The Fat Angel Sings

Rough Trade Shops UK & USA placed Black Midi’s ‘Hellfire’ in their top 10 Albums of the Year list at number 8. This is the 3rd year in a row making the top 10, which is a first in the history of the list.

To celebrate, Black Midi release ‘Live Fire‘ today, a limited edition 12″ exclusively at Rough Trade Shops online and in store. “Live Fire” is the soundboard recording of black midi’s exhilarating performance at Primavera Porto this summer, and sees the band performing as a four-piece with keyboardist Seth Evans.

“Live Fire”, is the soundboard recording of Black Midi’s exhilarating performance at Primavera Porto this past July, following the release of “Hellfire“. The group – guitarist/vocalist Geordie Greep, bassist/vocalist Cameron Picton, and drummer Morgan Simpson — took the stage as a four piece alongside keyboardist Seth Evans, now a familiar part of the band’s live set-up. Together, they played one of the festival’s most memorable sets, and a firm favourite of the band, performing deep into the night for a frenzied crowd, whipped into shape by fan favourites “Welcome To Hell” and “Speedway.”

The live album is a physical release only, with a special JCD format in Japan.

It’s somewhat paradoxical that such electric music as Sister Wives’ is great at making you feel like you’ve planted your feet on the mossy earth and let in feelings from thousands of years past – but, things like that are never simple.

And neither is succinctly describing Sister Wives’ sound: a single genre descriptor does the band a disservice, as there’s a lot more going on here than just a tribute to 70s acid-folk acts or another spin on occult rock. And their debut record “Y Gawres” does explore Welsh and English mythology – but don’t mistake the record for one solely placed in prehistory. There are tracks that deal with definitively modern issues, and the album charts a course from tradition to modernity: old folk standards are mixed in with driving drums and bass, and jagged, post-punk-inspired guitar.

Guitarist Liv Willars and Rose Love about the band’s unique, intriguing sound. Liv: “I was in another band in London and moved up to Sheffield, and just wanted to start something here because it’s got such a great scene. And [singer and keyboardist] Donna was also in a punk band, so I asked her if she knew anyone that wanted to do something. She said, ‘I do – but I want to do something that isn’t a punk band, something different with organs and keys and synths and so on.’

“We had a couple of practices just me and her, but it just felt like the sound needed a lot more. Donna was friends with Rose, so she brought her in on bass and I was friends with Lisa, who plays drums. And it all kind of came from there.

“We’ve never said anything like, ‘we want to be a band that sounds like this, this is our main influence’ – we all like a real mixture of music, so it’s kind of, put it all together and see what we kind of come up with. “We made a conscious decision not to have one person fronting because I think a lot of the bands we were drawn towards are sort of ‘collectives’ – each individual is interesting, bringing something in, rather than it just being a single person playing with a backing band.”

‘From House to House’; the new single from Sister Wives’ long-form record will be out on the Libertino record label on 28/10/22.

“Milk For Flowers” is at once visceral and enlightened, its soundscapes verdant yet delicately rendered, and with this latest, most intimate work, h.

H. Hawkline beautifully bares his blood, bones and soul. and quietly, along with the entrails and rubble held in “Milk For Flowers” reliquary, there hides a small, green kernel of life; hope, perhaps, that today’s decay might nourish tomorrow’s blooms. recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, the album features a host of musical collaborators – Davey Newington [Boy Azooga] on drums, Paul Jones [group listening] on piano, Tim Presley [White Fence, Drinks, the Fall] on guitar, Stephen Black [Sweet Baboo] and Euan Hinshelwood [Younghusband, cate le bon] on sax, Harry Bohay [Aldous Harding] on pedal steel and John Parish [pj harvey, aldous harding] on infrequent bongo. ‘Milk For Flowers’ is the title track and first single from H. Hawkline’s new album.

The first song to be taken from album is the title track about which Huw said: “Grief is a song that can’t be unheard: from the moment you learn it, you never stop singing. Its music paints the scenery – pulling the strings of every day. Forgotten corners and untended gardens can become rich with sickly vegetation, ice rinks and playgrounds decaying with every chord. These videos (this is the first of 3) are a way of trying to express that sensation in the most direct way possible. Every day, an audition. At least I choose the soundtrack.”

The record was then engineered by joe jones [aldous harding, parquet courts] and mixed, after an unlikely and fortuitous crossing of paths, by the grammy-nominated Patrik Berger [charli xcx, robyn, lana del rey],

His fifth album, ‘Milk For Flowers’. His most personal and confessional record to date, it’s released on Friday 10th March 2023 on Heavenly Recordings.

This is a declaration of wonder and reverence for the living Earth. As we phase out fossil fuels, the way through the climate crisis is by the regeneration of this planet’s incredible natural systems. This song is for alignment with life on Earth, including one another. The future requires us to consider everything and everyone- love and curiosity are key.

“The Natural World” – streaming everywhere, “I wanted to film The Natural World video in the redwoods of California because it’s the most alive place I know. Old growth forests are the best carbon-capture technology in existence. I wanted a futuristic vision of a flourishing Earth – what if we try, what if we get it right? We imagine, and we are presented, in film and literature, with every version of dystopia- dusty, bleak, and sinister.. I think it’s important to envision the future we want so we can fight for it. What future are we calling forth? What could it look like?”

Singer songwriter from California, USA. Los Angeles Jenny O. is currently readying a new album for release early next year. It’s the follow-up to 2020’s “New Truth”, and she’s already released the R&B-inspired single “Prism.” Now, Jenny is sharing another new album track called “The Natural World,” which was filmed all around pastoral California landmarks like the coastal redwoods. It’s also directed by Sam Gezari.

“…Really I hope it’s part of a vast web of gestures.. facilitating a great human collaboration to draw down greenhouse gases and stabilize the climate as best we can.”

“I believe in love and curiosity, I am fascinated with the natural world,” Jenny says of the video. “This is a declaration of wonder and reverence for the living Earth. As we phase out fossil fuels, the way through the climate crisis is by regeneration of this planet’s incredible natural systems. This song is for alignment with life on Earth (including one another.) The future requires us to consider everything and everyone; love and curiosity are key.

“Spectra” refers to the many ways we identify. It is about my experience with connectivity and an expression of my love for others, self, and nature. It is my favorite record I have made and my most joyful.” – Jenny O.”

Jenny O. – Vocals, Guitar, Synthesizer, Moog Bass Josh Adams – Drums, Percussion

Releases February 1st, 2023, New album “Spectra” out February 24th on Mama Bird Recording Co.

Shame were tourists in their own adolescence – and nothing was quite like the postcard. The freefall of their early twenties, in all its delight and disaster, was tangled up in being hailed one of post-punk’s greatest hopes. In 2018, they took their incendiary debut album “Songs of Praise” for a cross-continental joyride for almost 350 relentless nights. They tried to bite off more than they could chew, just to prove their teeth were sharp enough – but eventually, you’ve got to learn to spit it out. Then came the hangover. shame’s frontman, Charlie Steen, suffered a series of panic attacks which led to the tour’s cancellation. For the first time, since being plucked from the stage of The Windmill and catapulted into notoriety, Shame were confronted with who they’d become on the other side of it. This era, of being forced to endure reality and the terror that comes with your own company, would form shame’s second album, 2021’s “Drunk Tank Pink”, the band’s reinvention.

If “Songs of Praise” was fuelled by pint-sloshing teenage vitriol, then “Drunk Tank Pink” delved into a different kind of intensity. Wading into uncharted musical waters, emboldened by their wit and earned cynicism, they created something with the abandon of a band who had nothing to lose. Having forced their way through their second album’s identity crisis, they arrive, finally, at a place of hard-won maturity. Enter: “Food for Worms”, which Steen declares to be “the Lamborghini of Shame records.”

For the first time, the band are not delving inwards, but seeking to capture the world around them. “I don’t think you can be in your own head forever,” says Steen. A conversation after one of their gigs with a friend prompted a stray thought that he held onto: “It’s weird, isn’t it? Popular music is always about love, heartbreak, or yourself. There isn’t much about your mates.” In many ways, the album is an ode to friendship, and a documentation of the dynamic that only five people who have grown up together – and grown so close, against all odds – can share.

The title, “Food for Worms”, takes on different meanings when considered with the ten vignettes the band has painted for you across the record. That spirit of interpretation, to see yourself reflected within it, is conveyed through the cover art. Designed by acclaimed artist Marcel Dzama, whose style evokes dark fairy tales and surrealism, it’s suggestive of what’s left unsaid, what lies beneath the surface.

On the one hand, “Food for Worms” calls to mind a certain morbidity, but on the other, it’s a celebration of life; the way that, in the end, we need each other. It also strikes at the core of Shame itself. Since the beginning, the band has been in the business of finding the light in uncomfortable contradictions: Steen always makes a point of taking his top off during performances as a way of tackling his body weight insecurities. Through sheer defiance, they play their vulnerabilities as strengths.

Reconnecting with that ethos is what hotwired the band into making the album after a false start during the pandemic. Without pressure or an end goal – just a long expanse of time – nothing would hold.

Their management then presented them with a challenge: in just under three weeks, shame would play two shows at The Windmill where they would be expected to debut two sets of entirely new songs.

This opportunity meant that the band returned the same ideology which propelled them to these heights in the first place: the love of playing live, on their own terms, fed by their audience. Thus, “Food for Worms” careened and crashed into life faster than anything they’d created before: a weapons-grade cocktail that captured all the gristle, fragility and carnal physicality that earned shame their merits.

It was only right that shame would record the album entirely live for the first time. The band recorded “Food for Worms” while playing festivals all over Europe, invigorated by the strength of the reaction their new material was met with. That live energy, what it’s like to witness shame in their element, is captured perfectly on record – like lightning in a bottle.

They called upon renowned producer Flood (Nick Cave, U2, Foals) to execute their vision. Recording each track live meant a kind of surrender: here, the rough edges give the album its texture; the mistakes are more interesting than perfection. In a way, it harks back to the title itself and the way that with this record, the band are embracing frailty and by doing so, are tapping into a new source of bravery.

It also marks a sonic departure from anything they’ve done before. shame have abandoned their post-punk beginnings for far more eclectic influences, drawing from the tense atmospherics of Merchandise, the sharp yet uncomplicated lyrical observations of Lou Reed and the more melodic works of 90s German band, Blumfeld.

In the past, their music had been almost clinically assembled, with the vocals and the band existing as two distinct layers. But “Food for Worms”, there has never been such an immediate sense of togetherness – and more than that, it was fun. Everyone chipped in on vocals; they made the unifying choice to sing, rather than the solitude that comes with a shout.

Roles were not so fiercely defined, with Steen taking command of the bass guitar for the anthemic “Adderall”, devising a simple progression that bassist Josh Finerty would never dream of, pushing the album into new, unexpected places.

“Adderall” staggers, feeling the weight of its own bones, evoking a certain desperation that comes with dragging yourself through an internal fog. Steen explains: “‘Adderall’ is the observation of a person reliant on prescription drugs. These pills shift their mental and physical state and alter their behaviour; it’s about how this affects them and those around them. It’s a song of compassion, frustration and the acceptance of change. It’s partly coming to terms with the fact that sometimes your help and love can’t cure those around you but, as much as it causes exasperation, you still won’t ever stop trying to help.”

The album opens with “Fingers of Steel”, which is heralded with an airy piano section that plunges into nosebleed-inducing guitars like a mutant orchestra; it was completely transformed from its folk-indebted beginnings. It delves into the cyclical nature of friendship, which the title invites you to consider. “‘Fingers of Steel’ is about helping a mate and the frustrations that come with it,” shares Steen. “It’s coming to terms with the fact that people can’t be who you want them to be and sometimes there isn’t anything you can do to help, it’s their own thing they have to work out for themselves and you have to accept that.”

But it wouldn’t be Shame if there wasn’t a bit of theatrical flair, signed off with a smirk. “Six Pack”, with its psychedelic wah-wah grooves and frenetic guitarwork, sees Steen act as your spirit guide into a room where, within those four walls, your wildest dreams come true: “Now you’ve got Pamela Anderson reading you a bedtime story / And every scratch card is a fucking winner!” he howls. The song is a product of lockdown-induced cabin fever, and the absurd places our mind can wander when we are confined. It’s an anthem for newfound freedom: “You’ve done time behind bars, and now you’re making time in front of them,” Steen sings, with a showman’s grandeur. It’s time to make up for everything you’ve lost or wasted – and shame wants it all.

“Food for Worms” also sees Steen deliver one of his greatest vocal performances which came from learning to lean into the vulnerabilities his lyrics portray, rather than deflecting them. “Orchid”, opens with the easy amble of an acoustic guitar, a different sound for the band which required careful consideration for how his voice would adapt to it. His vocal teacher, Rebecca Phillips, encouraged him to approach it unflinchingly. He recalls her telling him: “Anything that you’re singing is obviously personal, but a very male tendency is to detach from it and think of the melody, instead of what you’re saying.”

It was this new technique that allowed shame to embrace the songs that dealt with a deeply personal subject: fear for a friend’s mental well-being. Steen’s voice paces with sleepless worry, guilt, frustration – and absolute tenderness. Closing track “All the People”, a great musical swell of brotherly love, haunts the mind the lingering words penned by guitarist Sean Coyle-Smith: “All the people that you’re gonna meet / Don’t you throw it all away / Because you can’t love yourself.” With that weight, there is a lightness to the song which captures the spirit of “Food for Worms” and all the thoughts that expression evokes, all that bittersweetness. And even if you can’t put those feelings into words, shame have found them for you. 

releases February 24th, 2023

Writers: Eddie Green, Josh Finerty, Seán Coyle Smith, Charlie Steen, Charlie Forbes,
Additional writing by Max ‘Sizzle’ Goulding on “Alibis”, “Burning By Design” and “Fingers Of Steel”

Bruce Springsteen took over the Tonight Show with a performance of Frank Wilson’s “Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)” and a confirmation that he will be attending at least one Taylor Swift show on next year’s “Eras Tour.”

Springsteen will be a guest on The Tonight Show through November 16th, while he’ll also pop up again for the show’s special Thanksgiving episode on November 24th. He’ll mostly be performing songs from his new soul/R&B covers album, “Only the Strong Survive“, and he kicked off his stint with an uproarious rendition of “Do I Love You (Indeed I Do),” bringing along a small choir, string section, and horns to back him up. 

Springsteen also sat down with host Jimmy Fallon for an interview, where he discussed embracing gospel music in new ways on “Only the Strong Survive”, gearing up for his first tour with the E Street Band in six years, and how he got used to performing shows that often last around three hours. While reflecting on his vast catalog of classics, Springsteen also revealed what he thought was one of his bigger duds. “I have one that’s always a real pet peeve. On “The River”, where I had so many good outtakes, so many good extra songs, but there’s a song called ‘Crush on You,’” Springsteen said, quickly quipping when he heard some muttering in the crowd, “People are saying, ‘That’s my fave!’”

Springsteen said the song’s simple chorus (“Ooh, ooh I got a crush on you”) was “fine for rock and roll,” but suggested an already classic album like “The River” could’ve been even better if he’d made a few more tracklist substitutions. 

In the second part of the interview, Fallon asked Springsteen to clear up a few questions about his career, such as whether the lyrics to “Thunder Road” are “Mary’s dress sways” or “Mary’s dress waves” (it’s the latter, and Springsteen brought out his own gatefold vinyl copy of “Born to Run” to read the correct lyrics himself). 

Neil Young with Crazy Horse returns with a double album entitled “World Record”. It is the follow-up to last year’s acclaimed “Barn” record. The first single “Love Earth” is taken from the upcoming new studio album from Neil Young with Crazy Horse ‘World Record’ produced by Rick Rubin and Neil Young released on 18/11/22

Neil Young is a man of many guises, but one that’s stuck with him since almost the start of his career has been of the environment-loving hippie. Way back in 1970 he sang, “Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s,” predicting a decade of climate turmoil that’s only gotten worse since then. His commitment to the planet and its natural habitats hasn’t wavered, as he tackled issues big and small on albums like “Ragged Glory”, “Greendale” and “The Monsanto Years” over the past five decades.

He’s been on a pandemic-era roll lately, recording three albums in succession with his longtime, off-and-on backing group Crazy Horse. (He’s also been busy cleaning out his archives, dusting off nearly a dozen abandoned studio and concert projects in the same period.) “World Record” brings together environmental issues, Crazy Horse and another quickly assembled album (i.e., recorded live with no overdubs) that sounds like an extension of both the past few years and Young’s entire career.

Like 2019’s “Colorado” (which was recorded and released in the months before COVID, but which now seems to be the launching point of Young’s latest period) and 2021’s “Barn”, “World Record” can be messy and often unfocused. But Young and Crazy Horse’s allegiance to the material and themselves leads them to do what they’ve always done best: plugging in, following the leader and having a blast for 45 or so minutes.

“World Record” doesn’t go too deep. The opening lines of the album sum up its central message: “Love Earth, such an easy thing to do.” Other times, Young declares “You’re not alone on this old planet” (“This Old Planet [Changing Days”) and “No more war, only love” (“Walkin’ on the Road [To the Future“).” They’re simple messages, delivered in an unfussy manner by Young, Nils Lofgren, Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot. Producer Rick Rubin rarely gets in their way, though his voice is heard at the start of some songs during setup. Like its past couple of predecessors, “World Record” is a combination of laid-back acoustic songs and electric numbers, though only the 15-minute “Chevrolet” allows the quartet to truly stretch out like the old days.

The album is more single-minded than “Colorado” and “Barn”, with the love songs reserved for the planet this time. It’s also a looser record: Everyone seems to be feeling their way through the opening “Love Earth” before they settle on something resembling a groove, and “The World (Is in Trouble Now)” adds a wobbly pump organ to the usual Crazy Horse mix. There’s casual simplicity to Young’s vocals (also wobbly at times) that befits the overall tone of the project. Despite the subject matter, there’s little urgency to the songs or performances. The way Young sees it, everyone should already know what’s on the line. He’s just doing his part to spread the same message he’s been advocating for the past 50-plus years.

10 New Songs Of Our Times, Produced by Rick Rubin and Neil Young.

As Young himself said in a message on the Times-Contrarian during the making of World Record: “Real magic lasts and we think we have it.” Recorded live to capture the Crazy Horse’s long-running spirit, the album was mixed to analog tape at Shangri-La Studio.

To optimize audio quality, the vinyl format of “World Record” will be released as a three-sided double album with an etching on side four. There will also be a limited-edition version of the album pressed on clear vinyl available at The Greedy Hand Store. The upcoming album “World Record” available 11/18/2022.