The Fat Angel Sings

Cheersquad Records & Tapes are super pleased to bring you ‘Visualiser’, the haunting first single from the debut EP ‘Hell on Bent Street’ by Melbourne musician Georgia Knight, coming out digitally on Friday, June 3rd.

“Quietly seething… Like indie-goth-jazz. I love it.” – Jodi Phillis (The Clouds)

Melbourne’s Georgia Knight has a singular and uninhibited style which sits at a cross-section of genres with influences spanning Sparklehorse, Sandy Denny and Dirty Three. Belying her youth, her music has some of the darkness that’s been synonymous with Melbourne music, since Nick Cave and co held court at St Kilda’s Crystal Ballroom in the late ’70s. Indeed, former Wreckery frontman and original Bad Seed Hugo Race is a recent collaborator. It is a darkness which feels very real. Not for Georgia any tongue-in-cheek dolefulness. Her music may share some of the ramshackle qualities of some of her inner northern contemporaries, but the discord seems more-deep rooted. Her music, guitar-based, and vibrantly electric despite its pared back nature, is elemental with a rootsiness grown from the crumbling bitumen and ageless bluestones of Melbourne’s inner city streets.

Georgia says about “Visualiser“: “There were a few Pixie’s references flying around when we recorded “Visualiser“, and I ended up redoing all the vocals through a Leslie (spinning) speaker to trip it out even more. I wrote it about going further into loneliness to take hold of it. When we first started recording it was mostly lyrics and just a couple of chords, and Nick walked in with the bass riff which became the main part of the song. He’d borrowed a p-bass from the guy Murray who owns the building, and liked it so much he ended up convincing him to sell it.”

The video for ‘Visualiser’ was shot at Carlton’s iconic La Mama Courthouse Theatre, and sees Georgia alone, dancing abstractly and cathartically to her own song. Georgia says about the concept she had for the video: “I always really liked poking around backstage in places like that, seeing all the stuff you need to make a fantasy come to life, so the video is based on that. It’s shot in three takes, as a little story about a character who is this kind of scurrying big-headed stagehand. Left to its own devices in the theatre, it totally gives in to delusions of grandeur. Like if the phantom of the opera was never discovered.”

To capture a feeling of urgency and escape, her atmospheric EP, which will come out later this year, was recorded live during a short run of recordings. Inspired by the Dirty Three to go freely where the song goes, the arrangements came together in the studio. The powerful 3-piece of Georgia Knight on guitar and vocals, Nick Finch (Cash Savage and The Last Drinks, Graveyard Train) on bass and Holly Thomas (Freya Josephine Hollick, Quivers) on drums were recorded live by Alex O Gorman at Purple Wayne Studios in Melbourne.

Georgia says of this period: “I was listening to a lot of Dirty Three, Kate Bush and PJ Harvey around then. I love PJ’s record ‘Stories of the City, Stories of the Sea’; it sounds totally conjured up from and for a place. I had started playing her perfect song We Float, in order to get inside it, and it felt so good playing it with Holly and Nick that we put it on the EP.

I tracked a few extra vocals and guitars at Soundpark in Northcote. Around that time I’d also started doing some session work, and Idge from Soundpark got me listening to Sparklehorse, Spencer P Jones and a lot of Lee Hazelwood.”

Knight entered the scene as a teenager, having attended folk festivals with her parents as a kid. She started playing in an indie act and at the iconic Corkman pub sessions whilst studying sculpture at VCA.

After fronting alt-country band The Hot Springs, Georgia Knight began performing solo; songwriting, finding her voice, and performing on other artists recordings and sharing line-ups alongside Darron Hanlon, Cash Savage, Ben Salter, Cable Ties, Hugo Race, Maple Glider, Angie McMahon and Blake Scott (Peep Tempel).

“In the same emotively revealing style as Angel Olsen, Bruce Springsteen and Big Thief, Georgia Knight’s disarming howls operate on a higher plane than anything else you’re likely to stumble across.”

In November 2014 The Jesus and Mary Chain celebrated three decades of their incendiary cult-classic debut album, ‘Psychocandy’, with a run of tour dates in which the infamous Scottish group played the album in full for the very first time in the band’s history. As part of the ‘Psychocandy’ tour, the Mary Chain descended on Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom – a legendary venue down the road from where the Reid brothers grew up in neighbouring East Kilbride – and tore through the songs that would propel them to worldwide acclaim upon ‘Psychocandy’s” release in 1985.

The Barrowland performance – an equal-parts deafening and blinding assault on the senses – was cut to vinyl by engineer Noel Summerville and originally released in 2015. Fast forward to 2022 and the ‘Live at Barrowland’ album is now being reissued by Fuzz Club Records. Released May 27th, the 2022 reissue comes with new artwork and on 180g vinyl in a gatefold jacket with a booklet glued inside that features pages of photos from the tour as well as an interview with the Reid brothers and Alan McGee. 

The influence that ‘Psychocandy’ and its pioneering sonic belligerence had on popular music cannot be overstated. Taking bittersweet pop melodies and tearing them up apart through the medium of buzzsaw guitars, ear-piercing feedback and an unapologetic hostility towards their listeners, the band’s breakthrough album experimented with noise in a way that had never been done before and would inspire for generations to come.

The ‘Live At Barrowland’ LP captures ‘Psychocandy’s complete 14 tracks in a live setting and in all their boundary-pushing and feedback-ridden glory. The CD and digital versions of the reissue – including the download card that comes with the vinyl – also feature seven bonus tracks taken from the prelude set on the night, including such fan-favourites as ‘April Skies’, ‘Head On’ and ‘Reverence’.

We all know Glasgow loves Liam Gallagher, and it turns out he loves them right back. Liam Gallagher headlined the second day of TRNSMT Festival , and had the crowd in the palm of his hand.

The rockstar’s connection with the city is no secret – Oasis rocketed to fame after being signed following their serendipitous gig at King Tut’s – and it’s stayed just as strong through the years. Liam the saturday night’s headliner has long since proclaimed his love for Scottish fans, and now it was time for the big reunion as he declared to the crowd “Scotland I’ve missed ya!”

Liam performed hits from both solo albums as well as Oasis classics like ‘Wall of Glass’, and ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’. He then launched into an encore which included ‘Roll With It’ and ‘Live Forever’ before signing off with ‘Wonderwall’.

And he doubled down on his love of Glasgow later on Twitter. Sorry, everywhere else – we’re his favourite. Later, when someone asked him to rate the crowd last night, he responded “TBF you can’t beat Glasgow I’m sorry if I upset other folk I’m not really but that crew are Gangsta”.

TRNSMT Festival, Glasgow Green, Glasgow, Scotland, September 11, 2021

The complete TRNSMT Festival plus different songs from Reading. Soundboard recordings.

It’s been 17 years and we’re reissuing “No Wow!” We had Grammy Award-winning mixer Tchad Blake take it for spin and on June 3rd, you’ll be able to get 3 different versions of it on vinyl The original, the Tchad Blake mixes & deluxe. The limited edition deluxe double LP includes both the original and Tchad Blake mixes on black-and-gold smoke vinyl, has a gold foil gatefold LP jacket, an exclusive 5×7 print and a four-page booklet. This beauty is available for pre-order in our new webstore,

You can also stream Tchad’s new mix of “No Wow” today and watch the accompanying video directed and edited by Sally Walker-Hudecki using her own Super 8 footage and the original “No Wow” video shot by Kenneth Capello.

​We’re also returning to our roots and performing “No Wow” in its entirety as a two-piece in both NY and LA! These are our only headline shows planned for this year and the first two shows are sold out, so be sure to get tickets for the 2nd shows we’ve added before they’re gone.

 The Kills – No Wow (The Tchad Blake Mix 2022) – (Domino Recordings)

Known as the guitarist with Newcastle heavy metal godheads Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, as well as acting as their producer, Sam Grant launches a solo career as Rubber Oh that explores different tangents of that sound. ‘Strange Craft’ is pitched somewhere between the over revved guitars of Pigs x7 and Seventies science-fiction soundtracks – the droning analogue synths and fuzzed-out haze of ‘Little Demon’ exemplify the approach perfectly.

Inspiration can strike anyone at any time, and more often than not from somewhat peculiar quarters. Rarely more so than when Sam Grant – thus far best known as guitarist and producer of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – finally set about work on a solo project that had been pursuing him for some years. “It’s easier to describe it materialistically than by any other way.” he reasons “I want people to imagine that feeling of rubber – its physical memory, the unnatural vibe of it. It’s so tactile but alien, but also difficult not to know. It’s an odd analogy, but that’s what this music is for me.”

Taken from the album “Strange Craft” (Launch251) on Rocket Recordings

Laundromat‘s first three EPs have been brought together into one handy compilation. The colour themed and long sold-out 7” releases from the Brighton-based songwriter have been met with acclaim from the music press and radio DJs alike. Showcasing a genre-bending style which encompasses psychedelia, 90s indie, and even a bit of the Stones Throw label’s adventurous hiphop, ‘En Bloc – 3 EP collection’ is a great introduction to the early career of a feller tipped for big things.

Influences range from Broadcast, Can, The Breeders, Madlib, and Built To Spill.  These songs have such good changes in them but are played down by an artist who doesn’t show off with flash arrangements & keeps it laid back. Makes a change. Another great E.P.

En Bloc by Laundromat – from ‘Red EP’ out 23rd April 2021 via Brace Yourself Records

The debut single from Gabriel’s Dawn who are a band from England who have a love for the Laurel Canyon music scene and Country rock. We are huge music fans first and foremost and we love to engage with like minded people. And the points where they break with a full embodiment of Tom Petty or The Byrds [by way of Dylan’s ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’] are for certain the more interesting aspects. The special kind of arpeggiation in ’24 Hours from Heaven’ – so plainly reminiscent of a twelve string guitar – combined with thick, clean chorus, does well as a dog ear to the pages of that type and period of 60s music. 

Fran explained “We’re all massive fans of 60s’ culture, music, films, art and fashion. That’s not to say we are stuck in that time period, but I’d certainly love a time machine for a day or two to experience it. Although we’re fans of the UK bands and the psych and freakbeat scenes, we all agree that US bands of that time appeal more to us more. The Byrds, Love and Buffalo Springfield being the obvious ones, but also bands like The Merry Go Round, The Beau Brummels and Penny Arkade.“

It should go without saying that elements from these bands and really from that whole era are absolutely foundational and therefore serve as an unavoidable influence, but Gabriel’s Dawn grabs all the best glimmering bits and throws them into a coalescence of country (resulting in song ‘We’), dream-pop, and with the likes of earlier 60s re-imaginings which cropped up in the middle and late 90s. ‘Loaded Gun’ is a perfect marriage of the three.  

Gabriel’s Dawn are new band from the Midlands brought together through a shared love of melodic pop, jangly guitars and classic song writing. Featuring Gudg (vocals), Fran (Bass), Leon (Guitar) and Stuart (keys). The self titled debut album from Midlands based band Gabriel’s Dawn was released on May 30th. Brought together by a shared love of melodic pop, the chime of the Rickenbacker and the power of classic song writing, the album was recorded throughout 2021 by band member Leon Jones. 

From the first bass note within the driving drum beat you can tell something is different about the new record from Nikki Lane. The backbeat feels like a gutsy strut while the lead guitar feels like a revved up engine shifting gears. “Denim & Diamonds” comes out firing, spit shining the cowboy boots and tossing on a jean jacket.

Produced by Joshua Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), “Denim & Diamonds” has the Highway Queen embracing a more rock-oriented sound while still maintaining the heartfelt outlaw country sound she has developed across her previous three releases. “Denim & Diamonds” still has the fuck-off flare of which Nikki has come to be known. Her stylized, story-telling lyrics are all there as well as her catchy country hooks. The outlaw country sound is now balanced out with a gritty guitar and a machine gun snare that echoes the sound of 70’s rock.

“Denim & Diamonds“. Arriving September 23rd on New West Records, the 10-song project was produced and mixed by Joshua Homme at his Pink Duck Studios in Burbank, CA.

We brought in a diverse range of players thoughtfully tailored by Homme to create a more rock and roll sound. The All-Star band includes Homme, as well as his Queens of the Stone Age collaborators Alain Johannes on guitar, Dean Fertita on organ & Michael Shuman on bass. Additionally, the album features drummers Matt Helders of Arctic Monkeys, Carla Azar of the acclaimed post-punk band Autolux (and frequent Jack White collaborator), and my pedal steel player Matthew Pynn (Dwight Yoakum, Miley Cyrus).

Nikki Lane has made a record that sounds new and old. Familiar and surprising. She embraces where she has come from, (“First High”, “Born Tough”) the lessons learned along the way, (“Good Enough”, “Try Harder”) all while doing things her way, (“Denim & Diamonds”, “Black Widow”).

releases September 23rd, 2022

All songs written by Nikki Lane

Yeah Yeah Yeahs have returned with their first new music in nine years. They’ve announced their fifth studio album Cool It Down, the follow-up to 2013’s Mosquito, with the single “Spitting Off the Edge of the World” that features Perfume Genius. The announcement of the new album—which is out September 30th—and single come with a striking visual emphasizing a grandiose and gritty rock ‘n’ roll return with construction workers hocking loogies, Perfume Genius turning into a limo-driving “avenging angel,” and Karen O singing on top of a limo that looks like it came straight out of Trash and Vaudeville. In spite of the looming death it depicts, the Cody Critcheloe–directed video ends with the trio playing a rowdy underground punk show.

“Spitting Off the Edge of the World” confronts us with a thick new wave wall-of-sound as Karen O’s vocals call for resilience in a seemingly hopeless world. “And the kids cry out / We’re spitting off the edge of the world / Out in the night / Never had no chance / Nowhere to hide,” goes the chorus. “I see the younger generations staring down this threat, and they’re standing on the edge of a precipice, confronting what’s coming with anger and defiance,” Karen O said about the track’s lyrics. “It’s galvanizing, and there’s hope there.” 

In regard to the video, she adds that “it’s a dream collaboration with one of our favourite artists of the 21st century Cody Critcheloe who did the artwork for our first record back in 2003 and has been making visionary music videos for the last decade. The time to collaborate again came with ‘Spitting;’ the shoot in Kansas City was dream-like, the dreams you have after eating something really greasy right before bed bizarre, poetic, and intense. Perfume Genius was incredibly gracious to roll in the very cold mud as my co-pilot and steal scene after scene with his surreal charm.”

It could only be called alchemy, the transformative magic that happens during the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ most tuned-in moments in the studio, when their unique chemistry sparks opens a portal, and out comes a song like “Maps” or “Zero” or the latest addition to their canon, “Spitting off the Edge of the World” featuring Perfume Genius” — an epic shot-to-the- heart of pure YYYs beauty and power.

A thunderstorm of a return is what the legendary trio has in store for us on “Cool It Down“, their fifth studio album and their first since 2013’s “Mosquito“. The eight-track collection, bound to be a landmark in their catalogue, is an expert distillation of their best gifts that impels you to move, and cry, and listen closely.