The Fat Angel Sings

Jason Quever has lived a high-stakes life. Raised in a commune until he was 10, he lost both of his parents while still in his teens. Now the singer/songwriter is channelling his experiences into musical cocoons that he makes in his home studio. “I don’t want to hit people over the head. That’s just not who I am. I don’t necessarily like to be the centre of attention,” he’s clarified. Although not the centre of attention, Quever’s presence has pockmarked the DIY indie verse, from his producing credits (Beach House, Luna, Owen Ashworth) to his long-running project Papercuts, which recently released “Past Life Regression“. Its reams of misty guitars, quivering synthesizers, and Spector-esque production confirm that Papercuts doesn’t let go of the past, but finds a way to harness it to heady, euphonious results.

Jason Quever has been releasing timeless guitar- based dream pop as Papercuts since 2004, impervious to trends or micro genres that have come and gone around him. In that regard, his contemporaries are artists like Hiss Golden Messenger, Fruit Bats, Andy Shauf or Kings of Convenience – artists who are more concerned with song craft and perfecting their sound, and less concerned with gimmicks or fitting into a specific scene.

“Past Life Regression” is his new album and it’s a journey into the dreamier reaches of psychedelic folk-pop that digs deep into influences as wide- ranging as The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Spiritualized, Echo and The Bunnymen, Leonard Cohen and late 60s pop of various flavours.

Jason Quever is / was also the producer for Beach House, Dean Wareham and Cass McCombs, among others

Roscoe is a road dog. The 14-year-old Boston Terrier has been there for the whole ride of Mapache, Clay Finch and Sam Blasucci’s band, which has grown from being the casual project of two long time buds to one of the most formidable cosmic-folk acts around. “Roscoe’s been through a lot of shit,” says Blasucci, the dog’s formal owner. “He’s been all around the country, come on tour a little bit.” With some bemused pride, Finch points out that, for a few years, he and Blasucci bunked together in a room in the Echo Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles that was just big enough to fit two twin beds. “It was the two of us and the dog,” he laughs.

Naturally, Roscoe has found himself the subject of a good handful of Mapache songs in the past—and on “Roscoe’s Dream”, the band’s third LP of originals, he takes centre stage. (That’s him in quilt form on the album cover.) “I Love My Dog” opens up the album with a blissed-out stack of acoustic guitars and a lyrical explanation of one of Roscoe’s many talents: “I love my dog / Keepin’ the policeman out.”

Just as much an easygoing trip with Gram Parsons into the desert as a mad dash with the Grateful Dead away from the law, “Roscoe’s Dream” is the purest distillation yet of the distinct Mapache sound, which has been brewing for many years now. Finch and Blasucci first met as students at La Cañada High School, just north of Los Angeles: “There wasn’t much supervision or anything,” remembers Blasucci. “It was really nice. And we got to just play guitars together.”

The two stayed friends through their college years—Finch went to Chico State and Blasucci spent two years as a missionary in Mexico—and eventually they ended up back in L.A., spending their days playing guitar together once again, just like old times. Working with producer/engineer Dan Horne (Cass McCombs, Allah-Lahs), they recorded two albums of originals (2017’s Mapache and 2020’s “From Liberty Street”) as well an album of covers, 2021’s “3“. Often trading solos, and occasionally switching from English to Spanish, Finch and Blasucci are now a well-oiled machine.

So when it came time to record “Roscoe’s Dream”, they didn’t mess with the formula. The band booked some time at Horne’s Lone Palm Studio and called in a handful of friends to play additional parts, including Farmer Dave Scher of Beachwood Sparks on melodica and lap steel on a couple tracks.

The family affair has always been how the band likes to work, but this time they approached it on a grander scale than before, recording live as a full group in some cases, as opposed to working over Finch and Blasucci’s initial guitar/vocal parts. “It was a bit more of a band experience,” explains Finch.

The finished product is an ode to the past as well as a bridge forward. Covers of songs like Bo Diddley’s “Diana” and Gabby Pahinui’s “Kaua‘i Beauty” act as nods to heroes of theirs while originals like “Man and Woman” and “Pearl to the Swine” take the template of golden-age rock and lovingly deconstruct it in a modernist lens.

“(They Don’t Know) At the Beach” was inspired by the idea of what trailblazing oldies DJ Art Laboe might like—but the gentle ripper of a song would fit right in at a backyard party in 2022.

Hard to imagine after years of being roommates, Finch and Blasucci are also bridging forward in new ways themselves. After the album was in the can, Finch decided to get a little closer to the water by moving to Malibu, and Blasucci moved about an hour north to Ojai with his girlfriend (and Roscoe, of course). But they’re not worried about the new distance slowing them down: “I think if anything it will be bringing more things to the table,” Blasucci considers. “We’re just expanding out in different directions.”

“A groove so strong you can basically hear the sunshine.” — NPR Music
“If the Everly Brothers cruised back from a high desert road trip and landed at County Line beach and cracked a beer to watch the sunset – you’d have these guys…Mapache’s chemistry is undeniable and their creative circle seems to be flourishing.” — KCRW

“Quintessentially laid-back. This is Sunday morning music, best experienced within walking distance of Big Sur or Joshua Tree.” — UNCUT
“Cosmic California Country.” — THE CURRENT 

Released June 10th, 2022

Large Plants is the post-apocalyptic downer-fuzz-rock side project of Jack Sharp, former singer guitarist from psych-folk luminaries Wolf People. Suddenly without a band and faced with the enforced lockdown of Summer 2020, Jack set up in a friends’ old barn in Bedfordshire and created a tonne of scuzzy, loner, biker-rock. Ten psych rock belters are filtered through a haze of tape flutter and lent a distinct folk sensibility by Jack Sharp’s delicate and distant voice; like the smell of winter mornings and fresh soil blended with the whiff of petrol.

In summer of 2021 the tracks were mixed by songwriter Chris Cohen (formerly of Deerhoof and Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti).

Large Plants’ songs are immediate, heavy psychedelic rock belters filtered through a haze of analogue tape flutter. Sharp’s voice has an eerily distant and delicate tone that lends a strong folk sensibility to the album; like the scent of winter mornings and fresh soil mixed with the whiff of petrol. Though the songs are generally three-minute gems, they are lyrically more like ancient ballads; peopled with tragic youths, witches, lovelorn troubadours and femmes fatales.

A fine slice of haunted (and hauntological) folk rock. UNCUT

“The Carrier” by Large Plants is out on 22nd April. It follows on from their hugely successful debut single, “La Isla Bonita” in December of last year. (Shindig magazine’s Single of the Year.)

“The fifth studio album & apparently the last euphoric mind-trip to Kikagaku Moyo’s imagined island.
Best-suited for counting stars, looking at the ocean, and dancing in one’s daydream.”

In many ways ‘Kumoyo Island’ represents the culmination of a journey for Kikagaku Moyo. While their decade-long career can be summarized as a series of kaleidoscopic explorations through lands and dimensions far and near, there’s a strong intention in each of their works to take the listener to a particular place, however real or abstract they may be. In that sense, the title and cover art for the band’s fifth and final album draws you into a magical mass of land surrounded by water—but the couch suggests that ‘Kumoyo Island’ may not be a fleeting stop, but rather a place of respite, where one could pause and take it all in.

Reconvening at Tsubame Studios in Asakusabashi, Tokyo, where their earliest material had been recorded, the five members of Kikagaku Moyo found new inspiration in a familiar and comfortable environment. With their adopted homebase of Amsterdam under lockdown and their touring activities halted due to the pandemic, the band felt a renewed sense of freedom being back in shitamachi, or the old downtown area of their hometown. With unrestricted time in the studio, they began to build upon the demos and song fragments they’d amassed since their last tour. In the 1.5 months spent in Tokyo, everything started to come together.
“Monaka”, its name taken from a type of Japanese wafer sweets, takes melodic inspiration from traditional minyofolk styles, while “Yayoi Iyayoi” is a rare instance of the band singing in their native tongue, its evocative lyrics utilizing archaic words taken from old poetry and nature books found in one of the many second-hand bookstores of Tokyo. For “Meu Mar”, an Erasmos Carlos cover, the original Portuguese lyrics were translated into English, then to Japanese. Strangely enough, the words seem to conjure an image of the protagonist floating among the clouds, looking down upon Tokyo Bay.

In fact, it may be possible to draw a parallel between the topography of the band’s home country—an island nation, surrounded by bodies of water—and the mysterious isle of Kumoyo. Are they one and the same? Has the band finally made it back home? It’s up to the listener to decide. 

Released May 6th, 2022

Ivy Wye is an Ontario-based folk singer and multi-instrumentalist who is largely influenced by 1970s singer/songwriters (Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, Margo Guryan) and modern minimalistic folk artists (Jessica Pratt, Shannon Lay). Ivy Wye Canadian singer-songwriter and musician with a captivating folk sound contained within her music, as displayed in latest album, “Hope’s Convenience” sounds stunning from the off, with some sumptuous guitar melodies providing the backbone to the track. Ivy’s vocals are ethereal in nature, giving the music a mystical ambience that suits the folk genre well. The strings are hauntingly beautiful, as is the rest of the song – make sure you check it out here:

Released April 27th, 2022

Recorded at home. All songs written & performed by Ivy Wye

Bass guitar performed by Ryan Gavel
Backup vocals performed by David O’Connor (track 5)
Acoustic guitar performed by Jim Hardy (track 6)

Every once in a while an Artist comes along that knocks your socks off and makes you feel perfectly at peace in your Vegan boots. One such Artist is Melbourne based singer songwriter Grace Cummings. Do not pass up the opportunity to see her perform live and regale you with her stories. While Grace Cummings’ debut record “Refuge Cove” from 2019 was already an astonishing proof of her vocal expressiveness, her arbitrary coronation act for “Storm Queen” now follows on . Cummings is at her core a folksinger and her dynamics are built around the gentle strumming of an acoustic guitar. After a rather quick ascent through Melbourne’s indie underground in 2018, the Australian made her debut a year later with the austere “Refuge Cove” on King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s Flightless Records.

Lou Reed said of his live band that he insisted all the musicians bring their best or get off the stage. Grace Cummings pushes the musicians and herself to their limits at times throughout this album and I absolutely love it. The gentler tunes stand out as a warm embrace between the more jagged edged pieces. 

Upon hearing Grace Cummings‘ 2019 debut “Refuge Cove”, it was immediately understood that she had arrived. That there was no-one like her before, and there might not be again. Immediately, her second album “Storm Queen” calls you to be submerged in its waters. It’s seraphic, beguiling, and howling.

Her unmistakeable voice is like the souls of a thousand half-smoked cigarettes, and it pairs beautifully with the chilling echo of her acoustic guitar.

She has the persona of the traditional folk songwriter and storyteller, yet the surrounding production – sparse violin, howling and frenetic horns, haunting electric guitar – devour the listener.

Much like the religious experience of a Dirty Three, Nina Simone, Townes Van Zandt, Johnny Cash or Janis Joplin musical sermon, Grace Cummings rides in on the storm like a queen ready to reign.

Released January 14th, 2022

Alison Cotton presents “The Portrait You Painted of Me”, a new 6-track album – her first for Rocket Recordings (released on Feeding Tube in the USA). Like Alison’s previous solo albums, the touchstones of her immersive sound are viola, harmonium and voice, merged together to create a rich suite of songs.

‘Mumurations Over the Moor’ is a wordless piece of layered vocals, drifting like fog towards a sunset over the green undulations of North East England (from where she hails). ‘The Last Wooden Ship’ evokes the shipyards of Sunderland using droning harmonium and viola lines, laced with piano and percussion events, while her voice calls out like one of Tim Buckley’s Sirens urging listeners to a rocky demise. ‘I Buried the Candlesticks’ has a haunted, traditional feel with its dolorously folky viola melody laid across a thick carpet harmonium, and small bursts of percussion that sound like cannonade heard through the thick cold walls of a castle in winter. ‘That Tunnel Underground Seemed Neverending’ is a musical vision of Northumberland’s mining culture at the dawn of the 20th Century – labyrinthine, subterranean, dimmer than night.

‘Violet May’, the only traditional “song” on the album, was inspired by a trip to Vita Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst Castle. Its plot deals with a reclusive artist who has forsaken all else for a life of solitary creation in her tower. The structure and sound reminiscent of a post-modern approach to lyrical concerns dealt with by folk singers of the British ‘60s, but the actual arrangement is closer to something John Cale might have done with Nico on The Marble Index. The closing track, ‘17th November 1962’, inspired by nearly-forgotten memories of disaster with a fishing boat, a storm and an ill-fated rescue attempt. The song (and album) ends with what sounds like a forlorn foghorn cutting across waves of night with Alison’s voice again evoking the Sirens.

As with its predecessors, “The Portrait You Painted of Me” was recorded at home in London, beautifully produced by Alison’s partner, Mark Nicholas, and it contains all the elements that result in the sombre, exquisite melancholy she creates. This is some serious and remarkable stuff. 

Released June 17th, 2022

At this point in her career, we would probably settle for a “pretty good” album from Joan Shelley. But no, “The Spur” continues an unbroken streak of masterpieces for the Louisville-based artist. It’s a record that features some of Shelley’s very best song writing, bolstered by sensitive and occasionally surprising arrangements, ravishingly lush at some points, spare and spectral at others. “The Spur” is a wonder, from start to finish. 

Folk-musician based out of Louisville, Kentucky, Joan Shelley released her acclaimed seventh album back in 2019, Like “The River Loves The Sea“. In the Spring of 2021, whilst Joan was seven months pregnant, she went to Earthwave Farm in the Kentucky countryside, and, alongside producer James Elkington, recorded the songs that would become her eighth album. Featuring collaborations with the likes of Bill Callahan and Meg Baird, the album will be out this summer via No Quarter, as a preview of its release Shelley has this week shared the sparkling title track, “The Spur“.

Recalling the gestation of “The Spur”, Joan recalls the track came from a “period of opposite extremes”, inspired by the duality of, “intellectual hyper-connection and physical isolation”, which came with the joy of parenthood and marriage during the darkness of the pandemic. The track opens in a traditionally psych-folk fashion, as Joan’s richly hued vocal joins the complex push-and-pull of the finger-picked guitars. From there though “The Spur” is a track of delightful surprises, from the increasing presence of the buzzing organ to the distorted fuzz that slices through the outro. In the album notes for “The Spur”, Joan references a line by the novelist Wendell Berry, “make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came”, that’s exactly what Joan’s music seems to do, it enhances the calm, adds to the tranquillity, takes nothing from the thought just enhances its clarity.

Joan Shelley might in her own words be, “a bird on a branch echoing others”, yet it’s she has a special talent that echoes them so well that for a moment you feel like you’re hearing these sounds for the very first time,

“The Spur” is out June 24th via No Quarter. 

For OSEES‘ upcoming album “A Foul Form“, out August 12th via Castle Face, bandleader Jack Dwyer promised an experiment in lo-fi punk. Well, what he said exactly was “Brain stem cracking scum-punk.” And no foray into underground punk would be complete without a condemnation of the police, and thus OSEES have delivered “Perm Act”.

“Perm Act” arrives in a more digestible form than the lead “A Foul Form” single “Funeral Solution“, which drowned out any frontal cortex activity with an overdrive-infested total assault. For the new single, the band takes on a dark surf-rock tone as Dwyer delivers a verbal takedown of those who work forces—all of it imbued with a healthy amount of fuzz. The video goes even further as power-hungry local cops go mad and ultimately rip each other apart.

Watch the new John Harlow-directed music video for the latest OSEES single, “Perm Act”. A Foul Form is available for pre-order. The group is preparing for a fall tour of North America “Perm Act” appears on the forthcoming album “A Foul Form”, out on Castle Face Records August 12th

Neil Young has detailed his new double live album and concert film, “Noise & Flowers“, chronicling his 2019 European tour with Promise of the Real. Out on August 5th, Friday’s announcement comes alongside a live video of “From Hank to Hendrix”.

Just as Young and Promise of the Real were preparing to jet out to Europe in summer 2019, Neil received news his lon gtime friend and manager Elliot Roberts had passed away. Two weeks after Roberts’ death, Young and Lukas Nelson‘s backing band began the nine-show trek through Europe that began at Denmark’s Tinder Box festival and wrapped with a pair of shows in the U.K. and Ireland split with Bob Dylan. Throughout the tour, however, the ensemble held on to Roberts both emotionally and physically, adorning a road case with a poster of him just where the former manager stood during Neil’s shows for over 50 years.

“Everyone who was with us felt that this tour was amazing for its great vibe,” Young wrote on the Neil Young Archives.  The Real and I delivered for Elliot.”

The “Noise & Flowers” track list features a number of classics including “Helpless”, “Comes A Time”, “Winterlong”, “Alabama”, and “Rockin’ In The Free World”, which Neil altered to chastise then-President Donald Trump for using the song at his rallies: “Got the Orange Lucifer usin’ this song again”. The 13-track collection also features Young’s fourth-ever performance of “On The Beach” in 47 years which came on July 9th in Antwerp, Belgium.

Neil Young has not performed live since September 21st, 2019 when his run with POTR ended at Farm Aid and in that time he has released four archival albums, and two LPs with Crazy Horse with the band’s 2001 album “Toast” finally slated for release on July 8th. Though the Farm Aid founder sat out last year’s event citing COVID concerns, Rolling Stone reports that he recently shared the charity concert’s September 24th date announcement on his Instagram, hinting at his attendance.