The Fat Angel Sings

Dry Cleaning brought one of their best songs to life with a performance of “Hoy Penny Day” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Still coasting off of the high praise for their 2022 album, “Stumpwork”, the band took over the late night stage just one day before they ship out on an extensive tour across Europe and the U.S. “Hot Penny Day” is a stand-out from an album full of terrific moments but seeing the song performed live brings a whole new meaning to the song. 

Frontwoman Florence Shaw’s signature spoken-word style is greeted with spacious psychedelia, a formula the band began to toy with on their 2021 debut album, “New Long Leg”. While 2021 saw the band quickly rise to the top of every critics “artist to watch” list, the band has been slowly perfecting their sound since 2018 when they began to release EPs like 2019’s “Sweet Princess”. Fast forward to today and there is nothing standing in front of Dry Cleaning and rock stardom, and after last night’s performance, the four piece seems primed for their upcoming tour. 

Dry Cleaning has perfected the use of space in their music, allowing each individual element of the song to breathe without stepping on another’s toes. “Hot Penny Day” is the perfect example of this, the cascading guitar acts as the star of the instrumental only for a rather groovy bassline to come in for an unprecedented assist to the track. Shaw’s monotone vocals are juxtaposed by the colorful instrumental, creating an eerie atmosphere that will have you sprinting back to hear it again. 

Dry Cleaning are heading out on a massive tour that will have the band on the road until April 1. The tour has the band jumping around North America with stops in Toronto, Atlanta, and Los Angeles before they ship over to Europe for a string of dates across the U.K and beyond. 

Musical guest Dry Cleaning performs “Hot Penny Day” for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

On February 10th, Matador Records will release ‘This Stupid World,’ the sixteenth album by Yo La Tengo.

Today the band has shared the gentle and atmospheric “Aselestine,” which features a lead vocal by Georgia Hubley. Coming 10th February: the most live-sounding Yo La Tengo album in years, “This Stupid World”. Times have changed for Yo La Tengo as much as they have for everyone else.

In the past, the band has often worked with outside producers and mixers. In their latest effort, the first full-length in five years, “This Stupid World” was created all by themselves. And their time-tested judgment is both sturdy enough to keep things to the band’s high standards, and nimble enough to make things new. At the base of nearly every track is the trio playing all at once, giving everything a right-now feel. There’s an immediacy to the music, as if the distance between the first pass and the final product has become more direct.

Taken from the upcoming album ‘This Stupid World,’ out February 10th on Matador Records.

At this point in his career, Iggy Pop seems as indestructible as ever. After decades of cultivating one of the most impressive discographies in recent memory, the punk rock godfather refuses to slow down. This is evident on the latest addition to Pop’s discography as just last Friday (January 6th), he released his latest album “Every Loser”, a quick yet fiery collection of songs that brought in some of the best musicians in modern rock for an assist. The likes of Duff McKagan, Chad Smith, and Josh Klinghoffer played on every loser while the whole thing was led by super producer Andrew Watt. The artists gave us a taste of what those sessions were like when Pop brought out his all-star band to perform “Frenzy” on the Jimmy Kimmel Live TV show. 

Despite any constraints that a late-night performance may provide, Iggy Pop held nothing back. His performance was electric and engaging as ever as the 75-year-old pranced around the stage in nothing but a vest and pants.

It’s safe to say Iggy Pop continues to prove why he has been labeled the godfather of punk, but that’s not without the help of this lineup assembled to back the man himself. Their collective screams of “Frenzy” during the chorus added even more energy to the performance while the arrangement was as tight and blistering as the one on the record. 

Vagabon, the moniker of Lætitia Tamko, releases a new song, “Carpenter,” today. The single, which was co-produced by Tamko and Rostam (Vampire Weekend, Haim, Clairo, Maggie Rogers), is her first newly created solo music since her 2019 critically acclaimed self-titled album, which made countless year-end lists upon its release, including the New York Times, Pitchfork, Billboard, and NPR. Last year, Tamako was featured on the Monako track “Hollow Moon.”

In 2021, she released a collaboration with Courtney Barnett: a cover of Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe,” inspired by Karen Dalton’s version of the song. That same year, she joined Jamila Woods on Miloe’s song “Winona” and again joined Barnett on Sharon Van Etten’s “Don’t Do It.” A new version of the Vagabon song “Home Soon,” with full orchestra, was featured in the 2020 film Antebellum, and a previously unreleased track, “The Wild” also was featured in a soundtrack, for the film Turning.

“‘Carpenter’ is about that humbling feeling when you desperately want to be knowledgeable, you want to be advanced, you want to be mature, forward thinking, and evolved,” Tamko explains. “It’s about being confronted with your limitations. It’s about that a-ha moment, when a lesson from the past finally clicks and you want to run and tell someone who bore witness to the old you, ‘I finally get it now.’”

In March, Vagabon will join Weyes Blood on her In Holy Flux spring tour

The fourth studio album from the instrumental collective Circles Around The Sun is set to be their most experimental yet. With the addition of guitarist John Lee Shannon, the band sets its sights on a new era as they look to continue to round out their spacious cosmic soundscapes. Giving classic psychedelic rock fixtures a facelift, the band is constantly building on itself to produce dense arrangements, and the lead single for “Language” is no different.

Shannon’s presence is immediately felt on “Outer Boroughs” as the rest of the band navigates his slick guitar playing. With a new guitar player at the ready and an insanely impressive single, Circles Around The Sun is set to release some of their best work yet. 

Release Date: April 28th

“Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” is the ninth studio album from acclaimed singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey, comprising 16 tracks and interludes with features including Father John Misty, Tommy Genesis, Jon Batiste, Bleachers and more. It follows the prolific artist’s 2021 albums ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’ and ‘Blue Banisters’.

The prolifically blunt songstress Lana Del Rey is returning with her 9th studio album. The winded title is one that needs to be said in full, Lana Del Rey has made a career off of her artistically ambitious approach to balladry, making sure every word she records matters, shortening her album title would be a disservice. The promotional tactics for this upcoming LP include the ambient title track that features Rey’s signature velvet vocals and a sweeping arrangement and one single billboard she placed in the town of an ex lover. With the extremely impressive single already wowing fans and Del Rey doubters alike, this upcoming LP seems to be falling right in line with the artist’s already beautifully poetic discography. 

Release Date: March 10th

The Arcs are putting out their first album in eight years at the top of 2023; it’s called “Electrophonic Chronic”. Dan Auerbach and company recorded this album with Richard Swift before his passing in 2018.

The Dan Auerbach-led band The Arcs are returning with new music since they first debuted in 2015 with their album “Yours, Dreamily. Electrophonic Chronic” boasts 12 new songs from the band that were recorded with bandmate Richard Swift before he passed away in 2018. According to a post by Brooklyn Vegan, Auerbach commented on his friends passing and the album saying “It’s a way for us to say goodbye to him, by revisiting him playing and laughing, singing”.

It was chosen as the opener because one of the first things you hear is Richard Swift on drums, and the record is an homage to their great friend.”

There are currently three singles released for this album which also happen to be the first three songs of the tracklist. “Keep On Dreamin’”, “Eyez”, and “Heaven Is A Place” all have a loose feeling with a psychedelic tint to them to match the neon colors of the artwork. 

Release Date: January 27th on Easy Eye Sound

Elvis Costello has compiled a new release called “The Songs of Bacharach & Costello” that brings together all of the published songs that he has written with Burt Bacharach.

This release celebrates the three decade songwriting partnership between the pair and first and foremost it offers a 2023 remaster (by Bob Ludwig from the original tapes) of the acclaimed 1999 album “Painted From Memory”. This wasn’t originally issued on vinyl back in the day, although a Mobile Fidelity reissue was put out in 2017.

“The Songs of Bacharach & Costello” also includes the entirety (on CD) of “Taken From Life”, including unreleased songs from the proposed “Painted From Memory” musical score and three newly recorded compositions.

Formats available include a pricey 4CD+2LP super deluxe edition which offers a 2LP vinyl set – of which three sides are the remastered “Painted From Memory” and the fourth and final side is ‘Selections from Taken From Life’ (6 tracks out of 16) – and 4CDs. The first two CDs are “Painted From Memory” and the full ‘Taken From Life’, while CD 3 and CD 4 offer rare live performances (with and without Bacharach). The super deluxe also offers a “detailed 10,000 word essay by Costello”.

A 2LP vinyl package is available on its own, as is a 2CD set which comprises CD 1 and CD 2 from the super deluxe. There’s no option to get the 4CDs by themselves.

The box collects all of their collaborations and offers abundant evidence of how well they worked together. The anthology offers four CDs with a total playing time of three hours, and includes 19 previously unreleased tunes.

“The Songs of Bacharach & Costello” is released on 3 March 2023, via Universal Music.

U2 will release “Songs of Surrender”, a collection of acoustic & re-imagined recordings from their back catalogue. This release will be available over five different physical formats. What started as an experiment quickly became a personal obsession as so many early U2 songs yielded to a new interpretation. Intimacy replaced post-punk urgency. New keys. New chords. New tempos and new lyrics arrived. It turns out that great song is kind of indestructible. Once we surrendered our reverence for the original version each song started to open up to a new authentic voice of this time, of the people we are, and particularly the singer Bono has become.

Produced and compiled by The Edge the super deluxe edition of “Songs of Surrender” is available as a 4CD or 4LP vinyl box set and features 40 tracks arranged into individual band volumes (presumably their favourite tracks) including ‘With Or Without You’, ‘Beautiful Day’, ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’, ‘One’, ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’, ‘Pride (In The Name Of Love)’, alongside fan favourites such as ‘Stories For Boys’, ‘Bad’, & ‘Desire’. Both super deluxe editions are numbered.

“Songs Of Surrender”. 40 Songs. Re-imagined and re-recorded. March 17th, 2023.

U2’s ‘Songs of Surrender’ features “acoustic & re-imagined recordings” and is available across five physical formats, including 40-track 4CD and 4LP super deluxe editions. 

Exclusive Limited Edition Numbered Super Deluxe 4 x 12’’ Collector’s Boxset. Featuring 40 new acoustic & re-imagined recordings from the U2 catalogue.

Produced & Compiled by The Edge and arranged into individual band volumes.

Though the exhaustive archival work that accompanied Genesis’ 2007 touring did not extend to the group’s latest (and likely last) outing in 2021 and 2022, this year brings a new box set for fans of the prog-turned-pop/rock icons: a collection of their live material as recorded by the BBC.

“BBC Broadcasts”, curated by founding keyboardist Tony Banks and longtime engineer Nick Davis, offers a trove of concert audio from all the major eras of Genesis from 1970 to 1998. The earliest material, taken from a 1970 appearance on BBC Radio 2 program “Night Ride“, features one of the band’s earliest line-ups: singer Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Banks, bassist Mike Rutherford, guitarist Anthony Phillips and drummer John Mayhew. Just over a year later, by the time the group cut appearances on “Sounds of the Seventies” and a session for John Peel, Philips and Mayhew were replaced by Steve Hackett and Phil Collins.

‘BBC Broadcasts’ contains favourites such as ‘Home By The Sea’, ‘Mama’, ‘Duchess’, ‘Carpet Crawlers’, ‘No Son Of Mine’ ‘Turn It On Again’ and many more.   With only a handful of these tracks previously officially available, Genesis ‘BBC Broadcasts’ acts as both a collector’s cornucopia and an alternative “greatest hits”. Stretching from the very beginnings of the band’s career via appearances on ‘Night Ride’ and John Peel,

By the time the set’s second disc picks up with a 1978 appearance at the Knebworth Festival, Gabriel and Hackett had left the band, with Collins (now a singer and drummer), Banks and Rutherford continuing with touring members Daryl Stuermer and Chester Thompson; you’ll hear that line-up through much of “BBC Broadcasts”, including a 1980 performance at London’s Lyceum Theatre and 1987’s blockbuster stand at Wembley Stadium. The group’s 1992 Knebworth appearance and two 1998 tracks with vocalist Ray Wilson and touring members Anthony Drennen (guitar/bass) and Nir Z (drums) round out the set.

A vast majority of the material has never been released before; a few Gabriel-era tracks were released on a 1998 box set, one Lyceum track made it to the group’s “Three Sides Live” in 1982 and the Wembley set was issued on video and DVD over the years.

A total of 24 of the 53 tracks on the 5CD set will be issued as a triple-vinyl set, with all songs making their debut on the format. Author Michael Hann has penned liner notes for this box, included in an accompanying 40-page book.

Both formats will be available March 3rd.