The Fat Angel Sings

Introducing Gabriels – an Los Angeles based group made up of singer Jacob Lusk and producers Ari Balouzian and Ryan Hope. “Love and Hate in a Different Time” is their new single and the perfect taster of their genre-defying sound. Their debut single “Loyalty” was released on the seminal R&S Records, that and their follow up “In Loving Memory” received support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Virgil Abloh and Benji B.

“Love and Hate in a Different Time” is the next piece of the puzzle and comes alongside an incredible short film devised and directed by band member Ryan Hope. The song itself envelops you in comforting joy as its soulful funk elements meld with gospel warmth backed by muffled drums and distant hand claps. Its intimacy is in its rawness and honesty as Jacobs affecting voice sews the song together.

The visual is just as unifying; a series of spliced together film footage of the dancefloor over the decades – from as early as 1894 when Thomas Edison became one of the first to film the dancefloor by shooting Buffalo Dance – the Sioux Ghost Dance – up to the present day. The video showcases the true power of dance and how it can bring people together through good times and bad as well as its complicated relationship with technology. The short film ends with footage of Jacob singing impromptu through a megaphone at a recent Black Lives Matter protest in LA – making the footage all that more moving and impactful for the complex present time we’re all living through

Absolutely outstanding, I spent all weekend watching different sets from Glastonbury on tv and this was among the best by far.

Gabriels perform “Love and Hate in a Different Time” at Glastonbury

The music of Florence The Machine is consistently singular. The band, led by Florence Welch, have been performing bewitching baroque pop since the late aughts. While their music has become higher in fidelity as their star has risen, they’ve never abandoned their sweeping gothic ambitions. Though they have their occasional moments of stirring quiet, they’re a group best suited to huge, uproarious songs. Welch is a charismatic performer, often possessed by the power of her own music, and is prone to leaping and bounding around the stage, sometimes running through a theatre’s aisles. While writing the songs that would, years later, become “Dance Fever“, the band’s fifth album, Welch read about choreomania, the Middle Ages concept of being so lost in euphoria that one dances themself to death—an idea that would naturally fascinate someone so morbidly devoted to performance. These songs would have to reflect this compulsion in their sound and structure, building them to feel at home onstage.

After enlisting pop hitmaker Jack Antonoff, the pandemic began just a week into recording sessions, forcing Welch back to both London and square one. While unable to meet in person, she worked remotely with Antonoff and Glass Animals’ Dave Bayley. The resulting songs are some of the most captivating Florence The Machine have made in years, and exist as a hellish rebuke against stillness.

“Dance Fever” is imbued with Florence + The Machine’s signature magic on multiple levels. On one, the album seamlessly slots into the group’s canon while still feeling fresh; on another, balancing the distinctive sound of pop’s favourite producer Jack Antonoff (evidenced on the Bleachers-esque “Free”) with the band’s signature baroque style. Of course, much of the power is derived from Florence Welch’s incredible vocals and the haunting, timeless lyrics, like the wallop that is: “You say rock and roll is dead, but is that just because it hasn’t been resurrected in your image?”

It’s not that this album is more personal than ever–previous albums have dealt with themes of mental illness and addiction–but those ideas feel closer to the surface than ever, easier to access but still raw on a tender tune like “Morning Elvis.” It’s an album that makes you want to dance, cry, and howl, to wield a sword or cast a spell, to lose yourself in a timeless fairytale woven by music’s most adept sorceress. 

This is the band’s fifth studio album is released on 13th May and is available across a number of formats, including deluxe CD (with five unnamed bonus tracks) and 2LP vinyl. 

On the exhilarating “Famously Alive”, Guerilla Toss complete their career-long transformation from underground art-punks to experimental pop band. Now sober after battling a years-long opiate addiction, frontwoman Kassie Carlson has come out on the other side with an infectious new lust for life that practically bursts out of “Happy Me” and the explosively anthemic title track. Full of cartoonishly colourful grooves that come dangerously close to approachability without sacrificing any of their freaky edge, “Famously Alive” is the sound of Guerilla Toss embracing all of their weird, wonderful impulses and emerging with some of their finest and most life-affirming work to date. 

“Famously Alive” by Guerilla Toss from their upcoming album ‘Famously Alive’, out March 25th on Sub Pop Records.

Dry Cleaning, one of the big surprises at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. Together only a short while (2018) and with a debut album released in April of 2021, Dry Cleaning have been getting good word-of-mouth in the press and at the string of gigs they’ve been performing since the world more-or-less returned from lockdown.

When Lewis Maynard, Tom Dowse and Nick Buxton – old friends whose previous bands had crossed paths in London united to start a new band together in 2017, they did so with the intention of doing so for fun. Rehearsing from the garage at Maynard’s mothers house, the trio spent the next few months writing the songs that would ultimately become Dry Cleaning.

Vocalist Florence Shaw had met Tom Dowse around 2010 at the Royal College of Art where they both were students, and quickly became friends.

Convincing Shaw to join the band took months. The rest of the band members invited her to one of their rehearsals. Drummer Nick Buxton told Shaw she could just talk instead of sing and gave her a playlist that included Grace Jones’ Private Life and other similar tracks. She finally accepted and went into rehearsal with “writing from my old drawings, stuff I’d written on my phone, diaries, things I’d seen in adverts and thought were funny” — and read aloud as the other three played their instruments around her. She recalls this moment “like when you see those cheesy films about bands, and they’re writing the hit, and there’s a magic moment.”

The band released their debut single, “Magic of Meghan” in 2019. Shaw wrote the song after going through a break-up and moving out of her former partner’s apartment the same day that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry announced they were engaged. This was followed by the release of two EPs that year: “Sweet Princess” in August and “Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks” in October. The band were included as part of the NME 100 of 2020, as well as DIY magazine’s Class of 2020.

The band signed to 4AD in late 2020 and shared a new single, “Scratchcard Lanyard”. In February 2021, the band shared details of their debut studio album, “New Long Leg“. They also shared the single “Strong Feelings”. The album, which was produced by John Parish, was released on 2nd April 2021.

A few weeks ago, the band announced a new single, “Don’t Press Me”, which premiered on BBC Radio 6 Music . That same day they announced their second album “Stumpwork”, scheduled to be released on October 21st, 2022. As with their debut, the album was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales, and produced by John Parish.

Dry Cleaning – Live At Glastonbury 2022

An artist with a myriad of strings to his bow, A gifted wordsmith, multi-instrumentalist, captivating storyteller what enables James Vincent McMorrow’s singularly personal songs to take flight is the fact that he’s also a supreme melodist.

“The Less I Knew” is chock full of killer chorus hooks, with album opener “Hurricane”, in which McMorrow’s gloriously harmonised vocal line is supported by the additional ear candy of Alex Borwick’s horn parts, being a case in point. Borwick also supplies some driving mandolin work on “Heads Look Like Drums”, as well as engineering and mixing the album – a very handy man to have around. The stream-of-consciousness “Steven” explores the existential comfort which nostalgia can provide, while acknowledging the impossibility of returning home.

Gently borne along by a hypnotically repeating syncopated chord on the piano which seems to bathe McMorrow’s lead vocal in a warm harmonic cloud, the arresting opening line of the title track conjures up the surrealist imagery of a Kafka short story: “A beating heart is thrown out of a car in the dark, I find it and I check it for scars and make sure it’s clean.”

Augmented by surround sound synth pads, the monolithic groove and slightly grungier stylings of “The Reason That I Died” packs a real punch, while the brilliant “Lighten Up” showcases McMorrow’s penchant for harmonic and textural surprise. The stripped back simplicity of acoustic guitar, call-and-response backing vocals and repeating sample which haunts “I Am a Masterpiece” perfectly sets up the album closer, “A Lot To Take”, which inexorably builds to a soaring chorus which McMorrow delivers in a euphoric falsetto.

Having recently performed his first sold-out headline show at Folklore, London, Oliver Malcolm is making his joyful resurgence this June with “Baby Don’t Go.” Written and produced by Oliver, “Baby Don’t Go” is a bombastic slice of Motown-adjacent soul that sees him channelling early-aught greats like Jamie T and Mark Ronson. “Baby don’t go/I’m begging don’t leave/My heart no more/Please stay by me,” sings Oliver – his distinctly scratchy voice oozing with charm and charisma atop a Stax-esque stomp.

Hey there friends- a super cool thing is happening for all you Jellyfish fans!, Jellyfish ‘When These Memories Fade’

Super limited 7” singles box set released this September!. 7 x multi-coloured 7” singles housed inside a lift-off lid box plus 64-page booklet featuring essays, in depth interviews with band members, previously unseen photographs and rare memorabilia

– Exclusive 3D poster with custom Jellyfish 3D glasses, – Limited to 1,000 copies worldwide

This will be the first ever vinyl box set of the bands’ material, focussing on a lesser studied part of their story: the singles.

With the involvement of founding member Roger Manning, Jr, this set has been curated to include the original run of official 7” singles, all remastered especially for vinyl as well as a bonus exclusive-to-this-set 7” with a fantastic live Badfinger cover and the final song the band recorded, a loving tribute to Harry Nilsson.

The centre piece to this set is a 64-page booklet featuring a newly written essay by Maura K. Johnston, fascinating track-by-track interviews and reminisces from band members and contributors: Roger Manning, Jr., Jason Falkner, Chris Manning, Tim Smith and Eric Dover, incredible previously unseen photographs, rare memorabilia and promotional items. The set is rounded off with an exclusive 3D Poster alongside custom Jellyfish 3D Glasses.

Limited to a one-time pressing of 1,000 copies.

Frankie and the Witch Fingers simulated reality prototype! The band’s “Levitation Sessions” live album finally has a proper vinyl release, alongside the full set which will be unleashed again for your viewing pleasure.
Isolated in the heart of Joshua Tree, California, The Witch Fingers recorded these sessions during 2020, the great shutdown of Planet Earth. Plug it into your brain and experience a deep-fried, multi-coloured, sensory invasion featuring nine jams off their latest LPs Mepem & Zam. A psych rock meltdown in the 4th dimension!

“We spent a full week in the desert shooting our session – it was really more of a space mission than anything else, a self-contained artistic ecosystem. I hope all the love that went into it is apparent when you see it, and that you enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.” – Frankie and the Witch Fingers

Filmed at: Super X Ranch in Pioneertown, CA

Psych rock legends The Black Angels are poised to make a triumphant return with their second album for Partisan Records and first in five years, “Wilderness of Mirrors!” Clocking in at 15 tracks, the new album shows off many excellent sides of the band, both refined over time and developed in the last few years. “Wilderness of Mirrors” will be out on 16th September.

The best music reflects a wide-screen view of the world back at us, helping distill the universal into something far more personal. Since forming in Austin in 2004, The Black Angels have become standard-bearers for modern psych-rock that does exactly that, which is one of many reasons why the group’s new album, “Wilderness of Mirrors”, feels so aptly named. In the five years since the band’s prior album, “Death Song”, and the two-plus years spent working on “Wilderness of Mirrors”, pandemics, political tumult and the ongoing devastation of the environment have provided ample fodder for The Black Angels’ signature sonic approach.

“Wilderness of Mirrors” expertly refines the Black Angels’ psychedelic rock attack alongside a host of intriguing sounds and textures. There are classic blasts of fuzzed-out guitars meant to simultaneously perk up the ears and jumpstart the mind, alongside melancholy, acoustic guitar-driven newfound experiments. Mellotron, strings, and other keyboards also play a more prominent role on “Wilderness of Mirrors” than ever before.

The lead track from “Wilderness Of Mirrors” – out on September 16th – has been directed by Vanessa Pia, who says:

“Alex came to me with a dystopian sci-fi idea of a future where Mother Nature is dead because we killed her, and the only way to experience her is through virtual reality- an already relatable feeling, as most of the world lives viscerally through social media.” “Who knows where we will be 100 years from now. This project has been a dream in the making and a massive labour of love and could have only been possible with such a dedicated and talented crew, especially my dear friend and cinematographer Andy Hoffman.”

“For me as a director, it’s an honour to deliver this project on 35mm print and to have been chosen to make something for my favourite band.”

Even amidst these new experimentations, The Black Angels remain masterfully true to psych-rock forebears such as Syd Barrett, Roky Erickson, Arthur Lee and the members of the Velvet Underground, all of whom are namechecked on album highlight “The River.” “The Velvet Underground song ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ – that’s what every Black Angels album has been about,” says vocalist/bassist Alex Maas. “You can’t work out your struggles unless you bring them to the forefront and think about them. If we can all think about them, maybe we can help save ourselves.”