The Fat Angel Sings

Formed in Liverpool in 1978, The Teardrop Explodes were one of the most revered British bands of the early 1980s, pioneering a post-punk neo-psychedelic sound that can still be heard in bands such as The Coral, The Flaming Lips, Tears For Fears, U2 and Blur.

“The Culture Bunker” compiles all the band’s singles and B-Sides as well as 4 discs/5 LPs of unreleased studio out-takes and a wealth of unheard live recordings. Curated by writer and long-time band publicist Mick Houghton, “The Culture Bunker” also includes the 12,000-word sleevenotes containing rare memorabilia, an essay and timeline of the band’s illustrous career.

released through Universal Music Recordings “Culture Bunker 1978-82” in June a new The Teardrop Explodes box set available as a 6CD package or a 7LP vinyl offering.

The Teardrop Explodes originated as a critical band in the emerging Liverpool post-punk scene of the late 1970s, which included Echo & The Bunnymen, their former manager Bill Drummond of The JAMS/KLF, The Mighty WAH! and future pop stars Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and The Lightning Seeds Ian Broudie, who would also produce many bands from the scene. The group also launched the career of group frontman Julian Cope and keyboard player David Balfe, who later founded Food Records and signed and mentored Blur.

“Culture Bunker 1978-82” compiles all the band’s singles and B-sides as well as four CDs / five LPs of unreleased studio outtakes, a wealth of unheard live recordings and several tracks taken from ‘Zoology’, the Teardrop Explodes compilation that Cope released himself in 2004. Writer and long-time band publicist Mick Houghton has curated “Culture Bunker” and has gained exclusive access to Julian Cope’s archive. These early and later recordings show the evolution of one of the era’s most influential bands from their inception to their finale.

The 6CD set features a staggering 57 previously unreleased tracks and is packaged in a 10-inch slipcase with a 64-page hardcover book which features a 12,000 word essay from Mick Houghton (drawing from new, recent conversations with Julian Cope). That same story is told via the seven printed inner-sleeves on the 7LP vinyl box set which features 43 previously unreleased tracks (the CD box has 95 tracks in total, the vinyl box, which comes with a poster, has 82).

The audio for this new box set has been remastered by Andy Pearce wherever possible from original tapes and cassettes. 

“Culture Bunker 1978-1982” is probably the last word on The Teardrop Explodes and both editions are described as “very limited” by the record label. These boxes are not available via normal retail channels are can only be ordered via Universal direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites.

It is released on 2nd June 2023, via Universal Music Recordings.

Our Third album “Something New” is now available for pre-order!! Shipment from 27th May 2023. Recorded at Gizzard Recording Studios, London.
Out on Beluga Records (Sweden) and Dangerhouse Skylab (France)

Lead Vocals: Mike & Elsa Whittaker
Guitars: Mike & Elsa Whittaker
Bass: Alexandra Cools
Drums: Mole

releases May 27th, 2023

Indigo De Souza returns with the third single . “You Can Be Mean” from her upcoming album “All Of This Will End”. Speaking of the track, she says: “I wrote “You Can Be Mean” about a brief toxic experience I had with a manipulative and abusive LA model fuckboy. However brief, it had a life-long impact on my understanding of self,” De Souza explains. “Leading up to that experience, I had a history of putting myself in toxic situations and pining for validation from people who treated me poorly. I was stuck in some delusion that I could help abusive people through their trauma and teach them to love me in the way I deserved. I wrote this song when I finally realised that I could choose not to allow harmful behaviour into my life, and that there is a deep, deep importance in protecting the body and spirit. I stopped caring about validation from assholes, stopped thinking it was my responsibility to help them, and started caring for myself in a real way.”

“All Of This Will End” – which was recorded at Drop of Sun Studios with producer and engineer Alex Farrar – is the follow-up to 2021’s “Any Shape You Take”, which Farrar also worked on. The release marks a pivotal point in the artist’s career. “All of This Will End” feels more true to me than anything ever has,” she says. “I was finally able to trust myself fully.”

“All Of This Will End” is out 28th April via Saddle Creek Records

“i/o” is the fourth song from and title track of the forthcoming album by Peter Gabriel. This is the Bright-Side Mix by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent. Released on the full moon, 6th April 2023. Written and produced by Peter Gabriel, “i/o” was primarily recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire and The Beehive in London.

The song features Soweto Gospel Choir, who were recorded at High Seas Studios in South Africa. ‘This month the song is “i/o” and “i/o” means input / output. You see it on the back of a lot of electrical equipment and it just triggered some ideas about the stuff we put in and pull out of ourselves, in physical and non-physical ways. That was the starting point of this idea and then trying to talk about the interconnectedness of everything.

The older I get, I probably don’t get any smarter, but I have learned a few things and it makes a lot of sense to me that we are not these independent islands that we like to think we are, that we are part of a whole. If we can see ourselves as better connected, still messed up individuals, but as part of a whole, then maybe there’s something to learn?’ “i/o” as a potential album title has long-been known within fan circles, and is now the name of the current project, the album and the forthcoming tour, but as Gabriel says, ‘It’s been around for a long time as a title for this project. I always knew I was going to write a song called i/o, but the title came first.’ “i/o” sees Gabriel working again with Soweto Gospel Choir, who previously featured on the song “Down to Earth” that was recorded for the film Wall-E and who he’s also performed with twice in South Africa at events for Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu;

‘I didn’t always hear the Soweto Gospel Choir on this song, but every time I’ve worked with them it’s always been fantastic. You can just feel the energy whenever they sing on this record, and on the song I did for Wall-E, it’s just joyous. It hits you in the heart.’ Continuing the theme of working with a different artist for each song release, this month’s track is accompanied by a cover image featuring the work of Olafur Eliasson, who is someone Gabriel first met when the artist was launching his Little Sun Project. Olafur Eliasson is an extraordinary artist who, in many ways I think, is the king of light. A lot of his work is to do with light and with nature and I really felt that for this song in particular he would be absolutely perfect and I was delighted when he said, yes.

This piece is called Colour experiment no. 114, from 2022. ‘I think Olafur is a mixture between artist, scientist and magician. He always has a mission and something to say about the world and nature and light and our experience of it and that helps us to reconsider how we interact with our environment.’ Just like the previous full moon releases, “i/o” will come with differing mix approaches from Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Bright-Side Mix), released here, and Tchad Blake (Dark-Side Mix) and Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos mix (In-Side Mix), whose versions are released later in the month.

‘This month the song is i/o and i/o means input / output. You see it on the back of a lot of electrical equipment and it just triggered some ideas about the stuff we put in and pull out of ourselves, in physical and non-physical ways. That was the starting point of this idea and then trying to talk about the interconnectedness of everything. The older I get, I probably don’t get any smarter, but I have learned a few things and it makes a lot of sense to me that we are not these independent islands that we like to think we are, that we are part of a whole. If we can see ourselves as better connected, still messed up individuals, but as part of a whole, then maybe there’s something to learn?’

released April 20th, 2023
Words and Music Peter Gabriel

The western themes of Cory Hanson’s previous “Pale Horse Rider“, made flesh in the form of an electric band, lashed with gleaming guitar strings to tracks whose gnarled, proggy path only climes to the top of the listener’s Compulsion Index. From steel to synth, from old-school ballad to nu hardcore and ambient, Hanson and band run the table of modern rocks.

There’s a hot new Cory Hanson solo album on the horizon! In 2021, Wand singer/guitarist Cory Hanson delivered his critically acclaimed second solo album titled “Pale Horse Rider“, a combination of songs and sounds that journeyed through the bleak and broken territory and places of sweet, lush remove… Musically loose and cosmic, it was a fine country-rock offering, cut with native psych and prog strands.

For “Western Cum“, his third solo LP (June 23, 2023, from Drag City), Hanson ups the heat to molten levels, six strings at a time, driven by a rhythm trio dubbed “Slowhand”, featuring the stalwart bass of brother Casey Hanson and the drums of Evan Backer, with a few passing acoustics from Cory and the intermittent spirit moans of Tyler Nuffer’s steel guitar.

With “Western Cum“, our debauched and shameless world is redeemed in the same breath as it is repudiated. A massing of guitars, guitars, guitars and voices form post-gospel harmony, with a panoply of melodic impulses within, bright and burgeoning. The second single, “Twins”, is now among you! Establishing a peaceful easy feeling up front, it delves deep and sails high when the strings come in (guitar strings, right), rummaging through the nightmare of modern existence with the bones of prosaic wisdom left behind by our singer-songwriter fore-brethren.

For Cory Hanson’s new single ‘Twins’, taken from his highly-anticipated third solo LP (via Drag City Records), Director Amy Scott captures him in his native California environment – rambling around a ranch home. Also – Hanson has just been added to the line-up of this year’s Green Man Festival (17th-20th August).

“Western Cum”, available on LP/CS/CD/Digital on June 23rd, 2023, from Drag City Records.

Clairo has shared a new one-off charity single titled “For Now.” She released the song on her Bandcamp page yesterday (April 1), writing that all proceeds from the track will go toward For the Gworls and Everytown for Gun Safety.

For the Gworls is a Black, trans-led collective that curates parties to raise funds, which go toward Black transgender people who need assistance with rent, gender-affirming surgeries, doctor’s visits, travel assistance, and more. Everytown for Gun Safety is an organization has long worked to prevent gun violence through advocacy.

released April 1st, 2023

The Drums are back after four years without new music the indie pop band released the single “I Want It All” and announced a summer U.S. tour.

“The song emerged from the longing and the pain that stemmed from a loveless childhood,” says frontman Jonny Pierce about the new single. “It is only in the past few years that I have really begun to understand what happened to me as a boy, which has helped me start to build my own bridge towards real love.”

He adds, “The song is a declaration: That I will take what I was never given. I want the full experience of being human, which includes love and connection. I want it all.” In a signature Drums fashion, Pierce’s voice shines over a driving drumbeat and the sound of oceanside guitars as he repeats the song’s title in the chorus.

Pierce has long spoken about how difficult it was to grow up gay in a small town while being raised by Pentecostal preacher parents. “I didn’t have a happy home as a kid,” he told Yahoo Music in 2017. “It’s funny, you think you grow out of it and you move on, but you’d be surprised just how much of that sticks with you, well into adulthood.”

Along with the self-reflective new single, the alt-pop group is set to head on a U.S. tour, starting at San Diego’s House of Blues, then making their way across the country to stop in cities including Nashville, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco.

The new single follows the release of Mommy Don’t Spank Me, the group’s 2021 LP filled with rarities from their breakthrough Portamento era. The band made its debut in 2010 with its self-titled album.

released April 3rd, 2023

Written by Jonny Pierce