The late Jonathan Demme’s iconic Talking Heads concert film “Stop Making Sense” has been acquired by indie studio A24, who are giving it a newly restored 4K transfer for a worldwide theatrical release. The news came via a new trailer for the film featuring the current David Byrne picking up his also iconic Big Suit from the dry cleaners. “It’s been here for a while,” Byrne tells the owner. Byrne puts the suit back on and recreates a few of his classic dance movies from “Stop Making Sense” as “This Must Be the Place” plays in the background.
If the suit still fits… This year, we’re bringing Jonathan Demme’s ground breaking 1984 Talking Heads concert film (newly remastered in 4K!) The full audio of Talking Heads classic 1984 concert film, “Stop Making Sense”, will be issued on vinyl for the first time in August. While it focuses mainly on music by Talking Heads but does include a few songs recorded outside the band: ‘Genius Of Love’ by Weymouth and Frantz’s side-project Tom Tom Club and ‘What A Day That Was’ and ‘Big Business’ from Byrne’s 1981 album, “The Catherine Wheel”.
Meanwhile, Rhino are to reissue the “Stop Making Sense” soundtrack on vinyl and digital, including the first-ever release of the whole concert. That will be out August 18th.
A24 is also the studio that released Everything Everywhere All At Once, which just swept the Oscars, though David Byrne, Son Lux & Mitski’s “This is a Life” lost Best Original Song to RRR’s “Natuu Natuu.”
David Byrne says it’s interesting that this album was – for many people – an introduction to Talking Heads: “We had done a live album before this, but coupled with the film, and with the improved mixes and sound quality, this record reached a whole new audience. As often happens, the songs got an added energy when we perform them live and were inspired by having an audience. In many ways, these versions are more exciting than the studio recordings, so maybe that’s why a lot of folks discovered us via this record.”
“Stop Making Sense” is reissued on 2LP vinyl on 18th August 2023, via Rhino.
Personality Crisis: One Night Only is a new documentary about New York Dolls frontman David Johansen that was co-directed by Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi. According to the official synopsis, the film “tells the definitive story of the culture-defying David Johansen, notorious ’70s glam punk lead singer of the New York Dolls. Framed around an intimate cabaret performance filmed in January 2020 at New York City’s storied Café Carlyle, Personality Crisis: One Night Only reveals Johansen’s enormous influence, transcending the walls of music as a window into the art and cultural evolution of New York City.”
“I’ve known David Johansen for decades, and his music has been a touchstone ever since I listened to the Dolls when I was making Mean Streets,” Scorsese said in a statement. “Then and now, David’s music captures the energy and excitement of New York City. I often see him perform, and over the years I’ve gotten to know the depth of his musical inspirations. After seeing his show at the Café Carlyle, I knew I had to film it because it was so extraordinary to see the evolution of his life and his musical talent in such an intimate setting.”
PERSONALITY CRISIS: ONE NIGHT ONLY tells the definitive story of the culture-defying David Johansen, notorious ’70s glam punk lead singer of the New York Dolls. Framed around an intimate cabaret performance filmed in January 2020 at New York City’s storied Café Carlyle, PERSONALITY CRISIS: ONE NIGHT ONLY reveals Johansen’s enormous influence, transcending the walls of music as a window into the art and cultural evolution of New York City. Streaming April 14th on SHOWTIME. Co-directed by Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese and Emmy nominee David Tedeschi, and executive produced by Scorsese and Sikelia Productions with Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Imagine Documentaries.
one of this year’s most anticipated releases as Poolblood readies the release of the debut album album mole on January 13th via Next Door Records. From the initial release of the “Yummy” EP back in 2019 and the steady release of singles from the aforementioned full-length; Toronto artist Maryam Said makes art that stems from the most privy and guarded places of heart and expressive trajectory streams of thought. Tracks like “twinkie”, “wfy”, “my little room”, “shabby” and more take the listener on journeys toward those inward chambers of the soul that allow for perspectives of spiritual reckonings and the dawning of personal realizations that only the most illuminated aesthetics can curate with their indelible rays of light. For those new to Maryam’s wonderstruck world of Poolblood — welcome to the new dimension of poetic pop symphonies of universal spirit and limitless consciousness.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Frankie Rose – 2017 to be exact – but in that time we’ve managed to revisit her excellent complete overhaul of The Cure‘s ‘Seventeen Seconds’. Here, the Vivian Girls, Beverly, Crystal Stilts, and Dum Dum Girls member travels to the ’80s once more, as ‘Love As Projection’ takes inspiration from 1980s art pop, new wave, and synth-pop. Lead single ‘Anything’ sounds like New Order closing off a John Hughes movie. .
After spending nearly two decades establishing herself across New York and Los Angeles independent music circles, Frankie Rose returns with a fresh form, aesthetic, and purpose embodied in her new album “Love As Projection.” Celebrated by countless critical and cultural outlets over the years for her expansive approach to songwriting, lush atmospherics, and transcendent vocal melodies and harmonies, “Love As Projection” is a reintroduction of her iconic style through the new lens of contemporary electronic pop. Featuring beautiful, ethereal songs like lead-off single “Anything,” “Sixteen Ways” and “Come Back,” this album is more than a rebirth, a refinement, a resurgence – it’s a culmination of influence and the most personal and accessible collection of art-pop that Frankie has delivered yet.
Taken from the album “Love As Projection” Out March 10th, 2023 on Night School and Slumberland Records.
The first-ever vinyl release for this 2003 EP—featuring covers of Beck, Kylie Minogue, and Radiohead—isn’t only a look back at a pinnacle in the career of the Flaming Lips, but a testament to their longetivity.
The Flaming Lips career consists of four distinct phases. First came the Oklahoma band’s LSD-drenched psychedelic years, which lasted from 1986 through 1990. Phase two (1992-1997) found them sign to Warner Bros. and achieve radio success with “She Don’t Use Jelly.” In their third phase (1999-2009), they proved themselves more than just a one-hit wonder and barnstormed the mainstream via the universally beloved “The Soft Bulletin” and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”. In phase four (2009-present), the Lips embraced their mainstream appeal by collaborating with Miley Cyrus, Kacey Musgraves, and Chris Martin and venturing even further into parts unknown.
It can be argued that the Flaming Lips’ greatest musical achievements came during that third phase (though it’s too premature a debate, as they’re still going strong and if they get their wish could be the first band to perform in outer space). There was a pivotal moment in this era when the Lips captured lightning in a bottle, attracted fresh legions of fans, and cemented their sheer brilliance. That artistic and commercial breakthrough was 2002’s “Yoshimi”.
One of the first great records of the century, it documented the Lips reaching a level of transcendence usually occupied by mystics. A spiritual plane where one embraces both life and death with equal amounts of love, joy, and tears.
Proving the vitality of “Yoshimi”, the Lips’ follow-up came after the longest break between full-lengths in their now-40-year career. However, shortly after “Yoshimi”, the band did slip out an EP named after its first song and third single: “Fight Test.” Much more than just a release intended to capitalize on their newfound success, “Fight Test” also featured live versions of songs by Radiohead, Beck, and Kylie Minogue, two original compositions (one a public thank-you letter to Jack White), and a nine-minute remix of the “Yoshimi” single “Do You Realize??” While EPs are often excluded from discussions about great albums, “Fight Test”,like The Flaming Lips themselves, are an exceptional case. At almost 33 minutes in length, “Fight Test“ is practically an LP. Plus, it charted and it earned the Lips a GRAMMY nomination.
Stunningly, Warner Bros. didn’t issue “Fight Test” on vinyl until now, 20 years after its initial release. While it doesn’t contain any new material—the record is too perfect for that—the ruby red disc is nonetheless as valuable as a golden ticket inside a packaged candy bar (and if Wayne Coyne isn’t the Willy Wonka of rock and roll, who is?).
The “Fight Test” vinyl reissue is not only a look back at a pinnacle in the career of the Lips, but a testament to their immortality. They’re a band that has never stopped burning bright and has never faded away.
Sweet Pill lands in the sweet spot between melancholic Midwest emo and noodly math rock, grungily processing these two influences into their recent debut album “Where the Heart Is”—a more emo-pop take on the sounds their Philly peers in Mannequin Pussy have been churning. We don’t wanna give away any spoilers, so you’ll have to catch one of their sets to find out where, exactly, their hearts are.
Philadelphia’s Sweet Pill write eruptive emo songs that embrace the edges of pop and hardcore. The kind of band whose members are fully immersed in their local scene—through a handful of notable side projects and the show-promoting Philly staple 4333 Collective—the quintet’s sound takes wide-spectrum influence from its environment. The result is an amalgam of complex song structures and flourishes of technical acumen, wholly unconcerned with genre, yet evoking the specific styles of touchstones such as Paramore and Circa Survive.
Band members
Jayce Williams
Sean McCall
Zayna Youssef
Ryan Cullen
Chris Kearney
“High Hopes” is taken from Sweet Pill’s ‘Where the Heart Is’, out now via Topshelf Records
Being “kind of a shoegaze band”—and who isn’t these days?—is just one of the many appeals of Goon. But perhaps more importantly and distinctively and can’t-miss-them-ly, that influence is powerfully counterbalanced by both psych rock and grunge, landing them somewhere fairly indistinguishable on the genre map once you factor in the constant string section embedded in their newest album, “Hour of Green Evening”.
Some sweet new takes on slightly less new tracks. “Flower Bell” is a painfully good (and short) track that captures the best of a “feel good” Boards of Canada track, while still being distinctly Goon. The production choices and lo-fi aesthetics combine to form a different-but-totally-valid take on what “sounds like nostalgia” actually sounds like.
Unreleased B-sides, alternate versions and demos from “Hour of Green Evening” and a re-vamped version of ‘Another Window‘
There are few artists who can instantly capture a brand new audience with just a few songs, but that is what Los Angeles-based musician and songwriter Sabrina Teitelbaum has done with her new project Blondshell. Her first single “Olympus” caused a lot of buzz, but when “Kiss City” — an intimate track about the vulnerability of sex and love– dropped, every music critic, publication and fan alike knew she was an artist on the rise. Whether it’s through punchy rock ‘n’ roll tracks or channeling ’90s-era femme fatales, Teitelbaum is writing anthems for a new generation of angsty alt-rock lovers.
If you subscribe to the annual thinkpiece-floated idea that rock and roll is dead, how do you explain this [slams a vinyl copy of Blondshell’s self-titled debut on the table in front of you]? What Sabrina Teitelbaum accomplishes with Blondshell is an utterly streamlined take on good-times rock music without getting hung up on genre.
After establishing herself with self-examining alt-rock, Blondshell, aka Sabrina Teitelbaum, is primed to release her debut self-titled album later this month via Partisan. Singles “Veronica Mars” and “Kiss City” pull from the likes of Hole and The Cranberries, echoing mid-90s rock with an introspective modern edge. Having moved on from the coming-of-age pop Teitelbaum made with previous projects, Blondshell proves that being true to yourself is a creative process like no other.
Blondshell’s cover of The Cranberries’ “Disappointment,” out now on Partisan Records the self-titled debut album, out April 7th
The album’s seemingly brief tracklisting belies a work of great beauty and depth, and one which turned into a one-man crusade for singer/guitarist Lars Andersson, intertwining deeply personal stories with his love for the era of Romanticism. “Every time I go to a museum and I’m about to pass through the era of Romanticism I stop in awe,” says Lars of the enduring appeal of the 18th century artistic movement. “Whatever it is – stories, paintings, music – it triggers something deep within me, something profoundly human. It really hits a nerve, and it utterly immerses me to a point where I can’t move.”
The album replicates this feeling; a gloriously over-the-top blend of Slowdive and Sigur Rós, mixed with the single-mindedness of Daniel Johnston and the noisiness of Nirvana, it’s as bold and beautiful and every bit as ornate as the art that inspired it. Unlike their acclaimed debut, 2019’s “All That Ever Could Have Been”, which gradually came into focus with a 15-minute opening track, “Picturesque” hits home from the very first note of the short and sweet opener, ‘Ballerina’. That’s not to say there aren’t epics here – ‘Metamorphosis’ is essentially a 12-minute suite of three movements; blistering closer ‘The Lot’ is 11 minutes of Swans-inspired heaviness – but everything is much more direct and focused.
“Picturesque“ is on Sonic Cathedral – thanks to everyone involved, man, it’s been a journey, Huge thanks also to Dinked for picking this one up for a special edition of the record, there has been a huge demand for that version so far. Additionally to the UK, “Picturesque” is also available to order now on Vinyl and CD
This isn’t an album to lose yourself in, it’s one to get swept away by. “‘More is more’ was definitely the credo when making this record,” agrees Lars. “A big inspiration were bands like Pond and the way they manage to fill their songs up with stuff to the absolute maximum. While I definitely tried to give the listener some room to breathe at certain points and while, in good old post-rock fashion, it still builds up and breaks down, it relies much more on simple melody and harmony as opposed to noisy experimentation to transport feeling.” Never more so than on the first single, ‘The Golden Age’, which is the album’s centre-piece; a soaring slice of über-shoegaze that is so stunning you can’t take your eyes or ears off it.
Like all the songs on the album, it’s based around a fairy-tale from the Romantic era. with Lars drawing parallels between the titular character’s mystical and romantic searchings and his own personal quest. This is apt as the album has been an overriding obsession for Lars for the past two-and-a-half years; as well as writing and recording the songs (bandmate Phillip Dornauer played drums), he also mixed and mastered them at his Alpine Audio studio and “Picturesque” is very much his Brian Wilson or Kevin Shields moment. Molly were in the middle of their European tour when Covid hit in early 2020, forcing Lars to retreat back to his home outside Innsbruck and giving him time and space to think about every detail of the record.
“Good golly this MOLLY album is beautiful. ‘Picturesque’ is first and foremost a chance to be overwhelmed by elegance and power and an otherworldly glow.” – Stereogum (Album Of The Week)
“Sonically, Sigur Rós are still in there, but MOLLY’s sound scapey aspects have entered a frequently beautiful territory bordering that of second LP Slowdive. Heady. Audacious too.” – MOJO (4/5)
“Picturesque establishes itself as the definitive album in MOLLY’s short discography.” – Allmusic (4/5)
“Highly recommended. Will certainly finish Top 50 of the year.” – Album Of The Year
“Picturesque” is a fairy tale in music, captivating, poignant, celestial and capable of drawing us in completely; “Picturesque” is a sound temple in which mind and sight are lost, constantly captured and everything is amplified. It’s a unique sensation. The first big album of 2023 is already here.” – Indie For Bunnies (8/10)
“The result is an Album that is as huge and expensive as it is detailed and introspective.“ – Uncut Magazine (7/10)
“Picturesque“ sounds like being blasted with pure light that washes over you like a giant blissed-out wave.” – BrooklynVegan
“Picturesque“ is a post-gaze record that, subtleties aside, evokes the beauty of the Austrian alps. Some would, dare I say it, go as far as describing the album as picturesque.” – Sputnik Sound (3.5/5)
On his fifth album as H.Hawkline, songwriter Huw Evans delivers a masterclass in subtly, craft and understated performance. His finest work yet and among our best albums in March .
Six years after Huw Evans released “I Romanticize” under the H. Hawkline name, he returns triumphantly with “Milk For Flowers” for Heavenly Recordings. Agony and elegance stare each other down across the record’s 10 tracks, with Evans’ distinctive voice remaining the star of the show. Evans’ voice is always in conversation with gorgeous, punctuated instrumental arrangements, generating music with multiple dazzling focal points that make “Milk For Flowers” a thoroughly engaging listen.
That said, the record’s vocal profundity is novel for Evans, reflecting a newfound lyrical urgency. Evans describes it succinctly: “I had to sing.” As sweet and shimmering as the saxophones are on a track like “Plastic Man,” Evans’ lyrics transform them into sirens of impending disaster as he demands “help me, help me, help me, help me.” Brass and keys are his preferred prisms through which to reflect his urgent emotions. They burn brightest on “Mostly,” a swaying meditation on mortality where Evans repeats, in falsetto, “I wanna die, I wanna die / I wanna die happy.”
On tracks like “I Need Him,” the subtle percussion, gentle keys and acoustic guitar generate a more subtle but excellently intimate atmosphere. “Milk For Flowers” is, without a doubt, H. Hawkline’s most vulnerable record, but his gently theatrical gestures and Le Bon’s measured production cultivate such an inviting atmosphere that it’s worth stepping out of yourself for those 46 glimmering minutes.
Produced with long-time collaborator and celebrated solo artist Cate Le Bon, “Milk For Flowers” is sad, but certainly not without hope. Many of the songs are fragile – and his voice throughout is just sublime in its vulnerability – but the album is entirely void of sentimentalism; plaintive and honest, some of the most enthralling we’ve heard in ages.
‘Milk For Flowers’ is the title track and first single from H. Hawkline’s new album.
The Fat Angel Sings 