The Fat Angel Sings

Rozi Plain’s new album, “Prize”, is out January 13th via Memphis Industries, and she’s just shared a new song from it. “I think ‘Help’ is my favourite song on the new album,” Rozi says. “We turned it into what it became up in the snow in Glasgow with Gerard and Jamie.

Over the course of four albums, Rozi Plain’s hypnotic, gently askew songs have steadily sauntered their way from her birthplace of Winchester, reverberated through the bustling Bristol DIY scene, to where they now emanate from London’s creative epicentre. Acquiring a worldliness that’s reflected in her travels as a touring musician, each consecutive release has broached new sonic territory, whilst retaining a home-grown intimacy and a familial warmth of spirit.

On “Prize”, her fifth long-player, on Memphis Industries, Rozi’s unique, heart-felt approach continues to prevail and, with the help of collaborators including Jamie Whitby Coles, Gerard Black, Amaury Ranger, Alabaster De Plume, Cole Pulice, Danalogue (of Comet is Coming) and Kate Stables (of This is the Kit), the album marks her as one of our most innovative and engaging songwriters.

The Soundwalk Collective and Patti Smith are releasing an album of remixes from their collaborative albums this Friday which features contributions from Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Laraaji, Lucrecia Dalt, Jim Jarmusch and more. The album opens with ambient remix of “Peradam” by Brian Eno.

Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith release a special deluxe box set release of “The Perfect Vision”, the triptych of acclaimed albums that encompasses “The Peyote Dance”, “Mummer Love” and “Peradam”. The box set, which includes a remix album featuring contributions from Brian Eno, Jim Jarmusch, Laraaji and more.

Between 2019 and 2021, Soundwalk Collective and Patti Smith collaborated on the creation of “The Perfect Vision”: a triptych of albums which took their inspiration from the writings of three emblematic French poets: Antonin Artaud, Arthur Rimbaud and René Daumal. Central to the work was the poets’ necessity to travel to different lands to acquire a new vision and perspective on themselves and their art. Recorded in the Sierra Tarahumara of Mexico (The Peyote Dance), the Abyssinian valley of Ethiopia (Mummer Love), and the Himalayan Summit of India (Peradam) respectively, each album retraces the poets’ footsteps, channelled through on-location recorded soundscapes, in search of hidden, earthy sounds that hold embedded existence, with Patti Smith revisiting the poets’ words that have been inspired by the landscapes. The result is a sound and visual montage that traverses the works of Rimbaud, Artaud and Daumal in their voyage to elsewhere.

Now, the three albums of “The Perfect Vision” are released as a deluxe box set that includes a special 7-track remix album featuring a stellar cast of contributors that includes the likes of Brian Eno, Jim Jarmusch, Laraaji and more. The box set also includes a book which features an interview with Patti Smith and Stephan Crasneanscki of Soundwalk Collective along with photos and drawings. Also included is a A4 print signed by Patti.

Nashville-based singer/songwriter Sunny War has already made a name for herself in the world of punk-inflect blues and folk, crafting songs that fuse caustic reflections and soulful world-weary beauty. Over the past few years, she’s built a cult following with her self-released records, including her 2018 and 2019 breakout records, “With The Sun and Shell Of A Girl”, followed by last year’s “Simple Syrup”. Now she has signed with New West Records and is set to share her label debut, “Anarchist Gospel”, next year.

“I feel like there are two sides of me,” says the Nashville-based singer-songwriter and guitar virtuoso known as Sunny War. “One of them is very self-destructive, and the other is trying to work with that other half to keep things balanced.” That’s the central conflict on her fourth album, the eclectic and innovative “Anarchist Gospel”, which documents a time when it looked like the self-destructive side might win out.

Extreme emotions can make that battle all the more perilous, yet from such trials Sunny has crafted a set of songs that draw on a range of ideas and styles, as though she’s marshaling all her forces to get her ideas across: ecstatic gospel, dusty country blues, thoughtful folk, rip-roaring rock and roll, even avant garde studio experiments. She melds them together into a powerful statement of survival, revealing a probing songwriter who indulges no comforting platitudes and a highly innovative guitarist who deploys spidery riffs throughout every song.

Because it promises not healing but resilience and perseverance, because it doesn’t take shit for granted, “Anarchist Gospel” holds up under such intense emotional pressure, acknowledging the pain of living while searching for something that lies just beyond ourselves, some sense of balance between the bad and the good.

Sunny War has shared a new taste of “Anarchist Gospel”, “Higher,” a tender, sentimental Americana ballad with David Rawlings on guitar, Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs/The Dead Weather on bass, John James Tourville of the Deslondes on pedal steel, Megan Britt Coleman on drums, and Jo Schornikow on mellotron.

the upcoming album ‘Anarchist Gospel’ out February 3rd on New West Records.

It was a historical moment when Creedence Clearwater Revival toured Europe and played London’s iconic Royal Albert Hall in 1970, and footage of that storied night has existed in the vault for over 50 years until finally getting released as part of this new 2022 film. The first half of the film is documentary-style, narrated by Jeff Bridges (who famously rocked out and crashed a car to “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” as The Dude in The Big Lebowski), and it tells the story of John Fogerty, Tom Fogerty, Stu Cook, and Doug Clifford’s pre-CCR days up through the 1970 tour, which it includes lots of on and off stage footage of. It chronicles John and Stu getting drafted, the early cover songs that gave CCR a chart presence, their first original hit, playing The Ed Sullivan Show and Woodstock, and more. And then the second half is a concert film with multiple full songs from the Royal Albert Hall show.

When CCR took the stage for two nights in April of 1970, the band members had reached the height of their international stardom and arrived ready to prove themselves as equals to the likes of Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles, who had announced their breakup just days before. Their performance—which included hits like “Born On The Bayou,” “Proud Mary,” “Fortunate Son,” and “Bad Moon Rising”—was met with a 15-minute standing ovation and rave next-day reviews in the UK’s top publications. More than 50 years after that legendary show, the original multitrack tapes have been meticulously restored and mixed by GRAMMY®-winning producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell. The 180g LP was mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios using half-speed technology for the highest-quality listening experience.

It’s the best of both the documentary and concert film worlds, and a great watch. The new documentary concert film, ‘Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall,’ will be available for streaming on Netflix beginning September 16 (in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, NZ, Latin America and Africa).

At the height of the 2020 pandemic, when live music had all but ceased to happen, The Flaming Lips came up with an idea for performing shows. an idea they were uniquely prepared for. Frontman Wayne Coyne had long been using a clear polymer “space bubble” to walk atop crowds at festival shows and he wondered: what if everyone, the band and the audience, was in space bubbles? What began as a drawing Wayne posted to Instagram soon became something the band were actually going to try to pull it off. And they did, after a couple postponements, in 2021. 

“The Flaming Lips Space Bubble Film”, co-directed by Coyne and Blake Studdard, tells the story of how the shows came to be and how they did it, as well as serving as a concert film of the shows themselves. It’s successful on both fronts, though the documentary is more fascinating as Coyne takes this “it’s so crazy it just might work” idea into reality, featuring interviews with Coyne and the rest of the Lips, Coyne’s wife Katy Weaver, band manager Scott Booker and Oklahoma City mayor David Holt. It answers such questions as “what if you have to use the bathroom?” and “is there enough oxygen in those things?” and more with lots of great footage of those truly special shows.

It’s good that all shows aren’t like this now but we’re glad this showed it was possible.

An immersive archival journey through the explosive New York music scene of the early 2000s. Set against the backdrop of 9/11 and a world unaware of the seismic political, technological and cultural shifts about to occur, “Meet Me in the Bathroom“, tells the story of the last great romantic age of Rock’n’Roll through the prism of a handful of era defining bands;

The documentary immerses you in the pre-social media, pre-gentrification world of New York, as it examines the lives of key figures from each band, the transformation of the city, and the cultural forces that shaped it. Combining never before seen footage, intimate audio interviews and a visceral sense of time and place, “Meet Me in The Bathroom” is a raw and authentic evocation of a time The Guardian described as “a flashbulb moment, before everything changed”.

Directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (LCD Soundsystem: Shut Up and Play the Hits), “Meet Me in the Bathroom” is the documentary adaptation of Lizzy Goodman’s 2017 oral history of the early ’00s NYC scene that gave us The Strokes, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and more. While following the same bands — not as many here as the book — their film runs parallel to the book and feels less like an adaptation and more of a companion piece. There are no talking head interviews like you find in most rock docs; instead they tell the story with video footage from the era, both onstage and off, which is set against audio of new and archival interviews.

It’s more of a “you are there” than a “remember when” experience that should strike a chord both with folks who lived and those who are curious as to what it was like.

Stoner, the desert rock supergroup formed by Brant Bjork (ex-Kyuss and Fu Manchu), Nick Oliveri (ex-Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Age) alongside drummer Ryan Güt, present the first single taken from their new album “Boogie To Baja”, to be issued on February 24th through Heavy Psych Sounds.

Check out “City Kids”.

Says the band: “During the recording of ‘totally…’, we were having a blast and the music just kept rollin’ out so we decided to also put together a tasty EP. Guests Mario Lalli on “Stöner Theme” and Greg Hetson of Circle Jerks and Bad Religion on our version of the Motorhead/Pink Fairies classic “City Kids” makes this EP extra sweet.

Jump in and let’s Boogie To Baja!”

A dynamic band with an equally engaging image, they would shine for less than two years but would leave an indelible mark on music history. With once-in-a-time producer Shel Talmy (The Who, Kinks, Easybeats, Cat Stevens and others), The Creation released an incredible two-year streak of singles, including “Making Time,” “How Does It Feel To Feel,” “Tom Tom” and others. pearls. 1968 it was over. Eddie Phillips’ trademark guitar bow would later be adopted by Jimmy Page and Boney M would give an up in “Painter Man.”

Over the nearly five decades since then, the band has seen a tremendous resurgence of interest. First up with Paul Weller and his The Jam “Making Time” on the inside cover of All Mod Cons. A few years later Alan McGee formed the band Biff Bang Pow and his record label Creation. At the turn of the century, a new generation discovered the band through a strategic placement on Wes Anderson’s Rushmore.

“Action Paiting”, a double compilation with a sensational book, released by the no less sensational The Numero Group, the album brings for the first time the complete recordings of Creation. All 42 tracks were remastered from Shel Talmy’s original tapes and received new stereo mixes where previously not available. New rehearsals by Dean Rudland and Alec Palao tell the band’s story and dive into their full studio sessions. Dozens of unreleased photographs adorn the 80-page hardcover book that accompanies it. The entire pack closes with four tracks from pre-Creation freakbeat quartet Mark Four, making “Action Painting” the definitive collection from this legendary UK band.

Though Ryan Adams has form for covering artist’s songs live and on record, until now Taylor Swift’s “1989” is the only time he’s covered an album in full. But that’s about to change; he’s covered the whole of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 record “Nebraska”. It’s not even the first free album Adams has put out this year – back in September he gave away his 22nd studio album “Devolver” via his website. It’s part of a particularly prolific year for the songwriter that has also seen the release of albums “FM”,” Chris” and “Romeo & Juliet”. And the latter two were double albums. 

Here’s a rough mix of the title track of “Nebraska” – I’ll be emailing you my version of the whole album as an early Xmas present for free in a day or two. What a special album that taught me so much about songwriting. It still does after all these years. Go listen to the original if you haven’t, you’ll love it forever.

I hope to see you in #Omaha Nebraska next week and where ever else you may roam. I’m so looking forward to the last shows of the year. Many surprises to come. Thanks for being on this ride with me. It means the world. I’m very Thankful for you all.

With Love,XO
DRA

It’s clearly been a huge influence on Adams’ work. Springsteen’s sixth album saw him working solo with a four-track record with astonishing results; it’s rightly regarded as one of his finest works, and indeed a classic in the canon of Americana. Now Adams has decided to release his take on it as a free gift for his mailing list(opens in new tab) subscribers.