One more devastingly beautiful one from LA-based Harrison Whitford. Besides being a guitarist for Phoebe Bridgers, Harrison is also a mighty good songwriter. A few years back he knocked me out with a stunning debut album “Afraid of Everything” and now it was time for a gorgeous follow-up. This one’s a bit more evolved and rich, but thankfully without losing that fragile down-to-earth beauty of the debut.
We’re very excited to finally have Harrison Whitford’s ‘Afraid Of Nothing’ out in the world. The album, a thing of “ethereal, soak into your skin beauty” is a scrapbook of 12 incredible songs full of maturity, poise and richness. “Afraid of Nothing” pushes Harrison and his sound to new limits, creating a body of work that exudes his talent and personality. The reviews are trickling in, and lots of nice things are being said already, including…“Wistful and haunting.. a meditative heart-tugging gem that echoes the likes of Elliott Smith” – God Is In The TV Zine.“Pretty damn special” – Clash Magazine To bring this collection of songs to life, Harrison recruited (to name a few) Marshall Vore, Mason Stoops, Ethan Gruska, Phoebe Bridgers, Johanna Smauels, Eva B Ross and Charlie Hickey.
It’s been a while since we heard from Whitford, the solo artist. His debut album, “Afraid of Everything“, was released in 2018 during a break between appearing on Bridgers’ own 2017 debut, “Stranger in the Alps”, and 2020’s critically-adored “Punisher”. Whitford’s second album, “Afraid of Nothing”, set for release on November 12th. What came first, the clever inverse of that title or a genuine progression of mentality, I ask. He hesitates. “I tend to be one of those people who makes an off the cuff decision and then applies analysis after the fact,” he laughs. “I wrote the song that also has that title and I liked the song a lot so I figured it’d be kind of funny to name the record that. But on some level too, as a human being, I definitely do feel dramatically different from the person I was when I made my first record. My perspectives and sense of responsibility have changed from when I was 18 into my late 20s.”
“Afraid Of Nothing” is available to buy digitally now, Screwdriver Records
New Bern, North Carolina native Jeremy Squires is a singer-songwriter best known for his haunting melodies and evocative lyrics. Moving across the border to the US, but sticking with long time personal favorites. The Prolific North Carolinian singer-songwriter Jeremy Squires releases a hauntingly beautiful albums pretty much every year and this one is not an exception.
“Dreamy melodic poetry for dark times.Squires does not fit neatly into a genre, folk singer/songwriter falls short. Lyrically sparse as his arrangements are rich and dreamy he conveys mental turmoil that offer a sense of release and even relief.” – Americana UK
“Unravel” by Jeremy Squires is everything that honest song writing should be about. Jeremy Squires has moved out of his usual comfort zone with “Unravel”. He builds on his already impressive lyrical talents but pushes his arrangements of its soundtracks.” – Indie Band Guru
“Squires is nothing if not consistent: he’s perfected a beautiful shoegaze Americana sort of sound, and Unravel continues with his more rock-oriented exploration of this avenue. “ – Adobe and Teardrops
Astral Swans is the main project of acclaimed Canadian songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Swann. After forming in 2012, The music of Astral Swans is a spellbinding portal into the psyche of acclaimed Canadian songwriter Matthew Swann. As the first artist signed to Madic Records (an Arts & Crafts affiliate label helmed by Juno award-winning musician Dan Mangan), Swann’s 2015 debut “All My Favourite Singers Are Willie Nelson” was described by Noisey as “a stark, beautiful project; one that embraces darkness rather than shying away from it.” Astral Swans’ sophomore album, 2018’s “Strange Prison(co-produced by Preoccupations’ Scott Munro)earned even more widespread attention from Paste, Tiny Mix Tapes, and a live performance on which highlighted Swann’s singular talents at “grabbing listeners’ attention and holding onto it.”
Lyrically, Astral Swans’ writing recalls the sly sarcasm of ’90s indie-rock heroes Bill Callahan and Cat Power, the fragile intimacy of ’60s folk singers Nick Drake and Sibylle Baier, and the inner world-building of Syd Barrett and Daniel Johnston. Swann credits the expressionistic sound painting of his songs with an unexpected inspiration from Sly Stone’s early ’70s drug-fueled recordings (There’s a Riot Going On, Fresh), which he calls “masterpieces of weird production where nothing is used properly.” The troubled characters in his songs (arsonists, pilots, prison builders, and Swann himself) may be capable of destructive behaviour, but he believes personal growth can only occur from honest admissions of our scariest inclinations. Challenge yourself but don’t give in to the fear. Rip yourself up and start again.
The past five years have found Swann hitting the road from his hometown of Calgary, Alberta for a series of extensive tours across North America and around the world. Performing at house shows and on festival stages, he has shared bills with a laundry list of artists including Feist, Angel Olsen, Hayden, Colin Stetson, Julie Doiron, and Chad VanGaalen (producer of Swann’s previous project Extra Happy Ghost!!!). In 2019, While touring has now been put on hold by COVID-19, Swann has stayed busy, hunkering down in his home base on a series of recordings planned for an upcoming 2020 release
Astral Swans was previously signed to Madic Records for the 2015 debut release ‘All My Favourite Singers Are Willie Nelson’. Swann is now signed with Saved by Vinyl (Calgary), Moorworks (Japan), and Tiny Room Records (Netherlands).
Astrals Swans self titled album All songs written by Astral Swans except Track 7, Cross Bones Style written by Cat Power
“The Cherries Are Speaking”—the sixth album released by Brooklyn singer-songwriter Dan Knishkowy as Adeline Hotel—begins and ends with lyrics from his previous two records, respectively. “Holy visions” surfaced first on the mournful acoustic ballad “Ordinary Things,” a rare, stripped-down moment on his folk-rock opus “Solid Love” from last May. “Good timing,” in turn, is the eponymous lyric from the critically acclaimed follow up, released in March of this year—and one of its only lyrics, too, since the record is largely a suite of layered acoustic guitars.
The original context for these phrases hint at the fresh musical and lyrical ground Knishkowy covers on “The Cherries Are Speaking“, an interconnected series of miniature baroque pop songs and, quietly, his most ambitious work to date. In the skeleton of its arrangements, the album expounds upon “OrdinaryThings”’ minimalism, eschewing the intricate guitar counterpoint of his previous work in favour of piano lines inspired by the breezy melodies of Ethiopian jazz. The playing is often supported by just bass and drums, before pastoral wind and string orchestrations creep in—a breath-taking leap forward for Knishkowy as an arranger—informed at turns by Judee Sill’s neo-classicism and the mystic woodwinds of ‘80s Van Morrison.
On “Cherries”, Knishkowy creates full mise en scènes within verses, folding autobiographical moments of meditative self-evaluation into imagery from Italo Calvino’s 1957 novel The Baron in the Trees—most importantly, the titular anthropomorphic cherries. The book centers around a boy who makes the decision to live in the trees and engage in a selective relationship with the world around him. Knishkowy found resonances between the character’s self-imposed, imperfect notion of “freedom” and his own unsettled definition of the concept.
“The Cherries Are Speaking’s” recapitulations of and daring shifts away from Knishkowy’s previous work feed into its musical and thematic depth, which speaks far beyond the real-world context of its writing. The album is a bold but unforced gesture from an artist whose creative lifeblood is the sense of constantly pushing forward, creating new links in a daisy chain of a discography which seems to compound upon itself in significance with each new entry.
Represented by the prestigious record label Secretly Canadian,Le Ren (moniker of Montreal-based artist Lauren Spear) was introduced to US audiences last year when she opened for Orville Peck on his national tour. This summer she released her debut EP “Morning & Melancholia”. Lauren has studied folk and bluegrass going back to her early teens, partaking in workshops all over North America. Growing up on Nexwlélexm/Bowen Island, she was raised on the holy trinity of John Prine, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. Their curious, deadpan and cosmic approach to life’s most brutal swipes feed Le Ren’s sensibilities, and her own lyrical couplets are as simply put as they are devastating.
Vanessa Peters is an singer/songwriter from Texas. Musician, Italophile, Virgo, coffee nerd, food lover, bossy-pants, big ol’ softie. I’ve released 10+ albums and played over 1000 shows in 11 countries. I’m not done yet
The songs are great. The production is pristine. And I love the distinctive guitar riffs. Our next station is either Italy or Texas depending where Vanessa Peters is located at the moment. What I do know is that she released tremendous new album “Modern Age” in April and I’ve carried it with me all through this weird year. “The Try” might not be objectively the best song on the album, but somehow it has been my go to anthem.
Released April 23rd, 2021
Words and music by Vanessa Peters (BMI) except “Valley of Ashes” and “Hood Ornament” Words by Vanessa Peters and music by Rip Rowan
Vanessa Peters: vocals, acoustic guitar Federico Ciancabilla: electric guitar Matteo Patrone: keyboards Andrea Colicchia: bass guitar Rip Rowan: drums, keyboards Joe Reyes: rhythm guitar on “Crazymaker”
The perfect soundtrack for this Summer Of Love was there by the Australian band Quivers I’ve had an incredible soft spot for the great pop songs of Australian band The Go-Betweens for decades. For this I have to dive deep into the archives, but fortunately there are also followers like Quivers, who delivers an irresistibly tasty album with “Golden Doubt”. It’s an album reminiscent of The Go-Betweens, but a whole list of other big names pop up listening to the band’s Melbourne music. At the same time, Quivers makes carefree doll that sprinkles furiously with sun rays and entertains it in an extraordinarily pleasant way. It’s music to make 40 minutes very happy and after that you just put “Golden Doubt “on again.
“Golden Doubt” is already the second album by the Australian band this year. After all, out of time, which is an integral remake of R.E.M.’s 1991 album of the same name, was released earlier this year. It’s a really great remake, even though “Out Of Time” by R.E.M. is also an album that I think you should stay away from. However, the Australian band’s version did make me curious about other music by Quivers and it appeared this week.
Quivers already debuted in a different composition in 2015 and with an album I’ve never noticed, but the “Golden Doubt” released this week is definitely worth exploring. After all, the two-man, two-woman Melbourne band is grossing in music that is overflowing with the sun’s rays on her new album and therefore perfectly coloured for the current season. It is music that fits well in the box “jangle pop”, but when listening to “Golden Doubt” I also immediately have fond memories of quite a few memorable albums from my record cabinet, where the albums of the also Australian band The Go-Betweens are at the front, but in which a lot of influences of R.E.M. also appear and influences from a number of memorable bands from the New Zealand stable of Flying Nun Records can be heard. By mentioning names like this, I immediately set the bar very and perhaps unrealistically high for Quivers, but the Australian band can handle it. Golden Doubt is full of irresistibly tasty pop songs and they are pop songs that firmly embrace summer. Compared to the aforementioned comparison material, some of Quivers’ songs sound a little more light-hearted. The Melbourne-based band prefer sweet to bittersweet and don’t shy away from an edge of kitsch here and there, but opposite the perhaps just a little too light-footed and sweet songs are some jewels of songs. There is nothing wrong with the light-hearted songs either, because on the summer days of the moment they go in like cake. Quivers knows perfectly well what a near-perfect pop song should sound like, but the Australian band also has a sound that fits within the jangle pop, with occasional forays into the richly orchestrated pop of a band like Belle &Sebastian. On an album that fits in the jangle pop box, the guitar work is of course delicious, but the keyboards always jump into the ear in a pleasant way.
When the male vocals dominate, you occasionally secretly hear the bittersweetness of The Go-Betweens, but the choruses of the band’s two female members always give Quivers’ music a pleasant and carefree character. Quivers makes the kind of music that is hardly made in the United States and the United Kingdom anymore, but at the other end of the world they still know what to do with it. Quivers has made the soundtrack of a beautiful summer with Golden Doubt and it is a soundtrack that remains surprisingly well flavoured. And when I’m ready for something else, I also throw in the version that the band made of R.E.M.’s “Out Of Time“, because it also sounds very tasty.
Released June 11th, 2021
Sam Nicholson – sings, guitars, piano, farfisa. Bella Quinlan – sings, bass guitar. Michael Panton – sings, guitars. Holly Thomas – sings, drums, percussion.
Wednesday is a noisy indie rock band whose chameleonic sound bounces between pounding shoegaze and melodic rock. The quintet incorporates lap steel and twinkly guitar work to round out their forward thinking song writing. Check out the super rad performance by Wednesday live at Audiotree.
The first time Karly Hartzman heard “Oblivious” by Jessica Lea Mayfield was the moment she realized she could and should want to play loud, raucous guitar. Before Mayfield’s influence, she was listening to a lot of The Sundays and making synth-pop. However, something clicked when Hartzman heard Mayfield’s quiet, sincere voice traveling linearly through an echoing tunnel while simultaneously shredding guitar and absorbing inspiration from country roots. “Make My Head Sing” is heavily underrated. That album is something anyone with a soft voice that wants to play loud music should hear,” she told me. In addition to Mayfield’s influence, Palberta also deserves credit. A day after Hartzman saw them in 2018, she bought a guitar.
In its post-punk glory, Wednesday cements something; their music, Anchored with riffing guitars, lap steel, and condensed slightly inaudible vocals, Wednesday is anthologizing a wave of malleable punk that’s accessible, sandwiched between effortless lethargy and the intent of letting a sound stand up for itself.
Wednesday’s debut album “Twin Plagues”, out now on Chicago-based label Orindal Records. We talked about her process of collecting words from favourite reads and threading lyrics together through strangers’ conversations, among other knick-knacks. But more importantly, she plates a tint of refreshing humility; she says she doesn’t know what she’s doing sometimes but is, simply, trying to have fun along the way. And she hopes fans can find inspiration to make music as well, assuaging a myth that you need formal tools and education to be a musician.
When the pandemic hit, Wednesday released“I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone“. With the prospect of touring suspended, the band buckled down and learned a slew of Hartzman’s new songs. The line-up consists of Hartzman on vocals and rhythm guitar, Xandy Clelmis on lap steel guitar, Margo Schultz on bass, Alan Miller on drums, and Jake Lenderman on lead guitar. Standing in a circle in the main room of The Mothlight, a venue in Asheville where Hartzman and Clemis both worked, everyone learned the songs over a week. Shortly after, they recorded “Twin Plagues” at local studio Drop of Sun with a pandemic discount.
When crafting songs, Hartzman’s sculptures are intentional. They’re potted as separate entities as opposed to forming a collated album assigned with a theme. “I love collecting other people’s words as inspiration. I think that’s really fun as long as you give credit where credit is due,” she said. She’ll suspend a line from a book or a clip from a stranger’s conversation and write a song around it. That was the case with “How Can You Live If You Can’t Love How Can You If You Do,” which was a line adapted from James Baldwin’sAnother Country. There are also a couple of Richard Brautigan lines ripped for these songs. “Toothache sky is ‘bout to rain” from ”Toothache” is adapted from a line in his collection, Revenge of the Lawn.
In Brautigan’s short story “⅓, ⅓, ⅓,” three blissfully doomed, overconfident characters gather to produce a novel, though they can’t do so without one another. One woman edits, one man writes, and the narrator owns a typewriter. When they finally start, their work is invariably illiterate. The line that Hartzman references are peeled from that story when the narrator initially gets an idea for this project. He observes, “One day I was standing in front of my shack, eating an apple and staring at a black ragged toothache sky that was about to rain.” It’s a peculiar way to describe a sky, I suppose, but I have a pretty good image of what that looks like in my head.
“[Brautigan’s] writing is so disjointed and weird, but he never uses vocabulary that makes it hard to understand. I love that about his writing,” Hartzman said. “Reading for pleasure shouldn’t feel like work, but it should also make you feel something. I think that goes for lyrics too. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
An overarching theme is that every piece of art starts with a piece of a piece that takes time and space to develop, and that collective process is quite impossible to do alone. But you have to start somewhere. “People say the most amazing things all the time. It’s a shame to let those words go to waste,” she ended. In “How Can You Live If You Can’t Love How Can You If You Do” Hartzman sings, “The pain was kinda wonderful cause it was so complete” and “Rooms would look much better if they had you standing in them.” Songs fill with alleyway observations, like remembering the person you love prefers honey over sugar. That briefness nests itself in imposing importance.
Lately, the band’s been listening to artists on Leaving Records; Ana Roxanne, Green-House, and NailahHunter, in particular. They’re also huge fans of Sasami, and especially her new single “Sorry Entertainer.” As for friends’ bands Hartzman loves, she plugs MJ Lenderman, which she also plays bass in, Pom PomSquad, Squirrel Flower, Macie Stewart, Advance Base, and a slew of others.
Tracklist 1. 00:00 Twin Plagues 2. 04:30 Billboard 3. 07:45 How Can You Live If You Can’t Love How Can You If You Do 4. 11:56 Cody’s Only 5. 15:18 One More Last One 6. 19:08 Toothache 7. 22:00 Handsome Man 8. 26:19 The Burned Down Dairy Queen 9. 29:49 Fate Is…
Harmony Woods has always been about dynamics. When this Philly project began a regional rail stop away, Sofia Verbilla wrote songs about the ways people see each other on either end of disaster. Across two records that spoke to the quietest of bleeding hearts, Verbilla expanded on processing grief, trauma, and other aftermaths while her band climbed and collapsed around her, turning ordinary circumstances into visceral reflections. From the deep opening drum beat, I knew “Graceful Rage” was going to be huge. It seemed like each new song had one little moment that blew my mind. And then the next morning I found out that Bartees Strange produced it! Talk about a dream team. Even without those specific events, “Graceful Rage” would be memorable. It is huge. The drums, the lyricism, the standout vocal moments, and more all add up to an album with a certain energy and mindset that you can’t help but get sucked into and, despite the rollercoaster of emotions, feel empowered, hopeful, and celebratory at the end.
“Graceful Rage” is the band’s third LP basks in the sheer magnitude of letting revelations and recoveries blossom on their own terms. Produced by Bartees Strange, it’s an extension of trademarks and an exploration of new ground. Verbilla often lets moments stack and shiver like a wobbly house of cards, and the sparse vocal-led freeze of opener “Good Luck Rd.” continues that trusted thread. But it’s in the explosive nuance of tracks like “God’s Gift to Women,” a smoky and jagged pop-punk sneer, where Harmony Woods jets far from their most comfortable alcoves. What’s found in this growth is resolve and power, snug behind a radio-ready punch.
Across stopovers in pop-country’s swaying embrace (“Rittenhouse”), tear-stained calls for absolution (“Easy”), and the lockstep of booming percussion (“Holding You to You”), “Graceful Rage” regains footholds on forgotten pathways, shouldering the pain but destroying the doubt that smoulders in its wake. It’s Harmony Woods at their most aware and assured, where towering relief and welcome confidence have finally converged.
Every few years, Dylan Baldi snaps. After the pleasant jangle of Cloud Nothings’ debut LP, he roped in Steve Albini and literally smokebombed the band we once knew a year later with Attack on Memory – which literally opens with a song called ‘No Future/No Past.’ So last year, in the thick of a pandemic with no end in sight, Cloud Nothings released “The Black Hole Understands”,a return to the breezy, off-kilter melodies of their early work like 2011’s self-titled album. It felt both refreshing and slight, demonstrating how reliable frontman/primary songwriter Dylan Baldi has become, but rarely feeling imbued with the frenetic urgency that animates the band’s most anthemic songs. “The Shadow I Remember” continues to refine the cleaner song writing of the band’s last album, wooly and tuneful in equal measures.
For a band that resists repeating itself, picking up lessons from a decade prior is the strange route CloudNothings took to create their most fully-realized album. Their new record, “The Shadow I Remember”, marks eleven years of touring, a return to early song writing practices, and revisiting the studio where they first recorded together. In a way not previously captured, this album expertly combines the group’s pummelling, aggressive approach with singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi’s extraordinary talent for perfect pop. To document this newly realized maturity, the group returned to producer Steve Albini and his Electrical Audio studios in Chicago, where the band famously destroyed its initial reputation as a bedroom solo project with the release of 2012 album “Attack on Memory“.
As such, “Last Building Burning” arrives as an equal and opposite reaction to 2017’s Life Without Sound; a record that, while incredibly catchy, also felt somewhat safe. No such feeling here – every track is volatile, propulsive and relentless in its execution. It’s the hardest Cloud Nothings have gone since … well, since the last time Dylan Baldi snapped. “Leave Him Now” is a song about a troubled straight relationship in which the female party is advised to remove herself from it. The twist is: That’s it. Dylan Baldi is not putting himself forward as the substitute. This isn’t a “drop the zero and get with the hero” scenario. This is about a genuine concern for a woman’s wellbeing and stability. It takes a trope of song writing across multiple genres and decades and subsequently turns it on its head. If that wasn’t enough, it’s also one of the catchiest songs Baldi and co. have ever written. How about that.
Opener “Oslo” is a steady build into carefully controlled chaos—a common song structure in the CloudNothings universe—but it gets in and out in four minutes, instead of the usual six to seven minute sprawl. “The Spirit Of” deals in the effortless hooks of The Black Hole Understands, while “Nara” shows how Baldi can stretch his own format, cradling the central melody as the song ramps up toward a crescendo that never comes. It can come off like Baldi doubling down on what he knows already works, but he’s simply perfecting his craft, burrowing down into the vital centrer of his songs to create the most direct version of his vision.
Released February 26th, 2021
Dylan Baldi – Guitar, Vocals Jayson Gerycz – Drums TJ Duke – Bass Chris Brown – Guitar
The Fat Angel Sings 