Alabama based visual artist and musician Lonnie Holley has a new album on the way. “Oh Me Oh My” due foor release in March on JagjaguwarRecords the album includes collaborations with including Sharon Van Etten, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon,Moor Mother and Rokia Koné. But it’s R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe who lends his voice to the advanced single “Oh Me Oh My.” The song showcases Holley’s stream-of-consciousness lyrics, which constantly strive for goodness and understanding, over gorgeously layered droning instrumentation. “Humans please listen,”
‘Oh Me Oh My’ is also an achievement in the refinement of Holley’s impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness lyrics. During each session, Holley and Lee would discuss the essence of the songs and distill Holley’s words to their most immediate center. On the title track, which deals with mutual human understanding, Holley is as profound as ever in far fewer phrases: “The deeper we go, the more chances there are, for us to understand the oh-me’s and understand the oh-my’s.”
Acclaimed collaborators like Michael Stipe (“Oh Me, Oh My”), Sharon Van Etten (“None of Us Will Have But a Little While”), Moor Mother (“I Am Part of the Wonder,” “Earth Will Be There”), Justin Vernon of Bon Iver (“Kindness Will Follow Your Tears”) and Rokia Koné (“If We Get Lost They Will Find Us”) serve as choirs of angels and co-pilots, giving Lonnie’s message flight, and reaffirming him as a galvanizing, iconoclastic force across the music community.
Holley reflects, “My art and my music are always closely tied to what is happening around me, and the last few years have given me a lot to thoughtsmith about. When I listen back to these songs I can feel the times we were living through. I’m deeply appreciative of the collaborators, especially Jacknife, who helped the songs take shape and really inspired me to dig deeper within myself.”
For nearly 60 years, John Cale has been reimagining how his music is made, sounds, and even works. “Mercy”, Cale’s first full album in a decade, moves through true dark-night-of-the-soul electronic torment toward vulnerable love songs and hopeful considerations for the future with the help of some of music’s most curious young minds. Cale has always searched for new ways to explore old ideas of alienation, hurt, and joy; “Mercy” is the latest transfixing find of this unsatisfied mind.
On “Mercy“, his forthcoming studio album, John Cale has once again opened himself up to collaborate with younger indie artists, which this time around includes members of Animal Collective, Weyes Blood and Laurel Halo. Their efforts only make the latest single from this LP, “Noise of You,” stand out even more as the song is mainly Cale, on his own, laying his emotions bare for an unnamed lover. The billowing psych-synth backdrop feels like the fog surrounding Cale’s memories through which he tries to reach out for some solid details or moments to hold tightly to. What he finds is something equally as ephemeral and hard to grasp: the sounds that this person made padding across the floor or doing everyday things on the other side of the house or the timbre of their voice as they said farewell.
John Cale – “Noise Of You” from the forthcoming album ‘Mercy’ out 20th Jan 2023 on Double Six / DominoRecordings
Frankie Cosmos releases their new record, “Inner World Peace” via Sub Pop Records. The album features the standout tracks “F.O.O.F.”, “Aftershook,” “One Year Stand,” and “Empty Head.” It was co-produced by Frankie Cosmos, Nate Mendelsohn, and Katie Von Schleicher at Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn, New York, mixed by Mendelsohn and VonSchleicher, and mastered by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering. The “Inner World Peace” album art also features illustrations from band member Lauren Martin.
Greta Kline spent a few years living with her family and writing a mere 100 songs, turning her empathy anywhere from the navel to the moon, rendering it all warm, close and reflexively humorous. In music, everyone loves a teen sensation, but Kline has never been more fascinating than now, a decade into being one of the most prolific songwriters of her generation. She’s lodged in my mind amongst authors, other observational alchemists like Rachel Cusk or Sheila Heti, but she’s funnier, which is a charm endemic to musicians.
Frankie Cosmos, a rare, dwindling democratic entity called a band, had been on pandemic hiatus with no idea if they’d continue. In the openness of that uncertainty they met up, planning to hang out and play music together for the first time in nearly 500 days. There, whittling down the multitude of music to work with, they created “Inner World Peace”, a collection of Greta’s songs changed and sculpted by their time together.
While Kline’s musical taste at the time was leaning toward aughts indie rock she’d loved as a teenager, keyboardist Lauren Martin and drummer Luke Pyenson cite “droning, meditation, repetition, clarity and intentionality,” as well as “‘70s folk and pop” as a reference for how they approached their parts. Bassist/guitarist Alex Bailey says that at the time he referred to it as their “ambient” or “psych” album. Somewhere between those textural elements and Kline’s penchant for concise pop, “Inner World Peace” finds its balance.
Instant centerpiece “One Year Stand” is a small snowglobe of intimacy recalling the softest moments of Yo La Tengo’s And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out. Lifted by Martin’s drones on Hammond organ and synthesizer, it could be played on repeat in a loop. I like to think it’s obvious how Greta’s vocals were recorded: late at night as we all sat by in low light, transfixed as she sings “I’m not worried about the / rest of my life / because you are here today / I go back in time / I’m a cast iron.” The voices of Kline and Martin, who have sung together since middle school, blend seamlessly.
The first order of business upon setting up camp in Brooklyn’s Figure 8 studios was to project giant colorful slides the band had made for each track. Co-producing with Nate Mendelsohn, my Shitty Hits Recording partner, we aimed for FC’s aesthetic idiosyncrasies to shine.The mood board for “Magnetic Personality” has a neon green and black checkerboard, a screen capture of the game Street Fighter with “K.O.” in fat red letters, and a cover of Mad Magazine that says “Spy Vs. Spy! The Top Secret Files.” On tracks like “F.O.O.F.” (Freak Out On Friday), “Fragments” and “Aftershook,” the group are at their most psychedelic and playful, interjecting fuzz solos, bits of percussion, and other sonically adventurous ear candy.
An internal logic strengthens everything, and in their proggiest moments, Frankie Cosmos are simply a one-take band who don’t miss. When on “Inner World Peace” they sound wildly, freshly different, it may just be that they’re coming deeper into their own.
Throughout the album there are plays on the notion of feeling seen or invisible, as in “Magnetic Personality” when Kline sings “ask me how I am and I won’t really say,” or in “One Year Stand” when she says “maybe I’m asking myself.” Kline emphasizes that this was her first group of songs in years that weren’t written while on tour, but rather with ample time on her hands. She reflects on past selves in “Abigail” (“that version of myself I don’t want back”) and “Wayne” (“Like in first grade / How I went by Wayne / I always had / another name”). If we’re alone, what becomes of the things we see? As in “Fruit Stand,” Kline asks “If it’s raining and I can’t feel it, is it raining?”
“Inner World Peace” excels in passing on the emotions it holds. When in the towering “Empty Head” Kline sings of wanting to let thoughts slide away, her voice is buoyed on a bed of synths and harmonium as tranquility abounds. When her thoughts become hurried and full of desire, so does the band, and she leaps from word to word as if unable to contain them all. As a group, they carry it all deftly, and with constant regard for Kline’s point of view.
Says Greta, “To me, the album is about perception. It’s about the question of “who am I?” and whether or not the answer matters. It’s about quantum time, the possibilities of invisible worlds. The album is about finding myself floating in a new context. A teenager again, living with my parents. An adult, choosing to live with my family in an act of love. Time propelled us forward, aged us, and also froze. If you don’t leave the house, who are you to the world? Can you take the person you discover there out with you?”
“CACTI”, the follow-up to 2020’s self-titled debut, sees Billy Nomates reveal her vulnerabilities. Spanning heartache, self-sabotage and finding purpose, her unmasked lyricism is swiftly countered by a glowing treatment of synth-powered pop backed by a tight mix of motorik punk, folk and Americana. It’s at no point conflicting, but instead a tight-sounding dialogue of emotion. A natural sonic progression from her post-punk beginnings.
Recorded at her flat and Invada Studios, “CACTI” is a huge step up for the artist, who received widespread critical acclaim for her eponymous 2020 debut album, with heavy airplay across BBC Radio 6 Music and support from luminaries such as Iggy Pop, Florence Welsh and Steve Albini.
Though every bit as unrepentant as Billy Nomates’ debut, “CACTI” comes from a much more exposed place and sees Tor further develop her instinctive, inventive songwriting and production. Unafraid to wade into the traumas of the past two years and the eerie sense of apathy that lingers, alongside heartache and more political themes, the 12-track collection openly confronts uncomfortable truths, as Tor puts it, “70-80% of being bold is about being vulnerable as hell.”
Maries said: “Writing “CACTI” took just over a year. I wrote very intensely and then none at all. (This seems to be the way I work best). I picked up old drum machines, mapped out things in my kitchen with the same small micro keyboard I always use and then raided the cupboards and rooms at Invada Studios, to play and experiment with old synths, an upright piano, this weird organ thing. I hope everyone finds their own narrative in “CACTI”. I think it’s about surviving it all.”
‘CACTI’ features ‘blue bones’ and ‘balance is gone’ , both of which have been playlisted at BBC 6Music
Third Man Records is excited to announce Vault Package #55, The White Stripes – “Elephant XX“, the 20th anniversary expanded accompaniment to the band’s seminal 2003 album. In addition to a new mono remix of the entire album on red and white LPs, this package includes a red glitter 7″ with Jack White’s original solo demos of “Elephant” fan favourite “Hypnotize,” a DVD with never-before-seen footage from the era, and a 28-page booklet of previously-unshared photos, all housed in a custom slipcase.
Thework an artist creates on the precipice of their star turn, with attention solidly focused on them…well, those are the moments that become truly magical. If ever a singularly magical moment exists in the history of The White Stripes, it is likely the release and ensuing hubbub behind their 2003 album “Elephant”.
As explosive initial releases are ever-deserving of further examination and celebration, it should come as no surprise that the 55th installment of Third Man Records Vault subscription series is the twentieth anniversary collection “Elephant XX”.
The centerpiece of this set is an all new, direct-from-the-original multitrack tapes MONO remix of the entire “Elephant”album. Mixed by Jack White and Bill Skibbe at Third Man Studio in Nashville, the work was executed on the same Calrec board used to complete the original stereo mix of “Elephant”at Toe Rag Studios in London back in 2002.
As these particular tapes had not been spun in nearly twenty years, little surprises and treasures slowly began to reveal themselves at every turn. An extra four bars at the end of the canonical “Seven Nation Army”? Completely forgotten by all involved until now. A long lost lyric edited out of “Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine”? Faithfully restored here. The snippets and snapshots of studio banter before and after takes? You bet we left it in. Revelations abound, truly gems to be discovered and dissected by die-hards and fairweather alike.
The idea here isn’t to try and COMPLETELY REIMAGINE the “Elephant” album. We know how near and dear it is to all of the White Stripes fans out there. The goal is to harken back to other similar experiments (like our first-ever Vault package, “IckyThump” mono) while shedding light on the nuance and craft contained both in the performance and the mix of this album. In homage to the original US pressing of the album, “Elephant”mono is pressed on opaque white and opaque red discs.
Additionally, we’ve included Jack White’s original solo demo of “Hypnotize” in two markedly different mixes here. Recorded on 4-track reel-to-reel sometime in 1998 and “gifted” to the local Detroit garage band the Hentchmen as a song White felt was more in their style than his at the time. Come a few years later, with the Hentches having done nothing with the tune, Jack reclaimed it for he and Meg, and their frenetic take quickly became a long-standing fan favorite.
Furthermore, the original, first take version of “You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket” done seemingly as a mic check, is paired here on the flipside of “Hypnotize”, complete with additional flourish and fingerpicking more so than what ended up on the final album version.
All three of these aforementioned songs are shared together on a stunning 7-inch single pressed on glorious glitter red vinyl.
It wouldn’t be a twentieth anniversary collection without a DVD and here we’ve assembled a corker. “Elephant-Era Video Artifacts” is a simulacrum of the dubbed and traded VHS mixtape compilations that were pivotal to sharing of information and fuelling fandom long before YouTubers begged you to smash that subscribe button.
The footage includes the exact album take of Jack and Meg and Holly Golightly singing their hearts out so jolly on “It’s True That We Love One Another” and a previously buried multi-camera Japanese live performance of a wild show kicked off with an impromptu cover of the Stooges “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” From the insightful, unseen interview with Jack and Meg (she talks a lot!) through beautiful 8mm film capture of the behind-the-scenes and making of “The Hardest Button To Button” music video, the collection here utilizes variety to convey the breadth and reach that The White Stripes covered in their dogged work supporting “Elephant”.
Tying it all together is a 28-page 12″ x 12″ booklet chock-full of previously unshared photos from the “Elephant”album cover shoot, candid backstage pics and all sorts of handwritten lyrics, concert posters, proposed/abandoned tracklists, blood chits, shopping lists, scraps of paper with Támam Shud written on them….you know, the works.
Elena Tonra isn’t a keen swimmer, but oceans pervade “Stereo Mind Game”. It’s a matter of distance. Daughter’s third record, the band’s first studio album for seven years, grapples with what it means to be separated, from loved ones and too from yourself.
“Oh it will likely kill me / That I must live / Without you / Because I can’t swim,” Tonra sings, whisper-like, on “Isolation”. It’s a classic Daughter song that basks elegantly in deepest despair. Yet here there’s a sense of something beyond despair too. “I’ll compose myself / I’ll get over it,” Tonra continues. On “Stereo Mind Game”,Daughter tend to sorrow by fixing it in time. Doing so makes it more real, like the flower – dried, pressed and remembered – on the album’s cover.
Daughter – the trio comprising Tonra, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella – formed in 2010. After releasing two studio albums, “If You Leave” (2013) and “Not to Disappear” (2016), and the video game soundtrack Music From Before the Storm (2017), they chose to take some time off. But not before jamming together in Los Angeles, in between a support tour with The National and their first headline shows in South America. It was here that a new album started to germinate.
Over the next couple of years – during which they worked on their own projects, including Tonra’s solo record as Ex:Re – Daughter met occasionally to write together in studios in London, Portland and in San Diego, where Haefeli lived for six months in 2019. The record’s central romantic figure is someone Tonra met out there when she visited from London. They shared a significant connection, but she knew the Atlantic lay between them.
It’s this that she sings about on “Be On Your Way”, a longing but resilient song about an enduring connection that is also undefinable. Where previous Daughter songs mourned old relationships, here Tonra is accepting of whatever the future brings. “A friend said to me recently: just because something ends, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t real,” she says. Haefeli likens the revelation to the pressed flower image: “It’s still there. It still exists. It grew that spring.”
Daughter began recording the album’s twelve songs in earnest in 2021. Haefeli, who lives in Bristol, met with Tonra at Middle Farm Studios in Devon. Aguilella, who is based in Portland, Oregon, recorded his drum parts in Bocce Studio in Vancouver, Washington. Haefeli produced a number of the songs, while Tonra produced “Junkmail”. They co-produced the rest.
The longing to close physical distances – a feeling that only grew during the pandemic – has seeped into many of these tracks. On “Wish I Could Cross the Sea” we hear voice notes from Tonra’s young niece and nephew, who live in Italy. “(Missed Calls)” features another voice note, in which a friend describes a dream. Fed through some modular effects, it becomes glitchy, and haunting. These messages, attempts at connection from loved ones you’re unable to see, “can pull you out of the well”, Tonra says – but only if you pick up the phone.
When you let others in, beauty can arise. Deep feeling comes from the bows of the 12 Ensemble, the London-based string orchestra, who play on many of the album’s tracks. Arranged by Haefeli and Tonra, and orchestrated by Josephine Stephenson, their parts were – fittingly – recorded at The Pool, a space in Bermondsey, south London, which is a former swimming spot. A brass quartet also brings a new sonic warmth to “Neptune” and “To Rage”.
And for the first time, Tonra’s is not a lone voice. On “Dandelion”, which glistens with Haefeli’s chime-like guitars and Aguilella’s rousing drums, Tonra plays call and response with herself. Haefeli leads some vocal lines on the exhilarating “Future Lover”, and on “Neptune”, a choir appears. These vocalists are the string players of the 12 Ensemble. “It’s one of my favourite moments of the record,” Tonra says, “when suddenly, the crowd joins. It’s a very lonely song. But even when I’ve felt the most alone, arms have reached out to me.”
In order to maintain relationships with others, we must first make peace with ourselves. “Party” recounts a significant moment: the night that made Tonra realise she wanted to give up alcohol. It’s a topic she has written about before, but she needed distance to see it clearly. Haefeli borrows her image: “This time you had climbed out of the well,” he says, “and were looking back down.” It’s the song she’s most proud of, and the one that lends its lyrics to the album title (“Some stereo mind game I play with myself”), which refers to the conflicting voices we all have in our heads.
While Daughter’s previous work found power in emotional honesty, “Stereo Mind Game”, welcomes opposing feelings. “It’s about not working in absolutes,” Haefeli says. After more than a decade spent depicting the darkest emotions, Daughter have made their most optimistic record yet.
Pre-orders of each vinyl format will include an exclusive 12×12″ art print, signed by Daughter, exclusive to the 4AD webstore while stocks last. Please note, the limited edition Eco-Mix Colour LP uses random colour granulate; each copy is unique and may not look like the digital image.
‘Be On Your Way’ is the first single from forthcoming album ‘Stereo Mind Game’, out 7th April via 4AD/Glassnote.
The colliding circles of time bring us back to the brink of the Purling Hiss at last. Classic rock singing/screaming guitars fuse with Mike Polizze’s hope-n-dreamz feels and explode into fresh heartbreak, happening right now today, as sweet tunes and crushed guitar harmonics pour off the turntable and run out in the street, just like in the old days.
It’s 2023, and even the turn of this new century seems a long time ago now — but oddly, Purling Hiss’s guitar-band ethos feels ever more timeless, even as time accelerates and passes us and them (and decades of the mighty rock and roll) in the outside lane. “Drag On Girard“, the first full length Purling Hiss album in six years, cruises through diverse states of mind and places in time — dreams from the past and the future, careening lawlessly as they slide around loose on the road with crushed guitar harmonics, fused with anthemic melody and choruses.
As before, but with new twists, Mike Polizze and his gang let loose with the chaos and noise implied by their name, applying high end splatter and slow rolling low end to eight vehicles, running the gamut from gleaming pop gems to head-cleaning epic jams before they’re done. This time out, the colliding circles of time seem to have inspired both the songs and the band, and the sentiment-drenched mood explodes in a wild tangle of guitars that seem constantly about to overwhelm the room.
“Yer All In My Dreams” marries pop melodies to psyche-delicate expressions, emitting the expected formidable roar while setting a certain type of rhythmic strut for the band. A literal wall of distortion in your ears is prelude, as ever, to the heartening crunch of connection once Mike Polizze slides into his lead licks, and their warm reality lights the room. A sweet tune somehow more loosely chaotic and yet more monolithic and streamlined than preceding Hissongs.
For the better part of a decade, Los Angeles scrappy rock n’ roll mystics Death Valley Girls have used their music as a means of tapping into a communal cosmic energy. On albums like “Glow In The Dark” (2016), “Darkness Rains” (2018), and “Under the Spell of Joy” (2020) the band challenged the soul-crushing banality of modern society and celebrated “true magical infinite potential” through a collage of scorching proto-punk riffs, earworm melodies, far-out lyrics, and lysergic auxiliary instrumentation. But on their latest album “Islands in the Sky”, Death Valley Girls’ songwriting mastermind Bonnie Bloomgarden uses the band’s anthemic revelries as a guidebook to spiritual healing and a roadmap for future incarnations of the self. And while these may be the loftiest aims of Death Valley Girls to date, the resulting music is also by far their most infectious and celebratory..
“Death Valley Girls are a gift to the world.” – Iggy Pop
“Harnessing the allure of the occult and the power of self-help, the Los Angeles garage rockers break free from their roots and ascend to the realm of spiritual psych-jazz rockestra.” – Pitchfork
“(Death Valley Girls) taps out of traditional songwriting and tune into a new spiritual consciousness…” – SPIN
“An insistent Banshees like boom and groove.” – MOJO
Written & Performed by Death Valley Girls Bonnie Bloomgarden – Vocals – Organ Larry Schemel – Guitar Rikki Styxx – Drums – Vocals Sammy Westervelt – Bass – Vocals Gregg Foreman – Synth – Wurlitzer – Hammond organ Little Ghost – Backing Vocals Kelsey R – Backing Vocals Pickle – Backing Vocals Gabe Flores – Saxophone Mark Rains – Percussion
Death Valley Girls“Islands in the Sky” out February 24th, 2023 on Suicide Squeeze Records.
For the first time since their 2015 LP, Public Image Ltd graces the world with a new track. “Hawaii” doubles as the John Lydon-led band’s bid to represent Ireland in 2023’s Eurovision Contest. Along with the single, the band will be performing “Hawaii” on The Late Late Show on February 3rd, and performing the song live is also a part of the bid.
The single is dedicated to Lyndon’s wife, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, prompting the band to label “Hawaii” as one of the most personal songs Lyndon has ever shared. According to a report from Brooklyn Vegan, Lyndon says the new song is “dedicated to everyone going through tough times on the journey of life, with the person they care for the most.
Lydon reactivated PiL in 2009 – re-recruiting Lu Edmonds and Bruce Smith from the 1980’s line-up together with new recruit Scott Firth – touring extensively and releasing two critically acclaimed albums ‘This is PiL’ in 2012 followed by ‘What The World Needs Now…’ in 2015.
John Lydon, Lu Edmonds, Scott Firth and Bruce Smith continue as PiL. They are the longest stable line-up in the band’s history and continue to challenge and thrive.
It’s also a message of hope that ultimately love conquers all.” Along with the new single, there are rumours that a full album from PiL will arrive in 2023,
“Hawaii” will be released on limited edition 7″ vinyl later in the year. They will also be releasing a new album this year.
Nashville rockers Country Westerns are proud to announce their sophomore LP “Forgive The City“, due April 28th, 2023 via Fat Possum Records. Marking the band’s second full-length release for Fat Possum, this barn-burning collection is also their second to be helmed by famed producer Matt Sweeney (who even contributes his lead guitar stylings to a few tracks). The album’s sinewy, melodic first single “It’s A Livin” is out now across all DSPs along with the official music video, directed by Miranda Zipse (Miranda and the Beat).
“’It’s a Livin’ is the last song I wrote for our new album. It’s meant to be a tribute to musicians and travelers who are waiting for the road to open. And also a promotion of forgiveness in general,” says vocalist and guitarist Joseph Plunket. “It’s about the last go around and wondering what’s left out there. An encouragement to those who have to push through and keep moving and also an acknowledgement of a time to lay it down. It has pretty obvious vibes of a pandemic spent in Nashville and the actual lyrics are less pretentious than this description. I wrote it on my Danelectro 10-string which gives it a cool aggressive jangle.”
Because no eagerly-awaited album release would be complete without shows all across the nation, Country Westerns will head back out on the road for a second time with the kindred spirits in indie rock heroes Titus Andronicus.
