From the first moments of its exultant opening track “Wolves,” Hurray For The Riff Raff’s new album “Lifeon Earth” pulsates with life. Led by the unsinkable Alynda Mariposa Segarra, Hurray for the Riff Raff’s first full-length project in four years overflows with wisdom on how to make the most of, well, refer to the title. Segarra’s powerful voice perfectly complements the band’s undulating melodies, creating what the artist has called “nature punk.” But so much of the album’s power lies in the simple honesty and beauty of Segarra’s lyricism. As they repeat over an echoing, dissonant piano in the chorus of the title track: “Life on Earth is long.” As the song builds and their mantra seeps in, listening to the album feels less like recreation than prayer. “Life On Earth” is the longest thing we’ll ever do.
Alynda Seggara, who describes the song as “a psalm to all earthly beings. A letter regarding the suffering of humankind which affects all on this planet.”
“Life on Earth”, is a departure for the Bronx-born, New Orleans-based singer / songwriter. Its eleven new “nature punk” tracks on the theme of survival are music for a world in flux – songs about thriving, not just surviving, while disaster is happening.
For her eighth full-length album, Segarra (they/she) drew inspiration from The Clash, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Bad Bunny, and the author of Emergent Strategy, Adrienne Maree Brown. Recorded during the pandemic,“Life on Earth” was produced by Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Bon Iver, Kevin Morby).
The title track Hurray for the Riff Raff’s debut album, ‘LIFE ON EARTH,’ out now on Nonesuch Records
Here is a legendary “Poster From The Past” that was never printed, for the show that never happened. Unfortunately the Carousel Ballroom went bankrupt the week before this show would have been presented. Too bad, so sad…..Had it gone on, the income from this show would surely have kept the Carousel in business a while longer. Never the less, the posters were never made and this piece never really saw the light of day. It was created by Rick Schubb who aspired to be the resident artist for the Carousel Ballroom had it survived. I am totally sure that it would have become another sought after Classic Hendrix poster had things been just a bit different.
Jimi Hendrix, along with BB King and The Move were “supposed” to play for three nights the Carousel Ballroom. It would have been a Killer show! Rick did print this Poster up long after the fact in 2005 and at one time offered it and the other pieces he did for the Carousel Ballroom for sale at his website.
Ty Segall has shared a new cover of The Mantles’ “Don’t Lie” The cover serves as the third single from Segall’s forthcoming new album, “Hello, Hi”, out July 22nd via Drag City. “Don’t Lie” originally comes from The Mantles’ 2009 self-titled debut. Segall’s rendition of the track is a soft, acoustic-guitar driven tune with some layered, psychedelic-tinged harmonies with echoes of Marc Bolan.
“Some songs are so good, you just can’t get them out of your head,” a press release explains of the cover. “And you never want to! Storing them deep inside allows you to dig ‘em up again, like (re)discovered treasure, so they can reinvigorate your worldview all over again. And so the love grows. For Ty, The Mantles’ 2009 slice of garage-pop perfection, ‘Don’t Lie’ is one of those songs.
Having played and toured with The Mantles in the Bay Area back in the day, Ty descends compassionately into the layers of morality within their affirmation anthem, uncovering a haunted sense of time passed while re-modling the surging rock around the original melody into solo acoustic performance. Intimate and disarming, Ty talks to himself with guitars and voices, an exquisite filigree for the romance cleft ruthlessly open in the lyrics; heartbreak vibes for a new age.”
In addition to the “Don’t Lie” cover, “Hello, Hi” also features the previously released “Saturday Pt.2” and the title track. Drag City Inc. Released on: 2022-06-28
Ty will be at the Green Man Festival Brecon Beacons United Kingdom 21st August 2022
“Cale is a multi-dimensional song-conjurer, capable of crafting songs that saunter and shimmer on the surface, but hold deeper, darker insights that reveal themselves upon repeated listens.” -BANDCAMP DAILY
“Cale is deft at building something fresh from long established components, and it helps that he sings like a wizened troubadour ” -THE VINYL DISTRICT “An album born out of the arriving and departing life of a touring musician and of all the reflections and questions it can throw up.” -FOLK RADIO UK
“Zachary Cale has been making thoughtful, dusty, folky rock for 20 years now, most that while living in NYC, coming up alongside Sharon Van Etten and Kurt Vile. He just released his seventh album, “Skywriting”, one of his most fleshed-out, robust sounding albums to date, inspired by time on the road and packed with memorable songs and sparkling arrangements” -BROOKLYN VEGAN
“Skywriting” is the latest full length album from Zachary Cale, primarily recorded at Black Dirt Studio by Jason Meagher in upstate New York. As Cale’s seventh studio record, “Skywriting” takes on a new focus for the seasoned songwriter, pivoting to more of a band-focused rock album. Inspired by many years on the road, the songs that make up the album depict characters in a state of perpetual motion, or better yet a constant state of becoming. The gamble and sacrifice that one makes in pursuit of their art is felt in just about every line. Many of the songs reflect on time spent traveling between cities, being away from loved ones, introspective moments in motel rooms, green rooms, and long stretches of highway.
“Melodic, guileless and affecting.” -THE BIG TAKEOVER
“As is his usual MO, Cale expertly balances the sweetness of the music with a pinch of bitterness, detailing the strange sadness of a life spent on the road.” -AQUARIUM DRUNKARD
“A lot of bands are working the lysergic country genre lately, but Cale is among the best at joining Americana songcraft with open-ended motorik-ness and spiraling guitar freakery.” -DUSTED MAGAZINE
“With a slight whisky rasp, Cale lays out motel loneliness, Highway hypnosis, solitary meditations, dark secrets, and darker nights. There’s a tension between emotional turbulence and weathered acceptance. It’s a record coming to terms with itself and what it wants out of life — one toe in gig jobs, one toe in a touring life. Cale runs the tightrope well, providing solace and sanction at once, crafting one of his most nuanced albums yet.” -RAVEN SINGS THE BLUES
Fucked Up guitarist Ben Cookcalls his last solo album as Young Guv “a document of my two years away from the world. My healing.” “GUV III” was written in the desert of New Mexico, where Cook lived a bohemian lifestyle for nine months. “The energy there was unlike anything I’d experienced,” he revealed in the press release for the album (which is already slated to be eclipsed by a GUV IV this summer). The product of this Into the Wild–esque inertia speaks for itself. Young Guv’s melodies move with the breeze, undemanding and steeped in a half-awake languor.
The lyrics reveal a craving for human connection, and despite his meditative state, the writing is still chiefly concerned with hooks that Teenage Fanclub would approve of. In other words, Zen and the Art of Guitar Pop.
Ben calls the new album “a document of my two years away from the world. My healing.” “Through real work in therapy over a long period, as well as spending many months isolated and alone, I have started to finally access my true self little by little, and it’s reflected in this music.” Maybe that process would have happened anyway, without the world cataclysm, without the detour to the sacred mountains. But it happened in its peculiar way, and in a holy place, and so we have this poignant and beautiful two-album set, which couldn’t have been made in any other timeline or under any other conditions. It’s an open question where exactly the timeline that begins with GUV III & IV leads. After tracking the albums in L.A. in early 2021, Ben decamped to Mexico — old Mexico — where the healing process has taken yet another surprising turn. “I’m taking a complete break from music,” Ben says. “I haven’t picked up a guitar since the record wrapped. I’m learning Spanish and boxing.”
Jason Quever has lived a high-stakes life. Raised in a commune until he was 10, he lost both of his parents while still in his teens. Now the singer/songwriter is channelling his experiences into musical cocoons that he makes in his home studio. “I don’t want to hit people over the head. That’s just not who I am. I don’t necessarily like to be the centre of attention,” he’s clarified. Although not the centre of attention, Quever’s presence has pockmarked the DIY indie verse, from his producing credits (Beach House, Luna, Owen Ashworth) to his long-running project Papercuts, which recently released “Past LifeRegression“. Its reams of misty guitars, quivering synthesizers, and Spector-esque production confirm that Papercuts doesn’t let go of the past, but finds a way to harness it to heady, euphonious results.
Jason Quever has been releasing timeless guitar- based dream pop as Papercuts since 2004, impervious to trends or micro genres that have come and gone around him. In that regard, his contemporaries are artists like Hiss Golden Messenger, Fruit Bats, Andy Shauf or Kings of Convenience – artists who are more concerned with song craft and perfecting their sound, and less concerned with gimmicks or fitting into a specific scene.
“Past Life Regression” is his new album and it’s a journey into the dreamier reaches of psychedelic folk-pop that digs deep into influences as wide- ranging as The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Spiritualized, Echo and The Bunnymen, Leonard Cohen and late 60s pop of various flavours.
Jason Quever is / was also the producer for Beach House, Dean Wareham and Cass McCombs, among others
Roscoe is a road dog. The 14-year-old Boston Terrier has been there for the whole ride of Mapache, Clay Finch and Sam Blasucci’s band, which has grown from being the casual project of two long time buds to one of the most formidable cosmic-folk acts around. “Roscoe’s been through a lot of shit,” says Blasucci, the dog’s formal owner. “He’s been all around the country, come on tour a little bit.” With some bemused pride, Finch points out that, for a few years, he and Blasucci bunked together in a room in the Echo Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles that was just big enough to fit two twin beds. “It was the two of us and the dog,” he laughs.
Naturally, Roscoe has found himself the subject of a good handful of Mapache songs in the past—and on “Roscoe’s Dream”, the band’s third LP of originals, he takes centre stage. (That’s him in quilt form on the album cover.) “I Love My Dog” opens up the album with a blissed-out stack of acoustic guitars and a lyrical explanation of one of Roscoe’s many talents: “I love my dog / Keepin’ the policeman out.”
Just as much an easygoing trip with Gram Parsons into the desert as a mad dash with the Grateful Dead away from the law, “Roscoe’s Dream” is the purest distillation yet of the distinct Mapache sound, which has been brewing for many years now. Finch and Blasucci first met as students at La Cañada High School, just north of Los Angeles: “There wasn’t much supervision or anything,” remembers Blasucci. “It was really nice. And we got to just play guitars together.”
The two stayed friends through their college years—Finch went to Chico State and Blasucci spent two years as a missionary in Mexico—and eventually they ended up back in L.A., spending their days playing guitar together once again, just like old times. Working with producer/engineer Dan Horne (Cass McCombs, Allah-Lahs), they recorded two albums of originals (2017’s Mapache and 2020’s “From Liberty Street”) as well an album of covers, 2021’s “3“. Often trading solos, and occasionally switching from English to Spanish, Finch and Blasucci are now a well-oiled machine.
So when it came time to record “Roscoe’s Dream”, they didn’t mess with the formula. The band booked some time at Horne’s Lone Palm Studio and called in a handful of friends to play additional parts, including Farmer Dave Scher of Beachwood Sparks on melodica and lap steel on a couple tracks.
The family affair has always been how the band likes to work, but this time they approached it on a grander scale than before, recording live as a full group in some cases, as opposed to working over Finch and Blasucci’s initial guitar/vocal parts. “It was a bit more of a band experience,” explains Finch.
The finished product is an ode to the past as well as a bridge forward. Covers of songs like Bo Diddley’s “Diana” and Gabby Pahinui’s “Kaua‘i Beauty” act as nods to heroes of theirs while originals like “Man and Woman” and “Pearl to the Swine” take the template of golden-age rock and lovingly deconstruct it in a modernist lens.
“(They Don’t Know) At the Beach” was inspired by the idea of what trailblazing oldies DJ Art Laboe might like—but the gentle ripper of a song would fit right in at a backyard party in 2022.
Hard to imagine after years of being roommates, Finch and Blasucci are also bridging forward in new ways themselves. After the album was in the can, Finch decided to get a little closer to the water by moving to Malibu, and Blasucci moved about an hour north to Ojai with his girlfriend (and Roscoe, of course). But they’re not worried about the new distance slowing them down: “I think if anything it will be bringing more things to the table,” Blasucci considers. “We’re just expanding out in different directions.”
“A groove so strong you can basically hear the sunshine.” — NPR Music “If the Everly Brothers cruised back from a high desert road trip and landed at County Line beach and cracked a beer to watch the sunset – you’d have these guys…Mapache’s chemistry is undeniable and their creative circle seems to be flourishing.” — KCRW
“Quintessentially laid-back. This is Sunday morning music, best experienced within walking distance of Big Sur or Joshua Tree.” — UNCUT “Cosmic California Country.” — THE CURRENT
Large Plants is the post-apocalyptic downer-fuzz-rock side project of Jack Sharp, former singer guitarist from psych-folk luminaries Wolf People. Suddenly without a band and faced with the enforced lockdown of Summer 2020, Jack set up in a friends’ old barn in Bedfordshire and created a tonne of scuzzy, loner, biker-rock. Ten psych rock belters are filtered through a haze of tape flutter and lent a distinct folk sensibility by Jack Sharp’s delicate and distant voice; like the smell of winter mornings and fresh soil blended with the whiff of petrol.
In summer of 2021 the tracks were mixed by songwriter Chris Cohen (formerly of Deerhoof and Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti).
Large Plants’ songs are immediate, heavy psychedelic rock belters filtered through a haze of analogue tape flutter. Sharp’s voice has an eerily distant and delicate tone that lends a strong folk sensibility to the album; like the scent of winter mornings and fresh soil mixed with the whiff of petrol. Though the songs are generally three-minute gems, they are lyrically more like ancient ballads; peopled with tragic youths, witches, lovelorn troubadours and femmes fatales.
A fine slice of haunted (and hauntological) folk rock. UNCUT
“The Carrier” by Large Plants is out on 22nd April. It follows on from their hugely successful debut single, “La Isla Bonita” in December of last year. (Shindig magazine’s Single of the Year.)
“The fifth studio album & apparently the last euphoric mind-trip to Kikagaku Moyo’s imagined island. Best-suited for counting stars, looking at the ocean, and dancing in one’s daydream.”
In many ways ‘Kumoyo Island’ represents the culmination of a journey for Kikagaku Moyo. While their decade-long career can be summarized as a series of kaleidoscopic explorations through lands and dimensions far and near, there’s a strong intention in each of their works to take the listener to a particular place, however real or abstract they may be. In that sense, the title and cover art for the band’s fifth and final album draws you into a magical mass of land surrounded by water—but the couch suggests that ‘Kumoyo Island’ may not be a fleeting stop, but rather a place of respite, where one could pause and take it all in.
Reconvening at Tsubame Studios in Asakusabashi, Tokyo, where their earliest material had been recorded, the five members of Kikagaku Moyo found new inspiration in a familiar and comfortable environment. With their adopted homebase of Amsterdam under lockdown and their touring activities halted due to the pandemic, the band felt a renewed sense of freedom being back in shitamachi, or the old downtown area of their hometown. With unrestricted time in the studio, they began to build upon the demos and song fragments they’d amassed since their last tour. In the 1.5 months spent in Tokyo, everything started to come together. “Monaka”, its name taken from a type of Japanese wafer sweets, takes melodic inspiration from traditional minyofolk styles, while “Yayoi Iyayoi” is a rare instance of the band singing in their native tongue, its evocative lyrics utilizing archaic words taken from old poetry and nature books found in one of the many second-hand bookstores of Tokyo. For “Meu Mar”, an Erasmos Carlos cover, the original Portuguese lyrics were translated into English, then to Japanese. Strangely enough, the words seem to conjure an image of the protagonist floating among the clouds, looking down upon Tokyo Bay.
In fact, it may be possible to draw a parallel between the topography of the band’s home country—an island nation, surrounded by bodies of water—and the mysterious isle of Kumoyo. Are they one and the same? Has the band finally made it back home? It’s up to the listener to decide.
Ivy Wye is an Ontario-based folk singer and multi-instrumentalist who is largely influenced by 1970s singer/songwriters (Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, Margo Guryan) and modern minimalistic folk artists (Jessica Pratt, Shannon Lay). Ivy Wye Canadian singer-songwriter and musician with a captivating folk sound contained within her music, as displayed in latest album, “Hope’s Convenience” sounds stunning from the off, with some sumptuous guitar melodies providing the backbone to the track. Ivy’s vocals are ethereal in nature, giving the music a mystical ambience that suits the folk genre well. The strings are hauntingly beautiful, as is the rest of the song – make sure you check it out here:
Released April 27th, 2022
Recorded at home. All songs written & performed by Ivy Wye
Bass guitar performed by Ryan Gavel Backup vocals performed by David O’Connor (track 5) Acoustic guitar performed by Jim Hardy (track 6)
