Nashville-based songwriter Madi Diaz’s new album ‘History Of A Feeling’ is out August 27th on ANTI Records. History Of A Feeling undeniably marks Diaz’s status as a first-rate songwriter, a craft she’s spent years refining. Across the album, Diaz cycles through the full spectrum of emotions as she comes to terms with the dissolution of a meaningful relationship. She plays the line between the personal and the general with dexterity: in Diaz’s hands, quiet moments of self-pity are transformed into grand meditations on heartbreak, and unwieldy knots of big existential feelings are smoothed out with a sense of clear-eyed precision.
Diaz started working on History Of A Feeling three years ago, before beginning collaborations with co-producer Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Bon Iver) with whom she worked closely to flesh out the album’s instrumentation. It’s a homecoming record of sorts that points to her Nashville song writing roots. Pulling from a range of folk, country and pop leanings, as much influenced by Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna as PJ Harvey and Kathleen Hanna, History Of A Feeling is comprised of the most direct and introspective songs Diaz has ever written.
Throughout, she seamlessly weaves a profound sense of intimacy and camaraderie as her lyrics are relatable to anyone who has experienced heartbreak and great change in some manner. These universals are shaded by the fact that the relationship breakdown Diaz is chronicling coincided with her former partner transitioning, a complex reckoning Diaz approaches with empathy, candor, and care. “The bulk of this music came from dealing with a kind of tsunami clash of compassion, both for my former partner while she was discovering a deeper part of her gender identity long hidden, and my own raw heartache over having lost the partner I knew,” Diaz says. “I felt so torn through the middle because half of me wanted to hold this person through such a major life event, one that is so beautiful and hard, and the other half felt lost—like I had lost myself in someone else’s story.” It was a sea change that reverberated and ricocheted in her reflections on their relationship and her own sense of self moving forward and her process of healing.
Rage, confusion, despair, self-deception, and introspection—Madi Diaz cycles through the full spectrum of emotions on History Of A Feeling, her debut on ANTI-Records. It’s an album that undeniably marks Diaz’s status as a first-rate songwriter, a craft she’s spent years refining, and one wherein Diaz establishes herself as an artist capable of distilling profound feelings with ease.
Girlpuppy is 22 year old Atlanta based singer-songwriter Becca Harvey. Either wanting to be Hannah Montana or Taylor Swift growing up, she is now making music that sounds nothing like her childhood influences. Following her first track For You and it’s success, she enlisted the help of of Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers) to make her debut ep, coming soon.
Girlpuppy became Becca’s sole focus when the coronavirus pandemic forced her out of her job at an East Atlanta bakery. With an abundance of spare time on her hands, Becca found herself able to finish work on the tracks she had originally started putting together a year earlier. The result is the debut Girlpuppy EP, “Swan”, which was released last week via Royal Mountain Records.
“Swan” opens with Becca’s recent single, “Miniature Furniture“, a track named in honour of an art exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago and a summer spent hitting the road, burying the feelings of a difficult break-up in socialising, travelling and doing anything to avoid thinking about relationships. Musically, the track is a beautiful introduction to Girlpuppy’s sound, a fusion of languid indie-guitars and hazy dream-pop atmospheres, all serving as a backing to Becca’s beautifully unhurried vocal line. Elsewhere on the record Cheerleader is more a moody piece that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Phoebe Bridgers record, while the burbling electronic pulse of Hideout demonstrates the EPs impressive musical variety. Perhaps the finest moment is the EP’s penultimate track, As Much As I Can, “a love song to the people in my life that make unconditional love the most difficult“, set to a backing of rapid tumbling guitars in the vein of Amber Arcades or Alvvays. These are early days for Girlpuppy, a five-song EP that’s finding its place in the musical landscape, yet the potential is boundless, for Girlpuppy the future could take her as far as her imagination allows.
Musicians: Becca Harvey: vocals Marshall Vore: drums, acoustic guitar, keys Grace Repasky: bass, keys, harmony vocals, acoustic guitar Maggie Geeslin: electric guitar, lap steel Ruby Henley: synth Charlie Hickey: harmony vocals, piano, 12 string guitar, bass John Michael Young: 12 string guitar, electric guitar, bass Mason Stoops: lap steel, bass Cole Petersen: drums
If walls of noise clattering against lethargic bass and squalling feedback gets your blood pumping then have a listen to this album of sludgy shoegaze loveliness.
There are touches of Jesus & Mary Chain waves of sound, c86 atmosphere and young marble giants moods. what stands out more than the touch points though is the space the music inhabits – at once broad scope yet claustrophobic, it’s a masterpiece in creating the same haunted industrial space that early new order made so well. we’re hooked – this band are going to go far with a sound like this.
Just Mustard already garnered a ton of acclaim in their homeland upon the release of their debut album Wednesday, but it took a little longer for word of mouth to drift across the Atlantic. Fittingly, their best songs — like their latest single “Seven” — function like storms approaching off the sea. They exist in the eerie moment when you feel the air shift and tighten: Warped guitar screeches suggest destruction on the horizon, and Katie Ball’s ghostly vocals a siren song calling you into it.
Dundalk’s shoegaze champions Just Mustard are quietly amassing a stellar reputation for bewitching live performances. The band have enjoyed a surge in popularity since the release of “Wednesday” in 2018, which was nominated for the Choice Music Award. Subsequent releases, like ‘October’ in May, have seen the group further hone their shoegaze sound with elements of trip-hop and garage rock.
The Chicago based Post Animal takes us into an alternate-universe created at Sleeping Village. The gardens of distorted mirrors lend itself to the 70 minute psych-pop journey you’re about to embark on!
“We recorded this modern blend of our work, some old, some new, live at Sleeping Village in Chicago. The grass was truly greener on the inside. Brought to you by the source of creativity excelsior (ever upward)!” .
The Chicago quintet takes us into an alternate-universe created at Sleeping Village – a garden of distorted mirrors and a 70 minute psych-pop journey of swirling riffs and melody. In addition to the live performance film stream, the performance is being pressed on limited edition vinyl . Also available on screen printed posters signed by the band, limited edition cassettes, t-shirts, and tie dye tees! Get your hands on the good stuff at the link above.
Celebrating the return of Genesis and their 2021 / 2022 arena tour, “The Last Domino?” collection gathers together the band’s legendary hits with choice album cuts from across their stunning career. Having sold around 100 million albums to date, this new 4LP set represents the first time a career-encompassing Genesis collection has been made available on vinyl. The Last Domino? comes pressed on heavyweight vinyl housed in a hardback gatefold book-style package with rare and previously unseen images of the band.
Genesis is back touring. The legendary outfit featuring Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, and Phil Collins is set to release best of collection “The Last Domino?”, It’s a new set of the band’s best-loved songs, including chart hits, deep cuts, and fan favourites. Available as a double-CD and a 4LP set, both editions are set for release on September 17th, 2021,in conjunction with the start of The Last Domino? Tour.
“And Then There Were Three” (1978) was the first album the band released as a three-piece and spawned the single “Follow You Follow Me,” which was their first U.K. top 10 and U.S. top 30 single and proved to be the start of huge commercial global success.
The albums Duke (1980), Abacab (1981), Genesis (1983), Invisible Touch (1986) and We Can’t Dance (1991) followed for the trio, alongside almost constant global stadium tours cementing the band as one of the most successful of all time.
Banks, Collins and Rutherford reunited again as a band in 2007 after almost 10 years for the “Turn It On Again Tour,” which went on to be one of the biggest grossing tours of the year playing sold-out stadiums around the world.
When The Last Domino? Tour was announced, it became one of the fastest selling of the year, with extra dates being added throughout the whole of the UK. It kicks off on September 20th, 2021, with two nights at the Birmingham Utilita Arena and a total of 16 arena shows across the UK, followed by an arena tour through North America – seewww.genesis-music.com for more details. The jaunt will mark the first Genesis tour in 14 years.
“The Last Domino?” is the perfect companion to the tour. Containing 27 songs selected with the band (and a majority of which will be performed at the shows), it’s a package that represents their incredible journey as one of rock’s true pioneering bands. The 4LP set is housed in a hardback gatefold book-style package, which includes rare and unseen images of the band from their archive and images of the rehearsals of The Last Domino? it is a package that represents their incredible journey as one of rock’s true pioneering bands through to their global dominating hits that has seen them play sold-out stadiums and arenas all over the world for decades.
Katie Crutchfield’s loose, delightful cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Talking Dust Bowl Blues” is perfectly unadorned — it plays like Crutchfield just picked up a guitar seconds before recording and decided to bust out a quick cover. Although she’s blessed with a fabulous voice, it feels great to hear Crutchfield in this cheeky, conversational mode, playing a song that connects Americana’s current generation with its most important forebearer.
Waxahatchee – Talking Dust Bowl Blues from the upcoming album ‘Home In This World: Woody Guthrie’s Dustbowl Ballads’
Amsterdam four-piece Pip Blom are releasing a new album, “Welcome Break”, on October 8 via Heavenly Recordings. On Tuesday they shared its third single, “You Don’t Want This” via an amusing and colourful video for the song.
Sara Elzinga directed the “You Don’t Want This” video and had this to say in a press release: “When I first heard ‘You Don’t Want This,’ I recognized the feeling of self-consciousness; knowing that people have a certain way of looking at you, that does not necessarily comply with the image you have of yourself. The concept of a Matryoshka doll then stuck in my head, having these multiple versions of yourself that are hidden at first. The set reminds us of a dollhouse, of someone who is so comfortable in their own scenery, they forget to look at the world outside of the room. Though rather than making a music video about anxiety, I wanted the video to be about self-acceptance. Smiling back at yourself, instead of constantly criticizing which is something people tend to do.”
Previously they shared Welcome Break’s first single “Keep It Together” via a video featuring the band in an aerobics class. Then they shared its second single, “It Should Have Been Fun”.
Get your ears and eyes on the brand new Pip Blom single and video, ‘You Don’t Want This’, the latest to be released from the forthcoming album, ‘Welcome Break.
“Welcome Break” is the band’s second album, the follow-up to 2019’s “Boat” . Pip Blom are a band, but it’s also the name of the band’s frontwoman. The band also features her brother, Tender Blom. Pip wrote 20 songs in her bedroom in her parent’s house and 16 became demos. The album was recorded at Big Jelly Studios in Ramsgate, England over three weeks with engineer Al Harle.
For Warren Zevon, “Sentimental Hygiene” signalled more than a bid for a career reset. His star had fallen far in the decade since his self-titled 1976 Asylum Records debut album and the commercial triumph for its sequel, ExcitableBoy, and its hair-raising single hit, “Werewolves of London.” With Asylum’s first artist and poster boy Jackson Browne as champion and co-producer, those LPs projected Zevon as both ultimate L.A. insider and subversive rock enfant terrible, alternating sophisticated, literate songs with rampaging rockers, backed by a cast of blue-chip musical guests.
Performances by assorted Eagles, Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac members and even an Everly Brother endorsed the Chicago-born Southern Californian as rock aristocrat while his songs veered from conventional pop tropes to spin noir-infused fables of violence, bruised relationships and comic pratfalls. Monsters, psychopaths, and mercenaries shared the grooves with self-absorbed hipsters and wasted libertines, contrasting cinematic vistas with gritty, urban squalor in a City of the Angels with no Tequila Sunrises but plenty of hangovers.
By the early ’80s, however, Zevon’s recording contract and marriage both unravelled. The hard-boiled persona that bragged of “drinking heartbreak motor oil and Bombay gin” was eclipsed by real-life alcoholism. A nightmare rather than dream come true, a published profile depicted the “Crack-Up and Resurrection” marked by an intervention and the first of Zevon’s multiple stays in rehab.
Resurrection was short-lived as his diminished career left Zevon relying on solo club dates and recasting songs as “heavy metal folk,” relying on only his piano or guitar. A new relationship and a move east to Philadelphia isolated him from L.A.’s fast lane, but his struggles with substance abuse continued even as a path back began with a seeming demotion in 1984. Still signed to Eagles manager Irving Azoff’s Front Line Management, Zevon was reassigned to a new manager recently promoted from a lower rung as publicist.
If he was initially skeptical of that recruit, manager Andrew Slater proved an ardent fan and savvy advocate who leveraged a college friendship with Peter Buck, now co-founder and guitarist with R.E.M., to revitalize Zevon. A clutch of club dates in R.E.M.’s Athens, Georgia, stomping grounds found Zevon backed by the rising alternative stars in pseudonymous guise as a band dubbed hindu love gods. The link was further strengthened when Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry backed Zevon on demos of new material to court a new contract.
Moving back to California, Zevon’s fortunes brightened decisively in March 1986 when he achieved hard-won sobriety that would last for 17 years. Further validation came that autumn with the inclusion of “Werewolves of London” on the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Moneyand the release of an Asylum compilation, both landing Zevon back on the album charts. His renewed visibility and strong new material clinched his manager’s pitch to the newly launched Virgin America label.
A sober and focused Warren Zevon entrusted Andrew Slater to join him in producing the Virgin debut alongside engineer and co-producer Niko Bolas. R.E.M.’s Buck, Mills and Berry served as rhythm section for most of the resulting tracks, with strategic guest appearances from other friends and familiars. The title track opens with a muscular attack in a grim existential anthem of survival that stalks meaning amid the slog of daily life, Zevon’s stoic baritone anchored by dense synthesizer voicings, with Neil Young providing an archetypal solo outlined in blistering single notes.
A positive outcome from Zevon’s ’80s exile to solo club gigs was a renewed focus on guitar, which shaped some of his toughest new material. “Boom Boom Mancini,” written while watching boxer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini’s bout with Bobby Chacon on HBO, was one of the first songs he’d played with the three R.E.M. members as well as his second foray into lionizing professional athletes. For Zevon, a high school dropout whose high intelligence and autodidact’s curiosity attracted him to literary as well as musical heroes, finding tragic heroism in the ring followed in the footsteps of Norman Mailer as well as Bob Dylan, Miles Davis and Paul Simon, explored here in Mancini’s fate in the unintended death of an opponent in the ring.
Dylan himself appears on “The Factory,” a track that reflects a heightened empathy for working men and women also threaded through the album’s title song. Zevon’s admiration for Dylan would be reciprocated by the latter’s lively cameo on harmonica, continued in Dylan’s concert performances of Zevon’s songs over the years.
Among songs that had been road-tested in Zevon’s live gigs between the end of his Asylum career and …Hygiene, his seventh solo set, “Trouble Waiting to Happen” had elicited strong audience reactions among fans familiar with his offstage misadventures as well as the more flamboyant alter egos in his songs. The lyrics are wryly self-referential:
“The mailman brought me the Rolling Stone… It said I was living at home alone… I read things I didn’t know I’d done It sounded like a lot of fun I guess I’ve been bad or something…”
The song’s comic fatalism is remarkable given its genesis just days after learning he had been dropped by his label. Co-written with erstwhile label mate J.D. Souther, the track features another Asylum alumnus, Don Henley, on vocal harmonies while Stray Cats guitarist Brian Setzer guests on lead.
Zevon follows the shaggy dog complaint of “Trouble Waiting to Happen” with the first and best of the album’s two ballads, written as a confessional plea for reconciliation with his estranged wife, Crystal. All pretense of toughness is abandoned in a vulnerable oath of repentance and emotional devotion, set to one of Zevon’s loveliest melodies and a lissome arrangement featuring Henley’s harmonies, Mike Campbell and Waddy Wachtel on guitars, and Jai Winding and Zevon on keyboards. Pledging “I’ll never make you sad again, ’cause I swear I’ve changed since then,” he vows that “it’ll be alright if we disagree.”
Zevon’s plea was rejected, although his close friendship with his ex-wife and father of daughter Ariel would endure to the end of his life.
Zevon often mingled memoir with myth to make himself a punchline, a tactic inspired here by an earlier remark by longtime friend Jorge Calderon, who dubbed a fashionable rehab retreat “Detox Mansion.” With his own struggles now public record, Zevon lampoons celebrity recovery on a walking tour set to a hard, syncopated attack by drummer Berry and David Lindley’s slashing lap steel as the singer brags of “rakin’ leaves with Liza, me and Liz clean up the yard.”
R.E.M.’s role is most explicit on “Bad Karma,” with Michael Stipe joining his bandmates as backing vocalist on a hard luck complaint decorated with sitar arabesques. Buck, Mills, and Berry share song-writing credits on “Even a Dog Can Shake Hands,” in which Zevon’s alter ego is a rock star besieged by hangers-on while he’s “trying to survive up on Mulholland Drive,” bombarded by “all the worms and the gnomes…having lunch at Le Dome,” then a Sunset Strip destination for the glitterati.
A penchant for stories set against 20th century geopolitics that yielded earlier Zevon originals returns on the album’s strangest track, “Leave My Monkey Alone,” alluding to the 1950s’ Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. Swahili lyrics, a mix of funk and dance rhythms, and the involvement of P-Funk overlord George Clinton and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea range far beyond Zevon’s Tinseltown locales.
Released on August 29th, 1987, “Sentimental Hygiene” was supported with a major campaign, with a music video, tour dates and the album budget all confirming his new label’s commitment. Critical reception greeted the set as his strongest since Excitable Boy, but the album failed to chart in the U.S. Zevon would record subsequent albums for Giant and Artemis before passing away on September 7th, 2003, after a struggle with mesothelioma.
Originally released mid-January 2006, The Kooks debut album “Inside In Inside Out“, Virgin records/UMC celebrate it’s 15th anniversary in 2021 with a Deluxe Edition featuring the original album remastered plus thirteen previously unreleased tracks. Originally released in 2006, the quadruple-platinum-selling album spawns timeless hits including BRIT nominated “She Moves In Her Own Way,” “Seaside,” and the band’s top five single “Naive.” With over 1.3 billion streams on Spotify today, the unstoppable Inside In / Inside Out is a record that fizzes with the exuberance of youth and a certified staple of British indie which continues to win over new fans as its remarkable streaming figures prove. Inside In / Inside Out became an essential classic and remains so today.
In celebration of its 15th anniversary, The Kooks today unveil the long-awaited reissue of their seminal debut album “Inside in / Inside Out”.Repackaged for new and old fans alike, the deluxe edition features the original album remastered and thirteen previously unreleased tracks.
The release is coupled with a nostalgic visual for “She Moves In Her Own Way” featuring unseen footage from the iconic music video in 2008, directed by Diane Martel (The Killers, The 1975, The White Stripes). The new video shows a fresh band from Brighton celebrating their successful debut album on the road; a wholesome time capsule that is reminiscent of an unforgettable era in pop culture for British Indie bands.
Speaking about the reissue, The Kooks say: “We’re delighted that Inside In/Inside Out has been reissued to celebrate its 15th anniversary” said Luke. “It brings back so many fond memories of our early days as a band and we can’t wait to celebrate it again on tour next year.”
It’s a record that fizzes with the exuberance of youth, “Inside In Inside Out” is a certified classic of British indie which continues to win new fans as it’s remarkable streaming figures prove. highlights from the Deluxe Edition include: 4 alternative versions of hits Seaside, Ooh la, She Moves In Her Own Way and Naïve taken from the original album recording sessions by producer Tony Hoffer (tracks 1, 2, 9, 12 from disc two) unheard demos that range from acoustic jams such as “Inaudible Melodies” (a Jack Johnson cover) + theory of a pop star to full-blast studio demos such as “Sofa Song” and Matchbox” that capture the youthful exuberance of this quintessential indie band. 8,000 word sleeve notes based on new interviews with the original band members written by former Q magazine editor Niall Doherty. remaster of the original album by John Davis (metropolis) all tracks previously unreleased on the bonus disc (except ‘In My Opinion’)
It’s also packed with unheard demos that range from acoustic jams such as Jack Johnson’s “Inaudible Melodies” and “Theory Of A Pop Star” to full-blast studio demos such as “Sofa Son” and “Matchbox” that capture the youthful exuberance of this quintessential indie band. Other features include an 8,000-word sleeve-note based on new interviews with the original band members.
The Kooks have enjoyed an impressive rise to fame since the release of their debut album, which reached Number One in the U.K. Album Charts. Since then, they’ve gone on to release four further albums with their most recent Let’s Go Sunshine achieving top ten status in the U.K. Album Charts in 2018.
Hand Habits’ new album, “Fun House”, is out October 22nd.
There is a moment halfway through Hand Habits’ Fun House at which musician Meg Duffy asks the question, “How many times must I rewind the tape?” It’s a fitting question planted squarely in the middle of a sonically adventurous record concerned largely with making sense and taking stock. How much time must we spend examining our own past in order to fully understand it? How can we safely acknowledge pain in order to release it and fully actualize who we are supposed to be? Buffeted by strings, synths, and a gently-shook tambourine, the aptly-titled track, “The Answer,” highlights the emotional engine at the heart of the record. “I know the answer,” Duffy sings, “Here’s what I hope to find – it’s always mine.”
“Fun House” is Duffy’s most ambitious Hand Habits album to date. Produced by Sasami Ashworth (SASAMI) and engineered by Kyle Thomas (King Tuff), the record was not intended as a reaction to the pandemic, but it was very much the result of taking a difficult, if much-needed, moment of pause. “When the pandemic happened, everything stopped,” recalls Duffy. “I had been touring consistently for five years, both on my own and playing in other people’s bands, so I wasn’t really writing a lot in between. It had been full pedal to the metal in terms of traveling and scheduling, which meant I really didn’t have a lot of time to think about how I felt or really check in with myself. Then, when the world basically stopped, it turned out to be the longest I’ve been alone in my entire life — without being in a relationship, without being on the road, without working myself to exhaustion — and the result was really like, holy shit. I slammed on the brakes and everything psychologically that I’d been pushing down and ignoring for the past few years suddenly flew to the foreground.”
What started out as a very personal reckoning eventually blossomed into a fruitful and convenient means of making new music. Grounded in LA and sharing a house with Ashworth and Thomas, who also runs a studio space in the building, Duffy began to flesh out the songs that would eventually become Fun House. Emboldened by going into therapy and coaxed by Ashworth to push the songs into unexpected new shapes, the resulting music was more acutely personal and stylistically adventurous than anything they had attempted before. The new songs also became a prism through which Duffy could begin to self-actualize in a new way.
While Fun House shares some of the same hallmarks as previous Hand Habits releases —a kind of outré queer sensibility, a gentle sense of vulnerability — the record is a marked sonic departure from the often muted tones of 2019’s “Placeholder” and 2017’s “Wildly Idle (Humble Before the Void)”. Instead, the tracks on “Fun House” sparkle, moving in unexpected directions and eschewing any specific genre. Tracks like “Aquamarine” and “More than Love” package narratives about loss, romantic longing, and childhood trauma inside polished synth pop (“Suicide / Lost a life / Well then who am I? / Why can’t you talk about it?”) while “Gold Rust” and “Concrete and Feathers” have a ragged, Neil Young quality. Friend and collaborator Mike Hadreas (of Perfume Genius) contributes vocals on “No Difference” and “Just to Hear You,” making for one of the record’s most sanguine moments, his voice providing a perfect counterpoint to Duffy. The push/pull of styles, paired with songs that move deftly between the present and past, give the record a wildly diverse, hall of mirrors quality that befits its name. Where previous Hand Habits records could be fairly insular affairs, both in their creation and their execution, Fun House feels ebullient, lush, a fully-realized conversation.
“Fun House is lush, bright, in constant forward motion, in a constant state of change. Duffy’s third and best record, it possesses some grimy, earthen magic.”-The FADER “Fun House could be their most experimental (and exciting) album to date.” -FLOOD
Fun House is now available for pre-order on multiple colour vinyl options, CD, tape, and digitally.
The Fat Angel Sings 