The Fat Angel Sings

After announcing their fifth album “Palomino” earlier this week, First Aid Kit have shared a new single from the record titled “Out of My Head”.

“Out of My Head” is the opening song on First Aid Kit’s “Palomino” album, and will appear on the record with their earlier June outing “Angel”.

First Aid Kit say of the new single, which is teamed with a Jason Lester-directed video, “We wrote this song last year together with songwriter and producer Björn Yttling. It was the first time we wrote for First Aid Kit song with someone else and it was very inspiring. The song was written in the spur of the moment, almost like a stream of consciousness. It’s about feeling stuck inside your own thoughts and desperately wanting to escape. We produced the song with Daniel Bengtson in Stockholm. It has a bit of a different sound from our previous songs. We wanted the production to feel like an old rock song from the 80s. We were inspired by Fleetwood Mac, Kate Bush and Tom Petty.

This is one of our favourite songs we’ve ever written, we’re so proud of it and are so excited to finally get to share it.” “Palomino” will follow First Aid Kit’s 2018 album “Ruins“, and was written and recorded in Sweden with producer Daniel Bengtson.

“This is the first record we’ve recorded in Sweden since we made our debut album “The Big Black & The Blue” 12 years ago,” First Aid Kit explain. “We worked with Swedish producer Daniel Bengtson at his lovely studio Studio Rymden in Stockholm. It was such a fun experience. We really let the recording take time, we didn’t want to rush it.”

They add, “The songs were mostly written during the pandemic. In such dark times, music felt like an escape from all the horrible things going on in the world. We wanted this album to feel more upbeat and cheerful than our previous album Ruins, which was a break-up record. It’s probably our most pop sounding record yet. The title is a reference to freedom, learning how to stand on your own two feet. Growing older and feeling more comfortable in your own skin. Riding off on a “Palomino!”

“Out of My Head” is out now. First Aid Kit’s Palomino album will be released on 4th November via Columbia Records, 

Brooklyn duo The Vacant Lots are releasing their new single ‘Thank You’, Following recent cut ‘Chase’, it’s the second track to be lifted from Jared Artaud and Brian MacFadyen’s new ‘Closure’ LP, out September 30th on Fuzz Club Records.

Disco on downers dance beats lashed with gutter-rock guitar riffs underpin the new album’s opening track, with evocatively concise and lacerating lyrics delivered detached and deadpan. “When it’s over it’s a lot easier to look back and see things for what it is. To look back and see the duality of love and hate in a relationship. Sometimes it’s a lot more devastating losing the time you had than the person you thought you loved. Nothing is worse than wasting your time.” (Jared Artaud).

‘Closure’ is available to pre-order now, with exclusive vinyl editions from the Fuzz Club store, Rough Trade and LEVITATION! Catch The Vacant Lots on tour in the US/CA with The Black Angels in Sep/Oct and in the UK/EU over Nov/December

‘Thank You’ is the new single from Brooklyn synth-pop/post-punk duo THE VACANT LOTS and is lifted from the band’s new ‘Closure’ LP, out September 30th on Fuzz Club Records.

Californian ‘Kosmische Tropicale’ duo Wet Satin are releasing their self-titled debut album today  A new project from former Lumerians members Jason Miller and Marc Melzer, the Wet Satin LP is now available to stream. Wet Satin describe the record as “an expression of reverence and enthusiasm growing from a long-time shared obsession with lost Cosmic Disco, Cumbia, Afrofunk and Library Music records.” Miller adds: “Music has the ability to alter your environment and take you somewhere else.

We genuinely had a lot of fun writing and recording this. The process fell somewhere in between over-indulgence and necessary catharsis, but it achieved a kind of balance in the end. It’s a travel brochure for a very specifically peculiar psychological terrain. We think you’ll have fun there. Try the hot springs.”

“WitchKraft Singles” is the first track we released back in April, but we didn’t have a Facebook page then. Forgot anybody lived here. Sorry about that. Here’s a pretty video. You can listen to the whole song on that app or site you like to listen to songs on and if it tickles your fancy

The single “Golden Prawn” is a surreal science fiction odyssey, powered by oxygen deprivation, that takes place at the bottom of a swimming pool.

A fortnight plus an Icelandic work week ago, we released the second track off our upcoming S/T full length out August 12th on pepto-bismol pink vinyl and sherbet splatter vinyl (Fuzz Club and Levitation respectively). Coloured Tongues. Everybody has one, except Rona De Ricci in the 1991 version of The Pit and the Pendulum with Jeffery Combs that I probably shouldn’t have watched on TV as a kid.

The album arrives on 180g baby pink vinyl and is included in the August Fuzz Club Membership package. LEVITATION also have an exclusive splatter version available in the US!

Lumerians Members Jason Miller and Marc Melzer, Wet Satin was the name of a reality-altering psychotropic sunscreen from a Philip K Dick novel read in a dream.

Debut album out August 12th

Rat Tally (Addy Harris) Writing sad music for sad people. Or happy people. Or whoever.

Hailing from Chicago (by way of LA and Boston), Rat Tally emerged in 2019 with an impressively fully formed sound on her self-released debut EP, ‘When You Wake Up’. The release quickly caught the attention of 6131 Records (Julien Baker, Joyce Manor, Katie Malco), who were eager to work with the young, yet clearly very talented musician. Sitting in corner of indie rock ruled by the likes of Soccer Mommy and Phoebe Bridgers. Despite its relatively modest scope, there’s a bit of a post-rock undercurrent to the song, a sense of crushing heaviness and grandeur threatening to break free. That makes it a good fit for Rat Tally’s new record on label 6131 Records,

released August 12th, 2022

Australian post-grunge band Silverchair released their full-length debut album “Frogstomp” in 1995 when the band members were only 15 years of age. Nine days is all it took for the three teenages Ben Gillies, Daniel Johns and Chris Joannou, to record the 11 tracks. The legendary debut album included “Pure Massacre”, the vinyl-only track “Blind” and their most popular single to date, “Tomorrow”.

Silverchair released their debut EP “Tomorrow” in 1994, after winning a radio contest on Triple J. The extended play already became the band’s big breakthrough. Its title single reached #1 on the Australian Single Chart and remained there for six consecutive weeks. After re-recording the songs, the band also started to book major successes internationally.

The song was later released on “Frogstomp“, the band’s debut studio album, in 1995. Written by lead singer and guitarist Daniel Johns and drummer Ben Gillies, it was produced and engineered by Phil McKellar at the national radio station Triple J’s studios for SBS-TV’s show, Nomad, which aired on 16th June 1994. After the broadcast the band were signed to the Murmur label – a Sony Music subsidiary – which subsequently issued the “Tomorrow” EP.

The Australian rock band Silverchair released their debut EP “Tomorrow” in 1994, after winning a radio contest on Triple J. The extended play already became the band’s big breakthrough. The EP was certified 4-times Platinum, received an award for Single Of The Year and Highest Selling Single at the ARIA Music Awards in 1995, where Silverchair also went home with the award for Breakthrough Artist.

After booking major successes with their first single from the Frogstomp album, “Tomorrow”, Silverchair released the second single “Pure Massacre” not long after. It was a successful follow-up to the first single, charting well in Australia, New Zealand and the US. According to interviews with lead singer and guitarist Daniel Johns, the song and its lyrics are inspired by the Bosnian War.

“Israel’s Son” is the 1995 third single released from their debut full-length album Frogstomp, which was released earlier the same year. The track was inspired by a TV documentary about wartime atrocities and seeks to criticise violence and war by portraying them in all their horror. The EP “Israel’s Son” also includes three live tracks, “Blind”, “Leave Me Out” and “Undecided”, which were recorded at the Big Day Out festival in Melbourne.

Daniel Johns said about the song in an interview with Request Magazine in November 1995:That [song] was about an execution I saw on tele. I got this video of an execution, and I just saw it, and I was watching it one night, and I had a dream about it, and I woke up and thought, ‘Oh yeah, that’s pretty cool’, and I wrote a song about it

The EP Israel’s Son is available on vinyl for the first time and is part of the Silverchair Collection, presented by Music On Vinyl. Israel’s Son is available as a limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on smoke coloured vinyl and includes an insert with other titles from the Silverchair Collection.

The title track of the EP “Shade” by Silverchair was also the fourth single from their full-length debut album “Frogstomp”. It was the only single by Silverchair that was not included in their 2000 compilation album “The Best Of Volume 1“. The EP also features a live version of “Israel’s Son”, which was recorded at the Big Day Out festival in Melbourne.

Soundscape Magazine writer Colm Browne wrote that the song has a “terrific sound that is extremely pleasing to listen to. The lyrics are very simple and short but they seem much more heartfelt and that they may relate to the band personally”

The EP “Shade” is part of the Silverchair Collection, presented by Music On Vinyl. Shade is available as a limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on black & white marbled vinyl and includes an insert with other titles from the Silverchair Collection.

It’s been two decades since bluesman Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart stopped making records — but that hasn’t left dedicated fans empty-handed. Although every effort is made to convince consumers that Dust Sucker is the authorized release of Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band’s “lost” version of Bat Chain Puller, it is not. Likewise, the remaining seven tracks can be traced from various spurious releases. The full story of Captain Beefheart’s ill-fated “Bat Chain Puller” – potentially his greatest musical statement after “Trout Mask Replica“.

Several excellent archival releases have filled the gap, including the recent live set “I’m Going to Do What I Wanna Do” and “Grow Fins“, a huge five-CD box of unreleased fare.

Here’s another essential recording for the faithful from 2002 “Dust Sucker”, a set of long-lost studio tracks from 1975 and ’76. Originally recorded for release as “Bat Chain Puller“, these tapes ended up buried in a barrage of lawsuits, though similar-sounding new versions turned up on 1978’s aptly titled “Shiny Beast” (“Bat Chain Puller”) and later Beefheart albums.  This is The very Magic Band, running with inspiration as its fuel. By the time the legit “Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)” was issued some three years later and after several multi-million dollar lawsuits were settled, the songs had become notably tempered. “Dust Sucker” also includes the spoken word piece “Seam Crooked Sam,” which may have similar origins as “Sam with a Showing Scalp Flat-Top” — which surfaced around the same time and can be heard on the Frank Zappa collaboration “Bongo Fury“.

Finally hearing the original articles on this supposedly authorized (but bootleg-quality) release — augmented by a septet of live cuts from the same era is the equivalent of reading the first draft of a novel by one of your favourite writers: Technically, it may be a little rough around the edges at times, but the historical value and sheer creative energy on display more than make up for it. 

“Dust Sucker” probabaly isn’t the place to start your Captain Beefheart collection, but it is an indispensable addition to the catalogue of one of rock’s true innovators.

Hailing from Melbourne, 60’s tinged psych-rock punks The Murlocs release their brand new studio album, “Rapscallion”, on ATO Records. Strapped with fuzzy guitar licks, feverish bass and psychedelic brightness, the 12-track collection is a coming-of-age novel in an album form. The wildly squalid odyssey populated by an outrageous cast of misfit characters — teenage vagabonds and small-time criminals, junkyard dwellers and truck-stop transients — is partly inspired by frontman Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s own adolescence as a nomadic skate kid. Their most magnificently heavy work yet, the result is an endlessly enthralling album equally steeped in danger and delirium and the wide-eyed romanticism of youth.

“After a long day of truck stop fights, hitchhiking and getting kicked off trains, our beloved rapscallion protagonist decides to spend the night in an abandoned junkyard,” says Murlocs frontman Ambrose Kenny-Smith. “Finding peace within the garbage that surrounds him, he begins to question his purpose in life and whether or not he’s in control of his own mind.” The Murlocs’ Rapscallion LP is out September 16th via ATO Records.

The Murlocs Released16/09/22 through ATO Records

Grazer began life in a bare-brick basement in Melbourne, crafting propulsive dream-pop singles while recording vocals in an open wardrobe draped in blankets. But the band’s origins extend much further back, starting with bassist Mollie Wilson moving next door to bassist Matthew Spiller at age eight. Tethered by shared tastes in books and music while growing up in the rural New South Wales village of Uki, the pair became best friends and eventually romantic and creative partners.

You can hear that close bond in Grazer’s music, which entwines Wilson and Spiller’s vocals and artistic sensibilities alike. Their self-recorded songs also often arrive accompanied by videos that the pair make themselves. As painters who have also dabbled in photography and poetry, the two work incredibly well together, whether it’s making music, writing lyrics or filming and editing those videos.

“It’s all part of the same end,” Spiller tells us of that collaborative relationship across mediums. After enlisting friends to help make the Andy Warhol-inspired video for Grazer’s 2020 debut single ‘Fever Dream’, in which Wilson gets her hair cut in real time, the couple have since taught themselves how to do it all on their own. The same is basically true of their music, though NSW-based producer Rob Wolfe has mixed all of their self-produced material so far. “We’re quite fast people, and we do things quickly,” says Wilson. “I think when we delegate, we get impatient.” Spiller agrees: “What stops a lot of creatives is that they don’t know when to pull the trigger and get it out there.” Wilson adds: “There’s always much more to do. I don’t even know that we do that much.”

Grazer’s activity has certainly felt like a lot, especially when many bands were languishing during lockdown. Though their live performances were curtailed by COVID’s initial wave, Wilson and Spiller simply retreated to that makeshift basement studio and began releasing single after single of gorgeous, gauzy pop. It didn’t really matter that they couldn’t play to in-the-room audiences, because their songs found listeners around the world thanks to streaming: Their chiming 2021 single ‘Nostalgia Seed’ boasts more than 300,000 streams on Spotify alone.

Now with a firm five-person line-up and a strong debut album in ‘Melancholics Anonymous’ – not to mention a spot on the NME 100 2022 – Grazer are finally ready to take their intimately conceived sound on the road. “[Grazer has] always been a band, from the very beginning,” notes Wilson of their full line-up, rounded out by Thomas Lee (guitarist), Thomas McMullin (drummer) and Sam Knight (synth). “But in terms of how it’s been recorded and written, [the two of us have] had creative control. 

Signed to Los Angeles/New York label Cascine (also home to Banoffee and Yumi Zouma), the band cite the influence of soft-focus US bands like DIIV, Beach Fossils and Launder while continually circling back to the touchstone of Joy Division’s 1979 classic ‘Unknown Pleasures’. The pair points to that album’s unlikely combination of dark lyrics and resilient bass lines, which Wilson describes as creating “a depth to the music, but then a guiding light out of it”.

The band: Matthew Spiller, Mollie Wilson, Thomas McMullin, Thomas Lee

Grazer’s ‘Melancholics Anonymous’ is out August 12th on Cascine Records.