The Fat Angel Sings

The 3rd collaborative album between Les Claypool & Sean Lennon is an elaborate concept record reflecting on morality, the warnings of A.I., and the slippery slope of optimization without empathy.

Told across 14 songs – which ooze with classic psychedelic / progressive rock stylings – and the accompanying comic book by Rich Ragsdale, The Great Parrot-Ox and The Golden Egg of Empathy is a peak for both The Claypool-Lennon Delirium and rock music at large.

“The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy“, is a cautionary tale of what could be in store for humanity if we continue to favor machines over men. It is a tale of a technocracy eclipsed by paperclips; a young man destined to unravel the fabric of his father’s folly, and a sacred feathered Goddess (played by WILLOW), who holds the egg-shaped key to their future.”

Les Claypool of Primus and Sean Onon Lennon release their new album as The Claypool Lennon Delirium, “The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy”, on May 1st, and they’ve given us another preview with “Meat Machines.” “Some people think humans are just biological machines,” Ono Lennon says. “They think free will is a hallucination and we’re destined to be replaced by robots. Not only are they happy about this, but they’re actively trying to make it happen as fast as possible. Some of us think we still have a choice. We think there’s something special about living, breathing and feeling. We believe we can shape our own destiny, because we know we are more than just ‘Meat Machines.’”

The 3rd collaborative album between Les Claypool & Sean Lennon (the previous sold over 150,000 combined) is an elaborate concept record reflecting on morality, the warnings of A.I., and the slippery slope of optimization without empathy. Told across 14 songs – which ooze with classic psychedelic / progressive rock stylings – and the accompanying comic book by Rich Ragsdale, The Great Parrot-Ox and The Golden Egg of Empathy is a peak for both The Claypool-Lennon Delirium and rock music at large.

Squirrel Flower says her new single “Wheels,” which features Babehoven and Billie Marten, was inspired by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris’ 1987 “Trio” album. “I wanted to write a song that really let my voice shiiiiine, and the final vocal take is the original scratch take, sleepy and loose,” she says. “Maya and Billie recorded their angel harmonies remotely and perfectly. Inspired by a gas station attendant a couple years ago telling me ‘may your wheels stay on the ground.’”

Recorded live at 12 AM in a makeshift studio in Door County, WI, the collaborative single captures the ever-present beautiful uncertainty of life on the road. With a classic sound and warm Rhodes piano from Free Range’s Sofia Jensen, the track is anchored by Williams, Marten, and Maya Bon (Babehoven), whose voices intertwine in harmonies that swell with an almost choir-like brilliance.

Speaking about the song’s creation and inspiration, Williams shared the following story:

“While on tour a couple years ago, a gas station attendant said to us, ‘may your wheels stay on the ground.’ I thought that was so beautiful + it inspired the song while driving through a harrowing snowstorm between Boston and the Hudson Valley in February 2025. I had my Townes Van Zandt live cd playing, and sang this song into my phone mic while listening to Townes, dodging ice on the highway.  I really wanted to write a song that let my voice shine in a way that my heavier songs don’t always allow. I got to the Babehoven house in Hudson and played it for Maya. She wrote a stanza (“you said you wanted/something i don’t/i am always coming/just as you go”), helping me finish off the song.

This summer, Squirrel Flower will hit the road solo alongside The Beths and Spoon, for what will be a jam packed June. 

Friends, past tour mates, songwriters, and musicians Maya Bon of the duo Babehoven, and Ella Williams of Squirrel Flower, are thrilled to share their first ever collaborative release – a cover of “My Life in Art” by beloved British rock band Mojave 3.

On making the cover, the two shared, “We ate lentils by candlelight + sat by the fire + imagined the future beyond the snowy fields… where a new version of a classic song would come to roam”

Their take on the Slowdive-adjacent group’s song is a beautifully lush and layered rendition that breathes with new life. 

Performed by: Maya Bon and Ella Williams Guitar, bass, drums, keys: Ryan Albert Acoustic & electric guitar: Ella Williams Accordion: Ella Williams

Pye Corner Audio, aka UK synth stylist Martin Jenkins, has announced “More Songs About The Sun” which will be out June 19th via Sonic Cathedral. The album features four songs co-written by Andy Bell of Ride and Oasis, including this first single.

“‘Cycle’ is probably the most direct ‘pop’ song that I’ve written,” says Jenkins. “I wanted the whole record to be awash with distortion and saturation, but not in a blown-out guitar amp kind of way. Almost every element has been subject to some form of saturation. The musical influences are all the usual suspects – Stereolab, Spacemen 3, Harmonia, Cluster, Suicide,” reveals Martin. “But I think that this album wears them in a much more direct way. For some reason I was a little more wary of that on Let’s Emerge!.”

The first single from the new Pye Corner Audio album ‘More Songs About The Sun’, which is released on June 19th, 2026.

Andy Bell – additional guitars on ‘Euphoria’, ‘Analogue Dreams’, ‘Cycle’ and ‘As We Begin’
Hannah R – vocal on ‘My Shimmer’
Ian Rankin – spoken word and lyrics on ‘The Breath Of Now’

Thrum announce ‘Rifferama’ reissued & reimagined along with new UK tour dates

The long-awaited reissue and remaster of “Rifferama” by the acclaimed debut album by Glasgow indie trailblazers Thrum, is set for release this June 26th on Fire Records, celebrating one of the most revered cult records of the 1990s UK guitar scene

Originally released to critical acclaim, “Rifferama” captured a moment when melody, distortion and emotional urgency collided to create something timeless. Now newly remastered from the original recordings, the album returns with enhanced depth and clarity, reaffirming its reputation as a lost classic of the era.

Fronted by the unmistakable voice of Monica Queen (also known for her work with Belle and Sebastian and Snow Patrol), Thrum’s sound blended shimmering pop hooks with driving, fuzz-laden riffs. Alongside Johnny Smillie’s distinctive guitar work, the band forged a sonic identity that stood proudly alongside the era’s most influential alternative acts.

The reissue follows renewed interest in the album, including a recent feature in the Glasgow Herald newspaper, where journalist Russell Blackstock hailed “Rifferama” as a “classic album” and revisited its enduring impact on Scotland’s musical landscape.

Speaking about the reissue, the band said: “Rifferama” was made in a blur of noise, instinct and belief. Hearing it remastered has been emotional — it sounds like we always hoped it would. We can’t wait to play these songs again and celebrate them properly.”

The long-awaited reissue and remaster of “Rifferama” by the acclaimed debut album by Glasgow indie trailblazers Thrum, is set for release this June 26th

Kristin Hersh has shared a new song ahead of the first stop on a US tour with her trio Throwing Muses, which kicks off at NYC’s Cabinet of Wonders this weekend. Shadowy and atmospheric, “Sundial” is the first taste of a new Hersh solo record – her 12th overall – to be announced later this year on Fire Records.

The cello from last year’s Throwing Muses album “Moonlight Concessions” is back in a big way on “Sundial”, which Hersh describes as a song about the physical and emotional alignments that can form, and remain, between musicians when they play.

Writing in a press release she says: “Musicians’ heartbeats align right before they start a song together. Real musicians, anyway… This is a measurable phenomenon, but no one has measured how long our hearts keep beating together. A long time, I think.”

“Sometimes I’ll miss someone so suddenly, like a lightning strike. If they’re a fellow musician, this is usually triggered by musical moments; certain tempos and keys. A person’s sound story… is an intense, rainstorm-dark and sunshine-bright orientation, like telling time with a sundial. It doesn’t leave you.”

“Sundial” · Kristin Hersh released through Fire Records

Released on: 2026-03-25

Meg Remy has covered a remarkable amount of ground with her U.S. Girls project over the past 20 years, from droning lo-fi to high-concept disco and smooth soul—yet it wasn’t until last year’s festival debut of Grace Glowicki’s sci-fi sex comedy Dead Lover that she’d dipped her toes into the realm of film scores. Rather than approaching the gig conventionally, Remy explained that the score came together from various “scraps” of sound pulled from the public domain and even U.S. Girls’ scrappy early discography, which she then “collaged” with the assistance of Glowicki and Remy’s recent songwriting partner Jack Lawrence (of The Raconteurs fame). 

Among these scraps, though, the soundtrack centerpiece “You’ve Got Everything – But a Smile” is a fully intact original U.S. Girls single gliding on warm synths and Remy’s soothing vocals. As Remy shares with us, the backbone of the track came from one of Lawrence’s recordings that she happened to be tinkering with when she was brought onboard to soundtrack Dead Lovers.

“One day, I was listening to the lyrics for the song and realized that they fit well with the subject matter of Dead Lover,” she says. “My instinct told me to send it to Grace. So I did, and she loved it. The song and its heartbreaking synth melody ended up becoming the glue of the score. This outcome never could have been engineered or achieved by other means; it was pure synergy.”

There’s a time and a place for subtlety, and mclusky have never felt the need to go there. The improbably enduring Welsh noise-rock band has always staked their lyricism on the kind of brash, sardonic bite that got them minimized as “clever” or “irreverent” in early-2000s music press. But it was never just for show: You can’t go a few tracks on the group’s breakout 2002 LP mclusky “Do Dallas” without them applying that brazen song writing to critiques of corporate rock sponsorships or hypercompetitive scene posturing.

Mclusky are a band who were a band, weren’t a band, then are a band again. they formed in the late nineties and unformed, for the first time, in 2005, after three albums, opinions of which can be found on the internet.

So what is a band to do with their long-awaited comeback when they’ve always been saying the quiet part loud? mclusky’s answer: say it even louder. Inevitably armed with more than a mere return LP (2025’s “The World Is Still Here and So Are We)” could say, the three-piece are back once more with a six-song postscript. Lest you mistake “I Sure Am Getting Sick of This Bowling Alley” as pithy sass factory—its title not the band’s first invocation of this setting—guitarist/vocalist Andy “Falco” Falkous dispels that notion less than two minutes in with an uneasy couplet: “No one gets me like you do / Not even kids in body bags.”

As an EP, “Bowling Alley” is an exercise in miniature in how far mclusky can render wry humour into startling clarity. The banal evil of cushy computer jobs, depletion of natural resources, and nostalgia as toxic stagnation are all very real targets at which the band takes aim, but they attack them as if chucking tomatoes that hide pipe bombs. Of course, this being a mclusky record, the distortion-heavy riffs are too big and rousing to take too seriously, with tracks such as “As a Dad” and “Spock Culture” staying bouncy enough to keep the listener in on the joke. Even when the group takes on a relative whisper on closer “That Was My Brain on Elves,” they keep it lined with dry punchlines: “I understood, finally, that animals have feelings / But not in a way they can monetize.”

Most exhilarating of all, though, is “Fan Learning Difficulties.” Initially lumbering, the track truly comes to life when it suddenly lurches at its midpoint, sprinting headfirst into harried freefall. What sears deepest is the line Falkous sneers at the start of the simmer: “Americans think that they live in America.” Whether about fan entitlement or Americentricism on a larger scale (or both), there’s no question about it being a condemnatory sentiment as loud as any of mclusky’s compositions. Subtlety was never their strong suit, anyhow.

their mini-album, “i sure am getting sick of this bowling alley,” out march 20th (digital) / may 1 (vinyl).

The release all hardcore Devo fans have been waiting for, “Art Devo” is a vital collection housing unheard and obscure mind blowers sourced directly from the vaults of The De-Evolution Band

Futurismo proudly present the release all hardcore Devo fans have been waiting for: “Art Devo 1973-1977”, a lovingly packaged box set housing rare, unheard and obscure mind blowers sourced directly from the vaults of The De-Evolution Band. This anthology takes you from the bands initial conception in Akron, Ohio to the moment before the world woke up, in a collection of sonic and visual art that captures Devo at the dawn of industrial death.

Art Devo showcases the mesmerizing evolution of a band on the brink of discovery, mining irony, wit and dark humour from the madness of a distorted modern world still coming to terms with aftermath of a collapsed economy and the Vietnam war. From 1973-1977 Devo would transform from an art project, pop art in the literal sense, into the group David Bowie would declare “the band of the future”. Here you will find the audio mutations of a band at the edge of greatness, initial concepts that gave birth to a new aesthetic that continually challenged preconceptions about music, art, performance, culture, composition and consumption…it was also the birth of Booji Boy. While the songs here may not be fully grown, raw even, these are the seeds of subversion that kickstarted Devo’s fifty year legacy.

3LP   – Spanning 3 LP’s and a 7”, this collection draws purely from that integral early history, garnered from unearthed basement recordings, original demo tapes, unfinished montages and rare live audio, all taken from the bands personal archive. The music is set against rare imagery, photos and personal artwork, with liners penned directly from the hands of founding members Jerry Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh and packaged in a gold foiled archive box containing separate art cards, to evoke a pseudo auction house art catalogue. Did we mention one of the images is also Scratch ‘N’ Sniff!

This is a one-time only, strictly limited edition box set, never to be remade, showcasing why Devo was, and is still is, one of the most important bands in American history. De-evolution is real. The art of Devo is real. Here is the evidence.

The set has a tracklist that has been curated by the band, housed in a gold foiled archive box, and contain a set of double sided art cards – including a Scratch ‘N’ Sniff image. Plus liner notes by Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald V Casale.