The Fat Angel Sings

Kevin Devine has shared the second single off his first proper album in six years, “Nothing’s Real, So Nothing’s Wrong”, and it’s a very cool song that finds him going in synth poppier direction than usual, but still in that unmistakably Kevin Devine kind of way.

 Kevin Devine, has been keeping busy by dusting off deep cuts from his early days as a recording artist and re-releasing them under the album title “Matter of Time II”, a worthy endeavor and perfectly good excuse for not releasing any new album-length material since 2016’s “Instigator“. That all changed back in January when Devine announced the album “Nothing’s Real, So Nothing’s Wrong“, which will arrive on March 25th. Having previously shared the single “Albatross,” today we’re hearing a second new track from the album in the form of a live “Neighborhoods” performance in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery—the track, aptly, is titled “If I’m Gonna Die Here.”

“Green-Wood Cemetery has sprawled magnificent and ruminative and historical and expansive and indifferent within two miles of various addresses I’ve held for 32 of my 42 years alive,” Devine shares of the site’s significance for him. “I’ve spent more time wandering around there (mostly with two of my oldest friends, and with my daughter) in the pandemic than I had in all that time prior, by a wide margin, and it’s been miraculous and restorative.

He continues, “it was the first—sorta the only—place I thought of, and “If I’m Gonna Die Here” was the obvious and intuitive song choice. I didn’t want to be disrespectful to the grounds, to the occupants, to the visitors, so I wanted to do something short, to minimize the potentiality of disruption. And the content of the song, written in December 2020, made performing it unavoidable. 

“How Can I Help You?” is the second single off of Kevin Devine’s upcoming tenth record, ‘Nothing’s Real, So Nothing’s Wrong,’ out 25th March on Triple Crown Records.

Get transported back to the simpler times of a pre-industrial America. ‘Fables in a Foreign Land,’ the new solo album from John Doe is out May 20th on Fat Possum Records. Pre-order available now and listen to his new single “Never Coming Back”.

John Doe: Punk rock pioneer with X, songwriter, poet, actor, solo artist, published author…folk musician – with “Fables in a Foreign Land”, Doe’s tales are now vividly set in a dusty desolate pre-Industrial Era.

“All of these songs take place in the 1890s. There’s a lot of sleeping on the ground, a lot of being hungry, a lot of isolation,” explains Doe of the concept album. “All of that fits into the kind of isolation and lack of modern stimuli that I think people started rediscovering during the pandemic lockdown: realizing that as parts of your life start getting taken away, what’s important and what you live for becomes paramount.”

Joining Doe on the album are Kevin Smith (Willie Nelson) on bass and Conrad Choucroun drums. And though most of the 13 songs were written over the last three years, the sound was born during weekly, acoustic backyard jams on Smith’s patio.

Of the first single, “Never Coming Back,” Doe explains, “This song starts the record for a reason, it embodies the spirit and events of what’s to come. It begins a journey that will be without comfort, where you are running from something dark, that is approaching fast. You can’t go back because there’s nothing to go back to. The entire record is set during the end of the 1890’s.

The highly anticipated new solo release from John Doe, “Fables in a Foreign Land“, will hit retail and digital outlets on May 20th, 2022 – his first via Fat Possum Records. “These songs take place alone, wandering, searching and hungry accompanied by horses not machines. Ultimately, I hope to send the listener to an unknown place with unpredictable characters and let them all live in that foreign land.” Guests writers include Shirley Manson (Garbage), Exene Cervenka (X),  Terry Allen and Louie Pérez (Los Lobos).

releases May 20th, 2022

Kate Bollinger’s songs tend to linger well beyond their run times, filling the negative space of
ordinary days with charming melodies and smart phrasings. She writes them at home in
Richmond, Virginia, letting her subconscious lead stretches on guitar, an open-ended process
she likens to dreaming. From a chord progression appears a line, maybe a syllable will start to
stick, enough to pursue, but she says sometimes the words don’t feel like her own, more like
shapes that form in the mind’s sky. While many are personal and deal with the emotions that
surface with finding her place in the world, she’d prefer they be whatever you’d like them to be,
to connect with listeners in their own way. Bollinger’s musical universe is relaxed, tender, and
unassuming; within lives a timeless sensibility, a songwriter’s knack for noticing the little things
and their counterpoints. Darkness and light, pain and pleasure, reality and escape.
Her project is collaborative; she shoots music videos with her friends and colours each of her
folk-pop songs with musicians in her community. An agile group of players with backgrounds in
jazz, they recorded her first EP, “I Don’t Wanna Lose”, as live takes in a single day, then slowed it
down to build out her 2020 EP, A word becomes a sound. Bollinger sings fast at times; she
jokes that can get her into trouble when it comes to playing live, “some of these songs are going
to be a mouthful.” She’s always been drawn to singers in that free-flowing style and got into the
habit of writing quickly while watching her long time collaborator John Trainum work with rappers
in the studio.

Forced to finish her last EP in lockdown, Bollinger, Trainum, and bandmates excitedly returned
to sessions in the spring of 2021 to explore a new batch of songs, now beginning to surface at
summer’s end. In August, she shared “Shadows,” an introspective psych-pop lullaby
characterized by languid melodies, pointed lyrics, and an air of mischief — all on display in the
single’s surreal music video directed by her childhood friend, Kia Wassenaar. Paste Magazine
called the single “warm, dynamic, and inviting.”
With a tour underway supporting Real Estate and dates with Faye Webster slated for spring
2022, Bollinger lets the next one fly alongside the announcement of her first-ever label signing.
From a forthcoming collection on Ghostly International, “Yards / Gardens” finds Bollinger in full
swing, skipping verses of uncertainty above a bright and nimble bassline and kick. Guitarist
Chris Lewis weaves throughout, his riffs unravel across the bridge, trailing her lines like ellipses.

Written with Trainum and Lewis in their shared month-to-month storage space, “Yards /
Gardens” reflects “feeling resistant to change, during a time when it felt like everything was
changing,” says Bollinger. Growing up has become a motif in her work, but she’s never
sidestepped the concept in quite this way. Here, self-assured and surrounded by vivid
production, she leans back in the grass, letting expectations breeze by, reminding herself she’ll
tend to things in good time (“I’m viewing days like practice rounds / come next year, I’ll know
what to do”)

The brand-new album from the Dream Syndicate blends vintage krautrock, eno-like ambience, neu-inspired rhythmic groove and a Californian sun baked sheen into the their classic psychedelic, melodic, hue.

The Dream Syndicate have moved well past their early velvet underground influences and taken on british glam, german prog, and more featuring singer/songwriter/guitarist Steve Wynn, drummer Dennis Duck, bassist Mark Walton, lead guitarist Jason Victor plus their newest member Chris Cacavas (you remember him from the 1980s Los Angeles band Green On Red), on keyboards, plus guest appearances from Stephen Mccarthy (of the Long Ryders) and Marcus Tenney’s expressive sax and trumpet work. “clever, ambitious, and blessedly noisy.”

Lead single ‘Where I’ll Stand’  opens with vintage Krautrock electronic synths blending into a classic Dream Syndicate vibe – not unlike “Tell Me When It’s Over” that kicked off ‘The Days of Wine and Roses’ – with touches of Bowie’s opening song on Scary Monsters “It’s No Game”.

“It feels like an attempt–via the lyrics and the circular chord progression–to impose some kind of order and logic on a world that was severely lacking in both respects at the time.” Steve Wynn

“atmospheric rock music veering between noise and subtlety compelling.” 

Available in LTD ed. Transparent Violet LP, Black LP & CD. Also available the ‘Dream Syndicate Battle Hymns Bundle’: LTD ed. Violet LP + Enamel Pin + Tote Bag + Baseball Cap + Slipmat.

If you’re looking for a raw, sugary blast of distorted pop, look no further than Weird Nightmare. The debut album from METZ guitarist and vocalist Alex Edkins contains all of his main band’s bite with an unexpected, yet totally satisfying, sweetness. Imagine The Amps covering Big Star, or the gloriously hissy miniature epics of classic-era Guided by Voices combined with the bombast of Copper Blue- era Sugar—just tons of red-line distortion cut with the type of tune craft that thrills the moment it hits your ears. 

These ten songs showcase a new side of Edkins’ already-established song writing, but even though the bulk of Weird Nightmare was recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic some of its tunes date back to 2013 in demo form. “Hooks and melody have always been a big part of my writing, but they really became the main focus this time” he explains. “It was about doing what felt natural.” 

Weird Nightmare is not a “pandemic album,” but an album—some of which had been gestating for quite a while—that just so happened to be recorded during the pandemic. “I had always planned on finishing these songs, but being unable to tour with METZ, and forced to lock down, really gave me a push.” After days spent home schooling his son, Edkins would drive to the METZ rehearsal room and tinker deep into the night on these songs’ deceptively simple structures and rich, static-laden textures. “It was a godsend for me,” he states about the creative process. “The hours would disappear and I would get lost in the music and record. It was a beautiful escape.”

Weird Nightmare is, in its own way, a study in extremes: Edkins’ melodic instincts and penchant for dissonance are both turned up to the max throughout, the latter reflecting not only the barn-burning tendencies of METZ, but Alex’s own sonic predilections. “It doesn’t sound right to my ears until it’s pushed over the edge.” He also cites other artists who are masterful at mixing the sublime and the punishing—Kim Deal and Scout Niblett among them—as influences on his own song writing. “My favourite songs are the simple ones,” he explains. “I’ve never been attracted to virtuosity or technicality. Certain songs have the power to lift your spirits like nothing else can. I wanted to create that type of song.” 

“I’ve found a new confidence in my writing and producing,” Edkins continues while discussing his song writing approach on Weird Nightmare. “I really enjoy creating and recording, and I wanted this record to reflect how much fun I was having.” And even though its songs occasionally dip into weighty themes—underneath the driving riffs of “Darkroom” are ruminations on trying to fight off bad habits amidst personal malaise, while the anthemic “Lusitania” is, in his words, “a fictional love song”—this album is indeed an absolute blast to listen to. 

A few guests pitch in on Weird Nightmare: Canadian alt-pop genius Chad VanGaalen adds his unmistakable touch to the ever-escalating “Oh No,” while Alicia Bognanno of Bully lends her distinctive pipes to the thrashing “Wrecked,” a collaboration that effectively saved the song. “I almost didn’t put it on the album because I thought it was missing something,” Edkins explains. “I sent it to Alicia and she lifted it way up.” 

And taking risks and reaching out of Edkins’ comfort zone was the name of the game when it came to making Weird Nightmare. “I found myself doing new things I didn’t have the guts to do before, recording everything by myself and trusting all of my musical instincts,” he states. “I think when music manifests quickly, a certain amount of honesty automatically comes along with it. When it is a purely instinctual creation, there is no opportunity to obscure the truth.”

Releases May 20th, 2022

© 2022 Sub Pop Records

Dig deep enough inside yourself – start treating your body as your sanctuary rather than your enemy – and eventually you’ll find yourself blooming right back out into the sun. That’s the transformation Guerilla Toss trace on their newest album “Famously Alive“, their effervescent Sub Pop Records debut. After a decade sprinkling glitter into grit, building a reputation as one of the most ferociously creative art-rock groups working, the upstate New York band have eased fully into their light. This is Guerilla Toss at their most luminescent – awake, alive, and extending an open invitation to anyone who wants to soak it all up beside them.

Singer and lyricist Kassie Carlson, multi-instrumentalist Peter Negroponte and guitarist Arian Shafiee wrote “Famously Alive” at home in the Catskills during the pervading quiet of the pandemic year. The uncertainty of COVID-19 lockdowns and the total disruption of routine forced Carlson to negotiate with herself in new and challenging ways. “You have to be with yourself all the time during the pandemic,” she says. “I had to figure out a way to manage my anxiety. The pandemic was hard, but it helped me get comfortable inside my own body. My peace of mind came out of being thrust into the deepest shit. This album is all about being happy, being alive, and strength. It’s meant to inspire people.”

The album’s title derives from a poem written by a close friend of the band, Jonny Tatelman, who supported Carlson through the early stages of her recovery from opiate addiction. The poem comprises the entirety of the lyrics to the title track, an exuberant ode to loving your own survival and charting a course into unconditional self-acceptance. “The song ‘Famously Alive’ is about living with purpose and excitement whether you’re famous or not, accepting your strangeness and thriving even if your successes look different than other people’s,” notes Carlson. “To me, ‘Famously Alive’ means flipping the notion of dying famously to living famously,” Negroponte adds. “I also like to think of it as a way to describe living through something traumatic and coming out of it a stronger, wiser person.”

Songs like the expansive, gleaming “Live Exponential” similarly invite the listener to lean into the light. “It’s about loving yourself and finding a way to be comfortable in your own body – to live life to the fullest and beyond,” says Carlson. Throughout the record, Guerilla Toss meet themselves with curiosity, generosity, and acceptance even for the harder parts of being alive. Opener “Cannibal Capital,” a song about the exhaustion and dread of social anxiety, came together in a flurry toward the end of the album’s sessions. A taut bass groove erupts into competing squalls of guitar and synth that support one of the most immediate and arresting vocal hooks of Guerilla Toss’s catalogue to date.

Together with guitarist Arian Shafiee, Carlson and Negroponte cultivated a sound that spliced together psychedelic texturing and Krautrock syncopation with the gloss and glow of contemporary pop music. “I like to combine as many musical influences as possible,” says Negroponte. “We thought the sleekness of current radio pop would make our dense wall-of-sound aesthetic both more bizarre and more accessible and fun at the same time.” Carlson was similarly inspired by a wide range of artists from around the world after diving deep into obscure 7-inches for her weekly show on Radio Catskill, Rare Pear Radio.

While writing the album, Carlson took voice lessons online for the first time. Though she has been singing since she was four years old, at first with a vocal harmony group in her family’s church, she hadn’t formally trained her voice since joining Guerilla Toss. The lessons allowed her to deepen and broaden her range, helping her feel more embodied and connected to her voice. Underneath ripples of Auto-Tune, playful, searching vocal melodies suspend lyrics about reaching for yourself and holding fast in your own love.

“Famously Alive” finds Guerilla Toss coming into the fullness of their power, celebrating their prismatic idiosyncrasies from a place of optimism and abundance. “It felt like I didn’t need to force myself into this dark place to create anymore,” Carlson says. “For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m finally comfortable inside my body.”

“Cannibal Capital” by Guerilla Toss from their upcoming album ‘Famously Alive’, out March 25th on Sub Pop Records.

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever return in 2022 with ‘Endless Rooms’, the Melbourne quintet’s third album proper. Described by the band – comprised of Fran Keaney, Joe White, Marcel Tussie and brothers Tom Russo and Joe Russo – as them ‘Doing what we do best: chasing down songs in a room together’, ‘Endless Rooms’ stands as a testament to the collaborative spirit and live power of RBCF.

Rolling Blackouts C.F.’s forthcoming album ‘Endless Rooms’ (out May 6th).

Spiritualized have shared a new song from their upcoming album, “Everything Was Beautiful”, which is out April 22nd via Fat Possum Records. (The album was supposed to be out February 25th but got moved due to pressing plant delays.) “The Mainline Song” is one of the best, most joyous songs on the album, with Jason Pierce singing “I wanted to know if you wanted to go to the city tonight” against an orchestral rush of fuzzed out guitars, strings, woodwinds and choir.

During lockdown last year, J Spaceman would walk through an empty ‘Roman London’ where the world was ‘full of birdsong and strangeness’, trying to make sense of all the music playing in his head at the time. The mixers and mixes of his new record weren’t working out yet. Spaceman plays 16 different instruments on ‘Everything Was Beautiful’ which was put down at eleven different studios, as well as at his home. He also employed more than 30 musicians and singers including his daughter Poppy, long-time collaborator and friend John Coxon, string and brass sections, choirs and finger bells and chimes from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Eventually the mixes got there and ‘Everything Was Beautiful’ was achieved. The result is some of the most ‘live’ sounding recordings that Spiritualized have released since the ‘Live at the Albert Hall’ record of 1998, around the time of ‘Ladies & Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space’.

Releases February 25th, 2022

Melancholic, dreamy and drenched in shoegaze sounds, bdrmm are back! Since their debut album, Bedroom, there hasn’t been many signs of movement from the four-piece. Thankfully, they have been busy. With the return track, “Port“, plus many incredible remixes, this is a great time to get on the bdrmm train.

Released March 4th, 2022
Written by bdrmm

Sunflower Bean’s third album, Headful of Sugar, is due out in May via Mom + Pop Records, and the latest single is “Roll the Dice.” “Almost everyone we know struggles with money,” the band says. “The traditional routes towards success and stability in America have severely narrowed. The only way to get ahead is to take big risks and roll the dice.”

Sunflower Bean’s new single “Roll The Dice” from the upcoming album ‘Headful of Sugar’ out May 6th.