The Fat Angel Sings

“Is It Light Where You Are” is the debut album from Art School Girlfriend, moniker of Welsh producer, multi-instrumental musician and song writer Polly Mackey. Mostly written over a two week period of 14-hour solo studio sessions, the bulk of her album is torn straight from a journal kept throughout 2019. Those pages chronicle the end of a US tour, the tumultuous ending of a six-year relationship and Mackey’s journey back to London from Margate, where she lived and co-owned a book shop with her then girlfriend.

“The record starts with that feeling of being on the precipice of change,” she explains. “Before deciding to pull everything apart, go through it all and come out the other side.” While the lyrics are autobiographical, the full story can be heard in the album’s sonic relief map. “The main theme is duality between light and dark, lightness and heaviness. The production sort of mimics human emotions: there’s a lot of beauty buried underneath these uncomfortable-to-listen-to sounds.”

Iggy Pop and Matt Sweeney have released their take on The Velvet Underground‘s “European Son”. The song is set to appear on the upcoming album, I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground & Nico with tracks from Iggy Pop & Matt Sweeney, St. Vincent & Thomas Bartlett, Sharon Van Etten (with additional vocals by, out on September 24th via Verve Records.

Of all the songs on the Velvet’s groundbreaking 1967 debut album, “European Son” travels the furthest from the rock norms of the time. Following a fairly conventional opening verse, the song descends into the murky waters of what would eventually be deemed noise rock. In this dark swamp of feedback, overdrive, and droning instrumentation, Pop and Sweeney make their home.

The collaboration between Iggy Pop and Sweeney bridges together two generations of the same alt-underground world the Velvets helped create. With Pop’s historic reputation as a forefather of punk and Sweeney’s prolific status in the post-rock, pre-grunge underground circles, the two are able to create something completely new out of vintage materials like putting patches on an old denim vest.

“The Velvet Underground were rock and roll’s finest band. Iggy Pop remains rock and roll’s greatest singer,” Sweeney said in a press release. “I am thrilled and humbled that the joyous experience of getting deeply nasty with Iggy on ‘European Son’ can be heard by lifelong VU fans and newcomers.”

Also set to appear on “I’ll Be Your Mirror” are Matt Berninger, Courtney Barnett, Michael Stipe (R.E.M.), Kurt Vile & The Violators, St Vincent & Thomas Bartlett, Matt Berninger (The National), Sharon Van Etten with Angel Olsen, Thurston Moore & Bobby Gillespie, Andrew Bird & Lucius, Fontaines DC, and King Princess. The cover album was announced in July with Kurt Vile & The Violators’ rendition of “Run Run Run”.

Listen to Iggy Pop and Matt Sweeney’s take on “European Son” by The Velvet Underground. “I’ll Be Your Mirror” is available, Verve Records unveils the new tribute album I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground & Nico .

out on September 24th via Verve Records.

Just in time for the world that’s coming are a bewitching new duo from Australia. Featuring music and instruments by Mick Turner and words and voice by Helen Franzmann, Mess Esque’s debut album restlessly wanders through a series of intimate dialogues.

Helen lives in Brisbane; Mick in Melbourne. Mick’s played guitar for years, collaborating with loads of talented others; he’s perhaps best known as one third of Dirty Three – though we know him as the visionary behind six or seven mostly instrumental releases for Drag City Records. His last record, 2013’s “Don’t Tell The Driver”, found him departing from his traditional hermetic template by employing a rhythm section and brass charts and collaborating with a vocalist, which clearly set the stage for Mess Esque.  

In 2019, he was introduced to Helen through a mutual friend who’d produced the last McKisko album, the name Helen has worked under over the past 12 years, making records and touring regularly. With a plan to get together and make a record, they sent ideas back and forth – but when everything else happened instead, they continued to collaborate from a distance. In mutual isolation, a true correspondence took flight, electrifying in the air between them. Helen rode the drift of Mick’s tracks, a dazzling brew of guitars, organs, bass and drums. Her singing altered their meaning, which inspired Mick to make revisions, for Helen to respond to again. And so the music grew.

2021: the album’s done, they’ve made a band in the process, and Mick and Helen still haven’t met face-to-face! Listening to Mess Esque, you’d never know it. The lead single and video “Take it Outside” is lively, exultant, with Helen’s double-tracked vocals multiplying the plaintive desire simmering in her words, as Mick’s organ chords radiate bursts of emotion over the song’s give-and-take rhythm shuffle.

Through a patient balance of improvisations and a focused pursuit of something that wasn’t fully there at the start, Mess Esque have willed themselves and their world into verdant, lustrous being. “Take it outside” is the luscious first taste of their creation – the self titled full-length album will be ripe and ready on October 22nd, pre order your whole copy now!

Two weeks ago, rock supremo and prolific music maker Ty Segall surprise-released a new album “Harmonizer”, his first new album since 2019, out now digitally via Drag City and physically in October. Today, he presents a music video for one of its standout tracks, “Feel Good,” and announces a North American tour with the Freedom Band. “Feel Good” is one of harmonizer’s two songs to feature lyrics and vocals by Denée Segall. The music video, directed and produced by Joshua Erkman, sees the Segalls taking a late night drive between slick scenes of technicolor grandeur.

“Don’t be afraid / I can show you the way / I’ll be your right hand,” Denée’s cool vocals intone over the track’s scorching guitars. It’s a prime example of “Harmonizer’s” transcendent energy as distorted synth and beats drive the chorus. By the end of “Feel Good,” Denée takes the driver’s seat with Ty by her side, content to see where she takes him.

Denée comments, “’Feel Good’ is about allowing oneself to be confident and unrestrained in regard to whatever makes them feel good, be it emotionally, physically, or beyond. It’s also about extending this sentiment to another who might desire this same sort of freedom, but needs a little encouragement. It’s an ode to the joy that comes from loving and supporting one another unconditionally.”

Co-produced by Cooper Crain, Harmonizer is the first recording to be released from Ty’s just-completed Harmonizer Studios. Cooper’s own journey in rhythm, minimalism and DIY mines the depths around Ty’s peerless vocal attack and never-ending search for unfathomably corrosive guitar sounds. With an eye towards precision, feel and explosive mass, The Freedom Band — Ben Boye, Mikal Cronin, Emmett Kelly, and Charles Moothart — appear all over “Harmonizer”, but often one at a time. Additionally, Denée Segall co-writes and appears on two tracks.The thing about closed doors is they need opening again, no matter what happens. You open them and then you can pass through them. And there’s light on the other side. That’s the essence of “Harmonizer”. 

“Feel Good” is from “Harmonizer,” released digitally on August 3rd, 2021 by Drag City. LP, CD, and Cassette to arrive later, in the fall.

With this LP, Ty Segall has created a simply impeccable rock album. From start to finish this album is like a racecar and Segall knows just when to hit that experimental button to give the extra propellant juice. “Whisper” smacks, “Erased” shrieks.
It’s a rave in 10 tracks, a mosh pit compilation. 

The surprise return of Ty Segall, with an album that dropped with no prior warning or publicity, the Freedom Band (as his current bandmates are called) are the tightest they’ve ever been, as Ty and guitarist Emmett Kelly riff back and fourth and frequently at the same time, the band also explores synthesizers in a big way and it leaves us wondering what else the band will explore and knock out of the park next.

Years of performing in New York City clubs and touring internationally have honed a natural ability that brings Elizabeth Ziman’s colorful imagination, smart lyrics and catchy melodies to life — a testament to why this singer-songwriter, who performs as Elizabeth and the Catapult, is often found collaborating — most recently with Sara Bareilles on Apple TV’s “Little Voice” and with Paul Brill on award winning documentaries.  

Elizabeth and the Catapult’s fifth studio album was born out of a need during the pandemic shut down to cope with the breakdown of communication. It was recorded in her living room during quarantine and is her first fully self-produced album. 

“sincerely, e” is a comforting salve – to soothe and nourish listeners and lovers of music – after a most confusing and emotional year.

“Sincerely, e” was conceived of and recorded in singer-songwriter Elizabeth Ziman’s living room as a way to try and reach beyond the isolated bubble of her home to connect with others, during quarantine. It was also a personal reckoning with solitude, helping her explore new layers of herself. This juxtaposition — the anxiety of loneliness coupled with over stimulation, chaos and the urgency of numerous global crises converging — is present in so much of her writing as she grappled with connection and existence.

“Sincerely, e” showcases two sides of the same Elizabeth and the Catapult coin: thoughtfully peppered through the album are intimate, live, solo-piano songs that tremble, raw, with the intimacy of their making; the other half, songs that required a larger sound, fully display Ziman’s film scoring and composition background.

Producing tracks from her home provided new opportunities to work remotely with a few talented friends and the decision to explore rhythm without percussion, proved to be a constraint that enabled her lyrics to properly breathe. With the desire to connect at the core of this collection of songs, lush background vocals prominently express sincerely, e’s “together, alone” sound – a symptom and product of the time in which she, and we, find ourselves.

Released March 5th, 2021

The first night when we shot the indoor footage there was a tornado that swept through chicago a mile from where we were, and we were stuck inside the studio at 12am as the wind and rain shook the windows and water spilled from the ceiling. when we filmed the outdoor shots at the indiana dunes on july 3rd, i could see chicago across the lake and it looked like a floating city next to the peach sun. we drove back to the city at night with hundreds of fireworks going off all around us and on the horizon. the folks who made the video are really rare people and cherished collaborators of mine and really captured the essence of the song. 

“Roadkill” is taken from Squirrel Flower​’s sophomore album, “Planet (i)”, out now.

This is quite a session for the discerning Undertones fan!  Song Number One is, in fact, a version of Like That.  Although “Bye Bye Baby Blue” went on to appear as a B side and album track, this version has some alternate lyrical content.  Meanwhile, “Just Like Romeo & Juliet”, a cover of the Michael & The Messengers song, remained an unreleased ‘Tones gem until its inclusion on Listening In Radio Sessions CD.

This session was repeated on February 15th of the following year, which also featured a live interview with Feargal Sharkey.  Feargal explained during the interview that the intention of the session was to present the songs in their infancy, with some of them just a few days old.

Original Session “August 26th, 1981

THE UNDERTONES are the guests on The Evening Show with Richard Skinner. They’re represented by a new set of recordings fresh out of the BBC studios of four brand new songs. Included in tonight’s broadcast were: “Song Number One,” “Bye-Bye Baby Blue,” “Beautiful Friend,” and “Just Like Romeo and Juliet”.

THE UNDERTONES Richard Skinner 16th August 1981

“Becoming Led Zeppelin”, the authorised first ever documentary on the British band about the legendary rock group, was premiered this week at the Venice Film Festival. Soon after, the first official clip from the upcoming film was uploaded online.

The minute-long teaser features pristine archival footage of the group performing “Good Times Bad Times” alongside black-and-white stock footage of a zeppelin hovering in the sky.

Play close attention to that title, though, because fair warning: The documentary stops at 1970, right when Led Zeppelin II comes out and the band has only begun to establish itself as a rock & roll juggernaut. It’s an authorized doc, with full songs and new interviews from the surviving members — and the crown jewel of MacMahon’s archival work, a rare uncovered audio interview from ’71 that Bonham gave to an Australian reporter and took him a year to track down — that go into great detail about their childhoods, their early musical heroes, their first few rock groups. But you can’t say it’s the definitive documentary on them.

Jimmy Page was on hand for the documentary’s premiere, with the guitarist also discussing the film, Page said the band had received many offers for an authorized documentary, but “they were pretty miserable. Miserable and also to the point where they would want to be concentrating on anything but the music.”

However, Page said of Becoming Led Zeppelin, “This one, it’s everything about the music, and what made the music tick. It’s not just a sample of it with a talking head. This is something in a totally different genre.”

The first authorized doc on the band, Becoming Led Zeppelin works best if you’re the sort of diehard Zep-head who’s really, really curious about Page’s first appearance on British TV with his skiffle quartet (on the talent show All Your Own, in 1957). Or the session work he and Jones would do on Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger.” Or how James Brown influenced Bonham’s straight-ahead, four-on-the-floor drumming for the Senators’ hit “She’s a Mod.” Want to take a deep-dive into the original “Dazed and Confused,” as sung by Keith Relf during Page’s psychedelic Yardbirds 2.0 phase, and hear what went through Page’s head when he discovered the Les Paul Gibson Black Beauty? (He may or may not compare the axe to Excalibur!) If the answer to “how many more times can you hear Plant and Page discuss that fateful day when all four of them ran through ‘Train Kept a Rollin” and discovered that explosive sound” is “infinity plus one,” then this movie is for you.

Producers Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty also talked about the lengths they went to obtain the rare footage seen in the film, including a year spent tracking down the original audio from an interview that John Bonham did with an Australian journalist.

Bernard MacMahon assumes we know a lot about Led Zeppelin. He’d guess that most fans have listened to the riffs and record sides thousands of times, tracked down the bootlegs, scoured YouTube for clips, read Hammer of the Gods and can recite the anecdotes of backstage debauchery (whether or not they involve deep-sea predators and/or the occult), concur that the stairways to heaven have now all been bought. The documentarian takes it for granted that even those who don’t know that words sometimes have two meanings are aware of how Zep’s doors had all closed. What the director of Becoming Led Zeppelin and producer/cowriter Allison McGourty wonder is: But does everyone know what Jimmy Page Robert Plant John Paul Jones and John Bonham did before they found each other? And what those first few years were like, when this newly formed band were playing shows just a month after they’d formed and playing underground clubs in the States?

In addition to the footage, much of it never-before-seen, the documentary also features new interviews with the band’s surviving members, Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones.

“When we first met we were probably a little nervous of each other. But the conduit was the storyboard,” Page said. “And I thought they’ve really got it, they really understand what it was about.”

“The Apparition / Melt the Arms” is the third release from Los Angeles band Flat Worms (Tim Hellman, Justin Sullivan, Will Ivy) on New York’s Famous Class Records. The 7″ single follows their debut LP on Castle Face records. These songs were recorded with Ty Segall in his home studio during a global heatwave.

“The dream was an apparition.”
– Teju Cole Open City

Originally released October 12th, 2018