Le Butcherettes and Death Valley Girls have shared a new split single that, beyond revealing the commonalities between themselves as rock groups, cements their camaraderie with each other. On side A, Le Butcherettes capture the multitude of voices in their cover of DVG’s “The Universe” by leaning into the vocal elements in a way that’s immediately snazzy. On side B, Death Valley Girls introduce “When I’m Free,” a new song with friendly vocals, cheery organs, and sweet guitar work. The result is a collaboration that’s wholesome and endearing.
“I’m such a huge admirer of Death Valley Girls,” says Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes. “I was touched and surprised when they came up with the idea of doing a split vinyl together. Immediately I knew I wanted to cover one of my favourite songs of theirs, ‘The Universe,’ in support of their brilliant new single, ‘When I’m Free.’ A true honour to be a part of their EP!”
Bonnie Bloomgarden, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist of Death Valley Girls, describes “When I’m Free” as creating a perception shift from trauma toward healing. “We’ve talked a lot about trauma, mental health, and how hard it is to live in a human body,” she says. “One concept that has really been helping during the daily struggle is the perspective shift—that things aren’t ‘happening to me,’ they’re ‘happening for me.’ Sometimes if you can squint your eyes, alter your view, try to see experiences as opportunities to learn and grow! Sometimes that’s the best we can do!”
The split arrives February 11th on vinyl and via Suicide SqueezeRecords
A few years ago singer songwriter Jenny Hval witnessed a proposal happening while she was performing. It was so affecting that she actually wrote a song about it, which she released today, called “Year of Love.”Hval’s experience witnessing this performance of commitment didn’t inspire romantic or excited feelings. Instead, it elicited questions about how her art impacts others, in addition to her own private choices that live alongside conflicting feelings.
“For me, this experience was very troubling,” Hval said in a press statement. “It confronted me with the fact that I am also married. What does that detail from my private life say about me as an artist? ‘Year of Love’ asks, who am I as an artist? Do my private actions betray my work and voice?”
“Year of Love” is a upbeat single that finds Hval reflecting on her marriage and that concert proposal. In the lyrics, she convinces herself that marriage is simply for practical reasons. “I truly believed that a contract was further from the institution than the industrial happiness complex,” she sings. Later, she reflects on the proposal that altered the meaning of the song she was performing and how, whether she likes it or not, her voice paved the way for these two lovers to intertwine their lives contractually. “Year ofLove” is further proof that Hval, with her silvery vocals, can affectingly weld together her personal experience and heavy institutional jargon while highlighting their dissonant relationship.
The single, which is the second song to be released from her forthcoming album “Classic Objects” (her first studio album on 4AD Records), is accompanied with a video directed by Hval, Jenny Berger Myhre, and Annie Bielski. In a statement regarding the visual, they commented: “A sense of loss and joy intertwines in a world of disconnected rooms. The artist inhabits these rooms. She is frozen in time, space, and mid-vowel. She is aware of her immediate surroundings. She is aware that there is more beyond what she can see. A version of her exists in a compressed, compromised, and objectified state. She is sitting in a room, in a house, in a neighbourhood, in the art industry.”
‘Year of Love’ is taken from Jenny Hval’s forthcoming album ‘Classic Objects’, out 11th March via 4AD Records.
Legendary singer-songwriter hits his 25th release with a bang, featuring 3 collaborations with Bruce Springsteen.
“Strictly A One-Eyed Jack” was written and produced by Mellencamp himself, recorded at his Belmont Mall studios in Indiana, it features a number of his long time band members including Andy York, Dane Clark, Mike Wanchic, Troye Kinnett, and more.
Forty years ago, John Mellencamp (then John Cougar) told us to “hold onto 16 as long as you can.” On “Strictly a One-Eyed Jack“, he laments what happens when you no longer maintain that grip.
The Indiana icon is no stranger to dour countenance, of course – he famously dubbed himself the Little Bastard for production credits, after all, and a scowl has never been too far from his face even when he was Rockin’ in the U.S.A. and beyond. On “Strictly a One-Eyed Jack”, however, sweet 16 has turned 70 and is looking at “a life full of rain, coming down on my shoulders” with a reflective, grey-tinged gaze that doesn’t like what he sees but, importantly, doesn’t regret or apologize for feeling that way. It’s there in titles such as “I Am a Man Who Worries” and “I Always Lie to Strangers,” and in ruminations about living in a world where “there’s so many crying, and that’s all my eyes can see.”
It’s a sobre and sobreing dose of real-time reality delivered with front-porch intimacy. Mellencamp may want you to get off his lawn, but not before he’s said his piece, in a gruff, sandpapery growl lined with a lot of miles – and a lot of cigarettes. With its austere instrumentation (mostly from members of his touring band) and the prevailing slow and mid-tempos, the 12-track set also finds Mellencamp deeply gripped in Americana, a genre he helped coin with ’80s albums such as Scarecrow and The Lonesome Jubilee.
The touch of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan and maybe some Tom Waits accompanies each of the songs, sometimes more directly than others. The singer and his lyrics are front and centre throughout, the melodies dressed up with violin and upright bass, accordion and field organ, with electric guitar sprinkled in only occasionally.
Most of the latter comes via Bruce Springsteen on three songs he co-wrote with Mellencamp for the album. Springsteen sears the gossip-slamming “Did You Say Such a Thing” with a stinging solo straight out of his playbook, while “Wasted Days” nods to The River’s “Independence Day” as the duo muses over mortality and how “we watch our lives just fade away.” And the album-closing “A Life Full of Rain” bookends with the gothic folk of the opener “I Always Lie to Strangers,” Springsteen’s guitar lacing bits of light into the last-call ambience.
Mellencamp and company do kick up a little dust in “Lie to Me,” a grooving and gritty rocker with a slight political undertone, and “Chasing Rainbows” touches on the rootsy majesty of the Band. “Gone Too Soon” is as jazzy as we’ve ever heard Mellencamp, while “Sweet Honey Brown” stirs in some soul and “Simply a One-Eyed Jack” rolls and tumbles past its biblical and literary references. Strictly a One-Eyed Jack may at times seem like the feel-bad album of the year, but Mellencamp’s murk is mitigated in his earnest conviction – and not the least in the fact that he’s still here and still has an eye on the “angel’s dream” he sings about. And, despair be damned, it doesn’t sound like he’s going away any time soon.
John Mellencamp’s 25th studio album, “Strictly A One-Eyed Jack”, is set for release 1/21/22 on Republic Records. The album was written and produced by Mellencamp, recorded at his Belmont Mall Studios in Indiana,
Skydeck’s groovy, pop-oriented music falls somewhere between electro-pop and post-punk, mining the sounds of ’80s new wave while speaking to the grave anxieties of the present. Armed with a keen understanding of our demoralizing economic reality and relatable fears about the future, their songs are as sharp-tongued as they are stylishly magnetic. The Australian duo’s second album “Coupon” opens with “Dogshot,” which showcases this mix of inspired wit and earworm-y goodness. The bass-driven pop tune centres on the gig economy and the way capitalism tends to mutate in terrifying new ways (“Nothing’s changed, you just call it by a different name now”), and I can’t say there’s another 2021 song I’ve hummed more fervently than this one. Their FM synths and programmed drums bring a sterile, retro sheen to everything they do, while their guitars add dynamic distortion and a much-need rawness. Their songs are versatile, in large part due to the contrasting styles of their vocalists—Dom Kearton opts for melodic pop, while Mitch Clemens speaks in a self-assured low tone. Clemens brings a pensive dread to songs like “No Change” and “Salt,” while Kearton gives their songs a kick of bittersweet joy. The forlorn nature of “Coupon” often fills out the foreground, which makes for a cathartic sulk, but don’t underestimate Skydeck’s euphoric abilities. The candescent guitar warbles on “Uptight” are sublime, and the enlivening melodies of “Anthony” end the album on a heart warming high. “Coupon” finds the band, like many people, at the crossroads of “a better world is possible’’ and “we’re beyond fucked,” and while this album won’t push you one way or the other, maybe it’s enough to know we’re not alone—but if it’s not, then holy hell, Skydeck are just plain good at pop music.
Instantly grabs your attention. Looking forward to to revisiting this many times. The lyrical content, excellent synths, and tight rhythms set this apart from the crowd. The vocals are great as well; maybe not to everyone’s taste,
Releases Friday August 27th via Dinosaur City Records, Osborne Again and Kingfisher Bluez.
A long record in two parts that I slowly pieced together between 2016 and 2019 First disc (tracks 1-5) is me alone, all voices, electric guitars and sound collage, long droning meandering songs but songs nevertheless, Second disc (tracks 6-16) is with friends, group work (strings, woodwind, singing), and more acoustic and sparser, overall the songs are shorter too No drums (well, few drums)
Although it’s not the central feature of his music, Kiran Leonard has quite a range. The U.K.-based singer/songwriter has been releasing music since his early teens, playing dozens of instruments in the process and boasting a discography that spans art-folk, ambient, prog, jazz, psych-rock, pop and noise music. More than most artists’, his music rests on the nuances of vibrations and tones, and the relationships between chords—you get a sense that he views music as delicate chemical reactions, capable of triggering infinite shades of emotion. Stylistic versatility is not the main attraction, but rather a means to an intangible creative end. His most recent LP, 2018’s “Western Culture“, is an album I return to frequently. Despite being slightly more conventional by his own left-field standards, the record feels like a boundless sea of inspiration. His lyricism utilizes an old-world, literary lens to diagnose the political and societal failures of today, and his melodies fluctuate in spellbinding fashion. Admittedly, his latest project “Trespass on Foot” will require more of your attention than “Western Culture”, but it’s worth the mental and emotional investment.
The album consists of two parts, with the first accounting for tracks 1-5, and the second for tracks 6-16. Leonard describes part one as “long droning meandering songs but songs nevertheless,” while part two is marked by a more reined-in, acoustic sound, and was made with friends who lent strings, clarinet and vocals. Both showcase his knack for ambient folk warmth and offbeat art-rock motifs, and his ability to mangle his own songcraft to satisfying effect. As previously mentioned in this column, “Sights Past” is one of the best and most affecting songs I’ve heard this year. Throughout its 17-minute runtime, it traverses a wide array of vague, yet artfully described concepts—shame, vulnerability, identity, belonging and memory—but what’s most impressive is the way it breaks you down with precise, aching melancholia before surrendering to uncontrollably passionate angst, effectively sewing you back together.
A record about the home that was made across homes, ones I’ve lived in and the homes of friends, Real home record
Philly 4-piece punk band Mesh formed in late 2019, building their sound off of 3 demos recorded by guitarist and vocalist Sims Hardin (Dark Web). With Allison Durham (Posture) on guitar and vocals, SteveDarling (Mint) on drums, and Tom Riese (Mint) on bass, Mesh now share a matured departure from those demos. With the full band’s formation,
Mesh’s sound is driving and angular, drawing inspiration from bands like Wire, UV Race and Swell Maps. Their debut tape was being released May 21st, 2021 on Born Yesterday Records based in Chicago.
released August 28, 2021
Mesh is Sims, Allison, Steve, and Tom Songs written and recorded by Mesh
Atfer following the band The Big Moon throughtout the last five years, I also fell in love with Our Girl, the band fronted by The Big Moon’s Soph Nathan. Their debut album “Stranger Today” was released in 2018, and to this day, I’m still struck by their compassionate song writing and majestic guitar work. Shortly after getting into them, I learned that their bassist Josh Tyler also plays lead guitar in a band called BreathePanel, which absolutely warranted a check out. The first song of theirs I heard was “On My Way,” taken from their 2018 self-titled debut, and its soft-hearted melodies were not only memorable, but also zigged when I thought they would zag, and they do so throughout the album.
Breathe Panel make Sunday afternoon rock, which is often a type of music that allows listeners to predict the rest of the song as it’s unfolding, but this U.K. group peppers their songs with cerebral subtleties—you never know when a riff will tail off or do a few more pirouettes, or more broadly, which song sections will be lengthened or emphasized. Similarly with their second and latest LP “Lets It In”, their songs feel carefully constructed—their vocal inflections peak at all the right moments and their guitar interplay is clever, but never overbearing.
They’re cognizant of sonic space and the range of emotional tones brought to life by their sounds, and despite their attention to detail, their music still has a looseness to it. Nick Green’s good-natured coos are a welcome through line in their songs, and they’re proof that gentle vocals can be quite versatile—he never completely opts for speak-singing, but his natural hums occasionally verge on that territory. Breathe Panel don’t feel the need to body-slam listeners with big choruses, either, but I still find their pretty refrains rattling around my brain, namely the calm opener “A Good Day” and the wistful “Spring.” Even more so than their debut, “Lets It In” is a wonderful solid work of intricacy and intimacy.
New Zealand singer/songwriter Anthonie Tonnon is fascinated by systems. There’s an infinite number of strings being pulled by powerful entities at any given moment, which means, in some respects, our fate is left to the whims of a few. Tonnon’s understanding of this reality is then filtered through clever balladry—an arena often preserved for tales of love and heartbreak. But in many ways, Tonnon’s songs are still about romance. After all, if you think of global capitalism as a strong ocean current, it makes perfect sense that our emotions would ripple in relative unison. Tonnon’s third and latest album “Leave Love Outof This” perfectly captures this dynamic, but instead of picking the low-hanging fruit of writing love songs about the end of the world, he uses character sketches and historical fiction to illustrate the melodrama of the present mundanity.
New Zealand singer/songwriter Anthonie Tonnon is fascinated by systems. There’s an infinite number of strings being pulled by powerful entities at any given moment, which means, in some respects, our fate is left to the whims of a few. Tonnon’s understanding of this reality is then filtered through clever balladry—an arena often preserved for tales of love and heartbreak. But in many ways, Tonnon’s songs are still about romance. After all, if you think of global capitalism as a strong ocean current, it makes perfect sense that our emotions would ripple in relative unison. Tonnon’s third and latest album Leave Love Out of This perfectly captures this dynamic, but instead of picking the low-hanging fruit of writing love songs about the end of the world, he uses character sketches and historical fiction to illustrate the melodrama of the present mundanity. Once again, Tonnon displays a grasp for the way history actually unfolds. More than likely, we won’t suddenly wake up to the apocalypse—it will be a slow drip towards this scene, so steady, in fact, that it renders the masses virtually unaware of its progress. Tonnon writes with charm about callous corporations, the way our society devours the sacred altruism of the young, and the shifting sands of optimism and pessimism within each generation. At times, these songs evoke a bucolic, quaint landscape, with Tonnon’s slight lilt and bumpy guitar clangs. Then come the stylish synths and drum machines and affecting strings, bolstering a sense of cosmopolitan chic. Tonnon’s meticulous compositions are aided by another pop savant, The Beths’ Jonathan Pearce, who helped produce and record the album.
Once again, Tonnon displays a grasp for the way history actually unfolds. More than likely, we won’t suddenly wake up to the apocalypse—it will be a slow drip towards this scene, so steady, in fact, that it renders the masses virtually unaware of its progress. Tonnon writes with charm about callous corporations, the way our society devours the sacred altruism of the young, and the shifting sands of optimism and pessimism within each generation. At times, these songs evoke a bucolic, quaint landscape, with Tonnon’s slight lilt and bumpy guitar clangs. Then come the stylish synths and drum machines and affecting strings, bolstering a sense of cosmopolitan chic. Tonnon’s meticulous compositions are aided by another pop savant, The Beths’ Jonathan Pearce, who helped produce and record the album.
‘Peacetime Orders’ – is a mysterious song that is a favourite for many from the new album, The album “Leave Love Out Of This”, out now on Slow Time Records, Misra Records and Flippin Yeah Records
Fresh off of being part of the bands most likely too of 2022, English Teacher have announced their debut EP ‘Polyawkward’, and shared new track ‘A55’.
Speaking about their newest track, the band’s Lily Fontaine explains, “Writing the lyrics for ‘A55’ was a cathartic exercise after waking up with ‘The Fear’ the morning after the night before – reflecting on the rise and fall of the ego as it became affected by what I put in my body, I hoped that putting it down in verse would make the embarrassment all worth it.”
“A Leeds post-punk four-piece who take their place in the front rank of great new British bands” The Sunday Times“ … The fierce and magnetic draw of a future punk great” NME“
Leeds post-punkers with an eye for a cutting one-liner” DIY
‘Act Of Love’ is a new recording and one-off single to mark the anniversary of Simple Mind’s very first performance at Glasgow’s Satellite City on 17th January 1978. The song is synonymous with the beginning of the Simple Minds story. It was the first song played at that show and also the opening track on the demo tape that won the band a record deal later that year. “Back in 1978 this was the first song anyone heard from Simple Minds. It became our rallying cry, our banner. Both Charlie and I have relished the opportunity to now rescue the song from obscurity by remodelling it in a style both nostalgic and yet in keeping with where Simple Minds are today.” Jim Kerr.
The track is an act of time travel, sweeping across four decades in four exhilarating minutes.
Jim Kerr explains: ‘Over the years people have asked: When did you think Simple Minds had the potential to make it? My stock answer was always, Oh, we didn’t really think about that. But I realise now that I wasn’t telling the truth. I believed we had something special as soon as I heard Charlie play the riff on ‘Act Of Love’.’
Mixed by Alan Moulder (Suede, Arctic Monkeys, The Killers), ‘Act Of Love’ is a vivid reimagining of one of the first songs Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill wrote together. It speaks of where Simple Minds have been and where they are heading. Honouring the youthful passion and belief which sparked the band into life, it pulses with the desire which continues to drive Kerr and Burchill to create thrilling new music.
‘Act Of Love’ is synonymous with the beginning of the Simple Minds story. It was the first song played at the Satellite City show in January 1978, and the opening track on the demo tape that won the band a record deal later that year. ‘I always loved the song,’ says Kerr. ‘To all intents and purposes, it was the first thing anyone heard of Simple Minds. It became our rallying cry, our banner.’
As Simple Minds established themselves as the hottest property on the Scottish post-punk scene, ‘Act Of Love’ became a live favourite. ‘We believed in it, but would anyone else?’ says Kerr. ‘It was so great when they did. It was the oxygen we needed to continue.’
Life moved fast back then. By the time Simple Minds recorded their debut album, “Life In A Day“, early in 1979, the song had ‘disappeared into the mist’ without ever being properly recorded. ‘Through the years, I always wanted to go back to it,’ says Kerr. In 1980 the singer recycled the title phrase as the opening line to ‘Celebrate’, the electro-blues juggernaut from Simple Minds’ extraordinary third album, “Empires & Dance“. Meanwhile, bootlegs of the 1978 demos ensured that ‘Act Of Love’ was treasured among diehard fans.
Four decades, numerous hit singles and 60m record sales later, Kerr and Burchill have finally returned to the song. A couple of years ago, while Burchill was in Thailand on a busman’s holiday, he sent Kerr the outline of an updated version of the track. ‘It was ‘Act Of Love’ with a new bit, and it sounded great.’
While recording the next Simple Minds album in Hamburg during 2020 and 2021, the follow up to 2018’s acclaimed “Walk Between Worlds”, periodically they returned to ‘Act Of Love’. ‘We tinkered around with it,’ says Kerr. ‘When we listened to the original demo, we loved its spirit and its general form, but it sounded like a youth club band song. How could we do that now, adding extra pieces without losing the essence?’
‘Act Of Love’ takes the 1978 version to new places. The original rattled along with the youthful energy one would expect from fans of the Velvet Underground, Magazine and Roxy Music. In 2022, the killer riff and chorus melody remain, bolstered by pulsing synths and a surging new section in which Kerr sings poignantly to his younger self: ‘A born believer / Head full of plans / Got nothing to lose / So much to reveal.’
‘I was thinking about the excitement of what we were setting out to do. We would rehearse in the afternoon in a derelict building in the Gorbals and I’d walk past Govanhill Library, thinking about the idea of the muse: a voice within that will appear and provide inspiration. That’s what the song was about originally. Now I’m looking back, reflecting on how the belief was real. When Charlie played that riff, it made me think we could do this. From that belief becomes your attitude, your body language, the whole culture of the band.’
A bridge between Simple Minds’ glittering past and still-evolving future, ‘Act Of Love’ is a reassertion of faith. The song has again become a ‘rallying cry’, this time for fans who have waited two years for the group to re-commence their world tour. Curtailed in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, it is due to start again in the spring.
‘What a thing: merging the very first Simple Minds song and where we are now,’ says Kerr. ‘There’s a story there. I think we’ve managed to tell it well.’
The Fat Angel Sings 