Front man Aaron Starkie explained the thought process behind the lyrics to the single and the album’s title – “Growing up as a council estate kid in Manchester I was very conscious of having a limited horizon and I guess I had a chip on my shoulder and something to prove. It’s that background that inspired both our band name and the album’s title track ‘Knowledge Freedom Power’. It is an exercise in positive sloganeering, a mantra for education as a means of a way out from social and psychological confinement.”
The single is the first to be taken from the album of the same name, which is due for release on February 24th on blue vinyl, CD and cassette as well as “flipped” versions of the artwork with a yellow vinyl variant, CD and cassette available exclusively from their website. The album release precedes a tour of the UK and Europe, which includes an already sold-out hometown show in Manchester, their first in the city since before the pandemic.
The album features ten tracks – all previously unreleased and unheard – Modernise, Afterlife, Sacred Song, Lay Your Troubles On Me, How Could You Know?, Knowledge Freedom Power, What Might Have Been, Seconds Out, Forget About Me and No You Never.
The title track from the Slow Readers Club‘s upcoming album of the same name – Out February 24th 2023!
“Jaguar Sound” is the second solo album of 2022 from Adrian Quesada and with it the Black Pumas co-founder showcases another impressive side of his artistry with 12 head-nodding, cinematic instrumentals landing somewhere between Khruangbin, Lee Hazlewood and The Alchemist.
On the heels of his acclaimed “Boleros Psicodélicos” LP, Adrian Quesada releases “Jaguar Sound“. The twelve-track collection marks the second new album of the year from the Grammy-winning guitarist, producer and Black Pumas co-founder, further showcasing his singular and signature ability to build a bridge between seemingly disparate worlds of music. Steeped in a heady fusion of hip-hop, psychedelic soul and the opulent orchestration of Italian film scores from the 1970s, the LP draws upon inspirations like The Alchemist, Ennio Morricone and Nico Fidenco, as well as his own experience growing up on the border of multiple countries, cultures and languages.
Featuring a special appearance from Ikebe Shakedown, as well as harp by Mary Lattimore, Neal Francis on piano, keys from David Garza and an array of strings, horns and percussion, “Jaguar Sound” was produced, written, engineered, mixed and largely performed by Adrian Quesada.
Recorded at Quesada’s own Electric Deluxe Studio across 2020, “Jaguar Sound” proves that he is one of the most exciting stylists in modern independent music.
The Cure performing at their first concert in Riga, October 6th, 2022, for the first time and with the only concert in the Baltic States The Cure performed at Arēna Rīga. The icons, supported by now-regular touring partners and one of frontman Robert Smith’s favourite bands The Twilight Sad, began their long run of 2022 dates with a show at Arena Riga in Riga this evening – airing two new songs fans assume are from their long-awaited new album, ‘Songs Of A Lost World‘
Discussing the themes and character of the long-awaited follow-up to 2008’s ‘4:13 Dream‘, Smith said that the album “doesn’t have very much light on it” and that it sounds “more like ‘Disintegration’ than ‘Head On The Door’.” Having long teased the band’s long-awaited “merciless” new record – after telling us that two new albums were on the way back in 2020 – Smith revealed this year that one of them would be “real very soon” and would be called ‘Songs Of A Lost World’.
“It’s pretty relentless, which will appeal to the hardcore of our audience, but I don’t think we’ll be getting any Number One singles off it or anything like that!” he laughed. “It’s been quite harrowing, like it has for everyone else.
Smith added: “Essentially we recorded two albums in 2019. I’ve been trying to finish two at the same time, which is pretty much impossible. One is nearly ready to go.”
“I’ve been more privileged than most, but lockdown and COVID has affected me in as much as I’ve lost an entire generation of aunts and uncles in under a year. It’s things like that which have informed the way I’ve been with the record.”
Opening their 25 song set – where they were also joined by Bamonte, returning to the band having been a member between 1990 and 2005 – The Cure started with the sprawling and bittersweet ‘Alone’; a tender track that saw Smith begin with the line: ‘This is the end of every song we sing‘.
At the end of the first set, which included classics and fan favourites such as ‘Pictures Of You’, ‘Trust’, ‘Fascination Street’ and ‘In Between Days’, The Cure debuted another new song ‘Endsong’ – a much more sombre number where Smith lamented how ‘it’s all gone‘ repeatedly, in a life with ‘no hopes, no dreams, no love – I don’t belong‘.
The concert last night also saw the return of guitarist Perry Bamonte to The Cure’s ranks after 17 years away. He was previously a member of The Cure from 1990 to 2015. Alongside frontman and founder Robert Smith, The Cure’s line-up also features Simon Gallup (bass), Roger O’Donnell (keyboards), Jason Cooper (drums) and Reeves Gabriels (guitars/bass).
The band then returned for more more encores, delivering the likes of ‘Plainsong’, ‘Close To Me’, ‘Friday I’m In Love’ and ‘Boys Don’t Cry’.
Just a couple days before the much-anticipated release of Weyes Blood’s (aka Natalie Mering) forthcoming album, “And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow“, Mering released yet another song that somehow immediately finds its seat in the center of your heart. On “God Turn Me Into A Flower,” her third single from this album, Mering emerges from a synth-laden darkness, with gentle, drawn-out tones that trail off into the sky.
It feels like you’re stepping into a world of her design, with all different bird calls emerging at the end of the track, immersing you in an imaginary, breathless universe. The artist truly steps up to the daunting task of having her voice be the main attraction of the track. Some synth and strings join her, but for the most part, it is her singing twisting throughout the open space created, at some times deeply sorrowful, at others at peace with it all. The way the birds chime in at the end leaves the track feeling like a call to freedom, full of hope even as Mering repeats, “Oh God, turn me into a flower.” Coming from the cathedral-esque quiet of the beginning, it truly does feel like a prayer.
“God Turn Me Into a Flower” by Weyes Blood From the album ‘And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow,’ out November 18th, 2022 on Sub Pop Records.
South London rockers Shame have announced their third album, “Food for Worms”, due to be released February 24th, 2023, on Dead OceansRecords. The Lead single and album opener “Fingers of Steel” is out now and Shame frontman Charlie Steen describes the band’s follow up to “Drunk Tank Pink“ as “the Lamborghini of Shame records,” while a press release says the album, produced by Flood (Nick Cave, U2, PJ Harvey), “marks a sonic departure from anything they’ve done before, and—for the first time—the band are not delving inwards, but seeking to capture the world around them.” On “Fingers of Steel,” Steen and company pair this new perspective with a fresh sense of purpose and restraint. The brute force post-punk of their 2018 debut “Songs of Praise” is gone, replaced by more clear-eyed precision and complex instrumentation.
A distant piano is soon joined by staccato guitar and backing vocals, as Steen observes an avatar of our modern plight: Alone, indoors, days devoid of meaningful connection, chasing fake validation online—always wanting, never fulfilled. “Well, this time you feel that you’ve been found / But when you look there’s no one around,” shame sing in unison, their singalong punctuated with spidery riffs. Looming synths cast a shadow over the song halfway in, like the sun going down at the end of an already-dark day. An explosive solo races like an anxious mind, shortly before the song drifts to an abrupt end.
“Fingers of Steel” by Shame from the upcoming album ‘Food for Worms’, out February 24th on Dead Oceans Records.
Nicole Rodriguez aka Pearla return singing a melancholic yet loving waltz full of sadness and loneliness. It’s easy to picture her at a bandstand as her ghosts all dance alone. This track, the fifth of a string of excellent singles, leading up to her album “Oh Glistening Onion, The Nighttime Is Coming” to be released on February 10th, once again holds a gentle, glowing promise. “All the lights are left on and I’m trying to receive you but / I’m only beautiful when I’m alone,” she sings. This intense honesty seems to be the kind that you can only afford when you think yourself to be alone, writing a love letter in your room to someone who will never read it.
“Oh Glistening Onion, The Nighttime Is Coming” is due October 21st, 2022, on Spacebomb Records. Parts of the album were recorded at Thump Recording in Brooklyn and Spacebomb Studios in Richmond, but the bulk of its creation took place in Pearla’s home.
The sweet timbre of her voice doesn’t lose its slight notes of hope, and the swaying of the bass and guitar make you believe this could be a band that comes together only when Rodriguez dreams. But in fact, someone has captured this intimate moment, and done listeners a huge favour. Throughout the course of the song, she sings of beginning to believe in her own endless love for the world, but it’s hard to tell whether she quite believes herself.
When asked about the album title, Pearla offers: “It’s always been the title. I think it means, you don’t have to peel back every layer before you go to sleep.”
“With” from upcoming debut album ‘Oh Glistening Onion, The Nighttime Is Coming’ out February 10th, 2023 on SpacebombRecords.
Long-beloved indie-folk act Eric D. Johnson aka Fruit Bats have released yet another sweet gem whose mellowness perfectly complements the city it sings of. The tune takes its time, as you would on a slow, sunny morning, using a simple arrangement to keep you in the setting. When vocalist Eric D. Johnson sings, “Well, we all want a home—metaphorical or real / Some place to make us feel whole,” you feel assured that he will find what’s he’s looking for. But the laid-back colour of the song contrasts the lyrics, which hold a far more complex meaning—as he comments,
“This is a sad song masquerading as a happy one. Or maybe vice versa? This might be the first song I’ve written where the first verse is a disclaimer—and, yes, I am talking to YOU with this one.
This is about spiritual homes, the geography of the heart, and waking up in a weird, hard world where the birds still sing.” There is an acknowledgement that nothing good can exist without something bad, or maybe nothing bad can exist without some sort of goodness. In this very comfortable-sounding song, Fruit Bats desperately try to find comfort in that turbulent notion.
This land runs through Katherine Paul’s blood. And it called to her. In dreams she saw the river, her ancestors, and her home. When the land calls, you listen. And Paul’s found herself far from her ancestral lands during a time of collective trauma, when the world was wounded and in need of healing. In 2020 she made the journey from Portland back to the Skagit River, back to the cedar trees that stand tall and shrouded in fog, back to the tide flats and the mountains, back to Swinomish.
It is a powerful thing to return to our ancestral lands and often times the journey is not easy. Like the salmon through the currents, like the tide as it crawls to shore this is a story of return. It is the call and response. It is the outstretched arms of the people who came before, welcoming her home.
“The Land, The Water, The Sky” is a celebration of lineage and strength. Even in its deepest moments of loneliness and grief, of frustration over a world wrought with colonial violence and pain, the songs remind us that if we slow down, if we listen to the waves and the wind through the trees, we will remember to breathe.
There is a throughline of story in every song, a remembrance of knowledge and teachings, a gratitude of wisdom passed down and carried. There is a reimagining of Sedna who was offered to the sea, and a beautiful rumination on sacrifice and humanity, and what it means to hold the stories that work to teach us something.
Chord progressions born out of moments of sadness and solitude transform into the islands that sit blue along the horizon. The Salish Sea curves along her homelands, and when the singer is close to this water she is reminded of her grandmother, how she looked out at these same islands, and she’s held by spirit and memory.
“The Land, The Water, The Sky” rises and falls, in darkness and in light, but even in its most melancholy moments it is never despairing. That is the beauty of returning home. When you stand on ancestral lands it is impossible to be alone. You feel the arms and hands that hold you up, unwilling to let you fall into sorrow or abandonment. In her songs Katherine Paul has channeled that feeling of being held. In every note she has written a love letter to indigenous strength and healing.
There is a joy present here, a fierce blissfulness that comes with walking the trails along the river, feeling the sand and the stones beneath her feet. It is the pride and the certainty that comes with knowing her ancestors walked along the same land, dipped their hands into the water, and ran their fingertips along the same bark of cedar trees.
This is a story of hope, as it details the joy of returning. Katherine Paul’s journey home wasn’t made alone, and the songs are crowded with loved ones and relatives, like a really good party. And as the songs walk us through the land it is important we hover over the images and the beauty, the moments that mark this album as site specific. The power of this land is woven throughout, telling the story of narrow waterways, brush strokes, salmon stinta, and above all healing.
Let it take you. Move through the story and see the land through her eyes, because it is a gift, a welcomed sʔabadəb.*
*The word “gift” in Lushootseed, the language of the Coast Salish people“
With a flutter of gentle piano notes and strings, Andy Shauf has released “Wasted on You,” the first single off his newly announced album “Norm”. Out February 10th, 2023, on ANTI-Records, this LP seems to bring a slight change in style for the musician, as he reworks the gentle folk and pop harmonies he is known for, bringing hints of jazz into the mix. Hearing the singer’s familiar subdued timbre on this latest track instantly infuses you with the comfort and warmth of familiarity, while the musical arrangements push his boundaries with a dancing lightness.
But in typical Shauf style, not everything is quite as it appears, as the repeating lyrics hold a heavier side to them. “Was all my love wasted on you?” he asks himself over and over again, trying to get to the root of an issue he can’t quite understand.
The piano tinkles pleasantly over the track, but begins to take on the feeling of falling, rather than a pleasant melodic anchor. He starts the song by asking, “What happens when they die?,” a query that at first sounds lightly curious, but increasingly takes on the hard metal edge of anxiety—after all, this is Shauf we’re talking about. It opens up the mystery of the album, one that we’ll have to wait until February to fully begin dissecting.
In everything Babehoven do, there is a closeness. This is evident in the indie-folk duo’s music, written by Maya Bon and produced by her partner Ryan Albert, which patiently undresses the heart, layer by layer, until you can’t quite tell what’s left. Their debut album, “Light Moving Time”, released last month, collects songs that speak of many forms of intimacy directly, or investigate all the ways it falls apart. In their speaking, too, you can see the closeness from which this music is birthed—in the way the pair turn toward each other, waiting for the other to finish their thought, trusting each other enough to speak for both of them.
“Light Moving Time” is the debut full-length from Hudson, NY’sBabehoven (Maya Bon and Ryan Albert). It’s taken us a long time to get to the place we’re at,
Their sensitivity comes across in the music they make together—although it may sound gentle, the tracks often draw out a complex emotional map for the listener, with some terrains being more difficult than others. 2022 has been a prolific year for the Hudson-based pair, with an EP also released earlier this year. But on their first full-length, there seems to be something new, more sparkling and tangible. The songs reach toward the listener actively, and shimmer in your ears. Their trust for each other is not even a question.
This sort of communication is a large part of why the duo work so well together, with Bon commenting that Albert has the ability to become “egoless” in his work, never fighting back against her comments or critiques, even after a whole day of work on his part. But this sort of patient love (for their process, for others) shines through on their music,
“Light Moving Time” is emblematic of Babehoven’s wide range of dynamics, and each of those sounds are taken further as Bon explores the power of community, experiences of trauma, and explorations of changing relationships.
Babehoven have a new single out tomorrow!, Bon says “often” is my favourite song I’ve ever written and I’m excited to share it with you all. When Maya Bon and Ryan Albert met with their future label Double Double Whammy for the first time, they brought a collection of plump, homegrown tomatoes for the occasion.
That pastoral touch mirrors what the duo accomplish in their music as Babehoven. As practitioners of homespun indie rock, there’s a picturesque quality to their work that renders each listen multi-sensory. The Babehoven sound has a cooling texture, a verdant visual, an organic taste. But over six EPs in four years, the duo presented diverse approaches to cultivating those sensations, including soft, frank rock on “Demonstrating Visible Differences in Height“, haunting tape manipulation on “Yellow Has a Pretty Good Reputation” and molasses-slow folk on “Sunk”. The duo combine each of these styles and more on “Light Moving Time“, their long-anticipated debut LP.
On “Light Moving Time”, Babehoven are not in a rush. Relaxed tempos are central to their discography. Babehoven are Duster superfans and their shared preference for DIY recording gives the music its contemplative, hand-hewn texture. Their music rests at the intersection of the observant lyricism of Roy Orbison and the rhythmic creativity of Dear Nora. The resultant artifact is as crisp and pensive as the undulating Appalachian foothills.
Babehoven’s debut album ‘Light Moving Time’ available everywhere on LP/CD/digital October 28th, 2022 on Double Double Whammy Records.
The Fat Angel Sings 