The Fat Angel Sings

Chicago trio Dehd have shared a Lala Lala remix of their song “Desire,” originally featured on their sophomore album “Flower Of Devotion”. It is the latest offering from their forthcoming remix album, Flower of Devotion Remixed, which will be out on September 17th via Fire Talk. Listen to the Lala Lala remix of “Desire,”.

Vocalist and guitarist Jason Balla speaks about the collaboration with Lala Lala (aka Lillie West), stating in a press release: “Lillie from Lala Lala really cut this one down to just the vocals and built it back from there. The first time I heard it I was amazed at the intensity of the vocals, it was like hearing the song for the first time. I think sometimes there’s this impulse in music making that more equals intensity, but I’d say this remix is an argument against that kind of logic.”

West adds: “Dehd are some of my best friends and one of my favourite bands, and it was an honour to remix their song ‘Desire.’ Emily [Kempf]’s isolated vocals made me cry. I hope you dance.”

Upon the announcement of Flower of Devotion Remixed last month, the band shared a remix of “Flying” by Physical Medium. The original Flower of Devotion was released last year on Fire Talk, and featured the singles “Flood” “Month” and “Ha Ha”. The band will be supporting Julien Baker on her forthcoming tour in October and November 2021.

‘Flower of Devotion’ was one of the most critically-heralded releases of the year, named Best New Music by Pitchfork who called the record “an effortless, elegantly rumpled strain of indie rock” and the album received further accolades from the FADER, Vice Noisey, Under the Radar, Variety and more. ‘Flower of Devotion Remixed’ sees Dehd surrounded by a myriad of close collaborators (Lala Lala, Protomartyr, Freak Heat Waves, and more) and points a shining spotlight on the Chicago music scene the band still calls home, staying true to the trio’s earnest melodies while creating an amorphous blend of experimentations in mutated indie pop that feels like a personal mixtape for the friends that know them best.

Releases September 17th, 2021

From Dehd’s “Flower Of Devotion Remixed “out September 17th on Fire Talk Records.

Of the many transformative moments that made JJ Shurbet realise that a whirlwind of touring life, addiction, and the pressures of internet stardom had been sucking her under, one particular therapy session stands out. “They didn’t allow us to bring instruments to rehab,” says the 20-year-old artist otherwise known as Scruffpuppie. “But within two weeks of being there, I found out that one of the counsellors had their own guitar – and I would beg him to bring it out so that I could play for everybody. I just wanted to be able to feel music again.”

As Shurbet relays this story they are about as far away from the memory as they could be. Calling from her bedroom in LA – where she moved from Wisconsin with the intention of feeling “more settled and free” after leaving treatment in September 2020 – she is bright-eyed and enthused when discussing her forthcoming project, set to be released via Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory label (where they will join the likes of artists Claud and Muna in January 2022.

Mired in relief and wonder, the new music charts Shurbet’s recovery from years of consistent drug abuse as they toggle between plucky emo stylings and hyper-pop with a deft hand. Even though she first arrived as an unpredictable, DIY-minded talent on YouTube as a covers artist before releasing 2018 Bandcamp collection ‘Zombie Boy’ and its follow-up ‘Never Coming Home’ the year after, it’s here where Shurbet sounds truly invigorated, particularly on lead single ‘Assignment Song’: “I’ll see you all another day/When we are cured and clean again”, she sings during over scratchy riffs its cloud-parting chorus.

“JJ’s writing is both referential of all the emo music I love, and yet, entirely new. I recognise the world I know in it,” Bridgers says. “It’s like she’s filtering everything through raw emotion, throwing some distortion on it all, and handing it back to us so we can feel something for a second.”

scruffpuppie/aka. JJ Shurbet, is a bedroom indie artist based out of of Appleton, Wisconsin

Enter on a cacophony of broken trumpets. Then thumbtacks and syringes, a faucet dripping eternally, all patient in their torment. Purgatory, this is. Liily frontman Dylan Nash imagines so, anyway; this is the Lovecraftian nightmare he created on ‘The Miracle of Race Wild’, a track from the Los Angeles band’s forthcoming debut album ‘TV Or Not TV’, out later this year.

“I always see people applauding themselves because they just need to applaud themselves, and I thought it would be interesting if they knew what an actual purgatory would be like,” says Nash. “I think it [would be] terrifying to be in a room of things that are not necessarily scary at face value, but just irritate the hell out of you.”

It’s telling that Nash envisions purgatory not as nothing at all, but everything at once. The band (Nash, drummer Maxx Morando, guitarist Sam De La Torre and bassist Charlie Anastasis) are all aged between 21 and 23; they’ve grown up amid the chaos and confusion of the internet age. Their frenzied, abrasive, kitchen-sink approach to rock’n’roll encapsulates that perfectly.

The four have been in each other’s orbit since they met at music school as kids, but Liily kicked off for real in 2016. They introduced themselves with 2019 EP ‘I Can Fool Anybody In This Town’, and after that they were on the road tirelessly. Rather than scuppering plans for their debut full-length, the pandemic actually enhanced it. “It made us all focus on improving our creative muscle, and it taught us a lot of valuable lessons about writing,” says Morando. They strove for more variety and dynamics in their song writing, while the intense parts became even more potent.

Meanwhile, lyrically, Nash became more intentional in focusing on the world around him instead of immediate personal feelings. “It’s important to be observant. I took things I’ve picked up on, everything I’ve seen over the past two years, regardless of what it is.” Unsurprising after the last few years, there’s an urgency to his words. Self-image and consumerism are approached on ‘Man Listening To Disc’, while the most direct reaction to society under the internet is ‘I Am Who I Think You Think I Am’, which satirises QAnon, and howls against the anxiety of an ultra-accelerated world.

The band also used the time to dive deeper into musical discovery. The album is equally inspired by Rage Against The Machine as it is Talking Heads, while flashes of electronic and jazz jostle for room too. “We made a conscious effort in the pursuit of finding new music,” says Nash. “Our whole concept is to listen to as much music as you can, and whatever you create out of that is what you should create.” It’s a signal of the streaming age, where discovery is so easy and constant that genre boundaries ultimately collapse.

In Liily’s eyes, rock music will thrive when it leaves behind categorisation. “I think it’s important that artists shouldn’t subscribe [to genre],” says Nash. “For any band that pushes the threshold, it’s either gonna do nothing or it’s gonna make major waves.” In their home country, they see a lack of kindred spirits mostly they look to envelope-pushing bands from this side of the pond, like Black Midi and Girl Band, for inspiration. “Rock tends to hold onto anything that’s passé,” Nash continues. “The bands that we really like that are technically rock are taking tropes and reversing them, and turning it upside down and flipping it inside out. That’s moving the genre forward.”

Developments in the LA underground rock scene last year also spoke to the darker side of the traditional rock mentality, when an enormous wave of misconduct allegations against Burger records and many of its affiliated artists. Liily grew up going to Burger shows, and some of the accusers are their friends.

“A lot of those old tropes [of rock and roll behaviour] are disgusting, and life-ruining, and cruel,” says Anastasis. Liily take seriously their responsibility to fans, particularly younger ones, and emphasise their commitment to safety at their shows. “Cause if we’re not making them feel safe, how safe are they gonna feel anywhere else? It’s really important,” says Nash.

When Liily get back on the road and get to work on a new album, which is already incubating they’re not interested in being rock stars. They’re just interested in growing creatively, and as human beings. “I think that’s the only goal that anybody that wants to make music should have,” Nash posts. While the world turns ever faster and the ride gets ever dizzier, there’ll be plenty of noise left for Liily to make.

Liily’s debut album ‘TV Or Not TV’ is out on October 22nd

In 2018, upon the release of their last album ‘Time & Space’, Turnstile “the new shape of punk to come,” a hardcore band intent on tearing down boundaries and disrupting rock music’s status quo. Three years on, as they release their third full-length record, ‘Glow On’, even the ‘punk’ term now feels too restrictive: this is an album that shuns almost any traditional categorisation, and is all the more thrilling for it.

While ‘Time & Space’ was produced by US rock and hardcore staple Will Yip, for ‘Glow On’ they’ve enlisted Mike Elizondo – Dr Dre’s prodigy who’s produced for Fiona Apple to co-produce the record with singer Brendon Yates. The band also team up with Blood Orange for a pair of collaborations. The first of these link-ups, ‘Alien Love Call’, is the album’s biggest step out, a beautiful slow jam defined by guitars swimming in reverb and that finishes with a predictably impactful spoken word segment from Dev Hynes. The album then closes with ‘Lonely Dezires’, a woozy punk song that sounds like putting Green Day through a My Bloody Valentine filter.

The furious, moshpit-inducing riffing of ‘Time & Space’ still has its place on ‘Glow On’, but its sparser inclusions make the heavy moments hit even harder than before. Single ‘Holiday’ is a joyous romp of celebration, while ‘T.L.C.’ (Turnstile Love Connection) sees the band at their relentless, frantic best, packing five different sections and a brain full of ideas into 100 seconds flat.

Another highlight, ‘Don’t Play’, opens with the sound of a pitched up vocal that playfully yelps “Yeeeeeeaaaah!” before a heavy-yet-funky groove commences, the voice reminiscent of a child gleefully anticipating some ensuing chaos. It makes the track’s title feel like a taunt. Later in the song, melodic piano makes an entrance in its chorus before a hardcore breakdown gives way to a hair metal guitar solo featuring, yes, bongos. Across the track, snare drums are replaced by drum machine sounds that evoke claps of thunder.

Elsewhere, ‘Underwater Boi’ channels the summery, washed-out indie wave of the early 2010s, while interlude ‘No Surprise’ sees bassist Franz Lyons showing off his low but melodic voice, the ying to Yates’ yelped yang. “I can sail with no direction,” Yates repeats over and over on ‘Holiday’, a highlight of an album that goes wherever it damn pleases, scorching a new path for others in their wake. Sometimes not knowing where you’re going next is the most exciting thing possible.

Lydia Loveless has returned with two new singles, ‘You’re Leaving Me’ and ‘Let’s Make Out’, marking her first new material since 2020’s Daughter. ‘You’re Leaving Me’ was recorded during the Daughter sessions at The Loft in Chicago, while its B-side ‘Let’s Make Out’ was recorded and mixed by Somewhere Else and Real producer Joe Viers.

In a press release, Loveless described ‘You’re Leaving Me’ as “a song about being a committed daydreamer and fantasist, mulling over what could be past the honeymoon phases and into the endings.”

The two songs make for a whirlwind listen. Of “You’re Leaving Me,” Loveless explains, “It’s a song about being a committed daydreamer and fantasist, mulling over what could be past the honeymoon phases and into the endings.” “Let’s Make Out,” meanwhile, abandons all emotional baggage and celebrates just what the title states. The tracks are out via Loveless’ own label Honey, You’re Gonna Be Late Records.

Released August 25th, 2021

Songs written by : Lydia Loveless

In the afterglow of her acclaimed 2020 album “Silver Ladders” (a year-end favorite of NPR, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and others), Los Angeles-based harpist and composer Mary Lattimore returns with a culminating pair of releases: a limited edition LP/CD, Collected Pieces: 2015-2020 (out digitally on October 29th, 2021 and physically on January 14th, 2022) and a limited edition cassette, Collected Pieces II (out October 29th, 2021). Both collect new and previously unreleased material, Bandcamp-only singles, and other obscurities.

The lead single and one of the newest tracks in the CP II set, “We Wave From Our Boats” was improvised during the early days of lockdown in 2020, after Lattimore walked her neighbourhood. “I would just wave at neighbours I didn’t know in a gesture of solidarity and it reminded me of how you’re compelled to wave at people on the other boat when you’re on a boat yourself, or on a bridge or something. The pull to wave feels very innate and natural.” That energy is reflected in the track’s video directed by Hari Leigh.

‘Collected Pieces:2015 -2020’

Admiral Fallow are a band from Glasgow with three beautifully diverse albums to their name: “Boots Met My Face” (2011), “Tree Bursts In Snow” (2012), “Tiny Rewards” (2015).

In 2018 they developed an ambitious new opera, Navigate The Blood (co-written with Gareth Williams and Sian Evans).
They have recently put the finishing touches to their much-anticipated fourth record, due for release in 2021

“Dragonfly” is the second single to be taken from the album ‘The Idea Of You’, following on from first single “Sleepwalking” in June. the album their first in six years, on Chemikal Underground. Written and mostly recorded in 2019, The Idea Of You is a captivating collection of songs – generously melodic, confidently executed and festooned with intricacies. In true Admiral Fallow fashion, these tales of friendship and carefree adventure take the road less travelled, rarely finding their terminus where it might be most expected. Warmth, empathy and contentment course through the nine songs, a response to its makers having navigated personal and professional challenges to emerge with their identity – both as a group and as individuals – intact.

The Idea Of You traverses Philly soul, sophisticated pop and guitar-driven rock, delivering humbly anthemic choruses by the barrowload. The recording of The Idea Of You took place in Chem19 on the outskirts of Glasgow under the aegis of producer Paul Savage, who worked on the group’s first three albums – Boots Met My Face (2010), Tree Bursts In Snow (2012) and Tiny Rewards (2015). Written and recorded pre-pandemic, the album inadvertently bears the hallmarks of a less fretful era, concerned with themes of growth and bloom in contrast to those of anxiety and fear.

Singer & lyricist Louis Abbott describes the song as “a sun-drenched exploration into how the things that really matter to us change as we get older”.

‘The Idea Of You’ is released on the 5th of November.

2001’s “Getaway” may be the best illustration of whatever mercurial, inexplicable musical power animates The Clean. After the band’s initial rush of activity between 1978 and 1982, the trio lay dormant until the end of the ’80s, when a string of reunion shows inspired the Kilgours and Scott to start recording again. After three well-received albums in the first half of the nineties—1990’s Vehicle, 1994’s Modern Rock, and 1996’s Unknown Country—The Clean disappeared again until the end of the decade, when another tour inspired another record. While playing gigs across New Zealand in celebration of their original label Flying Nun, David says they brought along a TEAC 4-track quarter-inch tape machine. “As usual, we started jamming and recording, and before you know, we thought we may be onto an LP.”

Speed and spontaneity ended up defining “Getaway”. Robert says, “I remember writing ‘Silence or Something Else’ while the others went for a long walk. It was done by the time they got back. I probably would have gone for a straighter version, but I still like it.” David remembers, “Hamish wrote the instrumental ‘Jala’ in about five minutes in a motel outside of Turangi.” At one point in the process, Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley were visiting from America, and they ended up on the record too. “Getaway” came out in August of 2001, with cover art by Hamish who says that his original artwork was the actual size of a compact disc case. After that, The Clean set out on another tour—including in New York City, where they happened to be during the terrorist attacks on 9/11. They coped with the tragedy by playing gigs with their American friends, and staying in the same creative space they’d been in since before they started working on the album. “I remember we did some great gigs on the New Zealand tour, debuting some of the new material,” Hamish says. “‘Stars’ was a favourite for the big 12-string sound.”

A live version of the pulsing, soaring “Stars”—along with a couple of other Getaway songs and Clean classics like “Fish,” “Side On,” “Quickstep,” and “Point That Thing Somewhere Else”—appear on the rare 2003 album Syd’s Pink Wiring System. That record is included with the Getaway reissue, along with the more experimental, piano-driven EP Slush Fund, from the same era.

These bonus tracks reinforce the idea of the Getaway-era Clean as especially plugged in, generating inspired and beautiful music almost on instinct. Indeed, they’ve done justice to a key album in The Clean discography—a record that honours the band’s origins as garage-rock-loving New Zealand kids, excited just by the hum of a good, cheap amplifier. Songs like the twangy, easygoing “Crazy,” the jaunty acoustic snippet “Cell Block No. 5,” and the trance-inducing “Circle Canyon” are more fine examples of Scott and the Kilgours’ interest in immediacy and a strong vibe, applied to catchy melodies. “Each album is a completely different beast,” Robert says. “We all change in different ways between each one, bringing different things to the table, and sometimes bringing nothing much at all.” But if Getaway proves anything, so long as all three members of The Clean are in the same space at the same time, anything can happen.