The Fat Angel Sings

MOJO is thrilled to present a new deluxe bookazine bringing together its finest writing on The Kinks.

Of the many groups associated with the mid-’60s Mod era, only two went on to achieve enduring international success: The Who and The Kinks. Following on from MOD ICONS – Part One THE WHO, this second issue focuses on The Kinks, charting a tempestuous career that began with the group all but inventing heavy rock in 1964 with “You Really Got Me” and which ended in the ’90s with them riding high as a successful arena act in America. In between were numerous dramatic episodes, including an on-stage fight in 1965 that seriously injured guitarist Dave Davies, an altercation at a US TV studio that resulted in the group being banned from playing live in America for four years, singer Ray Davies overdosing on Valium during an outdoor London show in 1973, and The Kinks becoming unexpected MTV heroes in the ’80s.

What The Kinks will be remembered for most, however, is Ray Davies’ extraordinary gifts as a songwriter. Whether he was crafting timeless meditations on British life in the ’60s like “Dead End Street”, “Sunny Afternoon”, “Waterloo Sunset” and “The Village Green Preservation Society”, or ’70s rock anthems such as “Lola”, “Celluloid Heroes” and “A Rock’n’Roll Fantasy”, his ability to see “the world from my window” in an original and thought-proving way has always been a joy. Over the many in-depth stories and exclusive interviews included here, Ray opens up about how he wrote these songs – and many more Kinks classics besides

With 132 stylishly designed pages, illustrated with dozens of rare and iconic photographs, THE KINKS is an essential purchase for all serious music fans.

Just last month Young Guv (aka songwriter Ben Cook) released his latest masterpiece, “GUV III”, and today the ever-prolific musician is already back to announce its sequel, “GUV IV,” due out June 24th from Run For Cover Records and Hand Drawn Dracula (Canada). Where “GUV III” encapsulates Cook’s most instantly accessible guitar pop song writing (earning praise from the likes of Stereogum, SPIN Magazine, Paste Magazine, Uproxx, and many more), “GUV IV” represents the most sonically adventurous side of Young Guv. Cook has an unparalleled ability to write perfect power pop but “GUV IV” highlights his expertise with the many other sounds and styles that have dotted Young Guv‘s expansive catalogue over the years.

The record effortlessly moves between hazy, Madchester-inspired rave ups, twangy California jangle, and even homemade sophisti-pop–while always retaining Cook’s undeniable melodies. “GUV IV’s” lead single “Change Your Mind” sees Cook teaming with frequent collaborator James Matthew VII for a blend of hazy hooks, pedal steel guitar, and a nearly psychedelic mood that transports the listen to the New Mexican desert where it was written.

Young Guv & James Matthew VII, from the album “GUV IV” out June 24th, 2022 via Run For Cover Records.

There’s a space between literal and abstract where art often resides, and few bands excel at navigating that surreal territory more deftly than Horse Jumper of Love. On their third full-length, “Natural Part“, the Boston-based three-piece revels in the act of grasping at something that can’t be held, smudging the lines between rich details, hazy memories, vivid moments, and intangible feelings to create their most captivating record to date.

Sonically, Natural Part feels even more expansive than anything Horse Jumper of Love have done before, which is no small feat for a band whose music has often hinged on billowing guitars and roomy drums. Opener “Snakeskin” gently welcomes the listener with an enveloping atmosphere, before a sharply angled guitar riff in the towering second track “Ding Dong Ditch” fractures the aura. Familiar influences like Duster and David Berman can still be heard throughout, but new elements like cello—performed by Emily Dicks Thomas and inspired by both Nirvana’s unplugged album and listening to Oasis’ “Wonderwall” in preparation for a Halloween cover set)—add different textures to the band’s reverberating sound.

A sense of mystery and the inevitability of change permeates much of The “Natural Part“, with vocalist / guitarist Dimitri Giannapoulos often capturing snapshots that take note of a flickering feeling in the mundane, and then letting his imagination expand it into something profound. It’s those kinds of details that makes “Natural Part” such a compelling listen. It’s an album planted firmly in small moments that feel big: the unexpected flashes that somehow feel authentic and esoteric all at once, and cut through our busy lives to ground us in something that seems meaningful—even if we can’t fully articulate why.

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

There are few more gratifying feelings than hearing a new song, only to realize you were waiting for something just like it to come along. It’s like scratching an itch you didn’t know you had, or pushing a lost puzzle piece into place inside your brain. That was exactly the case when Philadelphia four-piece Sadurn announced their signing to Run for Cover Records in February and shared the lead track from their debut album, “snake.” Led by vocalist-guitarist and songwriter Genevieve DeGroot, Sadurn are a band who move as one in service of each song, disappearing selflessly into their intimate, gentle folk-rock and -pop compositions.

Sadurn have released their stunning debut record, “Radiator“, out today via Run For Cover Records. The group might be Philadelphia’s best kept musical secret, but not for long, having recently earned attention from the likes of Stereogum, NPR, The FADER, BrooklynVegan, Paste Magazine, them., MTV News, and more. Led by songwriter Genevieve DeGroot (they/them), Sadurn have created the rare debut album that feels fully realized in every way.

DeGroot’s song writing is defined by its stark vulnerability, their vocals alternately soaring and softening in time with each heart-baring observation on strained relationships and the often unbridgeable gaps between people. “Radiator” is just what its title suggests, emanating emotional catharsis even as it handles those feelings with the utmost care

Sadurn from their upcoming album ‘Radiator’ out May 6th 2022 via Run For Cover Records.

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.

It takes a lot of self-awareness to know when to pack it up in a world where it’s expected for our favourite artists to create forever. Japanese psych-rockers Kikagaku Moyo have accomplished what they set out to do, ending their decade-long career with “Kumoyo Island”. Sophisticated funk rhythms and twirling guitar licks bounce around the 48-minute runtime, leaving little room for boredom.

Kikagaku Moyo hold the listener’s hand as they jump down a rabbit hole of influences, taking sharp turns into playful country grooves on “Gomugomu” and shoegaze-inspired melodies on “Yayoi, Iyayoi.” “Kumoyo Island” is a concise, satisfying final installment in the band’s catalogue, making Kikagaku Moyo’s farewell a little easier to accept.

“Kumoyo Island” is the fifth studio album & the last euphoric mind-trip to Kikagaku Moyo’s imagined island.”

Lenderman plays guitar in the twangy shoegaze troupe Wednesday, and while the lyrical references in Boat Songs are not literary like his bandmate Karly Hartzman’s, they are employed with a similar economy. His holy trinity is basketball, professional wrestling, and Jackass, considerably “lower brow” vessels for entertainment compared to the flash fiction and poetry allusions of Wednesday. This, of course, sets up an interesting intra-band dynamic: Lenderman as the everyman foil singing ditties about sports, toilet humour, and bodily harm to Hartzman’s artier, dream-addled approach.  

The 10 tracks of countrified indie rock sound primed to soundtrack plenty of beer-battered sessions.

Elsewhere, Lenderman uses all two minutes and 16 seconds of the opening “Hangover Game” to debunk a legendary NBA rumor. Don’t get it twisted, “The Last Dance” was fun and all, but there’s no conspiracy as to why Michael Jordan had a fever on that fateful night in June of ’97. Hell, he loves drinking too. For that matter, why don’t we ever think about the toll all those steroids and pratfalls take on wrestlers? “TLC Cage Match” reminds us that they aren’t gods, just regular people like you and me, with families and dreams, Lenderman has other things on his mind besides what was on the TV during recording sessions. “Toon Town” is supposedly a holdover from a scrapped metal album, but it’s the jilted “SUV” that houses the record’s sludgiest riffs, brings a Mascis-sized solo out of him before a breakdown segues into the bad luck sermon “Under Control.”

Best of all might be the tour travelogue “You Have Bought Yourself a Boat.” Detailing bug bites and freshly cleaned clothes drying out in the back of the van, its rootsy shuffle is infectious while Lenderman and company battle the elements on the road. 

There’s something refreshing in the plainspoken way Lenderman sings and performs these songs. His backing band The Wind plays them straight with no irony, just pedal steel, pump organ, and a little Southern swing to support the white-hot distorted guitars. All of this is to say that Boat Songs is country in approach, but indie rock by means of marketing. Lenderman has namechecked acts like Bob Dylan, The Band, Warren Zevon, and Johnny Paycheck in prior interviews, and his recent cover of Drive-By Truckers was so complimentary the band snuck Wednesday into a recent show when they played neighbouring venues.

“Boat Songs” is a triumph in any sense of the word, but it’s a true victory for a certain strain of indie rock fan. Aligning oneself with sports, suds, and Sparklehorse.

MJ Lenderman’s ‘Boat Songs,’ available everywhere 29th April via Dear Life Records

“‘Nothing Gives Me Pleasure’ is about trying to love yourself when it feels like no one else will,” Girlpool’s Harmony Tividad says. “It was written during a time when I was working so hard to get someone specific to love and recognize me. On the path to doing that, I diluted myself so much that I lost sight of my own needs. This video plays with the lengths we go to to feel loved and how so many faces of intimacy may disguise what love actually looks like to us specifically. I have a history of getting lost in the labyrinth in the struggle for affection. In this video I wanted to interface with my own patterns in the attempt to better see and love myself.” It’s from their new album, “Forgiveness“, due out next month via ANTI-Records.

“Nothing Gives Me Pleasure” by Girlpool From the album ‘Forgiveness’, available April 29 on ANTI- Records

Our new single “Karaoke” from our upcoming album “Emotional Creature” is out now! “Karaoke” is part one of the upcoming triology of videos we having come your way. Chicago’s Beach Bunny are releasing their new album “Emotional Creature” on July 22nd via Mom+Pop Music. They’ve already shared a couple singles, “Fire Escape” and “Oxygen,” and now they’ve shared a third titled “Karaoke” along with a video written by bandleader Lili Trifilio and directed by Eliza Chance. The visual also has a guest appearance from actor and comedian Bob Odenkirk.

“Karaoke” details the small moments that take up one’s entire headspace when falling for someone else—a turn in conversation that results in an eruption of laughter, eye contact that makes one’s heart burst. Trifilio sings as if capturing these moments in real time, turning these romantic details into monuments for her memory. “‘Karaoke’ is a song about having a crush,” Trifilio shared. “It’s about infatuation, fleeting feelings, and the bittersweet nature of uncertainty. It’s about learning pieces of who someone is and liking them before even knowing the whole story.”

The visual finds the group in their groovy spaceship where they watch a TV showing scenes involving Trifilio and a purple creature (whose hands appear on the album’s cover). At the video’s end, Odenkirk beams in with an important message—Star Agent 0 (presumably the purple dude) has been captured. “Time is of the essence. The entire universe is counting on you,” he warns. It seems it’s not only matters of the heart at stake.

It would be too easy to call “The Words You Spoke Still Move Me” is a record about religion, dealing as much as it does with relationships, grief, and identity even its thoughts on spirituality are more complicated than that, with “Charlie IO” taking aim at psychedelics as another mode of spiritual bypassing. Ellevator’s verses are dense with re-purposed images, It could be my own baggage, but there are moments in which I’m convinced the band does something similar in their sound, which falls into even more interesting than just hard and soft rock. They share a stadium-sized ambition with Canadian indie bands of the 2000s (most closely, Metric) especially when the guitars soar in on the chorus of “Claws”

“When I was 17 I moved to the other side of the world and joined what I’d now call a cult,” recalled Nabi Sue Bersche, lead singer of Ellevator, on her formative days spent in the Charismatic church. “I won’t deny that I had an incredible and life-changing experience there, but as I’ve gotten further away from it I’ve realized how there was way more damage done than good.” She brings that perspective on survival and truth-seeking to the Hamilton, Ontario trio’s debut album “The Words You Spoke Still Move Me”, produced by Chris Walla in all its shimmering, electric-piano-laden ecstasy and righteous anger. On “Slip,” Bersche pleads for freedom, singing from the perspective of a mythical selkie taken captive by a cult leader—by the bridge, she drowns him and returns to the sea, a different kind of baptism that lends credence to Ellevator’s cheeky claim to be the “World’s Hardest Soft Rock Band.”

While Ellevator’s lyrics are startlingly grounded and their melodies are often impeccable, the soft atmospheres billow out to the point that they start to go thin. The energy also seems to peter out by the last track, “Party Trick,” one of a few misses that keep “The Words You Spoke” from feeling like a cohesive work rather than a strong collection of songs.

Then there are tracks like “The Prism,” which verges on losing itself in vaporous guitars before Ellevator parts the fog and delivers one of the album’s most surprising and sobering shifts in tone, suddenly bare and vulnerable again. This is a flashy record, but unlike the charlatans it prophesies against, you can usually trust it to deliver fire when it shows you the smoke.

The Pipettes’ Rose Elinor Dougall and Blur’s Graham Coxon announced a new collaborative project called The WAEVE. Today, they’ve shared their first single, an upbeat, punky track called “Something Pretty” that braids post-punk, dream-pop, and conventional rock ‘n’ roll together. It’s fun!

The duo also performed their first live show at The Lexington in London. “We are greatly looking forward to unleashing our new sound live at the Lexington,” the band said ahead of their debut show. “We’ve been locked away, busy translating the varied sounds of our songs into a dynamic live show, with the help of some great musician friends. We invite you to surrender to the world of The WAEVE.” 

The WAEVE…. the coming together of two musicians, who through working together have formed a new, singular, sonic identity. Themes of oblivion and surrender are juxtaposed with suggestions of hopefulness and light.

Against a brutal global backdrop of impending apocalypse and despair, Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall strove to free themselves through the defiant, blind optimism of making music.