Nightlands is the solo project of The War on Drugs’ band member Dave Hartley shared a video for his new song “Stare Into the Sun.” It is the latest release from his forthcoming studio album, “Moonshine”, which will be out on July 15th via Western VinylRecords.
“The spark for this song started when I heard ‘Human Nature’ (from Thriller) at a gas station,” states Hartley in a press release. “The chords in the intro of that tune activated something in my heart and I wanted to write something with similar modulating chords. There’s some surrealism happening here. Hundreds of vocals overdubbed creating an uncanny, fractured gospel vibe. The lyrics stand in contrast to the overall vibe, though: it’s a lush, melancholy song about pure anger. I love the arpeggiating synth solo in the break and I’m proud of the way the lyrics poured out. It didn’t feel like composition, it felt like therapy.”
Upon announcement of the new album back in April, Hartley shared the title track, “Moonshine.” He later shared a further track “No Kiss For the Lonely.”
Even in light of the album’s vocal emphasis, Hartley’s history as a bassist brilliantly beams through “Moonshine”, giving effortless and sprightly movement to songs like “Down Here,” which also features an extended section of saxophone lent by his Western Vinyl labelmate, Joseph Shabason. In addition to Shabason, the album hosts a short list of remote collaborators including four of Hartley’s bandmates from The War on Drugs, Robbie Bennet, Anthony Lamarca, Eliza Hardy Jones, and Charlie Hall, as well as exotica virtuoso Frank Locrasto (Cass McCombs, Fruit Bats), and producer Adam McDaniel (Avey Tare, Angel Olsen). Hartley was forced to keep the guest list small out of the necessity of pandemic isolation, coupled with his move to a smaller city, all of which challenged him to do most of the album’s heavy lifting right down to the mixing duties, resulting in the most independent effort of his career. By that measure, “Moonshine” is also the clearest image yet of Dave Hartley as a person and creator.
Hartley’s last solo album, “I Can Feel the Night Around Me“, came out in 2017 via Western Vinyl.
Stella Donnelly the Australian singer/songwriter is releasing a new album, “Flood“, on August 26th via Secretly Canadian. She has shared its second single, title track “Flood,” via a video for the song. Donnelly co-directed the video with Nick Mckk and Grace Goodwin. In it Donnelly and her bandmates rescue an exercise machine from the trash.
Donnelly had this to say about “Flood” in a press release: “This song feels like a sad little adventure. I wrote it in the dark depths of a Melbourne winter lockdown where it had been raining for consecutive weeks. Everyone around me was falling into their own version of depression at different times. It felt like a flood of trauma yet at the same time, we were given an opportunity of time to work through stuff that we’d been distracting ourselves with for so long prior to the pandemic.”
Of the video, she says: “This clip is pure ridiculous play, like going to your grandparents house where you and your cousins would get up to the most elaborate film projects. We always ran around the house making home movies that tried to re-enact other films and much like this clip here, they always ended in some sort of minor catastrophe. With this video for ‘Flood’ we have made a very feeble attempt at recreating the legendary OK GO video clip for ‘Here it Goes Again’ and we failed gloriously.”
Previously Donnelly had shared “Flood’s” first single, “Lungs,” via a video. “Flood” is Donnelly’s second album, the follow-up to 2019’s debut full-length album, “Beware of the Dogs”. Donnelly co-wrote songs with her bandmates Jennifer Aslett, George Foster, Jack Gaby, and Marcel Tussie, and the previous press release says the process “at times felt like experimental kindergarten play.” Donnelly co-produced “Flood” alongside Anna Laverty and Methyl Ethyl’s Jake Webb.
The album was partially written during her time in the rainforests of Australia’s Bellingen, where she took up birdwatching. During her time writing new songs she also lived in Fremantle, Williams, Guilderton, Margaret River, and Melbourne and in total she wrote 43 new songs.
Stella Donnelly‘s ‘How Was Your Day?‘ was the lead single from her beautiful album “Flood”, a skilful, tuneful song laden with pathos, juxtaposing skippy percussion, glistening guitars and a bright melody with Stella’s deadpan poetic delivery vocals in the verses, that nod back to her superb 2019 debut album, “Beware of the Dogs”.
“Level-headedness has made way for a disastrous love”, she drops casually. “I know it, you know it.”
Of the track, Donnelly says: “This is my attempt at building a song out of a very specific dynamic between two monogamously involved people. The verses are just excerpts from real conversations, fragments of what two people talk about when they both know they need to have a real talk but neither wants to be the one to bring it up. This song came out of lockdown and seeing a lot of friends break up or get married.”
“I had so many opportunities to write things in strange places,” Donnelly said. “I often had no choice about where I was. There’s no denying that not being able to access your family with border closures, it zooms in on those parts of your life you care about.”
Stripping away the artifice of being a musician, taking time to breathe and reassess. On her superlative second album “Flood”,Stella Donnelly displays a voice of rare clarity that can crystallise her emotions investing her deft songs with previously uncharted depths: exploring her inner child, her place in the world and the boundaries of her and others’ relationships, capturing moments of brevity in songs that reveal themselves over multiples plays. In the process, with Welsh heritage and based in Perth, Australia, Donnelly offers a gentle arm on the shoulder, a guiding light out of the dark, in a time of uncertainty and fear.
As well as being sophisticated and layered, “Flood” is also a vulnerable and empathetic record. More subdued but no less powerful, there are fewer instant hooks than her debut, but it’s actually better for it. The arrangements have a subtle openness that stretches out like a warm embrace; this is a tapestry, produced by a new perspective of experimentation and thoughtfulness forged with her band. “Flood” is overflowing with both. It’s simply a gorgeous record, drink in every moment, it’s positively a revelation. Astounding.
Swedish sister alt-country/folk duo First Aid Kit (Klara and Johanna Söderberg) shared a video for their new single, “Angel.” It is the duo’s first release of new music since the release of their 2019 song “Strange Beauty.”
First Aid Kit state in a press release: “It feels special to release a song after such a long hiatus. Today we’re so thrilled to finally share our new track ‘Angel’—a hopeful tune for these crazy times about accepting other people even if you don’t always see eye to eye. It’s also about being kinder to yourself. We wanted it to feel really big, but vulnerable at the same time, something you can cry to and dance to as well.”
First Aid Kit is a Swedish folk duo consisting of the sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg, born in 1990 and 1993, respectively. When performing live, they are today accompanied by a drummer, a guitarist and a keyboard player. In 2008, they gained some Internet popularity for their cover of the Fleet Foxes’ song “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”. Rolling Stone magazine chose their song “Emmylou” as the number 10 “Single of the Year” in 2012. They have released four albums, four EPs and several singles. In 2015, they were nominated for a Brit Award as one of the five best international groups. They were nominated again in 2019.
At Glastonbury 2022, Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit took to the Pyramid Stage. With a performance that brimmed with energy and excitement, sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg showed us exactly how it’s done.
In 2021, First Aid Kit shared their Leonard Cohen cover album “Who by Fire“.
Yesterday, Regressive Left shared a video for their new single “The Wrong Side of History.” It is the latest release from their forthcoming EP of the same name, which will be out on July 15th via Bad Vibrations. The song has a definite LCD Soundsystem vibe and also channels their fellow countrymen W.H. Lung. Its lyrics come from a politicized place.
“I started writing it years ago,” states frontman Simon Tyrie in a press release: “It was more of a basic spoken word piece from a place of anger and bitterness. Over time it became more and more tongue in cheek, until it became something to dance to.
“What we wanted to highlight is that the subject of the story—your stereotypical sensationalist, controversialist white guy—is lamenting their fall from grace from a position of power—these people rule the world right now and they want us to feel sorry for them! But it’s because they know their time is running out.”
Regressive Left – “The Wrong Side of History” Taken from the debut EP “On The Wrong Side of History” out 15th July on Bad Vibrations: regressiveleft.lnk.to/history
Punx from London who love emo, shredding, touring, oat milk, and using friendship to fill a large uncertain hole inside of yourself, This is the third album from these London DIY punks; they have been an unwavering fixture within the UK punk scene since their first record in 2017. A joy to behold live, Woods honed her craft not only fronting Fresh but as a member of several heralded indie and punk bands, including cheerbleederz and ME REX alongside Fresh bandmate Myles McCabe.
Their new album radiates with their signature mischievous British charm and flourishes of brilliant pop punk flair – though underestimate Fresh at your peril. “Raise Hell” dares to dive deeper than most, delivering Woods’ darker moments and contemplative thought processes through the sharply focussed lens of upbeat indie punk. Since their inception the band have been working tirelessly recording and touring.
I really can’t believe it. I wrote “Our Love” in the spring of 2019 – Withdraw wasn’t even out yet, but I already knew that I had the next record blooming. We spent so long with this record (writing, recording, mixing, designing the art, planning the roll-out). As a band lucky enough to be three albums deep, we wanted to push ourselves and explore heavy concepts while still having fun and creating in the way that we always have: spontaneously and with a sense of humour.
I want to shout out our producer Rich Mandell. From the minute I started working with Rich, I’ve been blown away by the respect and care that he has for our songs. No idea is too big and no change is too small. He’s as naturally curious as he is generous and we’re lucky to have him. Thanks lil Rich.
Introducing Gabriels – an Los Angeles based group made up of singer Jacob Lusk and producers AriBalouzian 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.
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.
