Thurston Moore has unveiled the second song from his forthcoming album — an electrifying new tune entitled ‘Isadora’; it is an ode to longtime muse Isadora Duncan. The track, out on his label The Daydream Library Series today, available on “Bandcamp Friday”, March 3rd, 2023 — comes from a session with Thurston’s London-based group, including bassist Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine),guitarist James Sedwards (Nøught), percussionist Jem Doulton (Róisín Murphy), electronic music wizard Jon Leidecker (Negativland) with lyrics by London-based poet Radieux Radio.
‘Isadora’ is the second single from a forthcoming album and is accompanied by a music video featuring what Thurston has referred to as a “Sky Dance”. The video written & directed by Radieux Radio features American actress, musician, dancer & choreographer Sky Ferreira. “Sky is a talented friend who’s been spending time in London, and immediately understood the connection to this mysticism & music and sent through this magical digital diary for the song.
Sky’s insight into modern dance, including her love of Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham sparked off a conversation about Judson Theatre Group, Douglas Dunn, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Yvonne Rainer and other artists of performance and dance who bring the word ‘freedom’ to our minds and spirit.”
released March 3rd, 2023 guitarist/vocalist: Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) bassist: Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine) guitarist: James Sedwards (Nøught) percussionist: Jem Doulton (Róisín Murphy) electronics: Jon Leidecker (Negativland) lyrics: Radieux Radio
In a world of endless, bottomless content, to find something that stands out from the crowd is a rare thing. But it’s something that 7ebra manage without breaking a sweat. Based in Malmö, twin sisters Inez and Ella Johansson deal in sparkling indie-rock that’s pretty without being soft, sweet without losing its edge and catchy without being cheap. With Inez on guitar and vocals and Ella on keys, organ and Mellotron, their minimal set-up makes a virtue of simplicity – with a sliver of guitar fuzz, and organ lines snaking around stark, striking vocals, augmented by shivering harmonies, they don’t need a lot to make music that’s colourful, kaleidoscopic, and effortlessly original.
7ebra debuted in 2022 with the double-single “I Have A Lot To Say”/ “If I Ask Her”, two helpings of psych-tinged, street-smart rock and roll, and the music scene around them wasn’t slow to notice. They opened for the Future Islands and the Dandy Warhols, were picked out by Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson as a Hidden Gem of 2022 and were booked for prestigious showcases SXSW and Eurosonic.
With a packed schedule of shows across Europe and the UK already planned for 2023, their world looks set to get a lot bigger – something that their debut album “Bird Hour” makes certain. The record is a warm, elegant introduction to the sound 7ebra have crafted. The songs are full of personality and character, but also retain a little bit of enigma, a sense of keeping something secret to themselves. To unwrap that elusiveness is a daunting task, but one the listener can’t resist leaping into.
Ella and Inez’s parents played in bands as they were growing up, so picking up music was a natural thing for them. The origins of 7ebra start with Inez whiling away the hours playing guitar in her bedroom. “I learned by playing covers by myself in my room”, she says. “Ella didn’t do that as much, but we sometimes played and sang together, country songs”. Eventually she would start writing her own. Ella wasn’t involved originally (“we did play together a few times”, she says, “and it just went to shit [laughs]. We fought a lot”), and Inez was originally reluctant: “I was a bit unsure whether I wanted to be in a band with my sister. Because you get clumped together all the time, when you’re twins”. But Ella was keen to join, and eventually persuaded Inez to let her join for a show. It went – so well that producer Tore Johansson (The Cardigans, Franz Ferdinand), saw it and asked if they’d like to record with him. That changed things, says Ella: “It made us think there might be something in this music”. As a duo, 7ebra were in flight. “In the end, it’s kind of a nice thing too [being sisters in a band]”, Inez says. “It doesn’t bother me anymore. It just made sense to play together”.
On the album that they eventually came up with, the talent that caught Johansson’s eye is immediately obvious. Opener “Secretly Bad” has a way of walking along your nerves, an eerie echo of a hymn in Inez’s vocal backed by a swirl of woozy blend of guitars and organ. That’s followed up by “I Like To Pretend”, an easily charming song that has a sleepy brightness about it, like morning sunlight breaking through a window. They take a couple of different genres for a whirl on “Bird Hour” – they’re tense and snappy on “If I Ask Her”, breezy and cocky on “Lighter Better”, and there’s even a couple of droplets of blues and folk in the mix, in the raw intensity of the emotions in the slower songs, the vulnerability and aching of songs like “Lean” and “Stripey Horsey”. The record has a way of sweeping you along in its mood and tones, fuelled in part by the band’s use of repetition, sometimes fast and fevered, sometimes crawling and hypnotic.
The duo’s musical input blends perfectly, with Inez’s guitar and vocals forming the core, and Ella drawing in the detail with keys, organ, and harmonies, to really bring out the vivid nature of the songs. Indie rock that’s melodic and sweet, but with enough shadow mixed in to make it really compelling.
On “Bird Hour”, what strikes you first about 7ebra’s sound is how fully formed it is, how much they’ve carved out their own sonic territory, perfected by trial and error in the studio with Johansson. “Tore wanted us to try everything possible”, says Ella. “We had moments where things weren’t working. But that was necessary in order to find the good stuff”. 7ebra’s signature might be found in the deft way they deal with emotion – unafraid of being open, but a little too clever to make things too clear cut: “You can’t take yourself that seriously.
It’s too emotional to take it seriously, to start hating yourself. But at the same time, it is quite serious”, says Ella. Another trademark is the simplicity – a 7ebra song has just enough to make it work, and nothing more. “I think it was important for me that our voices were at the centre of the songs”, says Inez, “that all the little melodies have their place, and don’t get overwhelmed. With lyrics, I sometimes come up with something, and just feel ‘there’s no need to add more to this’. Sometimes a line works by itself. You don’t have to add a bunch of lyrics”. Finally, the album’s themes are ones that will resonate with most people that have set foot on this planet. “I guess it’s about trying to understand yourself, in relation to others. Just life. ‘Why am I not good at this, why is this thing happening to me, why is this thing so hard, why am I so stupid?’”, laughs Ella.
7ebra haven’t been around for very long – but a handful of songs and their fizzing live shows have stirred up the biggest buzz in Scandinavian music in quite a while. Their debut album justifies it all. It showcases the magic they’re capable of conjuring up, and hints at even more to come in the future. But from where they are right now, they’ve made something very special. “Bird Hour” takes all that promise and turns it into something concrete, in the form of one of the year’s best rock debuts.
Los Angeles band Starcrawler released their third full-length album, “She Said,” last September 2022. While touring in support of the album, Starcrawler visited The Current studio to chat with host Ayisha Jaffer and to play songs from the new album.
Starcrawler’s Autumn de Wilde and Henri Cash met in high school in Los Angeles. Both were disenchanted with school and wanted to be in a touring band. “We rehearsed every day after school because we wanted to make it really happen,” Cash recalls. “And it did.”
“We both really, really had the same drive,” de Wilde adds, “which is I think the most important thing in starting a band, is everyone has to be kind of on the same page.”
Last September, Starcrawler released She Said, their third full-length album. While touring in support of the album.
Watch video of the performances above, and listen to the full session with interview in the audio player above. You can also read an interview . Starcrawler share their origin story, and they also talk about how one of their songs can trace its roots to Phoebe Bridgers’ guitarist and — yikes! — a car accident.
watch a three-song performance by Starcrawler, recorded live in The Current studio.
So, just yesterday, February 28th, 2023, Cleopatra Records posted a bunch of videos on YouTube advertising a new JohnnyThunders release called “Finally Alone: The Sticks and Stones Tapes,” with a release date of March 1st, 2023
The moment when the New York Dolls hit the Big Apple’s teeming music scene in 1971/72 has been immortalized not only by filmmakers and music historians but also in the hearts and minds of every garage/punk rock music fan. For good reason too, the moment crystallized a monumental shift in American music, and proclaimed the rise of a young, charismatic guitarist/performer/songwriter whose impact would extend throughout the next two decades to come. His name was Johnny Thunders and a brand new CD box set, entitled “From The Beginning To The End”, chronicles his career, first his early rise to power with the pre-Dolls project Actress through a late ‘70s solo gig at Max’s Kansas City to his final recordings made just prior to his untimely death in 1991.
The real gem of the box set is the final disc, which features several ultra rare demo recordings that legions of Thunders’ collectors have prized for years. In his final days, as the years of hard and wild living had started to catch up, a cash-strapped Thunders made a deal with his then manager Jeff Grabow to whom Thunders was indebted. In exchange for money owed, Thunders gave Grabow a set of tapes that would constitute the final recorded output of one of rock music’s generational talents. Now, these recordings have been collected on “Finally Alone: The Sticks & Stones Tapes”, a title that nods towards Thunders’ first solo album “So Alone”, and made available in the box set..
Monster 3CD set of electrifying live performances and astonishing rare tracks from famed New York Doll founder and main Heartbreaker forever, the one and only Johnny Thunders!. The Heartbreakers, also known as Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers an American punk rock band, formed in New York City in May, 1975. The band spearheaded the first wave of punk rock.
This set includes some of Thunders’ very first recorded performances, with the Dolls predecessor, Actress, as well as some of his final recordings made shortly before his death in 1991!. Also includes several ultra rare demo recordings that legions of Thunders’ collectors have prized for years!
Each disc comes packaged in its own sleeve and a gorgeous full-colour 28-page booklet with loads of photos and liner notes by music journalist Dave Thompson!
Monster 3CD set of electrifying live performances and astonishing rare tracks from famed NY Doll founder and main Heartbreaker forever, the one and only Johnny Thunders!. This set includes some of Thunders’ very first recorded performances, with the Dolls predecessor, Actress, as well as some of his final recordings made shortly before his death in 1991!
The question is, with the exception of a new cover photo and slightly different title, whether this new release will be the same as the “Sticks and Stones” album first released in 1993, and most recently re-released by Cleopatra in 2018 as a double vinyl disc.
The Natural Lines is the new project from Kingston NY-based indie singer/songwriter Matt Pond PA. For years now, Pond has kept up a prolific output, releasing over a dozen albums as Matt Pond PA in the past two decades. However, in 2017 he announced his intention to retire the moniker. The Natural Lines represents a natural evolution for Pond, one created at an intentional and meditative pace, with Pond refusing to rush his songwriting.
Pond teased the revival last year with an EP, “The First Five”, followed by another new single, ‘Monotony.”
The second song from our upcoming album is out today, “A Scene That Will Never Die”, along with an amazing animated video by Joy + Noelle!. From a true story. The scene starts with me at the end of my rope on the east coast. At this point in late summer, I sent a text message to the love of my life — before she was the love of my life — to see if she’d like to sleep under the stars. She was performing on the opposite coast and stopped mid-show to respond.
We did not go camping. But every ensuing message brought us closer and closer until we became an inseparable team.
Until recent years, it was out of character for me to be openly grateful. And further, to appreciate the virtues of modern technology. I was better at destroying phones than using them as a proper tool.
But I believe people — including me — are capable of change. We are capable of being better people. And I believe we are even capable of love.
Starbursts of guitar and cinematic synth melodies drive the song forward as Pond’s song writing builds up to a soaring high, tapping into a magnetic vein of instant indie joy. Meanwhile, his lyrics offer a heart warming confessional element to the track, bringing the sweet love story to life一“Because you stayed awake / Because you gave more than you had / Because you remained / Because you made mistakes / Because I made them too / And they brought us to this place.”
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band are showcased over 12 tracks recorded live for radio and TV. The material is sourced from two 1968 sessions for John Peel plus a 1972 appearance on Beat Club and features tracks from four different Beefheart LPs. On the 12th April, in the middle of the European leg of the tour Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band stopped off at the Beat Club studios in Bremen to film a session for later transmission.
Beat Club tracks are excellent sound quality. For many years, a classic performance of “I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby” from German television show Beat Club in 1972, circulated among fans. Then in 2012 the full 29 minute performance was released on DVD by Gonzo Media as “The Lost Broadcasts” but very rapidly became unavailable again once more.
However, some of it is available to view on YouTube; the whole band are just incredible here and it’s hard not to be dumb struck by some of the vocals:
BBC tracks are recorded off air but are still thoroughly listenable. Comes with full credits and comprehensive sleeve notes.
Side One. 1. Yellow Brick Road 2. Abba Zabba 3. Sure ‘Nuff ‘n’ Yes I Do 4. Electricity 5. Beatle Bones ‘n’ Smokin’ Stones 6. Safe As Milk 7. Kandy Korn.
Side Two. 1. Trust Us 2. Steal Softly Thru Snow 3. Click Clack 4. Golden Birdies 5. I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby
‘It’s ok to play out of time’ Music toys with time. Or, maybe songs reflect back that time is always toying with us. The world of a song takes hold of us like an eternity to be lost in, with its repetitions and variations, but ultimately, as with everything else, it has a start and then ends. And there’s no place to lose time like San Francisco, where there are no seasons and all the seasons occur within one day; where the fog takes the space where your plans might have been; where there’s insane wealth all around and everyone you know and love is hanging on at the periphery and making art on any given Tuesday night. About Glenn Donaldson’s new record, “The Town That Cursed Your Name,” he says, “I realized as I was piecing it together that it’s a song cycle about trying to live while also feeling called to make music.” It’s a double life when it works and a deeper doubleness to mirror the Gemini nature of songs themselves. “The Town That Cursed Your Name” contemplates this problem with wryness, generosity, and the micro- and macroscopic realness Donaldson is known and loved for.
Whereas the 2022 collection “Summer at Land’s End” was a softer, gauzier world, “The Town That Cursed Your Name” is heavier, with fuzzed lines running through. “Leave It All Behind” starts out with an amorphous whine but quickly launches into something both supremely melodic and buzzing at the edges. “Here Comes the Lunar Hand” is an impressionist geometry that seems to capture the album’s themes without telling you how. Lyrically, Donaldson embraces the earnestness of his heroes Paul Westerberg and Grant McLennan. Sonically, late ’80s college rock is filtered through song-forward lo-fi acts like East River Pipe and “House of Tomorrow”-era Magnetic Fields. Like the images that accompany his releases – flowers and residential street scenes are pushed to the breaking point with color – Donaldson’s songs are at the same time dazzling and lurid, beautiful and burdened, not unlike life as a musician around here.
In the liner notes, Donaldson dedicates the record “to everyone who ever tried to start a band in the Bay.” There will be many knowing smiles at his title “Too Late For An Early Grave.” But, this dedication captures something else about the particular strain of sincerity that laces the city water supply – the front man around here is on stage under those lights evincing the fervor not of the pop star but of the biggest fan.
releases March 24th, 2023 “The Town That Cursed Your Name”, via Slumberland (North America/Japan) & Tough Love (R.O.W).
“Everyone’s hoping that nobody sees/all our little efforts at dignity”
This last line of the title track from Cindy’s fourth LP “Why Not Now? “works as a slogan for Karina Gill’s evolving musical vision. Her music is simple out of necessity and introverted in delivery, but the songs contain vivid worlds and are quietly ambitious. With this latest batch, Gill pulled the process of making Cindy music even more inward. “Some of these songs were first recorded as demos alone in my basement. I think that process set the tone for the record…Maybe it set up a kind of starkness,” she says.
Moving on from the fixed quartet that performed the first three albums, Gill worked alongside original keyboardist Aaron Diko to develop the songs and they enlisted players from the ever-blossoming SF pop scene to realise her minimalist vision — members of Flowertown, Telephone Numbers, April Magazine, Famous Mammals, and Sad Eyed Beatniks to name a few. The collective sounds fill out the record perfectly with John Cale-esque viola on ‘August’, lo-fi fairground organs, and a tasteful full-band sound that crops up throughout. ‘A Trumpet on a Hillside’ is the most triumphant Cindy has ever sounded, all ascending chords and a wedding march melody tumbling out of an old synth. Still, some of the best moments are Gill alone, as on ‘Playboy’, just naked guitar and voice, and when the forlorn whistling solo kicks in, it feels like the loneliest star is imploding in a distant galaxy.
While the dream-pop tag is probably still relevant, this isn’t algorithm-fed genre ambience. Gill’s vocal/lyrical presence can be as gently momentous as Leonard Cohen or as intellectually potent as any ’79-’80 Rough Trade post-punk. “In writing a song”, Gill says, ”all the disparate parts of being me momentarily correspond, like car alarms and party music momentarily matching beats.” Cindy’s “Why Not Now?” is that muffled street symphony inside a passing daydream.
releases April 1st, 2023
Cindy is Karina Gill, Aaron Diko, Mike Ramos, Charlie Ertola and Stanley Martinez. We’re based in San Francisco, California.
Taken from the album, “Why Not Now?”, out 14th April via Mt. St. Mtn (N.A.)/Tough LoveRecords (R.O.W).
Ulrika Spacek are delighted to announce long awaited third album ’Compact Trauma’ due for release 10th March. Recording of the album began at KEN in 2018 but following the loss of the band’s hub was completed in various locations across a 4 year period. The record stands as a next chapter, a culmination of new ideas and combined sound of the first two brother and sister records and the bands Suggestive Listening E.P.
Close to five years on from their last transmission, Ulrika Spacek resurface from self-imposed exile with their third album, “Compact Trauma”, a collection of songs that function as a chance treatise of sorts for our current collective condition. With a title like that arriving at this point in time, it’s tempting to interpret the record solely in the context of the global events of the past few years, but the roots of these ten songs arc back much further in time, charged with their own personalised internal damage.
Opening track, ‘The Sheer Drop’, begins with the line “Homerton is caving in”; ‘It Will Come Sometime’ describes a “liver like a lightbulb and swelling”; and Lounge Angst (an almost perfect description of those maddening lockdown days indoors) laments, ‘seems my friends grew up or left’. The fear and panic is palpable. The lyrics are matched to a soundtrack that oscillates between the febrile and the off-kilter, unconventional song structures and knotty arrangements either spinning the listener in unexpected directions or offering some kind of cathartic release. Take, as example, the aforementioned opener, ‘The Sheer Drop’. A wire-taut exercise in tension-and-release rendered in three parts, a whimsical synth opening giving way to characteristic chiming guitars before a nail biting coda sets its controls for the heart of the sun or the end of the world, whichever comes first. Either way, it’s a hell of a way to reintroduce yourself after a five year absence. ‘If The Wheels Are Coming Off, The Wheels Are Coming Off’ is equally instructive, a lacerating exposition of self-doubt that bursts into ecstatic release at its climax, demanding repeat listens, while ‘Stuck At The Door’ is an 11-minute Pacific North West-style epic that threatens, ‘the worst of it’s to come’. But it’s the title track that might be the true heartbeat of the record.
Either addressing itself or some unknown assailant, it begins by demanding that they “take your hands and your head off the table”, while spiralling around a breathless riff fuelled by an infectious anxious energy, before changing tact completely and shifting to a lullaby-like finale, concluding with the ominous thought, “compact trauma? Or full blown disaster? I’ll be back in an hour (Or so i think)”. It’s a fitting encapsulation of a highly complex record. They could have left it alone, but in coming back to what they knew, Ulrika Spacek found their best work yet.
releases March 10th, 2023
The LP available in 3 editions: Standard Compact Black, Colour in Colour transparent (Exclusive to indie stores) and Splattered transparent with extra 7” including two extra songs
Taken from the album, “Compact Trauma”, out 10th March via Tough Love Records.
The Fat Angel Sings 