an artist who built her formidable reputation through profound lyricism and riff-based fireworks”.
As a taste of the album to come, Barnett releasesed the first three tracks of the album. “Start Somewhere”, “Life Balance” and “First Slow” alongside a visual accompaniment directed by film-maker Claire Marie Vogel.
Barnett announced a series of “End Of The Day” concerts. The short tour will consist of intimate shows split in two sets. The first set will see Barnett and collaborator Stella Mozgawa perform instrumental songs and improvisations from the soundtrack, the second will see Barnett performing songs and singing from her back-catalogue.
In May of 2021, Courtney Barnett and collaborator/producer Stella Mozgawa had just handed in the final masters for Barnett’s third album “Things Take Time, Take Time” when they met up with filmmaker Danny Cohen in a Melbourne studio. Barnett had been experimenting with new gear, making meditative long-form pieces for an audience of one. Mozgawa had just bought an Oberheim OB6 which became the centre-piece of her setup, feeding sounds through a tape echo. And for his part, Cohen had a near-finished documentary, “Anonymous Club”, a candid portrayal of the travails and hard-fought personal triumphs of Barnett’s ascent to international indie rock adulation. Now, he just needed a score.
As Cohen played the final edit of his film that day, Barnett and Mozgawa improvised with one guiding principle—nothing too maudlin, obvious, or instructive, nothing to tell the future audience how they should be feeling about Barnett’s life onscreen. “Anonymous Club” offers up a plethora of Barnett’s music, documenting her charged live sets and her start-and-stop-and-search songwriting process. The pieces she and Mozgawa made that day, though, float around the edges of the finished scenes, coloring the proceedings much like the grain of Cohen’s 16mm film. Really, one could watch “Anonymous Club” and never know that Barnett had made extra music for it.
A year passed and Barnett found she liked listening to what they had made in Melbourne, putting it on and existing within its reflective gaze. Might this be more than the instrumental music of a film? She began sorting through the panoply of little instrumentals like amoebic puzzle pieces, figuring out how she might adjust them ever so slightly until they fit together into a complete picture.
Yard Act have shared “The Trench Coat Museum”. The track, Co-produced by the band and Gorillaz member Remi Kabaka Jr., the standalone single is the first original music that Yard Act have shared since the release of their debut album “The Overload” in January 2022.
Yard Act will open the main stage at Reading & Leeds Festival this summer as well as making appearances at Latitude (headlining the BBC Sounds stage, no less), Fuji Rocks, and Boardmasters.
A lyrical study on ego, vanity, perception and legacy, “The Trench Coat Museum” recalls Yard Act’s JamesSmith’s reaction to reaching a level of visibility which: “left us open to scrutiny and disdain just as much as love and appreciation.” He says, “Criticism is fair game and the internet is lawless so you gotta take it as it comes, but I definitely stopped searching for myself on Twitter the day I read that someone wanted to punch my lights out.”
Smith expands further: “‘The Trench Coat Museum’ is about how our perception of everything shifts both collectively and individually over time at speeds we simply can’t measure in the moment. Within whatever space in society we occupy, we often see our own beliefs as being at the absolute pinnacle of what should be the “cultural norm” and whilst the completely human trait of being self-assured can’t be helped, it’s an absolute hindrance on our collective process. We are one etc. (Are we fuck)”.
The video’s director James Slater added: “The video serves as a continuation and expansion of the Yard Act universe we explored on the first album. It’s set some 30 years in the future in this strange, dystopian trench coat museum in which an enigmatic character – the visitor – takes an audio guided tour. The song’s an eight-minute banger so I wanted the exhibits to come to life so that we could transition from an exhibition tour to a warehouse rave. It feels like a mini-film which is no accident, we see this as the first part of a Yard Act movie that coincides with their next album.”
“The Trench Coat Museum” on limited edition black vinyl, signed by no one and definitely not numbered, hand printed, stamped, and comes with no bonus prints, stickers or postcards.
