The Fat Angel Sings

Asheville, North Carolina band Wednesday owes so much to our musical influences. The music we love is a big part of what brought us together. My bandmates Margo and Xandy both had infamous Asheville house show venues, Jake was in like a billion different bands which often played in their muggy basements and Alan was usually the one who brought the PA. Our immersion in music predated us trying to make songs together ourselves. Our common interests in noisey ‘90s guitars, good lyrics, and country music was quickly what permeated into our voice as a band. Most decisions in our songs are made by an amalgamation of all five of our inputs, which happens pretty naturally because of this thread of influences that ties us together.

So when we got an opportunity for some recording time with Alli Rogers at Betty’s studio in Durham, NC we decided to record covers, and hopefully repay in part the huge debt we are in to the artists who contributed so much to the music we write ourselves.

When I was thinking if there was anything that these songs have in common, the main thing I found recurring was the combination of sadness and humour. It’s effective as hell to combine the two emotions, making each other more intense by the contrast. Some of the masters of this included on this album of course are: Roger Miller, Vic Chesnutt, Gary Stewart and Drive-By Truckers.

Sonically, Medicine opened a world of sound to me: a soft voice paired with unrelenting industrial noise. And if you listen to Wednesday’s original music it goes without saying that the Pumpkins discography (at least ‘til 1998) is a sound we reference often and tether ourselves to.
Chris Bell is the master of the perfect musical “moment”. There are few lines in any song that hit me as hard as: “Just when I was starting to feel okay, you’re on the phone. I never wanna be alone”
I mean… c’mon!!

There’s just one cover from a band we are lucky to call our peers and for the record I just wanna say Hotline TNT is one of the best bands out there. We stayed real true to the original song for that one… cause it’s pretty perfect as-is.
The later half of the album is songs recorded with my partner and frequent collaborator MJ Lenderman (the thing is… I love him!!) His music is probably my biggest influence out of anyone and I owe him a lot a lot a lot.

Anyways, if for whatever reason you’re reading this and haven’t heard the original songs, I encourage you to look ‘em up! We tried our best to pay our respects but at the end of the day you can’t exactly replicate the magic of any of these tracks. Making music (and hopefully living off it sometime soon) has been a dream come true for us. So thank you a million times to all the artists that paved the way for us…. Music rocks!!! Wow!!! Karly Hartzman 

Releases March 11th, 2022

In Kurt Vonnegut’s famous examination of war, “everything was beautiful” is something that the main character considers getting inscribed on his tombstone. “Everything was beautiful” would be a nice way to welcome in the afterlife on its own, but that’s not the whole of it – what Billy (he’s called Billy) actually considers chiselling into the granite is “everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”.

As such, when Jason Pierce’s Spiritualized broke a six-year LP duck with 2018’s ‘And Nothing Hurt’, it wasn’t hard to anticipate the title of the follow-up. There’s probably a wry bit of jokery going on here too Spiritualized has long felt like a project whose existence is predicated on the amplification of the past, As such, the way that ‘Everything Is Beautiful’ will indeed form the full phrase with ‘And Nothing Hurt’ while scrolling down a streaming service interface feels like Pierce indulging in a bit of light hearted ribbing about the times a-changed.

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 11 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 most arresting moments of ‘Everything Was Beautiful’ are when Spiritualized get their Lou Reed or. ‘Let It Bleed’s Sixties links go further than the title, but while the Stones are detectable in this track’s spirit’s-moving-now coda, it’s the street-level paeans of ‘Transformer’ that are channelled most concertedly here. The following cut ‘Crazy’, though those excellent recent Lavender Country reissues mean that I actually think of Patrick Haggerty’s project first and foremost when hearing this (did Haggerty and Reed ever meet? I sense they’d have got on.)

Spiritualized cook on gas at the front and back ends of ‘Everything Was Beautiful’. That Reedvivalism comes together with hazed motorika to pleasing effect on ‘Best Thing You Never Had’, the overall result of which is kind of like Alabama 3 if they skewed more towards Can. ‘Mainline’ might not be quite as much of a perpetual-motion sprawl, but the way the track’s beatific instrumental climbs ever higher has that same sense of ecstatic repetition about it.

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“

The energy of ‘Mainline’ flows outwards to invigorate the album’s final straight. ‘The A Song (Laid In Your Arms)’ is an exemplary bit of Spiritualization – so well does the track subsume well-wrought melodiousness into widescreen psychscapes that you’d be forgiven for mistaking it from a cut from one of the group’s classic Nineties LPs. The same goes for the slow-burn of ‘I’m Coming Home Again’, nine minutes of slowly apexing gospel-ish harmony-rock spiked with a searing electric guitar tone.

“Everything Was Beautiful” by Spiritualized is magnificent and everyone agrees with me yay!

“An immaculate orb of grandiose space-rock. Pierce’s rare communications are generally breath-taking events, and “Everything Was Beautiful” is no different.” Classic Rock – 9/10

“A life-affirming masterpiece, as euphoric as music can be.” Classic Pop – 9/10

“Jason Pierce continues to orbit high above a planet of his own making and all lovers of ambitious music should take note.” HiFi Choice – 4 stars ****

“A record that manages to be both direct and concise yet also wildly experimental, tender, nihilistic and joyous… It’s everything that you could want in a Spiritualized album.” Uncut – 9/10

“Much of “Everything Was Beautiful” has a vital, thundering pulse… Some fantastic songs aboard, too, including ‘Always Together With You’s Daniel Johnston-style naked expression of fatherly/romantic commitment, and a country-soul ballad, ‘Crazy’, complete with pedal steel. So, yes, utterly beautiful, as advertised.” MOJO – 4 stars ****

“An album chock-full of the soaring musical extravaganzas that make a Spiritualized record such an event.” Shindig – 5 stars *****

“A record that fills the void with ecstatic noise… Between Mainlines propulsive euphoria and the crashing grandeur of “The A Song (Laid In Your Arms)“, a declaration of belief in the restorative powers of consuming sound takes potent, peak-Spaceman form.” Record Collector – 4 stars ****

“Some of the most adventurous and mind-bending music that Spiritualized have ever released… This is one of the most potent expressions of Pierce’s vision to date.” PROG

“Chockful full of big songs, it packs a massive emotional punch. And it rocks too, with Pierce directing a choir and 30-odd musicians to create a lavish wall of sound on tracks like “Best Thing You Never Had”. If “Everything Was Beautiful” was a debut record it would be impressive. That it appears 25 years after their career high is nothing short of astonishing.” Morning Star – 5 stars *****

“Utilising 11 different studios and 30 different musicians, Pierce is clearly sacrificing none of that deliciously overblown pomp and swagger here, none of that ubiquitous bliss, not one brick from those enchanted fortresses of magisterial noise so synonymous with his work.” DIY

Elton John’s fourth studio album release in little over two years, “Madman Across The Water” has been a long held dear favourite of artist and fans alike.

“Madman Across The Water” was largely written after Elton had made his initial foray to America; offering the opportunity for lyricist Bernie Taupin to witness first-hand the landscapes and people he’d only seen on a screen or on the page. Recorded at Trident Studios in central London in February and August 1971, it was the first album where all five players of Elton’s fabled band line up – Dee Murray, Nigel Olsson, Davey Johnstone and Ray Cooper – were featured, albeit not on the same tracks.

The album’s first single, released on November 29th, 1971, was “Levon,” and though it peaked in the U.S. at “just” #24, it was his second-highest at the time, and fared better than the album’s now-better known single, “Tiny Dancer,” which only reached #41. (None of the songs were released as singles in the U.K. at the time.)

After John’s brief piano intro, the first verse is fairly straightforward, beginning with:

Levon wears his war wound like a crown
He calls his child Jesus (As the new edition’s liner notes reveal, “Madman mentions Jesus several times. Jesus was everywhere in the early 70s – Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell, “Spirit in the Sky.” “Tiny Dancer” contains the lyric “Jesus freaks, out in the streets.”)

The second verse, with the brilliant orchestral arrangements written and conducted by Paul Buckmaster, includes the line:

In a garage by the motorway (pronouncing “garage” as “carriage,” and then using the word for what Americans call “highway”) As John writes in the 50th anniversary liner notes, “Buckmaster’s arrangements soar above the songs that Bernie and I wrote after our first trip to America.”

The song continues with John’s stunning vocal:

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day
When The New York Times said, “God is dead
And the war’s begun”
Oh, Alvin Tostig has a son today (Who? What? Taupin has said the name is fictional. “He seemed an American everyman,” he says.)

And as the band kicks in…

And he shall be Levon
And he shall be a good man
And he shall be Levon
In tradition with the family plan (At the time, John’s accent and pronunciations – in this case, for the word “tradition” – still took getting used to by American audiences)

As John himself explained cryptically, the song “is about a little boy, who gets fed up with what he’s doing, and wishes he could get away from it, but he really can’t.” Taupin says he doesn’t “remember where I wrote it and what was in my mind.” He calls it “one of our finest moments lyrically and melodically. I’m immensely proud of this song, incredibly dynamic and soulful.”

The reissue, due out June 10th, features 18 unreleased tracks, mostly in the form of John’s piano demos of all of “Madman’s” album tracks, including his classics “Tiny Dancer” and “Levon,” as well as three different takes on the title song: Piano demos from 1970 and 1971, plus the original version that featured guitarist Mick Ronson. The deluxe edition’s third disc includes John’s eight performances from a 1971 taping of BBC Sounds for Saturday; video of that concert, as well as John’s December 1971 gig on the Old Grey Whistle Test, is featured on the Blu-ray component of the deluxe reissue.

While the UK were still deciding about Elton, these nine tracks struck a chord with Elton’s American audiences, reaching the top 10 and its singles, ‘Levon’ and ‘Tiny Dancer’ both hit the USA top 50.

After years as a ‘best kept secret’ to Elton’s fans, ‘Tiny Dancer’ has gone on to become one of his most loved songs, third only to “Rocket Man” and “Your Song” in global streaming lists.

Capturing the headiness of California at the time of Elton’s first us concerts, the song was used to phenomenal effect in Cameron Crowe’s 2000 film “Almost Famous”. This celebration of the album to mark its 50th anniversary comes in three different formats. all formats contain Bob Ludwig’s definitive 2016 remaster of the main album. there are 18 previously unreleased tracks across the super deluxe 3cd/1br version, which also tidies up stray rare material from the era, piano demos of the album, and the audio of the BBC Sounds for Saturday concert, broadcast in 1972. the blu-ray contains a 5.1 mix by Greg Penny, plus the BBC Sounds for Saturday and his 1971 Old Grey Whistle Test performance. the audio of the super deluxe cd/br set will be available on a 4lp set. The box set includes a full historical essay with interviews with many who helped make the album, as well as memorabilia and artwork from the rocket archive.

Deluxe edition of 1971 LP features 18 unreleased tracks, from piano demos of entire album, including “Tiny Dancer” and “Levon,” to BBC recordings

S Carey is the moniker of Eau Claire, Wisconsin-based multi- instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Sean Carey. Over the past decade, Carey has fostered his flourishing solo career via themes of nature and sustainability, song writing built from jazz beginnings, and heartfelt, emotive lyricism. His latest and fourth album, “Break Me Open“, is best described in his own words:

In  “Break Me Open“, I confronted darkness, I wrote about fear, I looked at love from different angles, I left it all out on the field. These past couple years have been the hardest of my life: full of grief, loss, and change. I feel like I had two choices. I could run from life, turn away, grow cold, resort to drugs, run and keep running. Or, I could give myself a deep look within. I could dig deep where the pain lives, where fear is festering, to try shed a new skin and come back a better person.

Everyone is so far from perfect. This is not a “divorce” album. And while going through that has shook me to my core, leaving me at times, wondering who I am, and where to go, this record is bigger. It’s about love – past, present, and future. It’s about fatherhood – the overwhelming feeling of deep love for my kids and the melancholy of watching them grow up right before my eyes. It’s about accepting my faults and wrongdoings, exposing myself, and trying to know myself better than I did the day before. But above the darkness, it’s a message of hope, honesty, and growth. It’s a call to be vulnerable: “Break Me Open“.

“Break Me Open” is the new LP from Wisconsin-based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and Bon Iver collaborator S. Carey. Lots of lavish sounds in the mix, but all beautifully so, it’s a masterclass in subtlety.

The forthcoming album ‘Break Me Open’, out April 22nd on Jagjaguwar Records.

On “demos”, Tucson, AZ singer, songwriter & sound designer Karima Walker shares early, home-recorded versions of songs from her critically acclaimed 2021 folk/ambient album “Waking the Dreaming Body“, alongside illuminating sketches and ambient pieces. The demo versions of “Softer,” “Window I” and “Reconstellated” feature alternate lyrics and intimate acoustic arrangements that highlight the power of Walker’s voice and musicianship, while ambient pieces like “Thunder Interlude” and “Earth Into Air” plumb deeper depths of tension. 

“I first notice how vulnerable it feels, to hear certain lyrics sticking out, different from the words that finally stuck. But I do like returning to these songs, remembering why words shifted and settled as the songs took shape, and remembering that so many of these did not appear as immediately apparent and whole. 

“They’re a lot more like my everyday life, revealing itself in time, while I try to let things register in my body… Then I go back in and push things around and figure out what I’m doing… Others are knit together from other projects, pieces and fragments that inspired the emotional timbre of the record, and in some cases were woven directly into it. Some here did appear complete and whole, but I either forgot about them, lost them or saw them as outliers. Either way, I like how the pieces hang together as a simpler account of the time from which the record finally came, and I hope you do too.” – Karima Walker

Karima leaves for an East Coast tour next week supporting the wonderful Flock of Dimes before a West Coast tour in May with Advance Base and Claire Cronin.

The forthcoming album from Nashville-based and Melbourne-bred songwriter Jo Schornikow is a clip show of sorts. The record’s title, “Altar”, takes its name from a physical and more importantly: symbolic shrine she keeps of souvenirs from past chapters of her life, with the highs and lows all revisited on the new LP. The latest single to be revealed ahead of its May 20th release date captures both of these extremes, with the equal-parts nostalgic and comfortably of-the-present “Plaster” summing up a particular recurring theme in her life.

“‘Plaster’ is a song about my favourite kind of magic that done in plain sight, no smoke or mirrors,” she shares. “When the magician calls the play, shows their hand; and still the audience sees what they want/expect, not what’s there. I’ve been on both sides and wrote a verse from each; the fooler and the fooled. ‘Plaster’ is a glittering, disco-ball lit, slow-dance love song to all the fools I’ve been. Nothing to do with plaster, but both my wrists were broken when I wrote it. Never bike-ride in NYC snow.”

Along with the glossy tune comes a slo-mo music video which sees Schornikow making her way to the front of a sanctuary over the course of the song’s two minutes, where the colourful aforementioned altar awaits her.

“Altar” out May 20th via Keeled Scales

Within 11 seconds of clicking “play” on “Lava Lamp Pisco” it’s instantly apparent why “Night Gnomes“, the latest album from Psychedelic Porn Crumpets might be their greatest offering yet.

The track is a riffy monster that delivers a much-welcome Black Sabbath-style slap to the head. It’s big, shiny, sleek and irresistible. It’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets giving their best and Jack McEwan the band’s fearless leader has the battle scars from the four-second harmonica solo to prove it.

“I hadn’t blown the harmonica in five years. It was just sitting on my desk,” he recalls. “The first thing I did was suck in all this dust, and I couldn’t talk for like a day. Afterwards, the rest of the band was like, ‘You have to scrap that. It’s so cheesy.’ Anyone under 30 hates it, but it has the dad-rock vibe, so I kept it in.”

That devil-may-care spirit is present on each and every song on “Night Gnomes“. With guitarist Luke Parish, drummer Danny Caddy, bassist Wayon Billondana and multi-instrumentalist Chris Young by his side, McEwan bunkered down in his home studio, creating a sonic pastiche that almost sounds like turning the dial on a temperamental old radio every few minutes.

“A lot of these songs are structured from the beginning, but then we add another part towards the end to really keep it interesting, even if it’s just for ourselves,” he says of the project, which was recorded at McEwan’s home studio in and around Perth. “Like on Fleet Foxes’ “Helplessness Blues,” every song has an ending that is completely different than the first part. That was the idea here.”

Hence, distorted synths giving way to and then enveloping the lighter-waving riffage on opener “Terminus, The Creator,” a magnificent string section suddenly appearing on the nostalgic acoustic folk ditty “Dread and Butter” and a dizzying array of sounds linking arms on the title track, which imagines the proverbial creatures frolicking around a campfire in some far-off, mystical forest. “It feels jolly, but it’s also kind of terrifying and disturbing. My girlfriend told me she couldn’t listen to that song,” McEwan says of “Night Gnomes,” adding, “I’ve always liked how some Beatles songs just come out of nowhere, like “Mean Mr. Mustard.” This is our own little jingle that doesn’t fit with anything else on the record.”

On “Bubblegum Infinity,” the Crumpets waded through nearly 50 different variations of the track before a Eureka moment during a rehearsal jam session revealed its final structure. The song itself wound up as a commentary on the often rudderless nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and “taking comfort in the fact that nobody had a clue what was going on,” according to McEwan. “The song used to open with a huge riff that was side chained to the kick drum so it sounded like it was thumping, but then that’s how every Crumpets song starts. I swapped the heavy guitars for acoustics, which made it feel way stronger, both dynamically and sonically. It felt like we’d uncovered the clutter which guides the song to build into that chorus and not give anything away beforehand.”

McEwan is particularly proud of the dreamy “Sherbert Straws,” which he says “actually has some dynamics in it rather than having nine elements in the same spectrum as my vocals that I’m trying to constantly mix in and out of the track.” The song descends from the proud lineage of Australasian rock acts such as Tame Impala and Unknown Mortal Orchestra to whom McEwan professes devotion. “When we formed back in 2015, we marvelled at how these awesome bands from around here could self-release music on vinyl and create their own stories. There wasn’t any waiting for labels to come knocking. It was all DIY and we loved that concept. We’re still holding right onto those coattails and we’re getting dragged as far as we can,” he jokes.

For all of its varied vibes, the album never skimps on massive rockers sure to delight Psychedelic Porn Crumpets fans across the world in 2022. “Acid Dent” thrashes with abandon, but actually offers a slight concession to advancing age. “When we were younger, we were carefree and living tall, “McEwan says. “You get home with a handful of stuff in your pocket from whatever festival and just munch all of it, until you wake up in the morning so scattered. If we kept carrying on this way, we’d wind up in mental institutions by 35. So this is a nice little story about slowing down a bit.”

“Bob Holiday” pays homage to classic riffs McEwan remembers from his youth, like Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way?” “We’ve been trying to emulate that sound forever,” says McEwan, who also played in a Rage Against The Machine cover band when he was younger. “I also thought ‘Bob Holiday’ was a really strong name — like, if you were called that, you’d be able to do anything.”

The album comes full circle with the one-two closing punch of the instrumental “In Dreams, Out” and “Slinky/ Holy Water,” touching again on the thumping drums, acoustic guitar flourishes, washes of sound and strange noises introduced on the opening track. With the pandemic having provided McEwan the chance to “get my life together and get healthy,” not to mention move 200 meters from his favourite pub, he and his bandmates will soon be onto their next musical adventure. But exploring the undiscovered territory of “Night Gnomes” has already made a major impact on its creators.

“I have no idea what I’m doing half the time,” McEwan says. “It’s like, plug in, record. Why does this sound like shit but this other thing works? I needed five albums to get to this point of revealing some golden nuggets of information about dynamics, production and exploring new sounds. Everyone finds fault in their own work, but that’s probably what makes us want to keep creating.”

Toronto’s Jerry Leger was building up a fine head of steam on this side of the pond a few years back. His live shows and almost back-to-back releases of “Too Broke To Die” (a retrospective collection) and “Time Out For Tomorrow” were widely acclaimed. He was due to build on this acclaim with a spring tour of the UK and Europe in 2020 but like everything else back then, the shutters sprang up.

Two years later, Leger has a new album out and a whole new set of dates over here coming up. The album, “Nothing Pressing“, can be considered (like numerous other current releases) as a product of the pandemic. In plain terms it consists of home recorded songs, solo studio efforts and, once they were able to do so, his band (The Situation) weigh in. This allows the album a fine degree of light and shade. Delve into the songs however and there’s more shade than light in terms of Leger’s lyrics and preoccupations. There’s none of the mercurial Dylan like rock which Leger is so adept at, instead the band songs are stoic and grounded, more rooted in a Neil Young like ditch than Dylan like flashes of lightning. When he does root around in a Dylan like guise it’s on the skeletal “Underground Blues”, a home recorded demo with sparks flying from Leger’s raw electric guitar calling to mind the bard’s ghosts of electricity.

The album opens with Leger strumming his 1959 Gibson acoustic guitar on the title song. Predating the pandemic but eerily prescient, it’s a sylvan fantasy of sorts as he moves into the country but is soon “bored out of his mind.” As if his wish to leave this fantasy was borne out, “Kill It With Kindness” is announced with a blast of electric guitar as the band sway in on a crunchy rocker which tackles personal demons, Leger here sounding like Phil Ochs fronting Elvis Costello’s Attractions. There’s more crunch on the swampy Stray Gators like slouch of “Recluse Revisions” which dives head first into ditch territory. Apparently inspired by the ennui encapsulated in Joan Didion’s 1970 novel, Play It As It Lays, Leger sings of a slightly jaded bunch of comrades, getting on in years, content now to just “play cowboy songs they know by heart.” It’s a mighty achievement and the towering point of the album. “Wait A Little Longer”, another full band outing has Angie Hilts singing harmony giving the song a lilting Everlys’ like sound, somewhat akin to that employed by the likes of T Bone Burnett or Nick Lowe when they go down an Everlys’ alleyway. Hilts also features on the jangled power pop of “Have You Ever Been Happy”, its upbeat sound belying the questing lyrics.

The remainder of the album is more introspective, perhaps reflecting Leger’s time spent in lockdown. “With Only You” is a yearning love song given a late era Beatles’ like burnish while “A Page You’ve Turned” is a sad, country like lament which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Flatlanders album. He delves deep into his vulnerabilities on “Sinking In“, another home recording, which exists on a similar plane to Alex Chilton’s fragile songs on the third Big Star album, but the crux of the disc is the deeply moving “Still Patience“, a song which came to Leger following the death of a close friend. Lennon like in its intimate delivery, the song resonates with loss. Closing the album as he began, strumming his trusty Gibson, Leger offers up “Protector“. A brilliant hangdog weariness inhabits the song which is like a self-composed eulogy with Leger posing at times as a gunfighter facing his last shootout. It’s kind of brilliant.

Highly nuanced and very finely written and delivered, “Nothing Pressing” certainly deserves Leger’s description of it as his “deepest artistic statement yet.” It’s a superb album.

“Underground Blues” is from Jerry’s new album “Nothing Pressing” out on Latent Recordings on March 16th, 2022. Produced by Michael Timmins, written by Jerry Leger