On his new studio album “Norm“, Andy Shauf’s song writing veers decidedly more oblique, hinting at sinister happenings and dark motivations. The result: an intoxicating collection of mellifluous melodies and beguiling lyrics. Levitating, synth-laden atmospherics drive Shauf’s storytelling on “Norm”, mixed by Neal Pogue (Tyler, the Creator). In 2016, “The Party” catapulted Andy Shauf to indie notoriety, followed by 2020’s “The Neon Skyline” which landed Andy Shauf performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
It will be Shauf’s eighth LP overall and first since 2021’s “Wilds”. According to Shauf, the album is centred around the titular character of Norm, who was inspired by David Lynch’s film. “The character of Norm is introduced in a really nice way,” Shauf says of the first round of preview singles. “But the closer you pay attention to the record, the more you’re going to realise that it’s sinister.” Shauf’s status as one of indie’s greatest songwriters was solidified with 2020’s “The Neon Skyline”.
It’s usually multiple sheep that you would associate with sleep but here it’s Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs who are bringing us ‘Land Of Sleeper’.
Whether inhabiting the realm of dreams or nightmares, the primordial drive of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs is more powerful than ever and “Land Of Sleeper”, their fifth record in a decade of rancour and revelation is testimony to this. Arguably the most potent and assured record of their storied life so far, it’s the product of a band energised and fortified by their individual passions to incendiary effect. After the travails of the two and a half years since 2020’s “Viscerals”, “Land Of Sleeper”sees the Newcastle-based quintet not so much reinvigorated as channelling a furious drive which only appears to gather momentum as the band’s surroundings spins on their axis.
For all that the last few years have seen Pigs’ stature rise in the wake of triumphant festival slots and sold-out venues like, this remains a band fundamentally incapable of tailoring their sound to a prospective audience, rather standing alone and impervious as a monument of catharsis.“Certainly for me, writing and playing music is often surprising and revealing, it can be like holding up a mirror and seeing things you didn’t expect to see” reckons drummer Ewan Mackenzie, whose return to the Pigs fray after two albums away marked another big influence on the new record. “For me, the darker tracks on the record hold in common a determination not to lose faith, despite the odds”
The better to unite slumber and waking, “Land Of Sleeper” is no less than an act of transcendence for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – new anthems to elucidate a world sleepwalking to oblivion.
“Land Of Sleeper”come housed in eye-popping ‘Callum Rooney’ sleeve art.
Worriers, the band led by punk rock singer-songwriter Lauren Denitzio, will release the new album “Warm Blanket”. Denitzio recorded the album at home, with Against Me!’s Atom Willard adding drums remotely. We’ve already heard the lead single “PollenIn The Air,” and now Worriers have shared another one called “Prepared To Forget.”
“Prepared To Forget” is a warm, fond song about old friends making dumb decisions. You can hear echoes of Denitzio’s DIY pop-punk roots in the song, but it’s also got a grand, slow country-music feel to it. It feels sweeping and intimate at the same time.
Lauren Denitzio has always been the type of songwriter to say exactly what’s on their mind. Over the course of the past decade with their band Worriers, they’ve addressed gender liberation, capitalist violence, and searing heartbreak, all over the band’s signature style of triumphant chords and subtle pop sensibilities. Worriers was always a band that shined with the feelings of ecstatic potential; offering a sense of liberation amidst the chaos of the world.
And yet, on their newest album “Warm Blanket”, they’ve never sounded more free.
The band’s fourth full length record has the feel of an exciting debut and there’s a reason: it marks the first time that Denitzio accepted that the group they had been trying to treat as a band is actually a solo project. After a pace of touring and recording that would be breakneck for most, but de rigueur in the underground scene which forged them, Denitzio found themselves in the summer of 2022 with a chance to finally catch their breath. “I realized I could write whatever I wanted.”
Worriers are a band from Brooklyn, New York, centered around the songwriting of Lauren Denitzio. They released their 2nd LP “Survival Pop” on SideOneDummy Records and have toured with John K Samson, Against Me!, Julien Baker, Anti Flag, and more. Worriers’ debut album “Imaginary Life” was produced by Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!.
“Warm Blanket” is out 4/7 on Ernest Jennings Record Co.
Multi-Award winning, hugely influential musician Feist returns with a new album “Multitudes”, available April 14th on FictionRecords/Universal Music , her sixth solo album and first since 2017’s “Pleasure”. Three album tracks have been released “In Lightning”, “Love Who We Are Meant To” and “Hiding Out in The Open” “Multitudes” was produced by Feist with longtime collaborators Robbie Lackritz (The Weather Station, Bahamas, Robbie Robertson) and Mocky (Jamie Lidell, Vulfpeck, Kelela), with additional production from Blake Mills (Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple, Perfume Genius).
“In Lightning” opens the album with its glorious collision of clattering percussion, explosive guitar and brightly fluttering strings (courtesy of string arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson). Feist shuts out the modern world’s incessant buzz to charge the listener with the electrifying dare to look themselves straight in the eye to find something infinitely more elemental and personal than what the mirror reveals (“And in lighting flashes flash to show our natural age/And the lightning lights me up to be as God as I say”).
“Multitudes” took shape soon after the birth of her daughter and sudden death of her father, a back-to-back convergence of life-altering events that left the Canadian singer/songwriter with “Nothing performative in me anymore.” As she cleansed her songwriting of any tendency to obscure unwanted truths, Feist slowly made her way toward a batch of songs rooted in a raw and potent realism which is touched with otherworldly beauty.
Far more fragile in delivery but no less powerful in impact is the ageless sentiment of “Love Who We Are Meant To” which, with its cascading pattern of solo nylon string guitar against lush orchestral swells, conveys a jazz standard’s wide-angle lens on a delicate quagmire and presents Feist’s heavy-hearted revelation (“We will struggle with the truth/That sometimes we don’t get to/Love who we are meant to”).
On “Hiding Out In The Open” Feist’s hypnotically layered vocals sing in the round, presenting another piece of incandescent wisdom (“Love is not a thing you try to do/It wants to be the thing compelling you/To be you”) with the simple and open hearted cadence of a campfire sing along.
“The last few years were such a period of confrontation for me, and perhaps it felt that way to some degree for everyone,” explains Feist. “We confronted ourselves as much as our relationships confronted us. It felt like our relational ecosystems were clearer than ever and so whatever was normally obscured – like a certain way of avoiding conflict or a certain way of talking around the subject – were thrust into an unavoidable light. It became a chance to find footing on more honest ground when the effort to maintain altitude actually took more effort than just handing ourselves over to the truth.”
Largely written and workshopped during an intensely communal experimental show of the same name through 2021 and 2022, the songs on “Multitudes” developed in parallel with and were deeply influenced by the mutuality of the unconventional experience. The production, developed by Feist with legendary designer Rob Sinclair (David Byrne’s American Utopia, Peter Gabriel, Tame Impala) was formulated to bring people together as they re-emerged from lockdown while providing an outlet for connection between artist, art, and community.
For the recording, Feist returned to her 2011 collaboration with Lackritz and Mocky, who made her third album “Metals” in a converted barn in Big Sur. This time, Lackritz and Engineer Michael Harris (Haim, Lana Del Rey, Vampire Weekend) built a studio in Northern California next to the Redwood Forest, where Feist was joined by multi-instrumentalists Gabe Noel (Kendrick Lamar, Harry Styles, Kamasi Washington), Shahzad Ismaily (Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Tom Waits), and her regular cast who toured “Multitudes” – Todd Dahlhoff (woodwinds, synths, bass) and Amir Yaghmai (strings, guitars) – plus a guest appearance from longtime collaborator Chilly Gonzales.
Over the course of its 12 songs, “Multitudes”affirms Leslie Feist’s ability to construct elaborate sonic worlds by following her singular songwriting to its most poetic yet unbridled expression. Born in Nova Scotia but mostly raised in Calgary, she first explored her idiosyncratic musicality by playing in a local punk band as a teenager and later made her debut with 1999’s “Monarch (Lay Your Jewelled Head Down)” (an independent release primarily sold at merch tables). Along with co-founding Juno Award-winning indie-rock collective Broken Social Scene, Feist next achieved breakout success with her full-length sophomore effort “Let It Die” (winner of Alternative Album of the Year at the 2004 Juno Awards).
Released in 2007, “The Reminder” earned international acclaim and landed on best-of-the-year lists from outlets like Pitchfork, NPR, Spin, and Rolling Stone, in addition to winning Feist the 2007 Shortlist Music Prize and garnering four Grammy Award nominations. Now certified gold, the album features her iconic smash single “1234,” a Billboard Hot 100-charting hit that paved the way for Feist’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live” and “Sesame Street.”
In 2011, Feist returned with the Polaris Music Prize-winning “Metals”, named the best album of the year by New York Times chief popular music critic Jon Pareles. With AV Club hailing 2017’s “Pleasure” as her “most daring work to date” and NPR praising the album as “wrenching in its honesty,” Feist went on to premiere the Pleasure Studies podcast in 2019 – awarded “Podcast of the Year” by Apple Podcasts – and soon began developing the “Multitudes” live show, a boundary-pushing collaboration conceived by Feist and Robbie Lackritz and developed with artist/filmmaker Colby Richardson, artist Heather Goodchild and Artistic Producer Mary Hickson.
Australian The Church have just released the third single – “No Other You” taken from their forthcoming album “TheHypnogogue” (release date: February 24th, 2023, viaCommunicating Vessels). The release of “No Other You” continues the album’s retro-futuristic, dystopian narrative that revolves around a fictional machine (the “Hypnogogue”) that extracts music directly from subconscious dreams.
While the single “The Hypnogogue” introduces characters “Sun Kim Jong” (a Korean scientist/occult dabbler and creator of the aforementioned contraption) and her love interest/rockstar “Eros Zeta” who wants to employ the machine to revive his flailing career, and the follow up “C’est La Vie” served as a cautionary tale from Zeta’s agent not to mess with the Hypnogogue, “No Other You” continues the narrative on a more personal level. Bassist/vocalist/founder Steve Kilbey explains that it is an “ultra-romantic song that Zeta writes for Sun Kim Jong, who is the inventor of The Hypnogogue.
It’s a heartfelt song about an irreplaceable woman. And the Church gets to explore a slightly glam rock feel to boot.” At the heart of it, “No Other You” is pure and simply a cinematic love song. a reflective shimmering wall of sound with singer/bass player Steve Kilbey’s voice filled with a heart-aching yearning. It is one of the most anthemic songs the band has ever produced – filled with melody and orchestration that is ethereal and cinematic.”
Entering their fourth decade of making music and playing live shows with all the fierce creative energy of their early years, The Church will be setting off on a North American tour kicking off in March.
Starting out in 1980, The Church has continued to expand their atmospheric blend of indie rock, shimmering post-punk, icy dreampop and psychedelic post-rock without any retread. Their expansive music career yielded a string of hit songs including “Under the Milky Way,” “Reptile,” “The Unguarded Moment” and “Almost With You” amongst others and their equally stellar live shows have been deemed “spectacular” citing their “dreamy psychedelia that will daub your evening with shades of the paisley underground.
The 2022 epic five-piece line-up is bassist, vocalist and founder Steve Kilbey; with long-time collaborator Tim Powles, drummer and producer across 17 albums since ’94; guitarist Ian Haug formerly of Australian rock icons Powderfinger, who joined the band in 2013 and Jeffrey Cain (Remy Zero), touring multi-instrumentalist who is now a full-time member of The Church since the departure of Peter Koppes in early 2020. The band have also recruited Ashley Naylor, long-time member of Paul Kelly’s touring band and one of Australia’s finest and most respected guitarists.
The Church’s 26th album “The Hypnogogue” will be released on February 24th, 2023 viaCommunicating Vessels.
The Church · Steve Kilbey · Timothy Powles · Ian Haug · Jeffrey Cain · Ashley Naylor
The long wait is finally over! I am grateful to announce a new Withered Hand album “How To Love” for Reveal Records releasing April 28th, 2023. The artist known as Withered Hand . While a London native, he has based himself in Edinburgh for some time.
His elevating new single “Waking Up”, effectively the first single from his “How To Love” new album. Released via Reveal Records . Withered Hand (aka singer-songwriter Dan Willson) collaborated with Mark Freegard (The Breeders, Del Amitri, New Model Army, Lush, Pale Saints) effectively the first single from his “How To Love” album. Being the first track we’ve heard from the he’s given us good reason to both look forward to the album he is to release on April 28th and also explore his back catalogue, the material of which was strong enough to get him a record deal with Slumberland Records.
Produced, recorded and mixed by renowned producer Tony Doogan (Mogwai, David Byrne, Teenage Fanclub, The Twilight Sad, Belle & Sebastian, The Delgados) at Castle of Doom Studios in Glasgow, the new album features guest appearances by KingCreosote and Mercury-nominated English songwriter Kathryn Williams.
Withered Hand is the nom de plume of Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter Dan Willson, the new album, he continues to live up to his reputation as one of Scotland’s most gifted songwriters. Following his acclaimed debut “Good News” LP came 2014’s “New Gods” LP, both of which released on vinyl via SlumberlandRecords and featured Scottish luminaries from Belle & Sebastian, Frightened Rabbit and The Vaselines, as well as Pam Berry of seminal 90’s US noisepop band Black Tambourine.
Dan Willson notes, “It’s hard to put down your worries when you’re so used to carrying them around that they seem like part of who you are. This song is about taking a long hard honest look in the mirror and about the unfolding process of trying to trim my rudder a little every day to do something about what I see there. In my mind I was channeling a Street Legal-era Dylan vibe with that strident chord pattern and Pete’s swirling Hammond organ and brass and the band bring a lot of joy to this arrangement, we had fun with it”.
Willson started writing songs and singing in his thirties following the birth of his first child and the death of a close friend. With a wayward tenor and unaffected charm onstage, he has come to be celebrated as a songwriter and lyricist of rare wit and remarkable honesty. With songs picked up by MTV and cult series ‘Skins’, he’s gained a legion of fans including Jarvis Cocker and Rolling Stone USA, who deemed him an Artist to Watch.
the band:
Dan Willson – Vocals, Acoustic Guitar Malcom Benzie – Electric Guitar, Backing Vocals Fraser Hughes – Bass, Backing Vocals Owen Curtis Williams – Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals Peter Liddle – Keyboards Richard Merchant – Trumpet Ross McCrae – Trombone Lynsey Payne – Saxophone Eva Willson – Backing Vocals Eugene Willson – Backing Vocals
Anna B Savage is a London singer-songwriter and musician. Her songs are stark, skeletal paintings of moods and reflection, using a palette of mainly voice and guitar. Most prominent is her voice – strong and sonorous, yet with a vulnerability that feels as if she’s in the same room as you
released April 22nd, 2022 Written on the floor of my childhood bedroom. Recorded by Danny Allin in London in 2017.
For every track sold, a minimum of £1.30 goes to EarthPercent’s grantmaking programme, after deducting only third-party platform fees and applicable taxes from the purchase price. No EarthPercent operating costs are deducted. Funds raised support organisations doing vital work to tackle the climate emergency. For more info go to earthpercent.org
Elvis Costello is halfway through his 10-night “100 Songs And More” residency at NYC’s Gramercy Theatre where he’s playing a completely different set each night, no repeats, where “each night will tell a different tale.” At previous shows, he’s been bringing out special guests who join him for a few songs, but on Tuesday night Elvis let the crowd know that he was the special guest, and given it was Valentine’s Day, he was playing a set of love songs. One of those was “Toledo,” which he co-wrote with the late, great Burt Bacharach, to whom he dedicated the song (and paid tribute to at the first night of the residency). Elvis is one of rock’s great raconteurs and his banter can be worth the price of admission alone, and it’s also fun to hear him rework songs, like The Attractions’ classic “I Hope You’re Happy Now” which he transformed here into a ballad.
There actually was a special guest, though. Imposters and Attractions keyboardist Steve Nieve, who came straight to the theater from his Air France flight, joined Elvis for the last third of the show, which included songs “High Fidelity,” a cover of George Jones’ “A Good Year for the Roses,” “Indoor Fireworks,” “My Funny Valentine,” “I’ll Wear it Proudly,” and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” which has closed every show so far.
For this residency, Gramercy Theater has been redubbed Elvis House, with the titles of Costello songs printed on the stair steps and other special decorations, plus an extra large merch area with signed items, test pressings and more.
Steve Nieve will join Elvis for the remaining five Gramercy Theatre shows which resume Thursday and run through February 22nd. Right after this residency, Elvis will take The Imposters on the road for a short tour and in May is hosting a destination concert vacation in Iceland.
SETLIST: Elvis Costello @ Gramercy Theatre 14th February 2023 This Year’s Girl Starting to Come to Me I Hope You’re Happy Now Our Little Angel King of Confidence Blue Chair Harry Worth Home Truth I Dreamed of My Old Lover Dishonour the Stars After the Fall Toledo (Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach cover) Beyond Belief My Three Sons The Puppet Has Cut His Strings Stripping Paper The Greatest Love I’ll Wear It Proudly Crimes of Paris Adieu Paris (L’envie des étoiles) Isabelle in Tears High Fidelity Riot Act A Good Year for the Roses (George Jones cover) Indoor Fireworks My Funny Valentine (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding
U2 has amassed a catalogue of classic music over the course of the Irish band’s enduring career — and on March 17th, Bono and the guys will revisit many of those songs for a special new album.
“Songs of Surrender” will feature “a collection of 40 seminal U2 songs from across the band’s catalogue, re-recorded and reimagined for 2023 in sessions spanning the last two years,” per a news release.
The latest preview of this collection touches on one of the band’s most beloved songs and biggest hits: “With Or Without You.” Here’s the new version, :
Here’s another preview in the form of a radically different take on “Pride (In the Name of Love),” which in its its original version highlighted 1984’s “The Unforgettable Fire”:
U2 used the platform of television’s most watched program, the Super Bowl, to announce a Las Vegas residency. “U2: UV Achtung Baby Live at the Sphere” will take place in Fall 2023 at what is being described as “the world’s most exciting all-new-state-of-the-art venue,” MSG Sphere at the Venetian. The run, announced just before Super Bowl LVII’s thrilling ending, will mark the band’s first live outing in four years. The venue seats 17,500; watch an extensive clip below.
When U2 performs in Vegas, it’ll be without drummer Larry Mullen Jr. The announcement comes with confirmation that he will take time out to undergo and recuperate from surgery this year. The band will be joined for these shows by drummer Bram van denBerg joining Bono, The Edge and Adam Clayton onstage at MSG Sphere. In a joint statement, they said, “It’s going to take all we’ve got to approach the Sphere without our bandmate in the drum seat, but Larry has joined us in welcoming Bram van den Berg who is a force in his own right.” Further details on Mullen’s health circumstances were not disclosed.
The Edge added, “The beauty of the Sphere is not only the ground-breaking technology that will make it so unique, with the world’s most advanced audio system, integrated into a structure which is designed with sound quality as a priority; it’s also the possibilities around immersive experience in real and imaginary landscapes. In short, it’s a canvas of an unparalleled scale and image resolution and a once-in-a-generation opportunity. We all thought about it and decided we’d be mad not to accept the invitation.”
The album title is connected to Bono’s recent memoir, Surrender, and its corresponding book tour Stories of Surrender.
The new versions of “Pride (In The Name Of Love),” “With Or Without You,” and “One,” the first tracks from the brand new set of recordings have been released in advance. From the Jan. 11 album announcement: “Songs Of Surrender”, curated and produced by The Edge, sees U2 revisit some of the most celebrated songs of their 40+ year career, including “With Or Without You,” “One,” “Beautiful Day,” “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Invisible,” for a musical reimagining resulting in a completely new recording of each track, to include the arrangements and, in some cases, new lyrics.
Guitarist The Edge curated and produced Stories of Surrender, and issued a statement about the project:
“Music allows you to time travel, and we became curious to find out what it would be like to bring our early songs back with us to the present day and give them the benefit, or otherwise, of a 21st century reimagining.
What started out as an experiment quickly developed into a personal obsession as so many of our songs yielded to a new interpretation. Intimacy replaced post punk urgency. New tempos, new keys, and in some cases new chords and new lyrics arrived. A great song, it turns out is kind of indestructible.
The process of selecting which songs to revisit started with a series of demos. I looked at how a song would hang together if all but the bare essential elements were taken away. The other main aim was to find ways to bring intimacy into the songs, as most of them were originally written with live concert performance in mind.
Reviewing these sketch recordings with producer Bob Ezrin, it was very easy to see the ones that worked straight off the bat and those that needed more work. We all got into the sensibility of less is more.”
The collection’s 40 songs are arranged across four separate albums, distributed across each of the band member’s names.
The Fat Angel Sings 