Aussie band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have announced Butterfly 3001, a full-length featuring remixes of Butterfly 3000 songs. The new album—out January 21st via KGLW—includes contributions from Yu Su, Deaton Chris, DJ Shadow, Donato Dozzy, Flaming Lips, DāM-FunK, and more. Below, take a listen to Peaches’ “Neu Butterfly 3000,” and the Scientist’s dub of “Shanghai.”
Butterfly 3000 was the prolific Australian band’s second studio album of 2021, following February’s “L.W.” Later this month, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are playing shows in Brisbane, Australia, before restarting their tour in 2022.
“We’ve put off doing a remix album for a long time. Maybe it was conscious, maybe it wasn’t. But it’s happening now. That’s not to say that “Butterfly 3000” makes the most sense to remix. It might seem like the obvious one, but it’s not. Yes it’s electronic. But so is a fridge. Have you tried to dance to Butterfly? It’s hard. It ties your shoelaces together. It’s duplicitous in its simplicity. But “Butterfly 3001” expands on this. It also deviates and obliterates. We’re honoured to have such esteemed people go to work on these songs. We hope you love this album as much as we do.
Singer Songwriter Mitski has released another track from her forthcoming LP “Laurel Hell”. It’s called “Heat Lightning,” and it arrives with an animated lyric video created by Alex Moy..
“Laurel Hell” is out February 4th via Dead OceansRecords. The follow-up to Mitski’s 2018 album “Be the Cowboy” includes the previously shared singles “Working for the Knife” and “The Only Heartbreaker.” Mitski recorded her upcoming LP with her long time producer Patrick Hyland. She will set out on a sold out tour in support of “Laurel Hell” early next year.
We don’t typically look to pop albums to answer our cultural moment, let alone to meet the soul hunger left in the wake of global catastrophe. But occasionally, an artist proves the form more malleable and capacious than we knew. With “Laurel Hell”, Mitski cements her reputation as an artist in possession of such power – capable of using her talent to perform the alchemy that turns our most savage and alienated experiences into the very elixir that cures them. Her critically beloved last album, “Be the Cowboy“, built on the breakout acclaim of 2016’s “Puberty 2” and launched her from cult favourite to indie star. She ascended amid a fever of national division, and the grind of touring and pitfalls of increased visibility influenced her music as much as her spirit. Like the mountain laurels for this new album is named, public perception, like the intoxicating prism of the internet, can offer an alluring façade that obscures a deadly trap—one that tightens the more you struggle. Exhausted by this warped mirror, and our addiction to false binaries, she began writing songs that stripped away the masks and revealed the complex and often contradictory realities behind them. She wrote many of these songs during or before 2018, while the album finished mixing in May 2021.
It is the longest span of time Mitski has ever spent on a record, and a process that concluded amid a radically changed world. Recorded throughout the isolation of a global pandemic, during which some of the songs “slowly took on new forms and meanings, like seed to flower.” Sometimes it’s hard to see the change when you’re the agent of it, but for the lucky rest of us, Mitski has written a soundtrack for transformation, a map to the place where vulnerability and resilience, sorrow and delight, error and transcendence can all sit within our humanity, can all be seen as worthy of acknowledgment, and ultimately, love.
CD variants: There are four limited edition alternate versions of Laurel Hell: the Stay Soft Get Eaten CDs. Each edition makes up one quadrant of a greater image so that when all four are put together, one cohesive exclusive image of Mitski appears. Each edition is named after a line from the hook of the album’s third track “Stay Soft”: “STAY Version,” “SOFT Version,” “GET Version,” and “EATEN Version.” These are signified by the version titles being in the corner of each slipcover.
Bully, the Nashville-based project of Alicia Bognanno, delivers another sugary-sweet slice of indie-pop heaven with “Just for Love.” The playful, Feelies-esque verses give way to a wall of fuzz and pile-driving energy on the chorus, where she snarls and spits about that oh-so-unpredictable four-letter word without ever losing sight of the melody.
Always awesome to wake up to new Bully. It felt like a good way to start tour and wrap up the year.
“Halsey penned the songs for her fifth album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power herself. She recorded the career-defining album with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, known for their work in Nine Inch Nails and as Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy-winning film/television composers. She continues to push creative boundaries, expanding her influence and impact beyond music. She uses her voice to speak up for causes she passionately believes in, including disenfranchised youth, women’s rights, mental health and the LGBTQ community.”
“If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power”, Halsey’s masterful pivot to a darker alt-rock focus, can partially be credited to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the Nine Inch Nails veterans who produced the project and helped locate its industrial centre. Yet few pop artists in recent memory have been able to shapeshift with Halsey’s dexterity, and they spend the album hopscotching across jittery electronica (“Girl is a Gun”), brash pop-punk (“Honey”), grooving R&B (“Lilith”) and lullaby balladry (“Darling”), all while reflecting on the challenges and revelations of her recent journey as a new mother. While Halsey found the perfect support system to bring “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power” to life, the songs shine because of the complex, daring — and, yes, powerful — artist at their centre.
“If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power” – Experience It In IMAX An Album and Film Experience from Halsey
In the grand scheme of things, Drug Church’s “Tawny” EP is not necessarily momentous. Intended as a bridge between 2018’s Cheer and their recently announced full-length that’s due out early 2022, it’s more of a dumping ground for tracks that didn’t fit anywhere else than a full-fledged statement. But that it’s so solid anyway is a testament to how consistently excellent this Albany band is. “Remember to Forget” is just an incredible song. Nice change of pace after the blistering “Bliss Out”.
This band keeps getting better and better. “Tawny” nails it.
These tracks are charming and propulsive, built around snaking guitar lines and crisp choruses that are a whole lot of fun and express a snotty, infectious rage.
Noisy guitar pop with hooks that stick in your head. One amp. One mic. One person. Countless hooks. That’s the Dazy formula. Dazy does it again! After releasing set of perfect singles over the last few months, here’s a longer release and – spoiler alert – It’s so good! Like Automatic-era Jesus and Mary Chain with all the pop melodies turned up to 11, this record exudes sunshine and catchy song writing. If record labels aren’t already clamouring to put out a physical release of all the Dazy material to date, James Goodson: a regular feature in my email inbox and now a regular addition to my playlists. Goodson works as a music publicist, but he also plays in bands and last year he started his own project Dazy, which stemmed from messing around with a drum machine during the doldrums of the pandemic. He’s already built up a formidable collection of fuzzy power-pop gems, the most potent of which is “The Crowded Mind“, an eight-song EP that breezes by in 15 highly enjoyable minutes.
Recorded at home. Mixed and mastered by Justin Pizzoferrato at Sonelab. Released April 2nd, 2021
Beach Bunny traffic in some well-travelled territory (driving ’90s alt-rock) but they do it so, so well. They have a new album on the horizon, and this year’s thoroughly enjoyable Blame Game EP suggests that the young Chicago band’s song writing is only becoming sharper and more precise as they age. The chiming “Good Girls (Don’t Get Used)” and the shimmering, prickly “Love Sick” are hooky and winsome. Lili Trifilio has a knack for lyrics that are painfully specific. Packaged in songs that are as universally likable as this, it’s no wonder that Beach Bunny took off as quickly as they did.
Hard to pick a favourite every song is amazing! The lyrics are intelligent and fit the music tightly. After hearing this I quickly had to devour everything else they have recorded to this point which was equally great!, Beach Bunny is a Chicago act you don’t want to miss.
Free became renowned for their live shows and non‐stop touring. When ‘All Right Now’ became a massive worldwide hit it propelled them into the upper echelon of the rock pantheon. The song helped secure them a place at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970, where they played to 600,000 people. In early 1971 they played a short American tour and were recorded for radio station KUSC in Santa Monica. This album features many songs that went on to become classics, including the afore mentioned ‘All Right Now’.
Free were a miraculous live band in which four young people with an average age of 20 embodied the ideal of blues rock. There are 2 presentations in this work. It is a set of two discs with the super famous recording of “January 22nd 1971 Santa Monica” on Disc 1 and the best audience recording of “January 16th, San Francisco” on Disc 2.
Setlist: 00:00:00 Be My Friend 00:05:43 The Stealer 00:09:58 Woman 00:14:03 Ride On Pony 00:18:33 Don’t Say You Love Me 00:24:31 All Right Now 00:30:10 Fire And Water 00:35:14 Heavy Load 00:40:55 The Highway Song 00:45:49 My Brother Jake 00:49:44 Soon I’ll Be Gone 00:52:54 I’m A Mover 00:56:52 Mr. Big 01:04:14 The Hunter 01:09:24 Rock Me Baby Santa Monica Civic Center, Santa Monica January 22nd 1971 Paul Rodgers / lead vocals, keyboards Paul Kossoff / guitar Andy Fraser / bass Simon Kirke / drums
The Fat Angel Sings 