The Fat Angel Sings

The National are back with a new single “Weird Goodbyes,” featuring vocals by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and strings by the London Contemporary Orchestra (arranged by the band’s Bryce Dessner). It’s just the second new song they’ve shared since the release of their 2019 album “I Am Easy to Find”, following “Somebody Desperate,” their contribution to the Cyrano (2021) soundtrack.

“It’s about letting go of the past and moving on, then later being overwhelmed by second thoughts,” vocalist Matt Berninger explains of “Weird Goodbyes” in a statement.

“‘Weird Goodbyes’ was one of the first new songs we made,” Aaron Dessner recalls. “I was misusing drum machines, as usual, and stumbled onto this beat that got stuck in my head—it felt like something only [drummer] Bryan [Devendorf] could naturally play. We built the song around the beat. Matt’s melody and words felt so elegant and moving from the beginning—mourning a loss of innocence and motivation, holding onto memories and feelings that inevitably slip away and the grief we all suffer in weird goodbyes.”

Aaron Dessner adds, “I somehow could hear our friend Justin’s voice and heart in this song from the beginning. We sent it to him and it moved him—he then sang with Matt so powerfully.”

The National have been playing new material live this summer, including “Weird Goodbyes.” In an Instagram post announcing the track’s then-impending release last week, the band revealed they had “reconvened at Long Pond [last spring] to begin writing and recording new music that we’ve been working on ever since.” They noted that “Weird Goodbyes” “felt like the right track to share first,” adding, “We’re so grateful to our friend Justin Vernon for joining us on this song.”

The band will continue touring through the summer and into the fall, with appearances at All Points East in London (Aug. 26) and the inaugural Sound on Sound festival in Bridgeport, Connecticut (Sept. 25). “Additional worldwide touring is planned for 2023,” per a press release.

Indigo De Souza made waves with her sophomore release “Any Shape You Take” for her intensely emotional, dexterous vocals and brooding instrumentation. On this episode of “Live on KEXP“, she opens up to Larry Mizell Jr. about how moving to Asheville when she was a teen had a major influence on her musical growth and understanding of what was possible and also explains the making of some of the powerfully cathartic moments on “Any Shape You Take” before jumping into four songs off the record. 

Indigo De Souza performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded March 28th, 2022.

Songs: Kill Me, Late Night Crawler, Bad Dream, Real Pain,

Indigo De Souza – Vocals / Guitar Dexter Webb – Guitar Zack Kardon – Bass Avery Sullivan – Drums

This is a welcome return, the very excellent Drahla are back with their first new music since 2019. “Under The Glass” sees the Leeds trio embracing the edgy, agitated, dissonant sound that won them many plaudits and fans, which underpinned the dark swirling minimalism on their superb debut album “Useless Coordinates.”

The band had the following to say about the new single:

“Under the Glass’ represents a moment of creative reconnection, almost a sense of euphoria in the darkest moments – an awaited, yet slight, respite from reality. The song is a collage, reworking early ideas from 2020 with newer work – bridging the gap of time, in the literal sense as well as musically. The lyrics are deliberately vague, using metaphor to interpret personal experience and emotion of loss and grief.”

In what will mark nine hundred and ninety two days since their last live show, the band will return to the live stage in September for a short run of dates, performing early favourites and debuting further new material to an audience for the first time.

Released August 22nd, 2022 Captured Tracks

Drahla are:

Luciel Brown – vocals/guitar, Rob Riggs – bass, Mikey Ainsley – drums 

Helen Ballentine’s spellbinding first full-length album “Quiet the Room” is the sound of a window opening, a barrier dissolving. Across these fourteen tracks, the outside world seeps in and the inside world crawls out. The result is a stunning and quietly moving work that reflects the journeys we take through the physical and spiritual realms of ourselves in order to show up for the world.

While writing the album in the summer of 2021, Ballentine drew inspiration from her childhood home in Mount Vernon, NY. What she set out to capture on “Quiet the Room” was not the innocence of childhood, as it is so often portrayed, but the intense complexity of it. Past and present merge Escher-like in this dreamlike space laced with elements of fantasy, magic, and mystery. Musically, this translates into a sound that feels somehow weighty and ephemeral all at once, like a time lapse of copper corroding.

To capture the effortless blend of electronic, ambient, folk, and rock, Ballentine and her partner and collaborator Noah Weinman brought in producer Andrew Sarlo to record at Chicken Shack studio in Upstate New York, close to where Ballentine grew up. “We wanted every song to have that little twinkle, but also a sense of crumbling,” she says. These songs thrum with moments of anxiety that boil over into moments of peace, as on lead single “Whatever Fits Together,” which chugs to a ragged start before the gears catch and ease. On “It’s Like a Secret,” Ballentine struggles to connect and let people in, recognizing that no one can ever fully know our inner worlds and that to understand each other is to cross a barrier and leave a part of ourselves behind. And yet, on closing track “You are my House,” she finds a way to reach out. “You are the walls and floors of my room,” she sings in perfect, hopeful harmony.

As the album cover invites, these are dollhouse songs to which we bend a giant eye, peering into the laminate, luminous world that Ballentine has created. Like a kid constructing a shelter in a patch of sharp brambles, she reminds us that beauty and terror can exist in the same place.

Skullcrusher has released two singles, “They Quiet the Room” and title track “Quiet The Room,” off the debut album out October 14th. On both tracks, Helen’s haunting vocals ask moving questions about words left unsaid.

“They Quiet the Room” by Skullcrusher from the upcoming album ‘Quiet the Room’, out October 14th on Secretly Canadian.

As one of the most influential artists of all time, Bob Dylan has sold more than 125 million records. He is now just as revered for his fine art, which offers a unique insight into the Nobel Prize laureate’s world. Collections include Retrospectrum, The Beaten Path, The Drawn Blank Series, Mondo Scripto, The Asia Series and The Brazil Series.

Dylan dates the origins of his work as a visual artist to the early 1960s. A few drawings reached the public gaze with album covers like Music from Big Pink (1968) and Self Portrait (1970). In 1974, Dylan spent two seminal months studying art with Ashcan School tutor Norman Raeben, who philosophised the importance of ‘perceptual honesty’ – painting life as it as seen, not imagined. Dylan says of this time: “He put my mind and my hand and my eye together, in a way that allowed me to do consciously what I unconsciously felt.”

The artist’s journeys between cities and towns are personified by his Expressionist lines, which capture the instant moment of a place, person and time. Repeated motifs encourage the viewer to explore the depths of colour and the evolution of his work. His art has been likened to that of Pablo Picasso, with critics applauding the relatability of his collections. He paints mostly from life, stating: “I’m pretty much interested in people, histories, myth, and portraits; people of all stripes.”

In November 2021, the Bob Dylan: Retrospectrum exhibition opened at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami, where it ran until April 2022. Following a successful tour in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, the display spanned six decades and was the largest exhibition of Dylan’s work to ever be displayed in the United States. Featuring over 180 paintings, drawings and ironworks from throughout his artistic career, it also included Dylan’s brand-new Deep Focus series, which transforms scenes from films into cinematic paintings. 

Dylan’s contributions to worldwide culture have been recognised and honoured with many awards. These include an Academy Award for his song ‘Things Have Changed’, which featured in the 2000 film Wonder Boys, along with 12 Grammy Awards and a Special Citation Pulitzer Prize for his ‘profound impact on popular music and American culture’. Further accolades include a Kennedy Center Honor presented by former president Bill Clinton, the Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by former president Barack Obama, and the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

During the last six decades he has released more than 50 albums and written in excess of 500 songs, some of the most famous being ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’, ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’’ and ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, which were visually reimagined for the first time in his Mondo Scripto collection. His songs have been covered more than 6,000 times by artists as diverse as Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, Guns N’ Roses, Stevie Wonder, Rod Stewart, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bob Marley, Pearl Jam, Neil Young, Adele and U2. 

Ty Segall & Freedom Band’s live “Levitation Sessions” album is out and streaming worldwide on Bandcamp! Thanks again to everyone who watched the show and to our great crew who made this possible. Ty Segall & Freedom Band rip through a discography spanning set filmed at Occidental College’s Remsen Bird Hillside Theater, a Greek amphitheatre in the hills of Los Angeles.
 
The Freedom Band’s first stream was recorded by their 6th member, live sound engineer and sonic guru, Matthew Littlejohn and fellow head, Mike Kriebel.  They teamed up with director Joshua Erkman to film the band in the round.  The film was co-produced by LA’s Sid The Cat, with audio mixed by Mike Kriebel.

 The film and album features artwork by Robbie Simon, available on screen printed posters signed by the band, limited edition cassettes and t-shirts, and tie dye tees. Ty Segall & Freedom Band rip through a discography spanning set filmed at Occidental College’s Remsen Bird Hillside Theater, a Greek amphitheater in the hills of Los Angeles.

Ben Boye (Keyboards)
Charles Moothart (Drums)
Emmett Kelly (Guitar)
Mikal Cronin (Bass)
Ty Segall (Vocals/Guitar)

In this recent KEXP studio concert, Ty Segall digs right into his Travis Bean TB1000S guitar, introducing a full-on guitar feedback attack as the Freedom Band follows suit in the feverishly funky, fuzzed-out “Whisper,” from Segall’s 2021 album, “Harmonizer”.

Ty Segall & Freedom Band performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded February 5th, 2022.

Songs: “Whisper”, “Erased”, “Harmonizer”, “Waxman”

Ty Segall – Vocals / Guitar Emmett Kelly – Guitar Mikal Cronin – Bass Ben Boye – Keys Charles Moothart – Drums

When the Byrds released “Mr. Tambourine Man” in 1965, they introduced Bob Dylan’s songs to a new audience and launched a career that would make them among the most influential rock bands of all time. With their unmistakable harmonies and Roger McGuinn’s innovative 12-string Rickenbacker guitar, the Byrds never stopped experimenting. They incorporated folk, country, and jazz influences into a fresh blend that helped define an era. “And not to be too shallow,” Tom Petty once wrote, “but they also were just the best-dressed band around. They had those great clothes and hairdos.”

Now the band’s three surviving founding members – Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, and David Crosby – have come together to present “The Byrds: 1964-1967“, a large format table top book that offers a unique visual history of the group. Featuring more than 500 images from legendary photographers such as Henry Diltz, Barry Feinstein, Curt Gunther, Jim Marshall, Linda McCartney, Tom Gundelfinger O’Neal, and Guy Webster, the book also includes restored images from the Columbia Records archives and the personal archives of the band’s original manager. Accompanied by a running commentary of their memories of the group, the era, one another, and their late compatriots Gene Clark and Michael Clarke, this carefully crafted volume is a truly unique collector’s item for Byrds fans.

The Byrds: 1964-1967 is in production for a September, 2022 release but pre-order sales are open now. The Super Deluxe Edition with fine art print, The Super Deluxe Edition, and the Deluxe Edition are the only versions of the book that will include signatures of the surviving founding members of The Byrds. There will be no further signature editions available in the future.

A new large-format 400-page collectible art book curated by the band’s three surviving founding members, and available in three versions, including a Super Deluxe Limited Edition signed by Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, and David Crosby.

THE BYRDS: 1964-1967—a collectible 400-page oversized art book of photographs and memories, including previously-unseen images from the studio & on the road—out September 20th. Pre-order one of four versions now, including the Super Deluxe Limited Edition signed by Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman & David Crosby: www.byrdsbook.com