The Fat Angel Sings

On her first full-length, Preacher’s Daughter, the Florida-reared artist Ethel Cain digs into the seedier sides of small-town life, the tumultous of youth, the strictures of conservative religion, and the pitfalls of getting ensnared in all of the above. She has so far released “Gibson Girl,” “Strangers,” and “American Teenager” as singles from “Preacher’s Daughter”.

Ethel Cain eulogises the seedy all-American glamour over doomy, expansive pop-rock sounds. Her debut album features breathless depictions of badly behaved men (“He’s never looked more beautiful on his Harley in the parking lot, breaking into the ATMs”), idealised romantic setups, road trips filled with motels, diners and pistols, and the cold glitz of a strip club.

Yet, as the title suggests, the album’s other preoccupation is religion. Cain’s father was a deacon, and as a teenager she was ostracised from the Southern Baptist church she grew up in after coming out as gay (she later realised she was transgender). 

Between last year’s monster EP “Inbred” and a slated performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival, Ethel Cain is on a brilliant ascent. “Inbred” solidified her position as a force to be witnessed in American music as she wrestled with the uniquely Southern version of the American dream that shaped her young life. The divinity of gospel, the audacity of heartland rock and the frankness of 2010s Tumblr-era pop collide into an arresting narrative spectacle, portraying the experience of a woman who is intimately familiar with depraved violence, the gospel and the strict social hierarchies of the South and the Plains.

The EPs have only revealed a portion of Cain’s lore, but on her whopping 75-minute long debut LP “Preacher’s Daughter“, Ethel Cain, the narrative figure and the musical sensation, manifests a breath taking account of a woman, her mysterious partner and her troubled family. Much as “Inbred” mangled Americana, ambient folk and slow-core into a terrifying sonic experiment, “Preacher’s Daughter” is a sound all its own.

As the album progresses, however, the pop sensibility loosens: “Televangelism” is an intermittently warped piano instrumental; “Ptolemaea” recalls Arca’s fractious, challenging sound. By the end it’s impossible to ignore the fact that this is a long record with flagging momentum. But it’s also impossible to ignore this intriguing debut’s promise. “Preacher’s Daughter” has lyrical richness and atmospheric potency to spare.

There’s the glamorous and aphrodisiac sound of Lana Del Rey is undoubtedly there, but the thematic and instrumental elements on “Preacher’s Daughter” possess a weightiness and impulse away from ironic glamorization of the American dream and toward outright criticism that render the comparison only so relevant.

At times the record throbs with a noisy, immersive intensity before transitioning into the kind of epic guitar solos that decorated the cult of rock personalities in generations past. This collision of dark ambient and rock is uniquely American in the best way conceivable.

But on ‘Thoroughfare’, the album’s most epic track, Cain strips things down to acoustic guitar and harmonica, evoking the music of her youth, when the only non-Christian music she was exposed to were the country acts her dad would play in the truck. After outing her tumultuous relationship with father figures throughout the album, it makes sense that she subverts those tropes at this crucial point in the story: leaving home to chase a dream that turns out to be unattainable, the characters stumble upon a deeper kind of connection, and the promise of freedom suddenly seems more tangible than ever: “In your pickup truck with all of your dumb luck is the only place I think I’d ever wanna be.” Things then slowly take a turn, moving through songs that twist and bleed with images of violence, sexuality, and death, before disintegraing into something harder to pin down with two dark, ambient-leaning instrumentals.

Nashville-based ambient composer Rich Ruth has announced the upcoming release of their ambitious new album. “I Survived, It’s Over” arrives via Third Man Records on Friday, August 12th.

Mixed by renowned Chicago producer/engineer John McEntire (Tortoise, The Sea and Cake, Stereolab),

“I Survived, It’s Over” is heralded by today’s premiere of the opening track, “Taken Back,” in which sitar, shells, and bass are slowly joined by piercing lead guitar, synth blasts and drums as the track bursts open into psychedelic orbit. Additional new music will follow in the coming weeks. “I Survived, It’s Over” is a meditation on healing, confronting trauma, surrendering, and finding peace,” Rich Ruth frontman Michael Ruth says. “I constantly experiment with sound until it reflects the way I am feeling and attempt to sculpt something meaningful from it.” Rick Ruth – a.k.a. veteran Nashville-based musician Michael Ruth – took a break from touring with various bands in 2018 and dedicated himself to composing ambient music in his small home studio, focusing on the diverse traditions of ambient, new age, spiritual jazz, Kosmiche, and minimalist music.

His ideas became fully realized with the inclusion of additional players, pairing his repetitive, droning synthesizer movements with spur-of-the-moment improvisation to transform the material into something much more lush and unpredictable. One summer morning, Ruth was held up at gunpoint and carjacked by two people outside of his home. His music allowed him to work through this personal struggle, infusing his 2019 debut album, “Calming Signals”, with striking layers of angst and emotion. “Where There’s Life” followed in 2021, a collection of meditative pieces written in the early months of the pandemic manifesting the collective sense of uncertainty and solitude of the time.

Recorded in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic and in the wake of a series of tornadoes which wreaked havoc upon his North Nashville neighbourhood, “I Survived, It’s Over” sees Rich Ruth pushing his music even further into heretofore untapped sonic and emotional terrain. Melding inventive sound exploration, complex instrumentation – from shredding guitars and swelling strings to flutes, saxophones, pedal steel, and more – and a transcendent passion for nature, Ruth has created a milestone work of organic, symphonic power, a deeply affirmative musical movement that transforms the unease and sorrow of this difficult era into something strong and true and beautiful. “Working on this music is a daily meditation,” says Rich Ruth. “I wanted to encapsulate the tranquillity and disarray found within this process.”

Third Man Records, 2022.

The original “Not About To Die” was an illegal bootleg, released at some point in the early 80s, by the dubiously named Amnesia Records. The album was made up of selections from demos recorded by the group for their second and third albums: “Chairs Missing” and “154″. These demos had been recorded for EMI, with cassette copies circulated amongst record company employees. However, they were never intended for release. A typically shoddy cash-in, the songs on “Not About To Die” were taken from a second or possibly third generation cassette, with the album housed in a grainy green and red photo-copied sleeve.

Previously released as a Record Store Day exclusive, the official wide release will be out June 24th via the group’s pinkflag imprint. It includes early versions of songs like “Once Is Enough,” “On Returning,” “Being Sucked In Again,” and “Two People in a Room,” as well as a long list of other tracks.

Compared with the high standards of production and design Wire have always been known for, it was something of an insult to band and fans alike. Now, in a classic act of Wire perversity, the group have decided to redress the balance and reclaim one of the shadier moments of its history, by giving “Not About To Die” its first official release on the bands own pinkflag imprint.. All the tracks have been properly remastered, with the relevant recording details in place.

As for the sleeve artwork, whilst it strongly references the original, it is decidedly more artful in its execution. Not About To Die emerges as a fascinating snapshot of Wire in transition with embryonic versions of classic songs such as ‘French Film (Blurred)’, ‘Used To’ and ‘Being Sucked In Again’, that the group would develop considerably for their epochal 1978 album Chairs Missing. Later demos such as ‘Once Is Enough’, ‘On Returning’ and ‘Two People In A Room’ would surface in radically altered form on 1979’s 154. Some songs, such as ‘The Other Window’, are virtually unrecognisable from their later iterations but the biggest prizes here may well be the tracks that were omitted from Wire’s later studio albums.

Track list: Oh No Not So (Save The Bullet) 4th Demo / Culture Vultures 4th Demo / It’s The Motive 4th Demo / Love Ain’t Polite 4th Demo / French Film (Blurred) 4th Demo / Underwater Experiences 4th Demo / Stalemate 4th Demo / Options R 4th Demo / Indirect Enquiries v1 5th Demo / Chairs Missing (Used To) 5th Demo / Being Sucked In Again 5th Demo / Ignorance No Plea (I Should Have Known Better) 6th Demo / Once Is Enough 6th Demo / The Other Window 6th Demo / Stepping Off Too Quick (Not About To Die) 6th Demo / On Returning 6th Demo / Former Airline 6th Demo / Two People In A Room 6th Demo

Released Through Pink Flag Recordings

It’s been a long four years since Irish band Just Mustard released their debut album, “Wednesday”, that featured an alluring mix of shoegaze, trip hop and post-rock. The band are finally back, with their first album for Partisan Recoprds which they produced themself. (David Wrench of audiobooks, who’s worked with everyone from Hot Chip to FKA twigs, mixed it.) First single “Still” sounds great and before the album’s out North America will get to hear more of the album live when they tour with Fontaines DC.

the band from Dundalk, Ireland found themselves on an upward arc. in 2018 Just a year earlier, they’d released their debut album “Wednesday“, an album of darkly hazy noise pop and post-punk that over the course of a year built up a cult following—one that spread thousands of miles from their backyard in Ireland. Only one year earlier, they had begun playing shows in other parts of the British Isles, and by early 2019, they were playing major festival stages and opening for gothic rock icons The Cure. To date, they’re still sold out of copies of “Wednesday“.

What comes next is a frustrating and familiar story; Just Mustard had accomplished over the prior 18 months, then Covid-19 pandemic left the group with nothing but time. The band had already begun mapping out their sophomore full-length album, one that had initially been conceived as a record intended to be experienced in the dynamic arena of the live stage, but without that element to focus on, the group instead found them challenging themselves in the studio, shaping their sound in more meticulous if sometimes subtle ways, and pushing themselves toward peak performance.

“There was stuff we were writing that was really hard to play, and is still hard to play, but we did want to push ourselves lane-wise a bit out of our comfort zone,” says guitarist David Noonan. “I kind of write stuff that’s a bit beyond it, but I can figure that out later.”

The end result, “Heart Under” will be the group’s first album for Partisan Records—it’s an album rich in atmosphere and eerily tense. Noonan and Mete Kalyon’s guitars ebb and screech over the taut rhythmic pulse of drummer Shane McGuire and bassist Rob Clarke, with vocalist Katie Ball finding a haunted middle ground between cool detachment and expressive melancholy. There’s an unmistakably gothic sensibility on standout songs such as “Still,” which tap into the kind of ominous tension of The Cure in their early years (and thus a natural fit to share the stage with the legendary band) and a hypnotic sonic element that leans more heavily into the more experimental side of shoegaze.

The deluxe vinyl version of “Heart Under” is out now alongside a new video for “Blue Chalk” directed by lead vocalist Katie Ball .

As friends, longtime musical collaborators and even roommates, the members of Just Mustard are all on the same frequency and they use that sense of harmony between them to build something uniquely their own.

“We kind of think of it as a world we’re creating,” Ball says. “If [listeners] are able to feel as if they’re immersed in that world, that’d be cool.”

due 27th May via Partisan Records

Returning for the third time to the studio of Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey, Hebden Bridge’s The Lounge Society are back; this time, with the mindset of crafting a debut album conceived out of desire, raised by collaborative muscle-memory, and kept beating, by the sacred-heart of emotional-spirit.

Recorded over two weeks in November 2021, “Tired of Liberty” is a stunningly ubiquitous snapshot of instrumental meltdown, and timeless adolescence. Keen to uphold the manipulated elasticity of a recorded event, the majority of the eleven tracks that make up the record (with the exception of ‘Generation Game’, which saw its beginnings as part of the Speedy Wunderground 7” series, and was subsequently re-recorded), were written either just before, or throughout the duration of those fortnight sessions.

A rarity for most bands, The Lounge Society functions best as a collective entity. With no core-leader, everything from the sources of inspiration, to the lyrics themselves, is handled collaboratively, and with equal merit; as they strive to create a self-sufficient creative unit, larger than the individual. Far from a documentation of disenfranchised youth, “Tired of Liberty” seeks to overthrow with striking articulation. Stirringly fearless, it masterfully combines archetypal storytelling, with as many disparate principles as introspectively possible; capturing the aural shifts in time and attitudes between ‘Generation Game’, and where we join The Lounge Society now.

Brimming with anthemic-myriad, this is the real deal. Genuine urgency from a group of young creatives living and breathing their inaugurated prime, with breath-taking, anarchic-proficiency. Whether it’s “lies drenched in sarcasm” (‘Blood Money’), or, the clattering, riff-screaming irony of ‘Remains’, The Lounge Society’s deep-rooted inversion towards our “culture of anti-freedom”- the ludicrous excuses man makes for the ceasing of mankind, is one which is both culturally-associative, and, counter-culturally embracing.

Whether its personal growth, banded maturity, or a hearty combination of the two, “Tired of Liberty” is an expertly captured documentation of four young-adults, at the baptism of their cultural-ignition. After all, you only get one opportunity at a debut record. “Anything that follows, is just an evolution from that.”- The Lounge Society.

The Lounge Society, the band’s debut album ‘Tired of Liberty’ – out 26th August 2022 on Speedy Wunderground.

Horse Jumper of Love are back with the announcement of their upcoming third full-length, “Natural Part“, due out June 17th. The Boston-based slowcore champions have returned with eleven songs that push the dynamics of their sound even further than ever before, resulting in a deeply captivating record that stays with the listener long after it’s 30 minute runtime.

To mark the announcement, Horse Jumper of Love have shared “Natural Part’s” sweetly catchy lead single “I Poured Sugar In Your Shoes.” The song finds vocalist/guitarist Dimitri Giannopoulos at his most overtly hooky, using the group’s penchant for laid back tempos and warm instrumentals to draw out every melody for maximum effect.

“The Natural Part” by Horse Jumper of Love, from the album ‘Natural Part’ out June 17th, 2022 via Run For Cover Records

Ovlov began in 2009 with the release of an EP titled “Crazy Motorcycle Jump”. They followed that up with another EP in 2011 titled “What’s So Great About The City”. In 2013, Ovlov released their first full-length album on Exploding in Sound Records titled “Am“. In August 2014, Ovlov released a split with Little Big League. Two months later, the band released another split with Krill, LVL UP, and Radiator Hospital. In 2018, Ovlov  the band had some temporary break-ups, Steve Hartlett, vocalist, songwriter and guitarist of Ovlov, has said that the majority of the songs were written around 2015 or 2016, but some were demos for the first record from around 2011 or 2012, but eventually re-emerged. “Tru” was recorded around late 2016 and early 2017, and two singles were premiered before its official release. The album received “universal acclaim”  released through Exploding in Sound.

The opening seconds of Ovlov’s second album “Tru” let everyone know right away that the band haven’t toned down their guitar attack; the overloaded tones come flowing like lava out of the speakers and fill the ear canal with pure distortion and majestically fuzzy overtones. If anything, the band may have upped the stakes since 2013’s “Am” made them the forerunners to take over the mantle of underground guitar heroes from Dinosaur Jr and Built to Spill. Throughout the album, Steve Hartlett and Morgan Luzzi show a mastery of their instruments that’s never showy but always adds emotional depth and sonic thrills to the band’s songs.

Steve Hartlett sang, played guitar, bass & synth on the best of you
Theo Hartlett played drums, sang on stick, guitar soloed on grab it from the garden
Morgan Luzzi played guitar
Michael Hammond Jr. played bass, guitar on best of you
Michael John Thomas III played a guitar solo on grab it from the garden.

Originally released July 20th, 2018

Isolated from any kind of music scene and enveloped by the cold Brutalism of Preston, White Flowers are a young, enigmatic band developing their own eccentricities away from the influence of big cities. Their new EP ‘Are You’ is a sonic and aesthetic collage drawing deeply from their environmental and social surroundings. The songs on the EP may at first seem delicate and beautiful, but closer listening reveals dark undertones and dry humour fuelled by the frustration of feeling trapped with no way out.

Recorded late 2021 between Preston and Bristol, ‘Are You’ weaves together a mixture of intuitive home recordings and refined studio production aided by producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Portishead, Perfume Genius). The four songs on the EP are an intentional collection of contrasts and paradoxes – beauty and repulsion, calmness and mania, anxiety and stasis – all combined to form a balanced whole.

Whilst influenced in part by the writings of the late Mark Fisher and his idea that we are haunted by futures that failed to happen, that what might have been may yet be the dream that saves us, White Flowers have also found inspiration in the Brutalist architecture that adorns their hometown – futuristic yet dated buildings that serve as an appropriate visual metaphor for Fisher’s theories. Bleakly imposing yet comfortingly familiar, the monochromatic starkness of these structures has fed into the imagery for the record, as well as the sounds found within. Not intending to wallow in cynicism, however, White Flowers’ art ultimately aims to provide a way out of these dystopian fever dreams and spiralling thoughts into a forward facing place. 

Released May 13th, 2022

It’s a great week to be a Julia Jacklin fan: The Australian singer/songwriter has announced her third album, “Pre Pleasure” (Due August 26th, Polyvinyl Record Co.), shared the video for its lead single and opener, “Lydia Wears a Cross,” and announced a 2022 world tour. Since releasing her debut album “Don’t Let the Kids Win” in 2016, Melbourne’s Julia Jacklin has carved out a fearsome reputation as a direct lyricist, willing to excavate the parameters of intimacy and agency in songs both stark and raw, loose, and playful. If her debut announced those intentions, and the startling 2019 follow-up “Crushing” drew in listeners uncomfortably close, “Pre Pleasure” is the sound of Jacklin gently loosening her grip.

“Lydia Wears a Cross” finds Jacklin examining religion through her childhood eyes over sparsely atmospheric drum machine and piano—at least at first. “I’d be a believer / If it was all just song and dance,” she insists over an indistinct guitar riff, unable to feel a connection to her spirituality except through the transportive power of performance. Live drums and synths kick in unexpectedly as the song builds, and Jacklin vocalizes wordlessly through its climax, as if finally finding the transcendence she was seeking.

“Lydia Wears A Cross” is taken from Julia Jacklin’s new album, “Pre Pleasure”, out August 26th, 2022.