Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten are the leaders of Momma, a band whose musical touchstones are Generation X alternative rock records. “I went through a lot of changes as we were writing and demoing this record,” Weingarten said in a statement. “The biggest was that I was going through a really messy breakup, which was motivation to make this record the best it could be. I really felt like I had something to prove.” Produced by Kobayashi Ritch, Household Name is the band’s first release on Polyvinyl.
Think big, girl, like a king, think kingsize. Jenny Hval’s record opens with a quote from the Danish poet Mette Moestrup, and continues towards the abyss. “Apocalypse, girl” is a hallucinatory narrative that exists somewhere between fiction and reality, a post-op fever dream, a colourful time lapse of death and rebirth, close-ups of impossible bodies — all told through the language of transgressive pop music.
“Apocalypse, Girl” finds Jenny Hval pairing abstract sounds and pop sensibilities to great effect, songs that straddle a musical duality that inspires and intrigues. A fascinating and engaging album that is fully deserving of all of the accolades, recognition, and admiration that it has received…The music here is expertly crafted to make an impression – with such wit and irony. The production Intimately twisted and quite simply beautiful and haunting.
“Drifter” is a record that finds steadiness in the embrace of uncertainty. Young Prisms have always delivered stories that have remained mostly shrouded in a dreamlike state, the kind of dreams where you never quite get to where you’re aiming to go, and the ones which unravel in melancholy when you open your eyes and reality sets in. With their first new music in ten years, the band explores the tension and release that comes with bringing your head down from the clouds and making sense of the tangible entanglements that make up everyday existence. “You’ve spent your whole life wondering if you’ll ever live up to your own expectations, but one day realize that it’s ok to just be a normal, boring human. You’re used to running away from life because you hate yourself and now you are pleasantly surprised by a new feeling to let go and accept yourself,” explains lead vocalist Stefanie Hodapp.
Comprised of Hodapp (vocals, synthesizer), Matthew Allen (vocals, guitar, bass, synthesizer, drum programming), Giovanni Betteo (bass, guitar, synthesizer, drum programming) and Jordan Silbert (drums), Young Prisms have gone through an evolution of tough love and resilient perseverance.
Betteo and Allen first started playing music together in middle school, eventually leading to the first iteration of Young Prisms in 2009, and the release of a self-titled EP on esteemed indie tastemaker Mexican Summer followed by two full lengths (2011’s Friends For Now and 2012’s In Between) on Kanine Records. Coming of age during a time where the band’s blend of introspective shoegaze and gauze-laden guitar earned them tours with bands like the Radio Dept, Dum Dum Girls, A Place to Bury Strangers and Moon Duo, Young Prisms never quite reached the same heights of commercial success afforded to some of their peers. In between, life happened: Hodapp and Betteo experienced the highs and lows of a romantic relationship, complete with raising a child together, and Silbert moved across the country from San Francisco to New York, where he currently resides.
The band never officially broke up, but took some much-needed space that would make possible their eventual return that, when the timing was right, proved more essential than ever before.
Shoegaze itself has gone through its own sort of rebirth in the past decade, with a new generation finding inspiration through the heavy reverb and all-encompassing emotive textures that present a lens left-field of emo (which has seen a similar resurgence in recent years) that remains both engaging and poignantly affective. It became clear the music they made stretched further than the course they’d assumed their band had run and with this renewed outlook were able to reimagine the impact of their trajectory. From a wiser place the band reset those expectations with the romance of possibility, and entered the studio for the first time in nearly a decade.
Recorded from June 2020 through February 2021 and produced by Shaun Durkan (Weekend, Soft Kill), Drifter is the greater sum of its parts – a collaborative effort with all of the members contributing song writing credits. Inherently, it represents a reprise, a second chance to present a full-formed vision that results in the band’s purest pursuit yet.
From the ethereal noise pop of lead single “Honeydew” to the resounding incandescence of “Self Love” or “Outside Air”, the band moves forward past nostalgia towards a sound that resonates in its timeless expression of love at its most volatile and transcendent. One way to absorb the dimensions of Drifter is to look up at the sky. On one hand, tracks like “Violet” were inspired by the lovelorn quality of sunrise driving down the coast, and the heady romanticism of new beginnings. There’s also the haunting omnipresence of loss; written during some of the worst of the California wildfires, every expression of hope comes with the acceptance that darkness and death are just as unavoidable factors in human existence. In Young Prisms’ world, being on the precipice of destruction – whether it be a fractured relationship or lifestyle choices that never lived up to societal pressures and expectations – has a counterpoint in healing self-reflection, where they were finally able to carve out the path that was meant for them all along.
released March 25th, 2022
Band: Stefanie Hodapp, Gio Betteo, Matt Allen & Jordan Silbert
Steven Tyler’sAerosmith are currently taking a break from their 2022 “Deuces Are Wild” Las Vegas residency due to the vocalist voluntarily entering some treatment after relapsing due to foot surgery and the necessity of pain management. As such, the band is off the road until September. Here we look at the best 10 albums of Aerosmith. As one of America’s greatest rock bands, Aerosmith has released 15 studio albums, six live albums, 16 compilation albums, and two EPs. They’ve sold over 150 million albums, making them the biggest selling rock band in U.S. history. Their catalogue is loaded with hits and classics from “Walk This Way” “Train Kept A Rollin’, and “Back In The Saddle” to “Dream On” “Draw The Line” and “Seasons Of Wither”.
Formed in Boston in 1970, the band is made up of Steven Tyler (lead vocals), Joe Perry (guitar), Tom Hamilton (bass) Joey Kramer (drums), and Brad Whiteford (guitar.) While rooted in blues-based rock, they also incorporated elements of heavy metal, R&B, and pop. Aerosmith has been a favourite rock bands since their single “Dream On” from their 1973 self-titled debut release which became their first major hit.
The group’s next four albums, “Get Your Wings”, “Toys In The Attic”, “Rocks”, and “Draw The Line”, were as good a run as any band has ever had and made Aerosmith into a legend.
The band didn’t do quite as well in the 1980s because of personal issues but they rebooted with “Rock in a Hard Place” in 1982 and “Done with Mirrors” in 1985. Their real comeback came with their album“Permanent Vacation” and the single “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” in 1987. “Pump“, released in 1989, and “Get A Grip” in 1993, spawned hit singles and earned Grammy Awards. “Nine Lives” followed in 1997 and then came “Just Push Play” in 2001, “Honkin’ On Bobo” in 2003, and “Music From Another Dimension” in 2012.
These are just the Aerosmith albums we think you should have in your collection.
Toys In The Attic (1975) This was my first introduction to blues-based rock that I discovered myself. No older sibling turned me onto it like Led Zeppelin or Jeff Beck. Released in 1975, the album features songs like “Sweet Emotion” “Walk This Way,” and the title track. Those tracks plus Tyler’s voice and Joe Perry’s guitar riffs grabbed me and I became a die-hard Aerosmith fan. This album drove me to their previous two albums. “Toys InThe Attic” was the band’s most commercially successful studio LP, selling 9 million copies. It gained more traction when Run-DMC covered “Walk This Way” and helped propel the band into the 1980’s mainstream.
Aerosmith finished ironing out the last wrinkles in their sonic template and unquestionably came into their signature sound with 1975’s ‘Toys in the Attic.’ “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion” would never (or almost never) leave the band’s live sets thereafter, and sturdy album cuts included the rip-roaring title track, groove-driven “No More No More,” doom-laden “Round and Round” and underrated ballad “You See Me Crying.” Even Aerosmith’s cover of the 1950s jump-blues number, “Big Ten Inch Record,” was inspired and perfectly in keeping with the group’s lascivious good humour.
Rocks (1976) The fourth studio album by Aerosmith was released in 1976 and influenced Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, and Nirvana. With the band’s singles on the Billboard Hot 100, “Rocks” eventually went quadruple platinum. Critics didn’t love Aerosmith but I sure did and this album was our favourites.
‘Toys in the Attic’ broke Aerosmith into hard rock’s major leagues but it was the group’s fourth album, ‘Rocks,’ that now stands as their magnum opus, capturing the group at the very apex of their collective powers. The Tyler/Perry song writing partnership was never stronger than on “Back in the Saddle,” “Rats in the Cellar” and “Lick and a Promise,”
Tom Hamilton scored a winner of his own with Tyler’s help on “Sick as a Dog” and the eternally underrated Brad Whitford won long overdue respect for the funky “Last Child” and tortured “Nobody’s Fault.” Round this out with the ever-reliable Joey Kramer and producer Jack Douglas in da house and its no wonder ‘Rocks’ became Aerosmith’s definitive tour de force of a long player.
Listen to “Back In The Saddle” A fan of B-side songs, “Get The Lead Out” is among our favorites.
Get Your Wings (1974) Early Aerosmith rocks. “Get Your Wings” is the band’s second studio album and their first to be produced by Jack Douglas. It was certified triple platinum by the RIAA. Blues-infused and rocking, there’s still a Stones influence, but Tyler’s song writing was stronger than ever. “Seasons of Wither” is a brilliant song. Tyler nailed the vocals, and Joe Perry and Brad Whitford did the same on guitars. With its sinister feel, it was a bold move for a blues/rock band at that time. “Same Old Song and Dance” and The Yardbirds’ styled cover “Train Kept A Rollin’” maintained the band’s signature sound.
The antithesis of a sophomore slump, 1974’s ‘Get Your Wings‘ was at least twice as confident as Aerosmith’s hit-and-miss debut and but a hair away from matching the timeless albums just ahead. Sure, some of this accelerated maturity was achieved with the help of un-credited session musicians (most notably guitar slingers Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, on “Train Kept A-Rollin’ but “Same Old Song andDance,” “Lord of the Thighs” (let’s give the drummer, Mr. Kramer, some!) and the haunting “Seasons of Wither” were prime Aerosmith.
Aerosmith (1973) The album debut, self-titled studio album was originally released in 1973 and re-released in December of 1975. Even with spare production and only two guitars, bass, drums, harmonica and occasionally piano, it contained the classic song “Dream On,” a sure-fire hit and primordial power ballad. One song that never received much attention is “One Way Street.” By later albums, you can hear the growth and development of Tyler’s vocals. The band members all sound a bit stiff but you can’t erase a couple of truly great songs.
The boys of Aerosmith were still finding their feet on this eponymous debut, but precocious favourites like the glam slasher “Mama Kin,” bluesy “One Way Street,” and wily-beyond-their-years cover of Rufus Thomas’ “Walkin’ the Dog” also saw them feeling their oats like rock stars who just knew they would be stars (see “Make It”). What’s more, Tyler’s dramatic “Dream On” gave heavy rock its second universal power ballad after Zep’s mold-establishing “Stairway to Heaven,” .
Draw The Line (1977) Their fifth studio album, “Draw The Line” is one of Aerosmith’s best rock and roll records. It was released in 1977. Following “Toys in the Attic” and “Rocks”, fans weren’t happy with this record and the critics didn’t like it either. Since then, however, the reviews have become a lot more positive. The band’s excessive lifestyle combined with drugs and constant touring took its toll. Joe Perry said in Stephen Davis’ memoir of the band Walk This Way, “Draw The Line was untogether because we weren’t a cohesive unit anymore.” Even though Tyler and Perry were not as involved in the song writing and recording as they had been, it’s still a great record. The album went platinum in the first month of its release.
Aerosmith’s ’70s winning streak finally fell prey to growing apathy and exhaustion on 1977’s ‘Draw the Line,’ which was recorded in an abandoned convent on what could aptly be described as “a wing and a prayer.” Get it? Miraculously (Ed: enough with the religious references, please!), the “killer” title track, “I Wanna Know Why” and “Kings and Queens” still outweighed the filler “Critical Mass,” “The Hand thatFeeds,” but the members of Aerosmith were abut to get burned by the same fire they were playing with.
Pump (1989) The tenth studio album by Aerosmith features the hit singles “Janie’s Got A Gun” and “Love In An Elevator.” The band earned their first Grammy Award for “Janie’s Got A Gun” and the album was the fourth best-selling album of the year in 1990. The band was going for more rawness and inserted instrumental interludes between the songs. A small rock band named Pump sued Aerosmith’s management company for service mark infringement. Now sober, the band sounded amazing. Although regarded as 80s sleaze metal by some, it did reboot some of the early Aerosmith sound.
1989’s ‘Pump,’ like its multiplatinum predecessor, ‘Permanent Vacation,’ unabashedly catered to ’80s big hair metal trends with glossy mega-productions like “Love in an Elevator” and the Grammy-winning “Janie’s Got a Gun,” but it also did a commendable job of reviving the vintage Aerosmith style on loads of amazing tunes.
These were headlined by the blistering “Young Lust,” infectious “The Other Side,” and career standout “What it Takes” leaving fans so pumped up they bought more than seven millions copies of the thing!.
Permanent Vacation (1987) The ninth studio album by Aerosmith, “Permanent Vacation” reflects more of a pop-metal sound. It was their first time using outside song writers and is often considered the band’s true comeback. It was the first Aerosmith release to receive heavy music video airplay on MTV and has remained a popular album ever since. Selling over five million copies in the US, the album was released to mixed reviews, mostly positive, especially for the song writing. Considered overproduced in typical 80s fashion, it still featured some songs like “Rag Doll” and “Dude (Looks Like A Lady).”
It may have necessitated an army of song doctors (Desmond Child, Jim Vallance, etc.) and its lavish ’80s production has definitely dated, but ‘Permanent Vacation’ still ranks among the greatest musical comebacks of all time! And for every pop metal excess committed on “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” there was a balancing reminder of Aerosmith’s classic rock integrity in the likes of “St. John” and “HangmanJury,” plus intriguing experiments like “The Movie” and the whale-cry-intro of “Heart’s Done Time.”
Get A Grip (1993) “Get a Grip” featured guests including Don Henley and Lenny Kravitz and became their best-selling studio album worldwide with sales of over 30 million. It also reached number one in the US. Two songs, “Livin’ On The Edge” and “Crazy,” won Grammy Awards for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1993/1994. Although they were now forty-somethings catering to an audience half their age, Aerosmith managed to maintain their fingers on the pulse of modern trends with 1993’s ‘Get a Grip’ just about! Sure, it took a CD-busting 15 songs to compensate for several long forgotten clunkers (anybody remember “Flesh”?), but the monstrous single “Livin’ on the Edge” and no less than three custom-made ballads “Cryin’,” “Crazy,” “Amazing” made this the band’s global best-seller (20 million and counting), despite grunge’s threatening supremacy.
Now a consistent presence on MTV, the band won a number of music video awards. The record received mixed reviews by critics but eventually the band became recognized for their individuality and style and not just as Stones clones.
Their early blues-infused albums didn’t sound like The Rolling Stones to me, but it’s all perspective, I guess. The cover art caused some controversy with animal rights groups but the band claimed that the cover was digitally altered and no animals were harmed. Aerosmith became the first major artist to release an exclusive digital download song “Head First.”
Night In The Ruts (1979) Joe Perry left the band in the middle of recording “Night In The Ruts“. The band was not in a good place at the time and Perry reportedly owed Aerosmith a lot of money. Originally produced by Jack Douglas, Gary Lyons was brought in by Columbia Records to replace him. Steven Tyler had a tough time finishing the lyrics and vocals. Rampant drug use plagued the band and they seemed at risk of falling apart. In-fighting between members led to missed performances on a tour they weren’t prepared for, as well. In 1979 at the World Series of Rock in Cleveland, OH, Perry left the band during the tour after an argument with Tyler.
Although Perry had completed guitar parts for several of the songs, the remaining guitars were recorded by Brad Whitford, Richie Supa, Neil Thompson, and Jimmy Crespo. Crespo replaced Perry from 1979-1984. a wildly inconsistent set, which did boast a few rare winners in “No Surprize” and “Three Mile Smile.” The album was panned by critics and dropped in the charts. Even so, the group’s cover of “Remember (Walking In The Sand)” was fun.
Honkin’ On Bobo (2004) With Joe Perry back in the band, the album features one new song and 11 covers of blues and blues/rock songs from the 1950s and 1960s, before The Stones did the same thing. It pays tribute to the band’s earliest influences and is raw, more like their 1970s music.
Over a decade before the Rolling Stones had the bright idea to record a back-to-our-roots blues LP, Aerosmith did just that with 2004’s amusingly named ‘Honkin’ on Bobo.’ A stripped-down affair, it did much to help fans forgive and forget the sell-out sins perpetrated by the band’s previous few records with rambunctious covers of “Road Runner,” “I’m Ready,” and other blues staples.
Having said that, nothing here was exactly life altering, either, including the only original band composition, “The Grind.” Produced by Jack Douglas once again, the album sold over 160,000 copies in the first week and was certified Gold by the RIAA in 2004.
The band plays hard on this album and returns to the dirty blues sound we all love, including harmonica work by Steven Tyler. It includes songs by Bo Diddley, Sonny Boy Williamson, Aretha Franklin, Fred McDowell and more.
With a career now spanning nearly a half-a-century, complete with its its fair share of victories, defeats, and improbable comebacks, Aerosmith have undoubtedly staked their claim as perhaps America’s greatest hard rock band.
“Lifeline” is my new single out today and presents the folkier side of “Flicker“. Me and Nat at Sonic Cathedral thought that side C of the album is something people would like to go deeper on, inspired by brilliant 60s and 70s artists like Pentangle, Nick Drake, Davey Graham and Fairport Convention.
The b-side is a cover of Pentangle’s alt folk classic “Light Flight“. It’s something new(ish) to compliment “Lifeline” written and performed by Andy Bell (Kobalt)/ ‘Light Flight’ written by Jacqui McShee, Terry Cox, Danny Thompson, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn (Carlin Music)
A freshly minted reissue of The Band’s debut album, released as celebration of that record’s 50th birthday, was an absolute guarantee even before it was announced a few months’ back. It’s one of the most venerated rock records of the Woodstock era, analyzed to the level of work by Bob Dylan, the artist that this Canadian-American group backed for his first electric tours. And hearing it even today, the love for “Music From Big Pink” feels entirely justified. The Band crystallized a sound that groups like The Byrds and the Grateful Dead had been wrestling with for years: a muscular production informed by blues, soul, folk and country (a.k.a. the roots of American rock) that stayed true to all of the above genres and felt sharply original.
This new collection blows up the sound of Big Pink to THX levels via a stereo remix by beloved engineer Bob Clearmountain. To drive the point home, they’ve split the original LP up over four sides of vinyl to be played at 45 RPM. Clearmountain’s touch is surprisingly tasteful at times, emphasizing the album’s copious bottom end driven by Rick Danko’s fluttering bass lines, Levon Helm’s kick drum and the swarming organ parts played by Garth Hudson, while adding a healthy gleam to the whole thing. But when his hand gets heavy, it injects a feeling of sterility to some of the most vibrant sounds to come out of the ‘60s. And not just the strange injection of some studio chatter between a few tracks. “The Weight,” inarguably the best known song from this disc, feels pulled apart like taffy, losing much of the spirited energy of the original mix. The same goes for the two Dylan tunes (“This Wheel’s On Fire” and “I Shall BeReleased”) that wrap up the album. Hudson’s clavinet interjections lose their quaint charm and become almost obnoxious and The Band sounds less like a band and more like a bunch of studio players seeking a paycheck instead of musical enlightenment.
The year 1968 is often regarded as the most turbulent time in our history as a nation. Pop culture of that year tended to reflect the rage felt by America’s youth over the developments of the day. This was well represented in the music found on albums like Electric Ladyland, Beggars Banquet, and through ground breaking musicals like Hair. But an album considered among many to be the best of the year, “Music From Big Pink”, was somehow able to indirectly capture that spirit by leveraging themes and musical concepts that are inherently “American.” This was done in a manner that was clever, thoughtful, approachably complex, and remarkably calm and measured.
Fifty years later the music found on “Big Pink” remains fresh and equally riveting. So it was only fitting that to celebrate this milestone, band member Robbie Robertson would lead a charge to use modern technologies to “revisit” the record and some of its better known outtakes. Working with legendary engineer Bob Clearmountain (Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stones) he is about to introduce a remix that lifts the sonic quality of the record without sacrificing any of its integrity. The result is a musical experience that feels contemporary and clean with an expanded sense of dimension.
It’s been a busy year for Robbie Robertson. Just last month he auctioned off the 1965 Fender Stratocaster that he and Bob Dylan famously shared and that Robbie used on the “Big Pink”. Robbie listened in wonder as he described as only he can, how “Music From Big Pink”was put to tape and why it continues to influence scores of musicians.
When this came out, records were still coming out in mono and stereo. And so these very definitive decisions had to be made. There was something exciting about that. Coming back to it, Clearmountain wanted to be extremely loyal to these recordings. He wasn’t interested in getting cute and putting special effects on things. He just wanted to give it more dimension and open it up in a way where you could hear more things, more detail than you ever could before. He nailed that. It was exciting all over again for me to revisit it with him.
When we went in to record “Big Pink”, we wanted to work at A&R studios in New York. That was known as the best sounding studio around and John Simon, our producer, really wanted us to work there. It had been the old Columbia Studio where some many great things were done. Phil Ramone at that time had taken it over and turned it around. So we go in and the engineers tell us where to set up and we do what they say because we want this to sound as good as it possibly can. We go into the first song and all of a sudden I have to stop everything. I said, “I’m sorry this doesn’t work for us at all.” They were like, “What do you mean? What’s wrong?” I said, “We can’t play like this. We need to see one another.” There are baffles, and I’m in one corner and he’s over there and we’re operating through headphones when we usually communicate the eye signals, and gestures, and looks. It’s a big part of our musical communication.
The first song we recorded for “Big Pink” ended up being the first song on the record, “Tears of Rage.” When I think about it now, it was a very personal thing and it’s just coming back to me now that the record company was saying, “You really want to start your record with a long slow song?” And we said “I guess, yeah!” In the studio we started to run through it a little bit and were kinda getting use to the sound in the room and the next thing John Simon says is, “Wow, I’m really liking this.” So we ran it down, we recorded it a couple of times and then John said we should come in and listen to it to see if there were any adjustments we wanted to make. We went into the control room and that was the first time we heard the sound of The Band. That was our sound. It was us for the first time witnessing it. We had made lots of music with Bob Dylan and with The Hawks. But this was a whole different flavour.
To do a song like “Key to the Highway” and it not be a shuffle was almost illegal. We took it and turned it inside out. It was something that I was feeling at the time. I said to Levon (Helm), “How does this feel to you?” And I played the rhythm in the way we did it for him. He said, “Man, let’s give it a shot!” But we were quite aware of some blues enthusiasts who thought that doing in that way with that boldness was almost a sacrilege and I like that!
That record, “Music From Big Pink”, was like rebelling against the rebellion, and the rebellion was this loud psychedelia, everything on 11. This was about going the opposite direction and trying to get just as much emotion out of the music as possible.
“Florist” is the follow up to 2019’s critically acclaimed “Emily Alone”, and is the strongest album of the band’s decade- long career; an immersive work that conveys the magic of the earth and of family, and the whole of the band’s heart. For all of June of 2019, amid a hot and rainy summer, Emily Sprague (guitar, synth, vocals), Jonnie Baker (guitar, synth, sampling, bass, saxophone, vocals), Rick Spataro (bass, piano, synth, vocals) and Felix Walworth (percussion, synth, guitar, vocals) convened in a rented house in the Hudson Valley, to live and work together.
It was the first time the quartet recorded that way, and for that long. “In the past we’d meet up for a couple of days, or one day here and there,” Sprague recalls. “Living together for a month is a really big part of why the arrangements are the way they are, and also why the instrumentals are such a huge part of the record.” The result is 19 tracks that feel like the culmination of a decade-long journey, their fourth full- length album, but the first deserving of a self- titled designation. “We called it Florist because this is not just my songs with a backing band,” Sprague explains. “It’s a practice. It’s a collaboration. It’s our one life. These are my best friends and the music is the way that it is because of that.
19 tracks that culminate the decade-long journey of friendship and collaboration.
The roots of Naima Bock’s music are far reaching. Born in Glastonbury to a Brazilian father and a Greek mother, Naima spent her early childhood in Brazil before eventually returning to England and various homes in South-East London. This heritage combines with more recent pursuits in Naima’s music; from the Brazilian standards that the family would listen to driving to the beach, to the European folk traditions she tapped into on her own, and the pursuits that interest her today – studies in archaeology, work as a gardener, and walking the world’s great trails – Naima’s music draws from family, the earth and the handing down of music through generations.
Naima Bock’s debut is a real gem — the kind of album that sneaks up on you, one that for some reason I can’t stop returning to. “Giant Palm” makes me feel like I’m floating on a cloud. It is preternaturally calm; it’s subtle and enveloping and moves in unhurried, erosive waves. It’s not the type of music that one would expect from a former member of Goat Girl — the anxious, political, idiosyncratic punk group that Bock spent six years in — but perhaps it’s the kind of music that one needs after saying everything that needs to be said. Bock started working on music of her own as a way to escape the sort of always-analytical music that being in a punk band entails.
Bock recorded Giant Palm with close collaborator Joel Burton in the studio of Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey. (Carey produced both of Goat Girl’s albums while Bock was in the band.) It’s funny to imagine such chill music being made in a space that has turned out some of the most frenetic, energetic music of the UK’s post-punk wave.
But Giant Palm‘s recording process turned into something of a community. Because so many were floating around due to pandemic lockdowns, upwards of 30 musicians played on the album. It benefits from having so many people in and around it — it makes these solitary songs sound communal. And while the album feels shaggy and loose, “Giant Palm” has been laid down elegantly and precisely; its most striking moments are also its most composed — movements of swelling harmonies and horn trills and lifting atmosphere where the full surge of what Bock is doing with all of these slowly moving parts take hold.
Written over the space of years, each of Naima’s songs represents a snapshot of a specific feeling, of brief moments in Naima’s life that make up a larger whole. “I never change lyrics” she says, “even if I don’t relate to them anymore, I related to them once which means someone else could, somewhere”. Whether that’s in the playful humour of ‘Campervan’, the peaceful exhale of ‘Giant Palm’ or in the darker moments like in the stark, self-critical honesty of ‘Every Morning’, whatever the form it’s always laid bare. There’s also a feeling of clarity to the songs, which Naima largely credits to the fact that many of them were written while walking. She finds inspiration in the meditative and revealing nature of long walks with a fixed but far-off destination.
“There’s a stripping away that takes place”, she says, the slowing of thoughts by the rhythm of walking is often to thank for the sharp focus of her lyrics. Be that during a period of three years where she would return to Spanish pilgrimage network Camino de Santiago for weeks at a time, or simple hours spent in the English countryside.
With a lightning-fast ascent, Wet Leg forming in 2019 – Their very first single going viral in 2021 – their debut album shooting straight to the number one slot on the charts and now one of the “bands to keep watching” at Glastonbury in 2022.
Wet Leg are Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers. Teasdale had performed for many years on the Isle of Wight as a local musician and pianist, and prior to forming Wet Leg, was known as Rhain and was linked to the music scene in Bristol. In 2013 the promising solo artist Teasdale had performed as Rhain with her song “Humdrum Drivel”. In 2014 she was photographed by Cosmopolitan Magazine while attending the Isle of Wight music festival.
Teasdale and Chambers first met at Isle of Wight College. After ten years of friendship, they became a musical duo in 2019 under the name Wet Leg, signed with Domino Recording Company. They chose the name by playing a game picking different emoji combinations and getting to Wet Leg, which stuck.
Their debut single, “Chaise Longue”, was released on 15th June 2021, and gained media notice for earning millions of streams and video views. Their second single, “Wet Dream”, was released on 28th September 2021. Variety noted, “It’s rare that a new group releases two songs and they’re both great”. They appeared on Later… with Jools Holland on BBC2, In November 2021, they announced their debut self-titled album, released on 8th April 2022 via Domino. The same day, Wet Leg released the double-single “Too Late Now” / “Oh No”.
In an interview the band stated that their name came from a regional epithet from the Isle of Wight to describe non-islanders on the island. Those who had crossed the Solent to enter the isle were said to have a wet leg from getting off the boat.
In 2019 they toured the UK playing songs from their first album. It was announced that they would tour Australia and New Zealand as the support band for a tour by Harry Styles in 2023. Wet Leg appeared on Later… with Jools Holland and they returned for the first part of his next series in May 2022.
In an interview in June 2022, Wet Leg announced that they had already completed their second studio album, but it “wouldn’t be arriving anytime soon”. So just to make sure you aren’t imagining things, here they are as they were last weekend in Glastonbury – wowing the crowd.
It’s a body of work way too impressive to just dip into half-heartedly. All five albums and three EP’s provide essential listening. 1981’s “From The Lion’s Mouth” and the following year’s response to their record label, “All Fall Down“, a kind of Kid A of the early 80s, are their absolute best, but all of them are beautiful pieces of work, devoid of deserving attention, but totally essential. There’s a lot of music here. You should go and listen to it yourself, the band were massively under-rated but totally essential, The Sound are one of the most important UK rock bands of the 1980s with an almost perfect back catalogue waiting to tell you its story.
Their real debut was the album “Propaganda” released so late to honour Borland’s tragic death in 1999. It has seeds of classic punk, which they had later encapsulated in “Jeopardy” very juvenile, but at the same time incredibly moving and sincere release, a simple’s man “Joy Division” of sorts, which is a good thing, because unpretentiousness & fragile honesty is what made The Sound so relatable. Suffice to say, it’s indicative of all the post-punk aesthetics – fear of oneself amidst social insensitivity.
Though it doesn’t mean, that Borland hasn’t ever tried something epic and monumental, akin to Ian Curtis universal mindset. Bootleg “The Korova Demos” contained the yet not officially released song “Falling Boy”, showcasing Adrian’s endeavors at goth rock. He tried something similar with “Skeletons” with some of the most stylish song’s bridges and bass lines in all of the post-punk and surprisingly grandiose “The New Dark Age”, especially considering that the album “From The Lion’s Mouth” has fruits of Curtis approach to symbolism: similar to Joy Division’s “Closer” cover art uses ancient imagery, namely “Daniel in the Lions’ den” painting, to underline hope as a main theme of this release.
There’s also a documentary on Borland’s life currently in production.
Jeopardy
“Jeopardy” is a gloomy, skeletal post-punk album that’s frequently compared to Joy Division, but it’s really so much more than that and it’s too unique to live in Joy Division’s shadow. It’s kind of somewhere between a catchier Joy Division and rawer, punkier Cure, but even that undersells it. One listen to “I Can’tEscape Myself” is all it takes to hear how special The Sound really were. The song is in a constant state of nervous tension — the perfect musical backdrop to the inner demons that inspired the lyrics — and when Adrian finally erupts for the “I-aaaaayeee” on the titular line, it’s like the earth shakes beneath you. TheSound was truly post-punk in that Adrian brought over all that punk energy from The Outsiders, and it really came through when he let himself belt it. (And The Sound were still pretty much a punk band when they first formed, as heard on their three-song debut 1979 EP Physical World and their scrapped 1979 album Propaganda, which was released in 1999.)
As with The Outsiders’ “Close Up“, the best song on Jeopardy is the first song, but it’s full of other great moments, like the punk-ish “Heartland” and “Words Fail Me,” the super catchy “Heyday” (which was released as a single), the glistening title track, the brooding album closer “Desire,” and much more.
Originally recorded by Borland’s previous group The Outsiders and included on The Sound’s debut album “Jeopardy“, “Missiles” washis dramatic highlight was also the showpiece of their live set. The version included on their live album “In The Hot House” shows off what an incendiary live act The Sound were. Borland’s protest about missiles “Who the hell makes those missiles / when you know what they can do?” is accompanied by slashes of post punk guitar doom and a bullet sharp rhythm section. Live, they extended to the track to around the ten minute mark allowing Borland’s impassioned protests against the weapons of destruction to spiral thrillingly out of control.
The album got a perfect score from NME, Sounds, and Melody Maker upon its release, and it’s not hard to hear why it was praised so highly at the time. (It is hard to figure out how it was praised that highly yet feels so obscure today, though.) This was genuinely ground breaking music in 1980, and even today, it sounds refreshing. Especially with yet another post-punk revival happening at the moment, “Jeopardy” feels like an album that could come out right now and win plenty of people over.
From the Lions Mouth
After the well-received “Jeopardy”, The Sound’s label Korova (which was also home to Echo & the Bunnymen, who The Sound also opened for at the time) gave them a bigger budget for their sophomore album, 1981’s “From the Lions Mouth“, and keyboardist Belinda Marshall was replaced by former Cardiacs member Colvin “Max” Mayers. Max brought a fuller, new wavier style to The Sound, which paired with the clearer production resulted in an all-around more accessible album than “Jeopardy“.
The Sound released their second album, ‘From The Lion’s Mouth’, on Korova Records; critical wisdom suggests it should have shot them directly into the sweet spot between the likes of Joy Division & Echo & The Bunnymen as successful British post-punk legends; sadly, the quartet instead took their place alongside touring-mates The Comsat Angels in the category of “Cult favorites
I’m kind of partial to the bare-bones sound of “Jeopardy“, but “From the Lions Mouth” which was once again met with rave reviews is an overall stronger record. There’s no single song as show-stopping as “I Can’t Escape Myself” but it’s a more consistent album with potential hit after potential hit. “Jeopardy” was built to be a cult classic, but “From the Lions Mouth” really sounds like it could’ve made The Sound as big as the Bunnymen, The Cure or even U2.
On opener “Winning,” Adrian rivals Robert Smith at his most desperate, while the driving goth rock of “Skeletons” gave the New Order singles from that same year a run for their money. Those are just two of the many highlights — this album seriously does not let up.
This should’ve been the crossover hit. Urgent, slightly threatening and with the right amount of bombast, U2 – arguably listening pretty closely at the time – should have been sued for their blatant pilferage of it on their 1983 album War. Their track “Two Hearts Beat As One” in particular is the work of Borland in all but name, but it’s without the emotional lyrical poetry of this number – could Bono ever come up with something as hopelessly desolate as “I’ll take my life into my own hands / I’m the one that I will blame / I’m the one who understands” and make it as catchy as this?.
All Fall Down
For their third album, The Sound moved up to Korova’s parent label WEA, and as legend has it, the label gave them an even bigger budget and was really wanting them to make something even more accessible than “From the Lions Mouth” (in the documentary, Duran Duran is frequently brought up as an example of what the label wanted The Sound to sound like). Adrian wasn’t having it, and he took that budget and came out with 1982’s “All Fall Down“, which was apparently a blatant attempt to make something anti-commercial. The label wasn’t happy and they dropped the band, and apparently the album didn’t get such great reviews either, but it really isn’t the total misstep that it’s often made out to be.
It’s darker than From the Lions Mouth and certainly nothing like Duran Duran, but it’s still structured and accessible and just a great gothy post-punk record. Its brooding, opening title track is the weirdest it gets, and if you want to hear The Sound at their gothiest, that’s a great place to start. The rest of the record is classic TheSound, and pretty on par with either of their first two LPs.
Shock Of Daylight
Whilst The Sound may never have matched the commercial success of their peers, the group are frequently hailed as one of the greatest bands of the 1980s and have a cult following to this day.
After the uncommercial sound of their “All Fall Down” album, 1984’s “Shock Of Daylight” was seen by many as a triumphant comeback for the band and a return to form. It includes some of the Sound’s best recordings including the singles “Counting The Days” and “Golden Soldiers“.
Perhaps their best track, and certainly their funkiest. Released on the EP Shock of Daylight, it contains some of Borland’s bleakest lyrics, cleverly masked behind a feiry punk-pop tune, the kind absent mindly hummed by the masses without knowing the kind of artistic despair that gave birth to it (“Looks like an open road / what’s up ahead / with opened arms, I’m frightened too / looks like a new way of life, takes me away from you”). The surging synths and transcendent guitar solo that follows evokes images of a lost soul trying desperately to find a glimmer of light within the oppressive darkness of reality, but ultimately failing.
Probably the most anxious thing they recorded with Borland at his most tormented: “I’ve arrived at the point somewhere in between / the person that I wanted to be and the person I’ve been”. It’s backed with one of the best performances of the band as a whole. The furious pianos and chiming guitars which predate the shoegaze sound by at least five years, are underpinned by some of the greatest rock drumming of all time (Listen to the clanking percussion of Radiohead’s “Reckoner”, then head to this track – there’s severe lineage).
Again, “All Fall Down” is not a misstep, but there was an undeniable feeling that The Sound had something to “come back” from, given WEA dropping them and the lukewarm reviews, and they did just that with 1984’s “Shock of Daylight” EP. It was the tightest, most confident, and most energized that The Sound had ever sounded. It had the punk power of “Jeopardy“, the bigger and more accessible sound of “From the Lions Mouth“, and some of the most immediate songs in the band’s catalogue (“Golden Soldiers,” “Counting the Days”). It’s just a brief six songs, but it’s among the band’s finest work and is as essential as any of their full-lengths. It also set the stage for what would become The Sound’s only real-time live album, 1985’s essential “In the Hothouse“.
The Sound were a fantastic live band from the start; while some gloomy post-punk bands were known for giving the cold shoulder to the audience on stage, The Sound rocked the fuck out. “Regardless of what was happening [in his personal life], he went on stage and became a different person,” said a member of Adrian’s solo band the Citizens in Walking in the Opposite Direction. He battled so many demons and his lyrics could be highly introverted, but on stage he was a magnetic performer who always played to the people in the cheap seats. “In the Hothouse” and videos from the band’s mid ’80s era capture this perfectly.
The Sound – Live in Madrid 1984
1985 also brought a new full-length studio album, “Heads and Hearts“, and unfortunately, this was around the time Adrian’s mental health started to take a big hit. One more album came after that (1987’s “Thunder Up“), and The Sound ended up calling it quits the following year. The last two albums are good, as almost everything Adrian touched was, but you get the sense that the band kind of knew they were falling apart, and the untamed urgency of the earlier records isn’t quite there.
In The Hothouse
Whilst The Sound may never have matched the commercial success of their peers, the group are frequently hailed as one of the greatest bands of the 1980s and have a cult following to this day.
Recorded at the Marquee Club across two August nights in 1985,“In The Hothouse” is the only live album released whilst the band were still active. The set draws on highlights from the group’s back catalogue as well as material from“Heads And Hearts” which had been released a few months earlier.
Pressed on two 140 gram clear vinyl and housed in a deluxe replica gatefold sleeve and printed inner sleeves.
Counting The Days
Formed in south London in 1979, the Sound fronted by singer-songwriter AdrianBorland. Whilst the Sound may never have matched the commercial success of their peers, the group are frequently hailed as one of the greatest bands of the 1980s and have a cult following to this day. Issued in 1986, ‘Counting The Days’ was the sole compilation released during the band’s years together and gathers together tracks from their acclaimed releases“Shock Of Daylight”, “Heads And Hearts” and “In The Hothouse“. The complete collection is now issued on vinyl for the very first time, pressed on two 180g clear vinyl.
Thunder Up
The final testament of the tragically underrated (at least in their own time) The Sound, whose best albums (the first three) would make any admirer of moody-broody Mancunian pop blush with shame for missing out on this band’s dark treasures during their short existence. Regarded as their masterpiece by several of the band members, “Thunder Up” is the rawest account of Borland’s inner turmoil in terms of lyrical content while also being the band’s most conventional sounding. It is hard to ignore the gauzy, reverb-drenched late 80s overproduction. The Sound really benefited from a more minimalist approach when capturing their unique sense of ennui, a feeling of unrest that never fully boils into rage but simmers at a pitch of melancholic contempt. The most obvious detail that distracts the ears, particularly in terms of production, is the use of pre-set synth sounds.
“Thunder Up” was the fifth and final studio album by the post-punk band, released in 1987 on Belgian record label Play It Again Sam.
Two singles were released from the album: “Hand of Love” and “Iron Years”. The album and its subsequent tour precipitated the band’s breakup in early 1988. Like the Sound’s previous records, the album was not commercially successful, but the band largely considered it to be their best work.
“Thunder Up” was a favourite among Sound band members. Drummer Michael Dudley named it as one of his favourite Sound albums (along with “Propaganda“), while Graham Bailey called it the band’s “crowning glory”. In a 1988 interview, frontman Adrian Borland said, “Ultimately I find “Thunder Up” the very best album, because it sounds like the band ‘live’ in the studio and, in a way, it actually was”
Back in the 80s, tiny indie rock acts having one off Top 20 hits were a regular occurrence. The likes of The Railway Children, Lotus Eaters, Brilliant and Dream Academy all managed to have genuine crossover hits, only to disappear as quickly as they appeared. These were bands who were quietly going about their business, but once success struck, they were all derailed by record label demand. “Kinetic” of course wasn’t a hit, but if it was released as a single, then maybe the subsequent future of the band after the failure of the parent album of this track may have panned out differently. It’s shiny, bright and almost optimistic.
Whereas in earlier Sound albums, they always managed to develop evocatively chilly synth sounds to match the specific mood of each song (the best example being the palette used in their existential masterpiece “Silent Air” from The Lion’s Mouth), most of the keyboard tones used here sound like they were shaped in a Casio factory. Of course, it should be noted that this album is a contemporary of late 80’s Cure, a discography replete with ridiculous but effective synthetic horn sections (thinking of “Why Can’t I Be You” in particular). Robert Smith’s manic whimsy somehow makes up for those embarrassing synth pre-sets. But if there is one topic that The Sound is not known for exploring, it is manic whimsy. Borland does not take on different characters or experiment with irony; he can only express his own misery from his own point of view, which is why this band is so great, but it also means that their sound can come of as brittle when drenched with glossy production.
On the 26th of April 1999, Adrian Borland, a man who had spent a significant part of his adult life dealing with manic depression, took the decision to end his own life.
The signs had been there for the best part of two decades, be they behavioural or lyrical. The lyrics AdrianBorland composed for his bands The Outsiders, Second Layer, or with his greatest artistic achievement, the South London 80’s post-punk pop outfit The Sound, were a glimpse into a troubled mind set to music. One of the first lines to “I Can’t Escape Myself”, the opening track on their debut LP “Jeopardy“, lays it out there for all to see: “Left all alone, I’m with the one I most fear / I’m sick and tired of reasoning / Just want to break out, shake off this skin”.
ADRIAN BORLAND & THE CITIZENS
Around the same time as The Sound’s demise, Adrian played guitar (under the pseudonym Joachim Piment) for the experimental rock band Honolulu Mountain Daffodils, he did some production work (including on Felt’s 1989 album Me and a Monkey on the Moon), and then he began his solo career as Adrian Borland & the Citizens with 1989’s “Alexandria“. It marked a fairly major departure from The Sound and went into brighter jangle pop and alternative rock territory, both of which suited Adrian’s song writing style just fine. As ever, when he opened his mouth to sing, you felt it. “Alexandria” is a little more light hearted on the surface than The Sound, but Adrian’s distinct style makes it more than that. It’s joyful on the surface, but haunted at its core. It’s an album that couldn’t have come from anyone else.
Adrian’s solo career continued into the ’90s, first with the even more joyous (and polished) 1992 album “Brittle Heaven“, and then with the more ethereal, dream pop-leaning “Beautiful Ammunition” (1994), the folkier “Cinematic” (1995), and the little-bit-of-everything “5:00 AM” (1997).
It’s all good and all very worth hearing, but perhaps the most stunning album he made in the ’90s was the one that was cut short when he took his own life, “Harmony and Destruction“. He was working on it in 1999 and it found him diving a little deeper into psychedelic rock than he ever really had before, and he had to have known it’d be the last thing he ever did. Apparently he felt like his medication was hindering his performance in the studio and he stopped taking it, despite his bandmates and producer telling him otherwise, and ultimately Adrian decided it was time for him to leave us, before the album was done.
Thankfully, he had done vocals for all 14 songs on the album and his bandmates and producer were able to finish it, and it came out posthumously as “Harmony and Destruction (The Unfinished Journey)” in 2002. From the jammy psychedelia of “Forever From Here” to the melancholic folk of “Startime,” it covers so much musical ground, and it features some of the most powerful material in Adrian’s rich catalogue. The song that’ll really stop you in your tracks, though, is the hidden track, “Death Of A Star.” “How do you feel when a star dies?” Adrian asks in the lyrics, and maybe he wasn’t talking about himself, but it’s hard to hear it any other way.
You can really spend a lifetime digging into Adrian’s work (I can’t even claim to have heard every single thing he’s released, and more stuff keeps coming out — 2019 saw another posthumous release, Lovefield), and once you get sucked into his world, every new thing you hear by him starts to hit immediately. Maybe those mid ’90s solo albums aren’t as essential for casual fans as The Sound’s classic early ’80s material, but once you get deep into his work, you just can’t stop exploring, and his catalogue is almost always rewarding. It’s that voice. As soon as you hear it, even when it’s a song you had never heard before, it feels comfortingly familiar. Adrian was the kind of talent you only get a few times in each generation.
Despite releasing six albums in their lifetime, The Sound remain one of the great unheard bands of the 80s. This goes with the underground territory, of course, but what exactly is the sound of The Sound? There was much in common with Korova label-mates, Echo and the Bunnymen, with Adrian Borland’s vocals falling somewhere between Ian McCulloch and The Comsat Angels’ Steve Fellows. And if you need further comparisons, it’s broadly similar to other early 80s alternative acts like the Teardrop Explodes and Mancunian underground doomsters, The Chameleons.
The Walking in the Opposite Direction documentary features interviews with Adrian’s family members, bandmates, producers, and significant others, and it really does a great job of showing what a fascinating and troubled life Adrian lived. It’s full of fantastic live footage and all kinds of intriguing insight into Adrian’s music and personal life. Interviewees describe some of Adrian’s scariest episodes, but the documentary is full of fond memories as well. It’s clear that the people who were closest to him thought so highly of Adrian as an artist, and that music was truly so important to him. “His music was more important to him than his health,” his father said.
