The Fat Angel Sings

In a world where the music industry can feel dauntingly cutthroat and competitive, finding kindred spirits can be a lifeline. That’s exactly what happened when Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, and Phoebe Bridgers crossed paths. As Baker explained in a recent press release, the three women were all at similar points in their lives and music careers and shared a deep appreciation for music that was authentic, vulnerable, and unapologetically raw.

There’s a sense of serendipity to the way they came together as if fate itself had orchestrated their meeting. But it was more than just happenstance that brought these three talented musicians together – it was a shared vision, a mutual understanding of what it means to create music that resonates deeply with listeners.

So far the trio have shared three singles, ‘$20’, ‘Emily I’m Sorry’ and ‘True Blue’, which were released upon the album’s announcement in January.

All three women are known for their soul-baring lyrics, heart-wrenching vocals, and fearless exploration of topics that many artists shy away from. They’re not afraid to lay themselves bare, to expose their deepest fears and insecurities in the hopes of connecting with others who may be going through similar struggles.

“the record” is the debut full length album from boygenius. Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus who formed Boygenius after booking a tour together, but the trio had subconsciously been in the works for longer than that. Through a series of tours and performances together, and chance encounters that led to friendships – including Bridgers’ and Dacus’ first in-person meeting backstage at a Philadelphia festival, greenroom hangouts that felt instantly comfortable and compatible, a couple of long email chains and even a secret handshake between Baker and Dacus – the lyrically and musically arresting singer-songwriters and kindred spirits got to know each other on their own terms.

In many ways, Baker, Dacus, and Bridgers represent a new wave of indie rock – one that’s less concerned with fitting into a particular genre or scene, and more focused on creating music that speaks to the complexities of the human experience. With their combined talents and unique perspectives, it’s no surprise that they’ve quickly become one of the most talked-about acts in recent years.

In 2018, Bridgers, Baker and Dacus discovered they would be touring together. What began as an idea to record a single to promote the tour morphed into six songs and, eventually, their debut self-titled EP.

Since releasing Boygenius’ debut EP in 2018, the trio have worked together on Bridgers’ song ‘Graceland Too’ from her 2020 album “Punisher”, and collaborated with Hayley Williams on the track ‘Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris’.

Tickets to both of Boygenius’ UK shows go on sale on March 3rd 

Written by lead vocalist Haley Shea in collaboration with Mikhael Paskalev, Odd Martin Skålnes, and Simen Følstad Nielsen, the EP is a sonic journey that takes listeners on a wild ride through the highs and lows of the human experience. And with the help of live band members Tobias Maxwell Osland, Marie Moe, and Nils and Jørgen Nilsen, the songs take on an added depth and complexity that is sure to captivate audiences.

According to Shea, the EP is all about showcasing the band’s range and versatility. “We wanted this EP to show range, differences and to feel dynamic, open, and to continuously change as you listen to the whole thing,” she explains. “We want there to be room for Sløtface to change and develop for years to come, especially in its new collective form, and this EP is the first toe-dipping into exploring what that can sound like, and what mixing a bunch of different collaborators and working methods can result in.”

Written by Haley Margaret Shea and Mikhael Paskalev Performed by Sløtface

A testament to their ever-evolving sound, “AWAKE/ASLEEP” out now via Propeller Recordings / Virgin Music Australia features seven tracks that capture the band’s dynamic range and diverse approach to songwriting.

A previously unissued live 1971 concert from Stephen Stills’ first U.S. solo tour, including two guest appearances by David Crosby, is being released this spring. “Stephen Stills Live at Berkeley 1971” arrives on April 28th, 2023, via Omnivore Recordings, on CD and as a 2-LP set. The album captures a performance of Stills’ biggest solo hit, “Love the One You’re With,” which was the lead single from his debut self-titled 1970 studio album.

The live album draws from a pair of concerts held at the Berkeley Community Theatre in August. 20th-21st, 1971 as Stills embarked on his tour, opening each show with an intimate acoustic first set, and closing each night with a riveting electric set featuring the Memphis Horns. Crosby joins him on vocals and guitar for “You Don’t Have To Cry” and “The Lee Shore.” Days earlier, Stills had headlined the Forum in Los Angeles. He had released his second solo album in late June.

From the February announcement: These recordings find Stills at peak performance in both vocal delivery and musicianship, effortlessly incorporating alternate instrumentation on his instantly recognizable tracks, including a seamless medley of “49 Bye Byes” (from the Crosby, Stills & Nash album) and “For What It’s Worth” (from Buffalo Springfield) unexpectedly played on piano. Hand-picked by Stills from his personal archives, this album captures timeless and era defining performances.

Fans who were lucky enough to catch his historic debut trek, dubbed “The Memphis Horns Tour,” were treated to the balladeer, the raving troubadour, the acoustic bluesman, the soul driver, and by far the most passionate music maker. Backed by a loyal cast of friends, including his usual steady rhythm section–drummer Dallas Taylor and bassist Calvin “Fuzzy” Samuels–along with keyboardist Paul Harris, guitarist Steve Fromholz, and percussionist Joe Lala, these Northern California shows were one of the most unique and intimate stops on the tour.

London 1982. As the new romantic youthquake of 1981/1982 faded, and after what felt like a lifetime since punk’s last gasp, a tiny nightclub opened its doors in London’s Soho. Drawing to it a new generation of misfits and miscreants with a penchant for polyse*ual hedonism, for dressing up and showing out, The Batcave became the dark heart of alternative club culture, just like The Roxy and The Blitz before it.

Art school students, ex-punks and psychobillys, boys and girls, gays, straights, don’t-knows and don’t-cares, Camden and Kensington Market stallholders, professional squatters, kids on the dole, kids in bands, nocturnal music journalists, edgy fashionistas, androgynous randoms and even a smattering of bona fide popstars – from Nick Cave to Siouxsie Sioux, Marc Almond, Robert Smith, Kil*ing Joke and Sigue Sigue Sputnik. All were welcome to pile in, gawp at the hair, ripped, torn, bleached and rubberised fashions, and death-mask make-up and take in the dancefloor’s heady musical mix of beats-heavy post-punk pioneers, outsider icons like Wayne County and The Cramps, and a teetering pile of lusty glam rock singles from the likes of T. Rex and The Sweet.

The club even had its own house band, Specimen, fronted by charismatic and ghoulishly handsome frontman Olli Wisdom (RIP) as well as playing host to a slew of first-wave bands of what came to be known as “goth”. And it is with Specimen’s Jon Klein (later, a Banshee, too) and keyboardist Jonny Sl*t (later founder of legendary club night Nag Nag Nag) along with Sophie Chery from another stalwart Batcave band, Sexbeat, who’ve worked with Demon in putting together this deluxe and definitive musical and visual accompaniment to a moment that sparked a global youth cult.

This 90-track 5CD Collection is the first of its kind. It captures both the fun and freedom of The Batcave and a revolutionary moment in time. It’s also the first to reflect the musical influences on the scene and how that scene pointed forwards. Above everything else, it’s a fascinating evocation of what you’d have actually heard had you stumbled into that sweaty, energetic dive between ’82 and ’84. With its very strong tracklisting, “Young Limbs Rise Again” includes music from just about everybody that mattered – from The Cure to Joy Division, from The Sisters Of Mercy to Sparks. Accompanying the 5CDs is a stunning 80-page hardback book, with an introduction from Kris Needs, packed with flyers, record sleeves, over 100 photographs, many previously unseen, and the full story of the club as told by the people who were there.

The Batcave’s liberating air of anything-goes creativity spawned, encouraged and hosted a new generation of bands while its fashion aesthetic – fishnets, rubber, leather, diamante, piercings, jewellery, and absolutely *anything* in black – seeped first into the wider alternative scene and then the mainstream in Britain before spreading its tentacles literally all around the world.

From Sydney to Mexico City to Paris to Brazil to Berlin – what came to be known as goth here in early-80s London, is arguably one of the UK’s greatest cultural exports. The goth aesthetic forged in those tiny west end dives has gone on to inform generation after generation of bands from Nine Inch Nails to Yungblud as well as walking fashion runways for Burberry, McQueen and Galiano and giving Hollywood a whole new dark palette to work with – from Tim Burton’s weird cinematic adventures to TV shows as diverse as Buffy The Vampire Slayer and American Horror Story. That thing the kids still like? It all started HERE.

As Specimen’s Jonny Sl*t says – “It was a light bulb for all the freaks and people like myself who were from the sticks and wanted a bit more from life. Freaks, weirdos, se*ual deviants … There’s people around who’ll always be attracted by something shiny, glittering, exciting…It was more Gotham City than Aleister Crowley.”

“Deep Is the Way” is the sophomore album from Australian singer-songwriter and horticulturalist Gena Rose Bruce. The album finds her working with long time collaborators and forging a new wildcard relationship. Through lockdown Bruce corresponded with the iconic songwriter Bill Callahan, their connection resulting in them writing two songs together: “Foolishly In Love” and the title track to the album, “Deep Is The Way” (which also features the two of them duetting). “Working with Bill was very poetic and brought a feeling of nostalgia.

We have only ever had written correspondence, sending lyrics back and forth to each other, with sometimes weeks in between responses, just analysing lyrics, there was no small talk, just keeping it about what’s important – the music.”

Bruce’s 2018 debut album was much praised and resulted in her being invited to play SXSW and a UK tour was planned. Then there was COVID. In the absence of touring, she has relished nature’s therapeutic qualities, through her newfound love of gardening, which she’s now studying.

The follow up to recent single, “Nothing Left To Lose”, which won over a million streamed on Spotify, and  NME called it ‘a massive dance single’ after it secured A-list rotation at BBC Radio 6 Music.

“Lyrically, “Caution To The Wind” is a simple song about arrival and seizing the moment, so with the music we tried to capture the feeling of a perpetual point in time,”  says vocalist Tracey Thorn.

The new album was written and produced by Ben Watt and Thorn over the spring-summer of 2021, which they say is a modern take on the lustrous electronic soul the duo first pioneered in the mid-90s. Thorn’s affecting and richly-textured voice is once again up front in Watt’s landscape of sub-bass, sharp beats, half-lit synths and empty space.

“I let the words quickly collapse and loop inside the production,” notes Ben Watt. “The drums emerge and repeat, and everything then starts to unfold in cycles of anticipation and release. I guess it’s just classic nightclub tension and euphoria.” 

The pair recorded in secret at home and in a small riverside studio outside Bath with friend and engineer Bruno Ellingham.

Everything But The Girl broke through on the UK indie scene in 1982 with jazz-folk cover of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” then going onto release a string of UK gold albums throughout the 80s as they experimented with jazz, guitar pop, orchestral wall-of-sound and drum-machine soul. A

After Watt’s near-death experience from a rare auto-immune condition in 1992, the pair returned unbowed with the million-selling ardent folktronica of “Amplified Heart”. That record included “Missing”, which New York DJ-producer Todd Terry’s remixed unexpectedly as it made the leap from heavy club play to global radio success reaching Number 2 in US Hot 100, and Number 3 on UK Top 40.

“Caution To The Wind” is the second single released from Everything But The Girl’s comeback album “Fuse” out on 21st April.

The National released a new song called “New Order T-Shirt” and an actual New Order t-shirt along with it.

In April, the National will release their ninth album, called “First Two Pages Of Frankenstein”, and it features guest appearances from Taylor Swift, Sufjan Stevens, and Phoebe Bridgers. Upon announcing the new-album news, the National shared a lead single, “Tropic Morning News.” Today, the band is following up with another track from the album: “New Order T-Shirt.”

“To me, the line ‘I keep what I can of you’ means something about everyone I’ve ever known or loved,” Aaron Dessner says in a statement. “There’s a simplicity to ‘New Order T-Shirt’ that reminds me of our earlier records, but with the full maturity and experience we have now. It feels like a really important song for the future of our band.”

What’s especially cool, too, is that the National have teamed up with the New Order on a limited-edition New Order T-shirt. Proceeds from the sale will benefit a charity of New Order’s choice.

‘New Order T-Shirt’ is taken from forthcoming album ‘First Two Pages of Frankenstein’, out April 28th via 4AD Records.

To many, Blur are the definitive BritPop band. Certainly, the London-born quartet were responsible for many of the movement’s most memorable and iconic moments and songs; they were the first band from that scene to truly crash the mainstream, and one of the first to eschew the early ’90’s obsession with grunge and American-isms, and instead embrace England’s musical past, drawing inspiration from jaunty ’60’s pop and quirky, quintessentially British ‘characters’.

When they adopted this approach, anyone saying that they knew this was a style that would become a massive cultural obsession is a liar, but Blur paved the way for that scene’s dominance. When the movement ran out of ideas and was clearly dying, Blur refused to die with it, instead embracing art-rock, awkward mathy punk and African rhythms to create one of indie rock’s most diverse and eclectic back catalogues.

Blur at their most experimental, and their their punkiest, Blur at their boldest and simultaneously broadest, Blur at the peak of their creative powers: that’s “13” and it’s why it tops our list as the best Blur album.

Having skilfully avoided the BritPop trapdoor two years prior, Blur doubled down and went even further into art rock territory; moving to Reykjavik for a spell, bringing in dance producer William Orbit to work with them for the first time, and quite pointedly and deliberately indulging in the members even widening musical palettes.

During this period Damon Albarn’s much-publicised relationship with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann had ended, inspiring much of the mood of “13” and giving his lyrics a downbeat and sombre quality that is the emotional core of the record. That’s not to say that this is a dour or depressing album.

Opening track “Tender” is a classic, full of real heart, depth, and when the choir come in to back Albarn on the chorus it is still a spine-tingling moment. “Bugman” has Coxon’s fingerprints all over it, like a more assured “Song 2”, and the cowboy slide guitar of “Swamp Song” is a delightful, curled lip garage rock banger.

It’s clear though, that the band really excel when the pace does drop; the nearly 8-minute trip-hop of “Battle” is exceptional, the slight yet mechanical Sigur Ros meets Kraftwerk of “Caramel” utterly at odds with anything Blur had ever produced before and Coxon’s fabulously resigned, sighing vocal performance on the otherwise upbeat “Coffee & TV” is filled with ennui.

But the finest moment is the chilling “No Distance Left to Run”, which is unquestionably one of the finest break-up songs ever recorded: over a single chiming guitar Albarn’s voice and lyrics paint a picture of a man heartbroken, beaten and tired. It’s poignant, moving, effortlessly gorgeous and the highlight of the most complete album in the career of one of British music’s most endlessly fascinating bands.  

The sole Blur album that doesn’t feature Graham Coxon, “Think Tank” finds the band pretty much unrecognisable from the chirpy Brit-poppers of the early ’90s. It’s a politically minded, experimental, often angry, often sombre record, influenced by Afrobeat and Albarn’s time in Morocco, and featuring production credits from electronic artists such as William Orbit and Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim).

As such, it often gets overlooked somewhat when the Blur discography is being discussed, and while it is far from their strongest effort, there is much to admire about the album. First single “Out of Time” is wonderfully minimalist psychedelic dream and Blur can dart between “Sweet Song’s” hypnotic and delicate melody, the one-minute punk blast of “We’ve Got a File on You” and the country dub of “Brothers and Sisters” without losing your attention. A bit of a lost gem, truth be told.

To celebrate the 21st anniversary of their debut release, Blur’s last (to date) album “Think Tank” has now been expanded across two discs, cut on heavyweight 180 gram, audiophile vinyl and housed in a replica of the original sleeve artwork.

we recently dropped a new single entitled “Starlight”. You can listen to it on all streaming platforms. The whole album drops on February 24th! We also have a few tour dates coming up this spring. Tickets go on sale this Friday, Feb 3rd, at 10am. We hope you are doing will. Take care – Hodera

Hodera is a four piece from Butler, New Jersey. The band has been around for nearly a decade, debuting with the 2014 EP, “Reset to Default”. “Dear Friend” is the first LP the group has released in nearly six years,

New Jersey’s Hodera our latest album “Dear friend”, with our new song “Trying” the third single from their upcoming album, “Dear Friend”. The band’s sound is somewhere at the intersection of The Gaslight Anthem and American Football, blending the folksy twang of Americana with the heartfelt confessions of emo.

Their latest track is a plea to reconsider suicidal thoughts and find reasons to keep pressing on. “If suicide is how I’m supposed to die, well, then I better get to living faster,” singer Matt Smith laments. “But I’m hoping I’ll get better.“

“This song is my truth about having a mental illness and planning for the future,” Smith says of the song. “Sometimes I have my mental illness under control. Other times I am close to suicide. Regardless of the current state of my mental health, there is always that looming thought that one day it might get so bad that I’ll end up taking my own life. It’s not a pretty thought, but it is something that I think needs to be talked about more.”

“Dear Friend” is ultimately an exploration of mental illness, addiction, and grief. And while songs like “Trying” are tackling upsetting thoughts and harsh realities, there’s also a lot of hope contained within the unrelenting honesty. Hodera not only walks the line between Americana and emo, 

Produced, mixed, and mastered by Doug Gallo
Music and lyrics by Matthew Smith
Guitar by Paul Singh
Bass by Wyatt Rydlewski
Drums and Backup Vocals by Andrew Moore
Drums on “Closer” by Scott Tilley

I hope you like it! The band and I are very excited to release the full album.

releases February 24th, 2023