The Fat Angel Sings

The Magnificent Seven is a new 5CD+DVD Waterboys box set that tells the story of the seven-piece line up from the Fisherman’s Blues 1989 tour through to the release of the band’s fifth album, “Room to Roam” in 1990. As well as the remastered “Room To Roam” album, this set contains more than 80 previously unreleased tracks over four additional CDs packed with demos, unreleased studio tracks, live and informal jams/sessions.

The DVD contains two complete 1989 audience films of Glastonbury Festival and Milan, home movies and professional footage at Spiddal House during the making of Room To Roam, plus films shot on Waterboys visits to Spiddal in 2010 and 2012.

There are two versions of The Magnificent Seven. The super deluxe edition is packaged in a 240-page book containing a 50,000-word narrative by Mike Scott telling the full story of The Waterboys seven-piece band, a collection of previously unseen photos, track notes by all band members, maps, lyrics, manuscripts, and other archival memorabilia. The book slots into a rigid slipcase (approximately 288 x 255mm).

The box set covers a particularly fertile period for the band – from spring 1989 to summer 1990 – when the band’s core line-up of Mike Scott (vocals, guitars, piano), Steve Wickham (fiddle/mandolin/organ), Anto Thistlethwaite (saxophone/mandolin) Colin Blakey (organ/piano/whistle) and Trevor Hutchinson (bass) was augmented by Sharon Shannon (accordion), Colin Blakey (uilleann pipes/flute) and Noel Bridgeman (drums/percussion).

It features material drawn from demos, radio sessions, live and the extensive studio recordings that yielded the album “Room To Roam“.

The other version of The Magnificent Seven dispenses with the luxury and simply offers the six discs in a clamshell box with an accompanying booklet.

In addition to these CD sets, the original Room to Roam album from 1990 has been mastered at half-speed and cut for vinyl by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. This is a now 2LP set running at 45rpm. The original artwork has been presented in a new 5mm wide-spinned sleeve, with poly-lined inners and insert.

The Magnificent Seven and the Room to Roam vinyl are released on 3rd December 2021. These products are available via the band’s official store

Track Listing:

CD1: CELTIC SUMMER – And A Bang On The Ear / Morag / The Winkles Overture / Bonnie Kate / The Woodland Strut / On My Way To Heaven / Maggie (It’s Time For You To Go) / Old England / Natural Bridge Blues / The Wayward Wind / Morag / That’s The Way The World Goes Round / Roche’s Favourite / Defying Gravity / Colin’s Tune / Rocking Rose / Song Of The River / Three Ships / The 3 Minutes Before Dinner / When Will We Be Married / The Streets Of Galway.

CD2: THE RAMBLES OF AUTUMN – This Is The Sea-New Morning / When Ye Go Away / Fisherman’s Blues / Strange Boat / Rainy Day Women Numbers 12 & 35 / Dingle Regatta / A Pagan Place / Reels / The Munster Hop / Custer’s Blues / Girl Of The North Country / The Trip To Broadford / Sweet Thing-Blackbird-You Can’t Always Get What You Want / Your Darling Ain’t Your Darling Anymore / Higherbound / The Kings Of Kerry / Saints And Angels / Something That Is Gone.

CD3: WINTER’S WORK – Carolan’s Welcome / The Raggle Taggle Gypsy / Disease Of Conceit / Spirit / With The Scottish Fiddlers Of Los Angeles / Morag / Danny Murphy / Jimmy Hickey’s Waltz / How Many Songs Till I Get Home / The Hut On Staffin Island / The Pan Within / Learning The Polka / The New-Mown Meadow / Somebody Might Wave Back / A Man Is In Love / Something That Is Gone / Islandman / Song From The End Of The World / Bigger Picture / Maybe The Sandman / A Life Of Sundays.

CD4: ATLANTIC SPRING – A Man Is In Love / A Life Of Sundays / Bigger Picture / Lost Highway / The Raggle Taggle Gypsy / The Trip To Broadford / The Wyndy Wyndy Road / Spring Comes To Spiddal / Loopers Return / Further Up, Further In / Blues With Barry / And I Dreamed I Wandered / Room To Roam / The Happy One-Step-Blackbird / Upon The Wind And Waves / Islandman / Yellow Submarine / The Star And The Sea / Higher In Time / Tripping Up The Stairs / Bed On The Floor / A Song For The Life (1) / A Song For The Life (2) / Nanny Water / Natural Bridge Blues / The Kings Of Kerry / Spring Comes To Spiddal / The Inchicore Reel-Alright Folks Now, Time Please / How Long Will I Love You 2021 / The Music Lasts Forever.

CD5: ROOM TO ROAM (Album) – In Search Of A Rose / Song From The End Of The World / A Man Is In Love / Bigger Picture / Natural Bridge Blues / Something That Is Gone / The Star And The Sea / A Life Of Sundays / Islandman / The Raggle Taggle Gypsy / How Long Will I Love You / Upon The Wind And Waves / Spring Comes To Spiddal / The Trip To Broadford / Further Up, Further On / Room To Roam / The Kings Of Kerry.

DVD: Glastonbury 1989 – On My Way To Heaven / Strange Boat / Girl From The North Country / Bed on The Floor / Maggie It’s Time For You To Go / Billy The Kid / And A Bang On The Ear / Big Blue Ball / The Whole of The Moon / Jimmy Hickey’s Waltz / When Will We Be Married / Good Morning Mr Customs Man / Fisherman’s Blues / This Land Is Your Land / Further Up Further In / Lost Highway.

TEATRO ORFEO, MILAN 1989 – Fisherman’s Blues / Strange Boat / Girl From The North Country / A Man Is In Love / When Ye Go Away / The Raggle Taggle Gypsy / In Search of A Rose / Old England / Natural Bridge Blues / Has Anybody Here Seen Hank? / A Song For Life / And A Bang On The Ear / Good Morning Mr Customs Man / Jimmy Hickey’s Walk / When Will We Be Married / Be My Enemy / The Trip To Broadford / Sweet Thing-Blackbird-You Can’t Always Get What You Want / How Many Songs Till I Get Home / Spirit / The Whole of The Moon / Higherbound / Medicine Bow / This Is The Sea / Room To Roam.

HOME MOVIE: Spiddal House Recording Sessions (1990).

BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME A Song For Life (1990). TeachAnSpideil (TG4 )- The Waterboys visit to Spiddal House (2010). Return To Spiddal (Short Film, 2012)

We’re pumped to announce our exclusive Fuzz Club Edition of the new Levitation Session from Fuzz, which is available to pre-order now! the new Levitation Session from FUZZ! The LP captures the heavy psych power trio Charles Moothart, Ty Segall and Chad Ubovich hitting the stage for the first time together in five years, bringing a full set spanning their entire discography and new album, III! Our exclusive version is limited to 300 copies and comes on milky clear vinyl with heavy purple and green spatter. 

The LP captures the heavy psych power trio hitting the stage for the first time together in five years, bringing a full set spanning their entire discography and new album, III!

Fuzz said of the LP: “We wanted to create something that felt like more than just a replacement for seeing us live. This is the first time we had played songs from III in the context of a set, and we found new footing on some of the old songs. This led us down avenues we hadn’t seen in rehearsal. To find ourselves in the space right in between ‘lost’ and ‘found’ (aka live) was both alarming and electrifying after having been away from it for so long.”

In Oct 2020 the band released their first album in 5 years, III, scorching the earth with pure primitive rock and roll mastery captured by the sonic guru Steve Albini. It’s a record that is meant to be heard and experienced live, and their Levitation Sessions set is the smouldering slab of heavy psych we’ve all been waiting for, recorded at Zebulon in Los Angeles, CA. Director Joshua Erkman alongside sound engineers Matthew Littlejohn and Mike Kriebel, capture FUZZ’s intense energy backdropped by electric artwork from artist Tatiana Kartomten.

FUZZ said of the LP: “We wanted to create something that felt like more than just a replacement for seeing us live. This is the first time we had played songs from III in the context of a set, and we found new footing on some of the old songs. This led us down avenues we hadn’t seen in rehearsal. To find ourselves in the space right in between ‘lost’ and ‘found’ (aka live) was both alarming and electrifying after having been away from it for so long.”

The Umbrellas “Maritime E.P.” is a pop-tastic 4-song album, driven along with drum machine, synths, and influences from 80s and 90s formative jangle. Pleasant vocal harmonies overlay chiming guitars and bouncing basslines. Songs written in living rooms, observant of the ever-changing moods of the city and of the heart. The Umbrellas are a 4-piece jangle-pop group who made their debut into the San Francisco diy pop scene in 2019 with their self-recorded and released tape, the “Maritime E.P.”, now available as a 7″ by Syncro System Records.

“Maritime” e.p. is more than a hopeful delusion, it’s a hopeful reality. Even in times where we feel like we might be drowning, we can stay kind to ourselves and learn to cope or maybe just dance and dress like someone from a Belle and Sebastion album cover. The whole album is my favourite song.”

The Umbrellas are:

Morgan S. – Vocals/Guitar
Keith F. – Vocals/Acoustic Guitar
Nick O. – Bass
Matt F. – Vocals/Guitar

All songs by The Umbrellas

Released August 1st, 2020

Vacant Gardens is Glenn Donaldson and Jem Fanvu transmogrifying Flying Saucer Attack waves of distortion and angelic vocal into magic. Also reminding a little of Sandy Denny’s Fairport if the band was Bardo Pond. Glenn Donaldson multi instrumentalist from (Skygreen Leopards, Art Museums, Reds, Pinks and Purples) and Jem Fanvu (Tune-Yards, Cavity Fang) have released under the banner of Vacant Gardens. Built on a cresting wave of static and gauzy fuzz, the song plunges Fanvu’s vocals in a soft-pink fog of sound that wafts in through ever opening. Shorebirds is a gorgeous, effusive song hovering on the edges of sleep and dream. The pair paint touches of Pale Saints and Curve alongside the usual shoegaze sightings of Slowdive. They embrace the lostness of sound, letting themselves slowly slide into dust…”  

Vinyl originally released on Tall Texan records, UK Label Tough Love Records are currently working on a reissue of both of their albums for 2022

I got turned on to Vacant Gardens following the thread of what Glenn Donaldson makes.

Released February 15th, 2021

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.

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.

Oakland band Rays return to the fray with their second album, “You Can Get There From Here”, their first release since their eponymous Trouble In Mind debut in 2016.
Rays formed in the fertile crescent of the California Bay Area, a hotbed of musical growth in the past decade, and Rays’ members pull not only from that recent miasma but also from a wealth of Bay Area musical history. You Can Get There From Here represents a turning point for the band, angling their scrappy, post-punk fury into a more refined & melodic pop sensibility, drawing inspiration from UK DIY pop & punk like Dolly Mixture, Cleaners From Venus, Television Personalities & more.
Straight from the gate, songs like “Fallen Stars” and “The Garden” temper their sonic crunch ever so slightly, relying more on the harmonic wallop of a solid hook than the sheer volume of guitars & cymbal crashes. This is urgent, chiming guitar pop of the highest order that clangs with a sonorous melancholy & a ramshackle grace. Rays can still lay it down with the rest of ’em; tunes like “Subway” and “Work of Art” shuffle & stumble forward, skirting chaos in a flurry of strums, recalling recent antipodean pop groups like UV Race, Dick Diver or The Shifters who cull inspiration from idiosyncratic UK greats like Mark E. Smith or Robyn Hitchcock.

With “You Can Get There From Here”, Rays add their voice to the chorus. The new album finds the core group of Stanley Martinez, Eva Hannan, Troy Hewitt & Alexa Pantalone augmented by new member & keyboardist Britta Leijonflycht, whose synth flourishes add melodic embellishments, sonic heft or psychedelic swirl where needed. 

Originally Released November 9th, 2018

The Goalie’s Anxiety At The Penalty Kick hail from Philadelphia, so I guess it’s surprising that their name is a reference to our beautiful game. Talking of beautiful, their LP ‘Ways Of Hearing’ is just that. Sweeping songs with cinematic scope and mournful melodies making fabulous use of guitars, pianos, strings, drums and two vocalists. Indie rock with post rock sensibilities.

They boast six members (sometimes seven, if you believe their Facebook page), decorated with strings, keys, guitars, and drums. Dual vocalists weave enchanting lines over a lush landscape of sound that feels like a score of a movie. For a band of such large size it’s not a surprise they know how to fill space, but most impressive is they also know when to leave the space empty.

The debut release from Philadelphia’s The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick. 10 songs that make use of every instrument in their repertoire- strings, keys, drums, guitars, and bells. Dual vocals pepper throughout, playing off each other and weaving through the music to create a beautiful tapestry.

Released October 30th, 2020

alyssa resh played drums & bells & keyboard.
ana hughes perez played violin.
becky hanno played keyboard & sang.
ben curttright played guitar & sang.
michael foster played bass.
sean matthew kelley played guitar.

mark watter recorded this album at headroom in philadelphia, pennsylvania. joe reinhart mixed this album. 

Cobalt Chapel were formed in late 2014, by London based vocalist and actress Cecilia Fage (Matt Berry and The Maypoles) and Sheffield based musician Jarrod Gosling (I Monster and Regal Worm). Following the recording of their debut album captivating and atmospheric, conjured up from vintage organs and effects, vintage drums and drum machines, fused together with Cecilia’s distinctive English lead and layered vocals. The album explores imagined scenarios, finding inspiration in folklore, 1960’s and 70’s science fiction and horror (‘Black Eyes’ tells the story from the point of view of a ‘Stepford wife’ in the original film) as well as personal experience. As they continued recording, they found a way to bring in other genres such as choral music that you can hear in their version of English composer John Tavener’s The Lamb, and the collaboration with actor Paul Putner, who wrote the lyrics to Horratia, the story of an ageing horror B-movie actress. Cobalt Chapel began as an idea from Jarrod Gosling when he was on his daily run around the Damflask reservoir in Sheffield.

He wanted to create a new, eerie psychedelic project, with sounds and effects generated solely from organs and drums, with no guitars or synthesizers – a departure from his other groups I Monster and Regal Worm. He wanted to work with a female, folk-led vocalist and when he saw Cecilia Fage live thought she would make the perfect psychedelic companion. Cecilia had been working on Matt Berry’s albums, and others, over a number of years – singing, arranging choral vocals and playing woodwind. She had a sense of creative urgency due to the approaching arrival of her twins; it felt like the perfect moment to work on a new project. Their first chat turned into a long conversation about their shared interests – musical influences from Jarrod’s obsessive love of progressive rock, to Cecilia’s taste in English folk – converging somewhere between Egg and Fotheringay. A mutual love of dark, surreal TV and film from the 20th century, folk tales, sci-fi, and strange phenomena which informs the eerie, haunting feel to their music.

The release of Cindy’s third record “1:2″, recorded during lockdown in their hometown of San Francisco, and finds itself born amidst one of those creatively fertile moments the Bay Area seems to conjure every few cycles. SF is full of great music right now – “1:2″ might be its greatest record to emerge from this current milieu of artists.

“Lost Dog was the first Cindy song I wrote after the pandemic shutdown. Suddenly everything felt very still and quiet. Maybe because of that stillness, this song came out of memory — of a place and a person and a time pretty long gone. When I brought it to the rest of Cindy, it came together suddenly as though it was already there. Maybe something of that comes through.”

The third and final single to be taken from Cindy’s new album ahead of its release in October is out now. Karina Gill from the band offered some words about the meaning behind “Party Store”

“Party Store is about repetition — generation to generation and within a life. It’s also about the almost altar-like character of some corner store counters: the kid photos and signed dollar bills and lucky charms and out-dated notices and ancient advertisements and winning tickets. Around here, I call corner stores corner stores, but that sounded like a terrible name for a song. I’m from the East Coast where we called corner stores “bodegas”, which is also a terrible name for a song. So we went with the Midwestern American version, “party store”, and figured we could get away with it as Aaron is from Indiana.”

The album is available on DL, CD & a few different versions on vinyl LP – a hand numbered Dinked version on yellow vinyl which includes a bonus 7″ with two exclusive songs alongside a six postcard set, a rain grey vinyl press with a signed print from Record Store, and a standard blue pressing.

Cindy is a band built around the singing and guitar playing of Karina Gill. She became a musician only recently, having sat on the sidelines while ex-partners and friends made their stabs at it. Gill describes a chance encounter with an abandoned Squire Strat left in the basement by a previous tenant, “mummified in electrical tape with the remnants of a burrito on the head stock”, that led her to begin carefully strumming her way through simple chords and making her own songs.

Cindy’s third LP is the quietly devastating “1:2.” Jesse Jackson on bass, Simon Phillips on drums and Aaron Diko on keyboards weave the perfectly thin web behind Gill’s slow Velvety strums and murmured melodies. The rhythm section brings the crude flow, while the keys add subtle and surreal counterpoint to the withering world Gill depicts in her lyrics. “Songs tie together seemingly disparate things by the logic of mood,” Gill tries to explain. This isn’t dream-pop sunshine bliss; half-closed black drapes hang on the window where the narrator stares into the middle distance. “Sometimes you say you’re feeling small/You plan all day for your own funeral”, she intones in “Party Store”. Gill has a way of halting her phrasing that makes it feel like her thoughts are gently tumbling into the abyss. It’s this unsettling quality mixed with the hazy atmosphere that makes Cindy’s new LP 100% addicting and the perfect antidote to comfort listening.

Glen Donaldson who’s been in a few of notable groups like Art Museums and Skygreen Leopards now uses The Reds, Pinks and Purples to gift us with his pop magic. “You Might Be Happy” has a sadness permeating from it, but it’s not a downer. It’s more of a nostalgic feeling that it gives off. I’ve seen a lot of Sarah records comparisons which isn’t far off. It’s post-post Sarah too, inheriting from the likes of Trembling Blue Stars and running with it.

You Might Be Happy Someday · The Reds, Pinks and Purples · Glenn Donaldson released on Tough Love Records Released on: 2020-10-02