The Fat Angel Sings

“Zorked” (adj.) – what happens when you end up thunderbaked, as in extremely stoned–or in any situation where you feel not sobre. You can feel so tired you’re zorked. In fact, any state, so long as you’re a little out of it, qualifies. And Julia Shapiro, of Chastity Belt, Childbirth, and Who Is She?—much like everyone on this earth with a pulse—was zorked on more than one occasion in 2020. In March, she packed up her things and traded Seattle’s late-winter gloom for the perennial sunshine and seemingly endless opportunity of Los Angeles only to be forced into near-total isolation. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, she began working on her second solo album, “Zorked”. On the resulting batch of songs, we’re given Julia’s vision of Los Angeles: a wasteland melting in slow-motion, a place to commune with ghosts and warped legacies.

Living within earshot of a man who spent his entire 2020 singing karaoke for over 10 hours a day, Julia could write, record, and play an album’s worth of instruments without fear of noise complaints. Her roommate Melina Duterte (Jay Som) transformed their house into a viable home studio, making it easy to fully realize the sound in her head, even at the height of a global lockdown. Taking things a step further, Melina agreed to co-produce the record, pushing Julia to make these new songs sound less like “Perfect Version“, her first solo album, or like the songs she performs in Chastity Belt. At the peak of her uncertainty and discomfort, she jumped into the deep end in search of something new—and found power in heavy sounds.

This is evident in the first few seconds of album opener “Death (XIII).” Taking newfound inspiration from the namesake Tarot card, drone metal, and shoegaze, Julia layers walls of guitars, bass chords, and programmed drums. “Come With Me,” the album’s lead single, takes inspiration from a mushroom trip gone bad. “Take me to awful places now,” she sings, envisioning heat death as her own eyes stare directly into the sun. On “Wrong Time,” shimmering guitars smoulder and levitate, yet she finds herself “stuck inside this hole I’ve dug.” That said, these songs aren’t unbearably sad, nor has Julia become any less of a merciless observer of human behaviour. By album closer “Hall of Mirrors,” she’s come full circle. Over fingerpicked guitar, the sense of lost identity becomes all-encompassing. It’s the sound of a life lived in servitude to digital screens and the psychic damage invisibly done along the way.

Though Julia Shapiro found herself in a near hermit-like existence, writing and recording almost all of the album’s instruments herself and struggling to navigate her place in a city and world rendered nearly comatose, she maintains a sense of humour about all of it. At the very least, “It’s funny to force people to have to say “Zorked” out loud. Any other title sounded pretentious.” 

Released October 15th, 2021

Written and performed by Julia Shapiro

The Experience cut a live TV session for ITV’s “It Must Be Dusty” at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire on June 5th, 1968. Hendrix launches into ‘Stone Free’ with “This is dedicated to Brian Jones”, who had recently been arrested for possession of marijuana. Side One finishes up with a bit of chat between Jimi and Dusty, then on Side Two Jimi accompanies Dusty with solo guitar on a duet of Charlie and Inez Foxx’s “Mockingbird”. The session ends with a powerful rendition of their latest single, “Voodoo Child (Slight Return).” The show was broadcast on July 12th, and although the video performance no longer exists, a grainy clip of “Mockingbird” from a Super 8 camera pointed directly at the TV can be found on a popular video hosting site.

Side One:
1. Introduction
2. Stone Free (Hendrix)
3. Interview

Side Two:
1. Mockingbird (Inez & Charlie Foxx)
2. Voodoo Chile (Hendrix)

“Stranger Things’ was a celebrated collaboration between Marc Almond and the much-missed mercurial talent of Icelandic producer and arranger Jóhann Jóhannsson (Lhooq, Dip, Hafler Trio…) which gave the album a consciously cinematic musical coherence with its signature melodramatic and soaring string arrangements to the fore.

Deftly combining elements of Gothic tinged Synth Pop and orchestral grandeur, the album provoked much eulogising on its original release; Ian Shirley writing in Record Buyer in 2001 that, “This is a brilliant album. Lush, orchestral and with a delightful contemporary rhythmic sheen, it sounds like the soundtrack to an imaginary James Bond film. Almond is in torch mode playing Shirley Bassey. This is no put down… he sings with an emotional depth that is very moving.”

Online music site Allmusic described the album as “dreamy and swooning”, adding that Marc, “sounds in absolutely excellent voice.”

Marc and Johannsson were kindred spirits whose shared influences were a mash-up of Philip Glass, ‘70s music, John Barry, Martin Denny, striptease soundtracks, burlesque and Techno – all of which is richly manifested in the unique sensibility and beauty of the resultant album.

Also available as a three disc, newly expanded CD edition. 

Pavement have announced another reissue, with their debut album “Slanted & Enchanted” set for a new 30th Anniversary edition. The new release is out August 12th via Matador Records and includes a cassette titled “Courting Shutdown Offers“. The tape is a replica of what the band first used to share proto–”Slanted & Enchanted” material with labels. Today, we celebrate 30 years of Pavement’s debut full-length, ‘Slanted & Enchanted,’ which was first released on this day in 1992. It remains a truly monumental album – one that defined/ruined a generation and a genre, depending on who you ask..

Also manufactred a lovingly detailed replica of the cassette Pavement used to shop ‘Slanted & Enchanted’ to prospective record labels, titled ‘Courting Shutdown Offers.’ This is an early version of the finished album with a different running order and a handful of alternate track titles. Pop it in a tape deck and experience ‘S&E’ as it was first heard by the era’s taste-making industry types.

The band most recently augmented its final album with “Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal”, which arrived alongside an update of the 1999 “Spit on a Stranger” EP earlier this month. Pavement are embarking on a set of long-awaited reunion tour dates across North America and Europe, beginning with a stop at Primavera Sound in Barcelona early June.

The update of the 1992 debut comes with a tape of demos that the band used to shop the LP to labels

Produced by Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Lopatin, this is a true evolution of Soccer Mommy’s sound, without losing the adhesive melodic hooks that enamoured us to her from the start.

“Sometimes, Forever” refers to the idea that the good and bad are both temporary and always returning. feelings of sorrow and emptiness will pass but they will always come back around, as will feelings of joy. this album explores many ups and downs. It moves from the high of love to hopelessness and disconnect. a frustrated loss of control over life and a disconnect from the self reoccur throughout the record, only to circle back to a willingness to let go and be free, Whether through love (Shotgun, With U) or blissful ignorance (Don’t Ask Me). it’s a coexistence of light and dark, not only lyrically but tonally. Dan once called it the angels and demons record lol.

Soccer Mommy has shared another Daniel Lopatin–produced single from her forthcoming album “Sometimes Forever”. The new track is titled “Unholy Affliction.” Check it out below.

Sophie Allison’s follow-up to 2020’s Color Theory arrives on June 24th. She announced the album in March, sharing “Shotgun” from the album with the news. Last year, she shared a song titled “Kissing in the Rain,” her contribution to the soundtrack for the comic book Dark Nights: Death Metal. She also released another track in July, “Rom Com 2004,” which didn’t make the cut for “Sometimes Forever”.

Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner have revealed details of their first album as the Smile. It’s called “A Light for Attracting Attention” and it’s due out May 13th via XL Recordings. Today, they’ve shared the video for “Free in the Knowledge,” which Yorke premiered solo during an October performance in London before airings by the trio in January.

And finally! A release date for our new album “A Light For Attracting Attention“, a new song, the artwork that Thom and Stanley have been painting all winter – and a sense that we will get to share, at last, our new music in full. I feel grateful that we managed, with Nigel’s help, to record these songs in a way they deserve. And the singles released so far have been liked – as far as I can tell – which makes me feel dangerously confident in the rest of the record.

So yes, we’re properly proud and excited for everyone to have the whole thing – but, it’s been a drawn-out process so far, with so many single songs released. I can only apologise for our tentativeness.

The Radiohead duo and jazz drummer unveiled the Smile project last spring when they announced a surprise appearance at the livestream-only Glastonbury festival. (Though they made the record in conjunction with producer Nigel Godrich, he is not a member of the live band.) The Smile took their name from a Ted Hughes poem, with Greenwood telling NME, “The Smile came about from just wanting to work on music with Thom in lockdown. We didn’t have much time, but we just wanted to finish some songs together. It’s been very stop-start, but it’s felt a happy way to make music.”

In January, after teasing material in a rehearsal broadcast to Instagram Live, the Smile released their first single, “You Will Never Work in Television Again.” They followed it with “The Smoke,” “Skrting on the Surface,” and “Pana-vision.” The band has a spring and summer tour of Europe set to begin in Croatia in mid-May.

Greenwood has continued to develop his film scores repertoire, writing music for Licorice Pizza, Spencer, and The Power of the Dog. In February, the latter earned Greenwood an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. Drummer Tom Skinner joined Greenwood on the Spencer soundtrack and regrouped with Sons of Kemet last year for “Black to the Future”, the follow-up to 2018’s “Your Queen Is a Reptile”.

In addition to the Smile, Yorke, Greenwood, and Skinner have all had numerous other active pursuits in recent years. Radiohead reissued the albums “Kid A” and “Amnesiac” with previously unreleased material and a virtual counterpart. Yorke also joined Four Tet and Burial for “Her Revolution” and “His Rope” for a rare collaboration at the end of 2020. And, last summer, he officially released new versions of the late MF Doom’s “Gazzillion Ear” and Radiohead’s “Creep.”

Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner’s new album “A Light for Attracting Attention” is out May 13th

It has, astonishingly, been 334 issues since Liam Gallagher first loped into the pages of MOJO. Jim Irvin, still on our team, spots him fronting Oasis at London’s Marquee club in the summer of 1994, “Impassively cocksure, quietly convinced of [his] roughly distilled essence of Everything Rock Delights In.” “Our kid’s not got the faintest idea what’s going on,” Noel Gallagher tells Jim later. “He’ll be one of the greats because he doesn’t know.”

Twenty-eight years later, Liam Gallagher is nudging 50, probably in need of double hip surgery, still to a preternatural degree untroubled by self-analysis, and back on the cover of the brand new MOJO 343, on sale now.

It’s disingenuous to suggest that Everything Rock Delights In is purely instinctual; some of the great musical thinkers assembled in this issue of MOJO might like a word with you about that. There’s Sting, explaining how “ The Police were outsiders from the start”. Or post-punk’s neglected pioneers, Magazine, and their self-appointed “benign dictator” Howard Devoto. Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Fraser, launching her new band Sun’s Signature with an exclusive MOJO chat, could hardly be accused of rushing things.

Elsewhere, we’re extremely proud to have teamed up with the Grateful Dead this month to produce an extremely collectable CD of exceptional Dead tracks, complementing our big piece celebrating the 50th anniversary of the band’s storied “Europe ’72” jaunt. Plus we preview the Sex Pistols on TV, and Nick Cave on film, check in with Sharon Van Etten, Scritti Politti and the last Four Top, Duke Fakir . Hear of Ava Cherry’s time in and out of the Court Of Bowie . And pull together exceptional long reads on Mighty Baby and Labelle. “We didn’t know what ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir’ meant,” Patti Labelle tells us.

Meanwhile, there are extraordinary times spent with Liam Gallagher, as he readies himself for a return to peak Oasis’ Knebworth stamping ground. At one point in Ted Kessler’s wise and hilarious interview this month, Gallagher briefly contemplates how, in June, he will play to 160,000 people over two nights back at Knebworth. “Blows my mind,” he admits. “Not that I’ve thought about it yet… Well, I have, maybe, a little, on the sly. Don’t tell anyone.”

Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack have been playing music together and apart in Baltimore for most of their lives. On stage, they perform with raw energy and sophistication, creating a surprising amount of noise for two people. Their music can be classified as 21st-century folk music, imbued with dense shoegaze guitars, nearly melodic rhythms, and impeccable splashes of electronic colour. 

Originally self-released in 2007 under the moniker Monarch, Wye Oak’s debut If Children was given a proper introduction to the world the following spring on Merge Records. Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack take their minimalist setup to maximalist ends, pairing gentle campfire folk with bombastic hazy shoegaze, sometimes within the same song.

Their assured mission statement makes its vinyl debut, on red and white splatter, no less, exclusively for RSD 2022.

“Holy Scum”. Say it out loud. It’s a name that can’t help but be spat out viciously; a snarling exclamative that fits the bludgeoning sludge and feedback drenched improv rock that its progenitors unleash on their debut for Rocket Recordings, “Strange Desires”.

Initially a Manchester-based collaboration between guitarist Peter J Taylor (formerly of Action Beat) Gnod co-founder Chris Haslam on bass and his bandmate Jon Perry on drums, the thick gauze of Holy Scum’s jams have been pulled apart in production by one of half of legendary hip-hop duo Dälek, Mike Mare (aka Mike Manteca). He also provides the growling, guttural vocals.

“When Mike got involved it became another thing entirely to what we had originally perceived” notes Haslam “He added a whole new dimension to what we had been working on.”“He kept asking if it was okay to fuck what we sent him up and we kept asking him to fuck it up even more” adds Taylor. “I kept referencing My Bloody Valentine in terms of creating a wall of noise, but we wanted it to be heavy as fuck.” The resulting dystopian tumult of sound thus also finds itself somewhere above and beyond the sonic scorched earth inhabited by early Swans, Godflesh and Shit And Shine.“

All of the lyrics revolve around the collapse of society, feeling numb watching it happen, what it’s like on the other side communicating with the dead and looking to other worlds for relief” reckons Mare” Indeed, “Strange Desires” is a record for the moment, and beyond. A howl amidst a world fallen off its axis. Holy Scum are unflinching in their confrontation, meeting fire with fire on this most stunning debut.