The Fat Angel Sings

“Pretending my life is not in ruins/Pretending I’m not depressed.” So ran the opening lines on “Pretending”, the quietly devastating final song of Van Morrison’s last album of new music, 2022’s “What’s It Gonna Take”. Maybe you didn’t make it that far, beaten down by all those songs about government mind control and the World Economic Forum. But here was the sound of a man in crisis, unsure whether he was having “some kind of breakthrough [or] a nervous breakdown” and putting it all in song.

Well, something has changed, and maybe it was that act of excoriating self-analysis. Because, after two restorative 2022 covers albums “Moving On Skiffle” and the pointedly titled “Accentuate The Positive” and last year’s archive collection, “New Arrangements And Duets“, comes what might be Morrison’s best album since 1991’s “Hymns To The Silence”.

It begins with a brace of easeful, radiant openers, “Down to Joy” (initially recorded for Kenneth Branagh’s 2021 film, Belfast) and “If It Wasn’t For Ray”, a salute to Ray Charles, that, in its “da-da-da-da dup-da-da-da-da-da” scat, musically quotes another Morrison’s soul paean, “Jackie Wilson Said”. The third song, “I Haven’t Lost My Sense Of Wonder” is, of course, another act of self-reference, echoing the seven-minute title track of Morrison’s vastly underrated 1984 LP. It’s also a declaration of intent, that this album will reconnect with both the laid-back Hammond and saxophone groove of that particular album and the heightened state of consciousness that has defined Morrison’s finest work. However, the inclusion of string arranger Fiachra Trench (who last worked extensively with Morrison on 2006’s “Pay The Devil” points to another influence, that of “Avalon Sunset’s” soaring romantic lyricism.

As with many of Morrison’s 21st Century releases, “Remembering Now”  runs long at 63 minutes and while the first half possesses a freewheeling intimacy that is hard to resist, the record truly opens up on “Once In A Lifetime Feelings” a Don Black co-write which finds Van driving down to Monte Carlo, surprised by his own romantic optimism and the sweetly aching Stomping Ground, in which the singer yearns, once again, for vanished memories of Belfast’s Strandtown and “the Church of Ireland’s… six bells chime”. “See where I started from”, sings the impassioned Morrison, and this, in part, seems to be the goal of “Remembering Now“, to get back to the real soul.

But in the majestic final half of the record, particularly on the mantric, waltzing title track and epic, rhapsodic closer, Stretching Out the title of the album takes on another meaning. This is Van Morrison remembering how to be in the moment, realising that the days of wonder are not in the past or lying in ruins, they are in the moment. They are now.

Brian Wilson, co-founder and principal songwriter for the Beach Boys, has died. The man responsible for writing some of the greatest songs in the history of recorded music, has passed away after living with a neurocognitive disorder similar to dementia. He was 82.

“We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away,” Brian’s family wrote in a statement shared on his official Facebook and Instagram pages. “We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world. Love & Mercy.” The musician’s family confirmed his passing on social media. The creative force behind the mid-century pop-focused favourites, who contributed to California’s cool and laid-back aesthetic.

Wilson was born on June 20th 1942, and began to play the piano and teach his brothers to sing harmony as a young boy. The Beach Boys started as a neighbourhood act, rehearsing in Wilson’s bedroom and in the garage of their house in suburban Hawthorne, California.

Brian Wilson, born in Inglewood and raised in Hawthorne, formed a band called the Pendletones with his brothers Dennis and Carl, cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Candix Records changed the band’s name to the Beach Boys and, in 1963, they found their first Top 10 single in “Surfin’ U.S.A.” A year later, Wilson suffered a significant panic attack and subsequently quit touring with the band. 

Wilson married singer Marilyn Rovell in 1964 and the couple welcomed daughters Carnie and Wendy, whom he became estranged from following their divorce.

The Beach Boys released their most recognised album, “Pet Sounds”, in May 1966,  His group’s acknowledged masterpiece, 1966’s “Pet Sounds“, has been widely acclaimed as one of the greatest albums ever, with Wilson recognised by musicians worldwide as a songwriting genius for his innovative, ground breaking and hugely influential compositional skills, his use of complex harmonies, his arrangements and orchestration. “I believe that without Brian Wilson’s inspiration, “Sgt Pepper” might have been less of the phenomenon that it became,” Beatles producer George Martin is quoted as saying in Charles L Granata’s book Brian Wilson And The Making Of Pet Sounds. “Brian is a living genius of pop music. Like The Beatles, he pushed forward the frontiers of popular music.”

The next chapter of Wilson’s tenure in the Beach Boys was marked by difficulty. He was placed in a psychiatric hospital for treatment in 1968 and, in the 1970s, struggled with drug addiction and obesity. His relationship with psychologist Eugene Landy, which became the subject of the Beach Boys biopic “Love & Mercy”, 

In 2012, following the 50th anniversary of the Beach Boys being founded, Wilson took to the road with Mike Love, Jardine and others for a tour.

Wilson’s brother Dennis died in 1983 while Carl died in 1998.

Songs like “Don’t Worry Baby,” “God Only Knows,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and “Surf’s Up” are some of the most important creations in modern recorded music. And that’s not even including “Good Vibrations,” a perfect, audacious invention not yet replicated or rivaled. Had Wilson successfully completed his “teenage symphony to God,” “Smile”, in 1967, there would’ve been no debate between the Beach Boys and Beatles. Suffice to say: A world without Brian Wilson in it isn’t a very good one. 

The Beach Boys’ “Surf’s Up2 was released in the waning days of summer 1971. The album began with a warning – “Don’t Go Near the Water” – and ended with two successive gut punches that left no doubt Daddy had indeed taken the T-bird away…perhaps for good. Before the ironically titled “Surf’s Up” brought the album to a close, Brian Wilson’s “‘Til I Die” took hold. I’m a rock in a landslide/Rolling over the mountainside…I’m a leaf on a windy day/Pretty soon I’ll be blown away... In just over two and a half minutes, the leader of The Beach Boys had distilled his innermost feelings of hopelessness, and the seeming inevitability of forces greater than he, into a soundscape of glistening beauty and profound sadness.

The Rolling Stone’s guitarist Ronnie Wood said in a social media post: “Oh no Brian Wilson and Sly Stone in one week – my world is in mourning, so sad.” His message was punctuated with praying hands and heart emojis, and featured pictures of Wilson and American funk singer Stone, real name Sylvester Stewart, who died on Monday, also aged 82.

Keith Richards posted an extract of his 2010 memoir, “Life”, about Wilson on Instagram with the caption “Rest in Peace!”. In the excerpt, Richards, 81, recalls hearing The Beach Boys for the first time on the radio, and his reaction to their 1966 album “Pet Sounds”. The extract reads: “When we first got to American and to LA, there was a lot of Beach Boys on the radio, which was pretty funny to us – it was before “Pet Sounds” – it was hot rod songs and surfing songs, pretty lousily played, familiar Chuck Berry licks going on…

Cusack, 58, who played Wilson in a 2014 biopic, said in a post: “The maestro has passed — the man was a open heart with two legs — with an ear that heard the angels. Quite literally. Love and Mercy for you and yours tonight. RIP Brian.”

Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood added: “Anyone with a musical bone in their body must be grateful for Brian Wilson’s genius magical touch!!

Margo Price has announced the August 29th release of her forthcoming album, “Hard Headed Woman”, via Loma Vista Records. Previous collaborator Matt Ross-Spang produced the new set, which features duets between the songstress and Tyler Childers, as well as the social media music sensation Jesse Welles. The LP;s first single and official music video, “Don’t Let Those Bastards Get You Down,” inspired by the late Kris Kristofferson and Sinéad O’Connor and the book turned TV series The Handmaid’s Tale. 

“Hard Headed Woman” is Price’s first album, made in Nashville in more than two decades, the place she has called home and taken inspiration from. On the impending record, the musician extends an anthem for independence while staying true to tradition. The set strikes a stance of resistance, evoking a similar presence to Margret Antwood’s literary success, and is rooted in her own experience after being booed on stage during a Bob Dylan anniversary gig. The track produces a feeling of individual durability and resilience.

Price co-wrote the single with help from her husband, Jeremy Ivey, as well as Kristofferson and Rodney Crowell. Today’s release emphasizes the importance of fighting the good fight, which promotes justice and dedication to individual principles. 

In her own words, Price says, “I always hope to do like Johnny Cash did, which is speak up for the common man and woman. But there have been so many threats and anger and vitriol over the years, when I am only coming from a place of love. So I made the decision to rebuild everything from the ground up. I hope this album inspires people to be fearless and take chances and just be unabashedly themselves, in a culture that tries as hard as it can to beat us into all being the same.”

Price’s latest set builds off the child-like perspective of “Midwest Farmer’s Daughter”, telling tales of the battles and experiences in her quest to stardom: from dive bars to tour buses, parenthood and relationships, the musician strikes a deeper connection with a full thrust of honesty and introspection. 

The Barr Brothers are back with their long-awaited fourth full-length LP, “Let It Hiss“, due on October 17th, on Secret City Records. The impending 10-track collection chronicles a period of revision and transformation that allowed Brad and Andrew Barr to refine their pursuits and vulnerably channel their musical bond as brothers and creative accomplices. The group shares the album’s title track as an initial preview of their latest chapter in the studio.

“Let It Hiss” expands on Brad and Andrew’s intimate musical connection, reaching a state of introspection on the necessary changes to redirect their artistic focus. “In 2022, we found ourselves at a breaking point,” Brad says, “It was clear something had to change. The real story of this record is the story of that change and everything that came after.” 

Andrew adds, “Let it Hiss” is what happened when we stopped pretending everything was fine and finally listened to what was actually going on.” Rather than start with sound, the brothers opted for truth, recognizing their personal strife and creative blockage to break habits, surmount tensions and grief, and ultimately achieve growth. 

“It just felt right,” Andrew says of the defining moment. “To leave the hiss in. The discomfort, the imperfection, the struggle. We stopped trying to clean it all up. That’s when the music started to breathe again.”   

The lead single derived from an extended jam session featuring Brad’s blown-out, visceral guitar, complemented by Andrew’s stable groove and impeccable count. According to the official press release, after observing a light buzz via the guitar monitor during playback, the duo let it ride, embracing others might consider an “imperfection” and evoking the shibboleth, “let it hiss…”

The forthcoming LP arrives after the success of the band’s previous full-length release, 2017’s “Queens of the Breakers”. 

Galaxie 500 have announced details of a live album, “CBGB 12.13.88“, which is released by Silver Current Records on August 8th. The show at New York’s CBGB‘s marked the end of a busy year for the band, who’d released their debut album “Today” in February. Billed alongside Sonic Youth, B.A.L.L. and Unsane, the CBGB’s show was a benefit for the celebrated East Village ‘zine shop, See Hear.

Much bootlegged, the recording – captured by the band’s producer Kramer and now restored from the analogue source by Alan Douches at West West Side Music – is now officially available for the first time on LP, CD, cassette and digital.

After a storied first year as a band releasing and touring behind their critically acclaimed debut album “Today”, Galaxie 500 closed out 1988 with a quintessential performance at New York City’s famed CBGB with every bit of their signature intimacy and autumnal bombast on display. Captured here in a raw but inspired board mix by Kramer “CBGB 12.13.88” is a live snapshot of a Galaxie fully formed, punctuating the end of their first chapter while poised to step into their next with “On Fire” the following year. 

Officially available for the first time on LP, CD, cassette and digital. Out September 5th 2025 on Silver Current Records. “Live at CBGB, New York City, December 13th, 1988”.

Players:
Dean Wareham – guitar/vocals, Naomi Yang – bass, Damon Krukowski – drums

David Byrne has unveiled details of his first solo album since 2018’s “American Utopia”. “Who Is The Sky?” will be released by Matador on September 5th, and you can watch a video for lead-off single “Everybody Laughs” 

“Everybody lives, dies, laughs, cries, sleeps and stares at the ceiling,” says Byrne. “Everybody’s wearing everybody else’s shoes, which not everybody does, but I have done. I tried to sing about these things that could be seen as negative in a way balanced by an uplifting feeling from the groove and the melody, especially at the end… Music can do that – hold opposites simultaneously. I realised that when singing with Robyn earlier this year. Her songs are often sad, but the music is joyous.”

The album was produced by Kid Harpoon and arranged by the members of New York-based chamber ensemble Ghost Train Orchestra. It features guest appearances from St Vincent, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, The Smile drummer Tom Skinner and American Utopia percussionist Mauro Refosco.

Byrne will also return to the road with a brand new live show in support of “Who Is The Sky?” The touring band will comprise 13 musicians, singers and dancers, all of whom will be mobile throughout the set. 

03/09/2026 – Manchester, UK – o2 Apollo
03/10/2026 – Manchester, UK – o2 Apollo

‘Who Is The Sky?’, the new album from David Byrne out September 5th on Matador Records.

Robert Plant has always been diplomatic in his refusal to entertain the idea of a Led Zeppelin reunion, and he remained noticeably silent when this year’s critically acclaimed Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary introduced the band to a new audience.

Nevertheless, Plant has never failed to embrace his old band’s catalogue when playing live, and the official video of his set at the Dutch Pinkpop festival in 2014 bears this out. Uploaded to the festival’s official YouTube channel at the weekend, it features Plant and his band, the Sensational Space Shifters, performing a nine-song set that includes five Led Zeppelin classics.

Plant and his band opens his set with “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” – written by American folk singer Anne Bredon but credited to “Trad arr Page” on Led Zeppelin’s first album – and goes on to play covers of “Black Dog”, “Going To California”, “Ramble On” and “Whole Lotta Love”.

Elsewhere in the set, Plant and the band play Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful”, the Appalachian folk classic “Little Maggie, and two of his own solo songs, “Funny in My Mind (I Believe I’m Fixin’ to Die)” (based on Bukka White’s “Fixin’ To Die Blues“) and Tin Pan Valley.

Fust – the lyrical powerhouse Southern rock band from Durham, North Carolina release their new album “Big Ugly”, on Dear Life Records, the record label that launched the careers of MJ Lenderman and Florry and that has become a haven for contemporary songwriters.

Recorded over ten days in June of 2024, “Big Ugly” is the explosive sound of Fust uncovering a freedom within their sincere form of loose and fried guitar rock, realizing more than ever before an intimacy within bigness. The members –– Aaron Dowdy, Avery Sullivan, Frank Meadows, John Wallace, Justin Morris, Libby Rodenbough, Oliver Child-Lanning––weave their voices alongside guests like Merce Lemon, Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs), and John James Tourville (The Deslondes) to form a music that sounds like a conversation between old friends. And that’s exactly what it is.

Bookended by collapse, “Big Ugly” is all about small town Southern bygones, wrought in close detail by Aaron Dowdy: torn-down towns where heaven seemed in-reach, a beer-fisted past self with nothing else to hold, the cans and cigarettes that lined a shabby old convenience store’s shelves. In answering questions of Southern living, it raises an age-old, universal query: What does it mean to love people and places once they’ve become part of history, one that hasn’t quite passed?

The album’s title derives from a West Virginian area based around a Guyandotte River tributary named for the crooked, “Big Ugly” creek rushing through it. A hastily assembled Internet guide to Appalachian West Virginian communities introduces “Big Ugly” as “one of those place names newspaper columnists grab on a slow day,” but Dowdy saw more than a conspicuous headline in the nickname—the evocative, oddly affectionate word pairing captured the essence of the songs he’d been writing: unfiltered snapshots of hardscrabble Southern living zoomed in on the people and places.

Fleshed out by a full band and esteemed guest players, Dowdy’s final compositions are, indeed, big. They aren’t always pretty, per se (although exquisite fiddle pulls and glossy keys attenuate some of the denser offerings, to an unearthly, beautiful effect), but unabated love seeps from every cranny of even the gnarliest, craggiest constructions, deluging every corner of the heart.

Each song is a microcosm of its own, and the anecdotes within each, are so intensely vivid that it’s challenging to imagine them having solely transpired on paper—you can almost trace the steps of every character, deepening their footprints as you meander the dirt roads winding across 11 chapters.

Florry return looser, more playful, and electrifying than ever with “Sounds Like…“, their new album out now via Dear Life. Recorded in Asheville’s Drop of Sun studios with Colin Miller, the follow-up to 2023’s “The Holey Bible” was preceded by the tracks ‘Pretty Eyes Lorraine’, ‘Hey Baby’, and ‘First it was a movie, then it was a book’. To bring it to life, bandleader Francie Medosch, who cites the Jackass theme song as “a really big influence on the new album,” enlisted collaborators including Jon Cox (Sadurn, Son of Barb) on pedal steel, John Murray on electric guitar, Collin Dennen on bass, Will Henrikson on fiddle, Katya Malison (Doll Spirit Vessel) on vocals, and Joey Sullivan (Bark Culture) on drums.

The promise of a Florry show, a now familiar caravan that has been honed over ambitiously trekked zig zags across America and Europe since the release of Dear Life Records debut “The Holey Bible”, is the redemptive promise and prodigal joy of rock and roll guitar music.

Bred in the crackling warmth of the Philadelphia DIY scene, and forged with the alloys of community action, queer liberation and bedroom poetry, bandleader Francie Medosch and her absolute unit of collaborators have put in the work of sharpening their homespun tools to take up the mantle of the great lip-puckering rock and roll tradition pioneered by the likes of The Band and the Rolling Stones, but with proudly displayed Aimee Mann and Yo La Tengo bumper stickers on the rusty frame of the truck. At any second, the wheels could come off but they are steering just fine.

For ‘Sounds Like…’ Florry’s effort as a fully realized band, Medosch and co. decamped to Drop of Sun studios in the nest of the Blue Ridge Mountains to record with Asheville wunderkind Colin Miller, a critical voice behind the records of MJ Lenderman, Wednesday and Merce Lemon and a powerful songwriter in his own right. Three powerhouse days in late 2023 solidified writing work done by the band earlier that summer in the now defunct Haw Creek compound under Miller’s guiding suggestion.

The result is a portrait of a ripping band cresting towards the height of their powers, uniquely equipped to capture a wildly loving, barn-burning camcorder clip of a turbulent trip with your best friends, without dipping into nostalgia bait. Lyrically, Medosch’s utterances are both careful and excessive, the product of sifting through the rubble of classic good-time media, and finding what works for both her and her community to reach the heights of abandon.

“The Jackass theme song was actually a really big influence on the new album”

The expansive personnel and continent spanning footprint of Florry casts a wide net for this community. Florry the band rolls deep in the heard of North American DIY, featuring Jon Cox (Sadurn, Son of Barb) on pedal steel, John Murray on electric guitar, Collin Dennen on bass, Will Henriksen on fiddle, Katya Malison (Doll Spirit Vessel) on Vox, and Joey Sullivan (Bark Culture) on drums. Medosch’s recent move to Burlington Vermont entrenches the Philly born project firmly within the ranks of fellow alt-country upstarts Lily Seabird and Greg Freeman, and gives them a vantage just outside of Pennsylvania at the thresholds of New England and the Midwest. There is a new life breathed into this music that confirms Florry as equally rooted in place work, and at home on the vast roads of America.

For listeners who fell in love with Florry’s infectious charm on sweeping tours with the likes of Kurt Vile, Real Estate, MJ Lenderman, Greg Freeman and Fust, ‘Sounds Like…’, provides a refreshing memento of the band that surely left them smiling. If the support behind ‘The Holey Bible’ provided validation for the insistent vision of these young artists, ‘Sounds Like’ finds them revelling in and honing their vocabulary. Praise from outlets like Pitchfork, Stereogum, Paste, and Brooklyn Vegan touched on the potential of their wild idiosyncrasies, and accurately predicted that their next steps would see them continuing to write their own story, like a 10 car pileup that you can’t take your eyes off if you tried.

Florry proves that they can let the car spin just out of control whenever they want, and you are welcome to ride shotgun while Medosch does donuts in the WaWa parking lot. The ceiling, it turns out, is truly the roof. 

released May 23rd, 2025

All songs written by Francie Medosch, except “Hey Baby” which was written with help from Eli Sheppard