The Fat Angel Sings

Dummy refuses to slow down. After releasing two cassette EP’s in 2020 (on Popwig and Born Yesterday respectively), Dummy’s debut full-length album arrives via Chicago’s Trouble in Mind Records. Employing pummelling guitars and celestial ambience within the same breath, the band folds a myriad of reference points into their drone-pop style. Influence from ’60s melodicism and ’90s UK noise pop can be found woven in with inspiration from spiritual jazz, Japanese new age, and Italian minimalism. Dummy dodges the brooding, dark, dramatic tropes of contemporary “artistic” music often found in punk, experimental, and electronic, instead insisting on joyous and euphoric sonic palettes. They refuse to be artistically stagnant, continuously shifting their approach to writing across 12 tracks.

Shaped by performances around Los Angeles in 2019, songs like “Daffodils” and “Fissured Ceramics” feature relentless driving energy and ample psychedelic noise. Elsewhere, Dummy counterbalances the aggression with meditative synthscapes focused on sound design and studio experimentation, like on the motorik “X-Static Blanket“. Finally, centrepiece “H.V.A.C.” and the album’s final track, “Atonal Poem”, seek to synthesize these two poles, offering multi-part journeys through uncharted sonic territory. In contrast to blissed-out instrumentation, Dummy’s sardonic lyricism examines “the burden of modern life, consumerism, environmental collapse, alienation, and other anxieties born out of living in this absurd moment in history”. Interior design, marine pollution, the psychology of commercial architecture, and nuclear testing are all featured subjects. Dummy’s restless creativity keeps them moving ever-forward, continuously challenging themselves and pushing their sound into exciting and exhilarating places.

Rock music might be a means to no end for some bands, but for Dummy, it’s an opportunity to surface and synthesize more interesting bits of popular music that otherwise go overlooked by professional three-chord wonders who own only three records. Affixing their lengthy and diverse influences proudly on their sleeve—and literally listing some of them on the sleeve of this very record—on “Mandatory Enjoyment“, the Los Angeles five-piece revel in restless and rule-less punk creativity, zipping from sunshine-y indie pop to noisy drone to Tropicália to Japanese ambient to krautrock and shoegaze and basically every cool genre that ever existed, ever. While musical experimentation this deliriously heady can sometimes become an annoying exercise in hipper-than-thou footnoting, “Mandatory Enjoyment” is one of those rare rock records that pushes the form forward by looking back with reverence rather than for reference.

Dummy’s first full length, “Mandatory Enjoyment” – out October 22nd, 2021 on Trouble in Mind Records.

Recommended if you like: Silver Apples, Laraaji, Velvet Underground, Stereolab, Cluster, Antena, My Bloody Valentine, Haruomi Hosono, Carl Sagan, Yo La Tengo, Finis Africae, Midori Takada.

The 1999 album by the Lilys  was originally released on Sire Records and became one of those major label releases that just fell by the wayside. It is a crunching and sophisticated 60’s British invasion influenced album with jangling guitars, hooks galore and adventurous song writing.

By the time of their fourth full-length album, 1999’s “The 3 Way”, Lilys had already gone through a more dramatic evolution in just a few years than many bands experience throughout an entire career. Centered around songwriter and sole consistent member Kurt Heasley, Lilys began as a fuzzy shoegaze band, making sounds heavily influenced by My Bloody Valentine for their first few albums before taking a dramatic left turn toward orchestral mod pop created in the likeness of the Kinks, the Zombies, and the Small Faces on 1996’s “Better Can’t Make Your Life Better“. Compared to that album, Lilys’ output from just a few years earlier sounded like the work of a completely different band. This ’60s-steeped phase of the band reached its highest form with “The 3 Way”, an album where Heasley’s British Invasion and baroque pop influences felt less like faithful recreations, and bled more into his own cracked song writing sensibilities.

The overwhelming influence of the Kinks is still undeniable as album-opener “Dimes Makes Dollars” kicks things off with a bumbling garage rock riff and the kind of cheeky melodies Ray Davies perfected on Face to Face. As the song goes on, however, Heasley’s eccentricities start leaking into view as the melodies become more angular and winding. The album splits its time between quick stomping jams and drawn out song suites like the quickly shifting “Socs Hip” and “Leo Ryan (Our Pharoah’s Slave).” On these longer, more meandering tracks, Heasley assembles a pastiche made up of Left Banke harpsichord sounds, fuzz guitar borrowed from the Action, and quick-turning genre exercises following the blueprint of The Who Sell Out.

The wildly mapped song structures rarely stay in one mode for more than a few bars, and sometimes the songs start in S.F. Sorrow territory and end up traipsing through disco strings and bursts of free jazz saxophone. Throughout “The 3 Way”, Heasley’s distracted muse becomes the main attraction. He recalls Bowie’s sultry Aladdin Sane balladry on “The Spirits Merchant” before offering up what sounds like an Arthur outtake moments later with “The Lost Victory,” throwing in nods to the Monkees, lounge pop, and even the smallest traces of the blissed-out shoegaze guitar that defined earlier iterations of Lilys.

Indie bands fixating on ’60s pop was fairly commonplace by the late ’90s, but the way Lilys explored this muse would have more of a ripple effect. There are links in Heasley’s circuitous melodies and rapid key changes to Elephant 6 peers Of Montreal and Apples in Stereo, and the sense of groove that guides “The 3 Way’s” funkier experiments would resurface four years later on Belle and Sebastian’s far more visible effort Dear Catastrophe Waitress. While the bold-faced influences are easy to pick out, the way Heasley used them as a starting point to break new creative ground requires deeper listening. Once you get past the Kinks references emblazoned in many of the songs, Lilys’ own silent influence on the course of indie rock that followed becomes more apparent.

A lost gem that finally gets the reissue it richly deserves. For fans of The Kinks, The Small Faces and Apples in Stereo.

Wand frontman Cory Hanson is back with his sophomore album “Pale Horse Rider.” Hanson’s new album is a reflection on his time spent at home in Southern California and his observation of the desolation of the Mojave desert surrounding him throughout the recording process. “Pale Horse Rider’s” release was accompanied by Hanson’s newest endeavour, a web series. His series, titled Limited Hangout, included performances with Hanson in red face paint and a yellow suit mouthing the lyrics to his newest release and then switching to sketches of absurd segments like puppet shows and fake commercials. “Pale Horse Rider” sees Hanson finding a much more country/folk sound than his previous psych infuzed release. The Album opener “Paper Fog” sounds as much like a cowboy ballad as it can while also tiptoeing the line between fantasy and terror. My favourite track on this album is the namesake “Pale Horse Rider” inspired by a tarot card and beautiful ode to a lone ranger-esque hero who in reality isn’t as trustworthy as he appears.

Setlist:

Wonder [Wand, Laughing Matter] – 0:21 Blue Cloud [Wand, Plum] – 5:25 The Trap (just the intro) [Wand, Plum] – 8:50 Ordinary People [Cory Hanson, The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo] – 9:58 Cosmic Dancer (cover) [T. Rex, Electric Warrior] – 13:00 Morning Rainbow [Wand, 1000 Days] – 18:47 Rio Grande [Wand, Laughing Matter] – 22:10 Candy Says (cover) [The Velvet Underground, S/T] – 26:02 Growing Up Boys [Wand, Ganglion Reef] – 30:13

Who is Doss? The question has popped up repeatedly on internet communities devoted to leftfield club music, but she’s never released much personal information. When she announced “4 New Hit Songs“, her first new EP in over seven years, the news read, simply, “It’s the music.” What is known about the New York/Baltimore producer and songwriter is that over the past decade she has occasionally worked as a DJ, released an EP (her 2014 self-titled debut), and made a few remixes. At first glance, “4 New Hit Songs” doesn’t offer much more information; its title seems intentionally generic, and its singles were accompanied only by cheekily opaque slogans. Yet, in its own way, “4 New Hit Songs” is revealing—an invitation to join Doss as she experiences life’s tribulations and the rapturous realizations that come from navigating hard times.

Despite the fogginess surrounding these songs, they’re clearly Doss’ most personal and intimate to date. “4 New Hit Songs” is built with the same forward-thinking sounds that filled her debut: gleaming trance refractions, shards of bubblegum house, and delicate wisps of shoegaze. And though her voice appeared on some of her previous songs, it never rang as clearly or resonated as deeply as it does here. The candy-coated club track “Look” sounds a little like Doss’ old friends and associates at PC Music—but even when it’s buoyant and bright, it feels insular and brooding, too. Over techno drum programming, she mutters about isolation and abandonment, about feeling watched and alone. She repeats the words “on my own” over and over until they begin to sound anxious, the insistence lending weight to a track that might otherwise have floated away with dancefloor euphoria.

Part of the joy of “4 New Hit Songs” is in just how much emotion it packs into its few tracks. “Puppy”—a song about rekindling feelings with a lost love—feels desperate yet hopeful, drifting through stormy rave beats as Doss sings in the distance about “holding on.” The title is a reference to a nickname given to her by an ex, a personal touch that mirrors the yearning in her voice. “Strawberry” too is misty and longing, built around an instrumental as breezy and blunted as Slowdive’s more electronic experiments, but it’s also comforting. Its chorus—“maybe this song won’t leave you”—underscores Doss’ slogan: “It’s the music.” In a world that feels overwhelming, maybe you don’t need more than a song to keep you company.

Released May 7th, 2021 on LuckyMe Recordings

Natalie Bergman announces the release of “Mercy“, her debut solo album on Third Man Records. Self-produced, performed and mixed in near-solitude, the twelve-song set takes a spellbinding step into Bergman’s singular world of sound, spirituality and the search for hope during tragic times. The journey began in October 2019; until then, she had been on tour since the age of 14. She spent the better part of the past decade singing lead alongside her brother Elliot Bergman in their duo Wild Belle, but the night she was about to hit the stage at Radio City Music Hall, her life changed. A coroner called with news that their father and stepmother had been killed by a drunk driver. 

Music and faith have always been at the forefront of the Bergman family, and rather than crawl into a cave of darkness and dread, Natalie decided to spend many days in silence at a monastery in the Chama Valley. It was there she learned she would embark on Mercy, and as she began writing and recording, the collection of songs channelled her cathartic reverence for traditional gospel music – in her words, the true source of rock and roll. 

Throughout her years in Wild Belle, the LA-based, Chicago-bred Natalie Bergman has collaborated with the likes of Elvis Costello, Major Lazer and Tom Tom Club, opened for Beck, Cage The Elephant and Toro y Moi, played Coachella, The Tonight Show and more. On “Mercy”, her sweeping spectrum of creativity is finally on full display, from the three-dimensional artwork seen in “Talk To The Lord,” to her striking sense of style and the best songs she says she’s ever written.

“Mercy” marks the first newly recorded gospel album to be released by Third Man Records. Helmed by Bergman’s heavenly voice, the music is steeped in mystic melodies, time-bending tones of psychedelic rock, soul and a spiritual healing that’s much-needed in the wake of 2020. “Mercy” was mastered by Warren Defever of His Name Is Alive, additional production comes from Elliot Bergman and Erik Hall, and vocal contributions include Elsa Harris and the Larry Landfair Singers, who Natalie sang with at her father’s funeral.

Released May 7th, 2021

Natalie Bergman’s debut solo album, “Mercy”, is out now

A cosmic combination of pop, country, and rock, the second album from Erin Mae sees the Wichita artist find herself. Born out of time spent on the road and during the pandemic, “Lighten Up” is a record that sees her diverse talents blossom into something entirely new.

Produced by Jonathan Wilson (Dawes, Father John Misty, Conor Oberst), Erin Rae’s highly anticipated new album “Lighten Up” is a timeless amalgam of classic pop, cosmic country and indie rock, recorded earlier this year in California’s Topanga Canyon.

Three years have passed since the release of her critically acclaimed debut “Putting On Airs“, which drew high praise from publications from Rolling Stone to NPR Music. She mostly spent her time on the road, performing at Newport Folk and Red Rocks, sharing stages with Iron & Wine, Jason Isbell, Jenny Lewis, Hiss Golden Messenger and Father John Misty, before her touring came to a sharp halt at the start of the pandemic. The solitude of the road and then the pandemic created space for Rae to undergo a sonic and philosophical shift where she found personal catharsis in creating an album that reflected on her newfound lessons of self acceptance, alongside finding the confidence to offer social commentary on the environment, gender identity and equality. “My last record was a lot of self-assessment and criticism, and trying to kick old habits and ways of relating and not relating to people,” Rae acknowledges. “This one is about blossoming, opening up, and living a little more in the present moment. Fully experiencing what it is to be human.”

With a renewed sense of agency, Rae also took a more active role in creating the kaleidoscopic soundscape that became “Lighten Up”, setting out to reflect a sound she calls, “an emotional pallet, I could get lost in.” Alongside Erin and Jonathan Wilson, who contributed various instruments, the album also features guest appearances from fellow rising star singer songwriters, Meg Duffy, Ny Oh, and Kevin Morby.

Metronomy announced the release of a new album, “Small World“, which will be out on February 18th, 2022 via Because Music. The band also shared an amusing video for their equally fun new single, “It’s good to be back.”. 

Frontman Joseph Mount speaks about the inspiration behind the new song’s title in a press release: “Part of me was thinking, ‘what is the lamest platitude people are going to be saying coming out of the past two years?,’ but at the same time, I was thinking how it will be true and how it might feel doing things again.”

He adds: “I’ve been remembering what it was like as a kid when I’d be sitting in the backseat of my parents’ car and they’d be playing their music and I’d think ‘this is awful,’ but there’d be one or two songs I would like. I thought it would be fun to make that kind of album, and this is the song the kids might like. This is the ‘cool’ song.”

The seventh album from the English indietronica act is a return to simple pleasures. “Small World” is a portrait of a band maturing with age and experience that still finds time for momentary bliss. A record that could care less about being cool, as long as you’re having fun.

Last year, the band surprise-released the EP Posse EP Volume 1. 

New album ‘Small World’ out 18th February

The fuzzed out jangle poppers return with a sophomore album that builds on the foundation of their predecessor. Instead of refining their sound, Empath goes the other way crafting something raw and alive, teetering on the edge of disarray. “Visitor” is the sound of a band in complete control of their chaos.

The second album by Empath is full to brim with gems that stick in your head. The sound is chaotic and raw but totally locked in. If you imagine Alvvays or Veronica Falls but produced by one of the Elephant 6 Collective then, then this is Visitor by Empath. In other words it’s magical!!.

Empath’s new single ‘Diamond Eyelids’ is out now on Fat Possum Records. Look our for their new album “Visitor” out February 11th, 2022.

Ask the members of Empath how things have changed since the release of their critically-acclaimed 2019 album, “Active Listening: Night on Earth“, and they’ll downplay it. Now, Empath release their sophomore full-length, “Visitor”, via Fat Possum Records, marking a seismic shift for the scrappy quartet who came up playing shows on Northeastern DIY circuits and now have just completed a tour with Modest Mouse. While the album holds steadfast to the careening, joyous noise Empath staked their name on, “Visitor” was produced by Jake Portrait, making it the first release the band has recorded with a producer in a formal studio.

Empath is Catherine Elicson, Garrett Koloski, Jem Shanahan, and Randall Coon.

Indie folk songwriter Cate Le Bon returns with a brand new stirring single “Moderation” which once again exemplifies her knack for creating an idiosyncratic sound and innovative style.

“Moderation” is a nod to the daily dilemma of trying to curb inherited and novel habits when you want to eat the moon and an essay written by the architect Lina Bo Bardi in 1958 that continues to kick hard. The video is filmed through a window of hers.”

The Welsh songstress’s baroque pop musings . Whereas its title conjures images of explosions and devastation, The new album “Pompeii” will be Le Bon’s sixth album is minimal and direct in its confrontations.  She might be paying Rough Trade NYC a visit soon.

“Moderation” will feature of Cate’s upcoming new album “Pompeii” which is scheduled for release on 4th February 2022 and promoted with unmissable headline shows in March.

In her book “Cool Town”, Grace Elizabeth Hale offers a history of the Athens, Georgia, music scene, how it came about, thrived and then served as a model for other towns beyond the pale (and free from the dilution) of the mainstream music industry. As an undergrad at the University of Georgia in the 1980s, Hale was immersed in the Athens music scene at its peak, when R.E.M., the B-52s, Pylon, Vic Chesnutt, Love Tractor, Chickasaw Mudd Puppies and many others ruled the roost.

Grace Elizabeth Hale is a historian and professor whose specialties are 20^th- century Southern history and various forms of cultural history, including photography, documentary film and music. She holds the august title of Commonwealth Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Virginia. But if you were to rewind back to 1982, you’d find Hale as a newly arrived student at the University of Georgia, where she became an enthusiastic observer and participant in the fun and fecund Athens, Ga., music scene.

That was the period of time and the place that she documents with intelligence and affection in “Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture”, published last year by the University of North Carolina Press. In the book, Hale makes a deep dive into the circumstances that germinated not only the two Athens bands known well to any sentient rock fan – R.E.M. and the B-52’s – but also many other deserving acts that acquired cult followings but didn’t find similar levels of national recognition, such as Pylon and Vic Chesnutt. The list of deserving acts that poured out of Athens during those years lends support to the audacious claim of the book’s subtitle.

Hale comfortably wears the dual hats of historian and fan as she guides readers through the streets, clubs, hangouts and record stores of downtown Athens, as well as the libraries and classrooms of the University of Georgia, where knowledge was gained and friendships were struck. Impeccably documented and well-argued, “Cool Town” is a fun read for any fan of alternative music and the era in which it rose out of such unlikely places as a Deep South college town to challenge the increasingly stilted status quo of mainstream rock in the late 1970s.

Perhaps the most surprising revelation to come out of “Cool Town” is that it wasn’t only David Bowie and Lou Reed who were taking a walk on the wild side by mingling music with gender-bending sexuality. One of the key figures on the Athens scene was Jerry Ayers, who was a musician, actor and writer but mainly someone who turned lifestyle into an artistic statement in its own right. As Hale writes, Ayers “modeled the essential bohemian act – he made his life into art.” Ayers moved from Athens to New York City in 1970 and, for a spell, became one of Andy Warhol’s “superstars,” transforming into the character Silva Thin. When he moved back to Athens, he subtly steered its bubbling underground scene.

Hale: “Life, he suggested by example, gained its meaning not from work or school but from aesthetic expression. In this way, [he] was more than a local star. He made Athens the place to be a star.”

Ayers’ story informs many of those that follow, including such seminal Athens bands as the B-52’s, R.E.M., Love Tractor and the Chickasaw Mudd Puppies. The University of Georgia art department figures into the scene’s development as well. Some interesting mojo was transpiring in this out-of-the-way university town, predicated on high-toned aesthetic precepts, thrift-store bohemia, a love of rock music’s less-travelled byways and a feisty do-it-yourself spirit.