Bachelor, the new project from Melina Duterte (Jay Som) and Ellen Kempner (Palehound), is not a band, it’s a friend-ship. After being mutual fans for years, they finally met when sharing the bill at a show in Sacramento in 2017. keeping in touch over text and instagram posts, Duterte and Kempner started recording together for fun in 2018, resulting with what would become “Sand Angel”, the seductive slow-burner that convinced the pair to write an album together. reconvening in January 2020, the duo packed the entirety of Duterte’s recording equipment into two cars and headed to a rental house in Topanga,CA.
In this space Kempner and Duterte hybridized their individual song-writing talents, producing a collection that slips between moods with ease and showcases their lyrical prowess. arriving with almost no songs written and no solid plan, they finished the 10 songs that make up “Doomin” sun after two short weeks. that much work in so little time may sound exhausting, but it wasn’t, it was blissful and freeing. there was a lot of pain that went into the record, especially around themes of queerness and climate change inspired by the red skies and wildfires subsuming Australia at the time.
However, when the duo did shed tears during the creative process, they weren’t tears of sadness, they were tears of laughter. when Kempner and Duterte look back on those weeks, what they remember first is shortness of breath and the inability to track vocal takes without falling to the floor howling. they couldn’t remember a time they’d ever been so delirious with creativity, so overwhelmed with joy.
Jay Som & Palehound’s forthcoming record, ‘Doomin’
“Romantic Images”, Molly Burch’s third album, marks a distinct evolution for Burch, both emotionally and sonically.
My new album, Romantic Images, is out July 23rd on Captured Tracks, The first single “Control” out now!
Recorded in Denver with Tennis’ member Alaina Moore and pat riley producing, the collection celebrates the timeless delights of a well-crafted pop song, flirting with Blondie, Madonna, and even Mariah Carey as it forges a joyful soundtrack to liberation and self-discovery. Burch deliberately worked with more women collaborators than ever before on the album, and the results are transcendent, revelling in the passion and the power of the divine feminine. the collection prioritizes ecstasy and escape, and Burch’s commitment to collective catharsis in her lifted, airy delivery manages to exude both thoughtful introspection and carefree abandon all at once. the shadow still lurks on the album, to be sure, but the light ultimately wins, and the result is an intoxicating collection all about coming into our truest selves.
My second single Heart of Gold is out now! Please listen ideally in a convertible with the top down and then look in the mirror and tell yourself you have a heart of gold.
Official video for “Heart of Gold” by Molly Burch off new album ‘Romantic Images’ out July 23rd, 2021.
Official video for “Control” by Molly Burch off new album ‘Romantic Images’ out July 23rd, 2021.
Composer and violinist Sarah Neufeld is a career-long touring and recording member of Arcade Fire. Her third solo LP ‘Detritus’, confronts anguish with beauty, turmoil with grace, gliding through the present like a dancer mid-motion, reaching through space ’til she’s caught.
“Detritus” is the stunning new LP from Sarah Neufeld, composer, violinist and career-long touring and recording member of Arcade Fire. We had the honour of releasing this as a Dinked Edition (number 96), we will pop our last three online now. It really is beautiful, quite sad and lots of big, desolate feelings, but there is always the tiniest little glimmer of light in it all. Make sure to check this out and also play it on all sorts of speakers and headphones, the sounds really are brilliant.
The album is wistful and emotive, and carries the listener on a journey of euphoric and complex looped violin dusted with mesmeric melody recall. Openers ‘Stories’ and ‘Unreflected’ lead with atmospheric ease, sombre soundscapes and distant, otherworldly vocals. ‘With Love And Blindness’ ups the tempo with remote, dreamlike rhythms that hypnotise and enthrall. ‘The Top’ is elated, but it highlights the isolated strings and poetic loneliness Neufeld is able to convey with them. ‘Tumble Down The Undecided’ and ‘Shed Your Heart’ are climatic in their delivery, full of cascading notes and delays before closer ‘Detritus’ exits with a state of calm, easing back into the shadows and taking with it the vivid textures and images crafted with infinite grace over the course of the album.
Written and produced by Sarah NeufeldOne Little Independent Records
+ Dinked Edition Number 96 + Violet Coloured Vinyl + 4 x 6×6” Postcard Set + Numbered Edition + Dinked Stickered + Limited pressing of 400
Los Angeles’ Grave Flowers Bongo Band’s sophomore LP ‘Strength of Spring’ is an inverted pyramid balanced on the headstock of an acoustic guitar, a rainbow painted in campfire smoke, an endless staircase circling into the clouds. That acoustic guitar, perfectly captured here by Ty Segall’s excellently sere and close mic’d production, plays skeleton to these conjurors woolly grooves, and singer Gabe Flores’ thousand-yard moan keeps us guessing as to exactly where this wildebeest is headed. He pinions these far out tunes, which burst generously with shit-hot guitar leads, Stoogeseque sax squalls, and a gaggle of great eight-armed drum fills, with a flinty wrist-flicking heartbeat as the band turns from whimsy to nimble riffery on a dime, following that pied-piper six string jangling down many lovely rabbit-holes of melody and exploration.
+ Indie LP is Neon Yellow vinyl.
It’s obvious these guys play together a lot (the lineup shares two members with acclaimed space rockers Hoover III to boot) and the telepathy on display here is synapse-snappy. Coursing throughout is that note-pad filling, lighter raising, undefinable black magic that feels so rare these days.
Directed and filmed by Taylor Leach. Starring Roxanne and Bloodbath. “Smile” appears on the forthcoming LP “Strength of Spring”, out on Castle Face Records April 30th.
Two years after releasing “Union”, roots-rock pioneers Son Volt will return with their tenth album “Electro Melodier” in July. The album features a new group of personal reflections and socio-political songs from frontman Jay Farrar, who originally set out to make a nostalgic record that paid tribute to the music of his youth.
“I wanted to concentrate on the melodies which got me into music in the first place,” Farrar said in a statement. “I wanted politics to take a back seat this time, but it always seems to find a way back in there.”
Farrar spoke to this tendency in his songwriting back in 2017. “I wake up everyday, read the news, and then ask myself, ‘What would Woody Guthrie say about these current times?’” he said just a few months after the 2016 election. “I’ve been writing more songs than usual trying to make sense of what’s going on.”
The first taste of Electro Melodier is “Reverie,” an uptempo, hopeful reflection on persistence and hard-won perspective. “The whirl of time teaches all,” Farrar sings, his voice full of the world-weary optimism he’s preaching in the song.
Electro Melodier will be released July 30th and is rounded out by Son Volt’s current lineup, which includes Mark Spencer, Chris Fame, Mark Patterson and Andrew DuPlantis.
“Down in Heaven” is the third studio album by Twin Peaks, released May 2016 on Grand Jury Music in North America and Communion Music internationally. Twin Peaks recorded the bulk of the album in August 2015 with R. Andrew Humphrey co-producing.
Down in Heaven received generally positive reviews from music critics. The band has always walked a delicate line between thoughtful, psychedelic pop and rollicking power chords, and they’ve perfected this balancing act on Down in Heaven... With their third album, Twin Peaks have become not just one of the most exciting young bands in the Chicago music scene, but in the entire rock landscape.” Other critics noted the band’s move towards songs of a slower tempo. Pitchfork described the album as “a casual, charmingly low-key set of kitchen-table blues, slow-dance serenades, and unplugged power pop. Here, Twin Peaks aren’t so interested in being the life of party as documenting what happens outside of it: the awkward first kisses, the difficult break-up conversations, the sad walks home alone.
It’s “satisfying to hear young rock bands with rich knowledge of the genre’s history, trying their damnedest to capture the energy of old records from a bygone era” and said, “The unhinged energy of [Wild Onion] has been toned down in favour of a more sedate approach, and although that immediate, primal energy is missed upon initial listens, the more relaxed approach fits rather well… This young band’s musical growth supersedes the album’s imperfections, and hopefully Down in Heaven will eventually be regarded as a transition to something more career-defining.
It has become increasingly difficult to choose which Twin Peaks album is my “favourite”, but this was the first album I ever heard from Twin Peaks. Now they’re among my favorite band’s especially after catching them live. That says something about the album,
“Anthem +3” is a digital covers EP featuring songs from Leonard Cohen, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, and Link Wray. All proceeds benefit CARE Action & Ground Game LA.
“Anthem” was recorded a few weeks ago with long time collaborator and producer Jonathan Wilson at Wilson’s Fivestar Studios in Topanga, California.
The additional three covers were recorded over the past few years. “One of us Cannot Be Wrong” features a 25 piece band including drummer James Gadson and has been remixed for this release. “Trouble” and “Fallin’ Rain” have never been officially released before. I was excited to see some new material from one of my favourite artists and after listening to these new tracks a few times I’m pretty blown away. FJM is one of the best.
“Anthem” (Leonard Cohen)
“Fallin’ Rain” (Link Wray) Produced by Josh Tillman and Jonathan Wilson
“Trouble” (Yusuf / Cat Stevens) Produced by Jonathan Wilson
“One of Us Cannot Be Wrong” (Leonard Cohen) Produced by Jonathan Wilson
Recorded at The Church, London Bass, Guitar, Piano, Strings, Perc – Bobby Krlic
Since forming in high school, Brisbane band The Goon Sax—the trio of Riley Jones, Louis Forster, and James Harrison, best friends who take turns writing, singing, and playing each instrument— have been celebrated for their unpretentious, kinetic homemade pop.
Woah aaAaaaa today’s the day we start sharing what we’ve been working on for the last 3 and a half years! It feels a bit like we’ve been living in this album and the universe surrounding it alone for all that time, and now all of a sudden people are coming over. So, the album is called “Mirror II” and this first track we’re sharing is “In The Stone“.
It’s a strange little room by the entrance of Mirror lI, I want to scramble, clean up and hide things. I know it’s freezing! I also don’t want to say what we use this space for because you can do whatever you want in it!. It’s wild to be sharing this now! We’re so insanely excited and also in total disbelief.
“Mirror ll”, The Goon Sax’s first album for Matador Records, is something else entirely: a new beginning, a multi-dimensional eclectic journey of musical craftsmanship that moves from disco to folk to no wave skronk with staggering cohesion. Gone are the first-person insecurities of their school days—they’ve been made expansive, more universal, more weird. “Mirror ll” is intense, the sum of everything that has always made The Goon Sax great: robust sprech- gesang, raw lyrical candor, ascending guitar pop structures that would make the most storied jangle bands blush, elevated into their newfound narra- tive verisimilitude and expanded sonic xperiment- tations. each member’s idiosyncratic style comes across on record: Riley’s bubblegum noise is more present than ever before, Louis’ moody, super- natural avant-pop, and James’ psychedelic folk.
So much love and eternal gratitude to John Parish, James Trevascus, Joe Price and everyone at Matador Records and Chapter Records who put so much love and time into this strange space we were making.
We’ll be takin’ this album on the road too and heading back to The UK after our Aussie shows.
The Black Keys are paying homage to the Mississippi hill country blues acts they grew up on with a new covers album titled, Delta Kream. The 11-track collection is set for release on May 14th.
Ohio’s Black Keys are a rare modern-day example of something a lot more common in the ’60s and early ’70s. They are a blues outfit that became a popular rock group. The Rolling Stones were the first to tread that path and opened countless young listeners with their early covers of Blues giants like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and the like. The Yardbirds came next, and while they probably never quite shook their blues band image, they managed to have quite a few hits and, of course, gave the world guitar greats Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. The Peter Green-led Fleetwood Mac followed – most people these days have no concept of the Mac’s roots in blues – while back in the States, where of course the blues was born, The Doors, who began life as a blues covers band, and the likes of Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs, were able to transcend their roots in a way that neither the Butterfield Blues Band nor Canned Heat were quite able too.
For a decade before they hit the top of the charts worldwide with “Lonely Boy”, “Gold on The Ceiling” and their superb El Camino album, the Black Keys cut their teeth playing a heavy form of garage blues that was informed by the North Mississippi Hill country blues of R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough as much as it was by the primal mid-western garage rock of the Stooges. By the time of their second album, “Thickfreakness”, they were signed to North Mississippi’s Fat Possum Records, the label that brought the music of Burnside and Kimbrough to the fore and helped shape a new blues consciousness that shared much with punk.
Indeed Burnside, who had been active since the ’60s around Mississippi and Memphis, found fame via an album recorded in 1996 with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. That album, “A Ass Pocket of Whiskey“, which followed his first Fat Possum album, “Too Bad Jim“, took Burnside’s raw blues to new extremes. Still, they were extremes that his label mate and fellow North Mississippi bluesman, Junior Kimbrough, didn’t need the involvement of any wise-ass New York punks to reach. Kimbrough’s snaky, hypnotic, and loose blues was so raw that the Black Keys covered him on their first two albums, and when Iggy reformed the Stooges in the new century, the first tracks they released were on Fat Possum’s 2005 Junior Kimbrough tribute album “Sunday Nights the Songs Of Junior Kimbrough“.
Fat Possum’s Kimbrough covers record, of course, included the Black Keys. And when the Black Keys were leaving the label to sign to Nonesuch Records, they said goodbye with an entire EP of Kimbrough covers named Chulahomaafter the area in which Kimbrough’s legendary backwoods juke joint Junior’s Place had been located.
Two albums into their Nonesuch contract, the Black Keys hit paydirt with El Camino. Their sound now incorporated stronger rock influences – indeed, both “Lonely Boy” and “Gold on the Ceiling” had a glammy stomp about them that suggested ’70s T-Rex. A couple of albums later and after a considerable break in which frontman Dan Auerbach established himself as a studio and record company owner and producer with his Easy Eye Sound imprint, the Keys return to their blues roots this month, with “Delta Kream“, which features new versions of multiple songs by both Burnside and Kimbrough and more.
Joining the two-piece Black Keys – Auerbach and long-time original partner Patrick Carney – for the new record is Kenny Brown. Brown is a guitarist steeped in the North Mississippi sound who grew up in the region and learned his skills at the feet of a local bluesman named Joe Callicott, who first recorded in the 1920s. Kenny Brown first played with Burnside in 1971 and spent decades as Burnside’s sideman and “adopted son.”
While Kenny Brown is best known as Burnside’s long-time lieutenant, he has released several solo records in the past. The title track of his first album, “Goin’ Back To Mississippi”, is this writer’s pick for best rockin’ blues number of the last 30 years or so .
The Black Keys recorded Delta Kream as a quartet – Dan and Pat, sitting in a circle with Kenny and another white alumnus of the North Mississippi region, Eric Deaton, who cut his teeth playing Junior’s Place as a teenager. The album was cut live in the studio and captures the loose grooves of this particular type of blues in a way that hasn’t been caught since we lost both Kimbrough and Burnside (in 1998 and 2005, respectively.) The album features multiple tunes from Junior and RL Burnside and some tunes that influenced them, like John Lee Hookers‘ iconic “Crawling’ Kingsnake”, the album’s first single. The video, as seen here, features Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton alongside DanAuerbach and Patrick Carney .
The first single they have shared from the collection is a John Lee Hooker track called “Crawling Kingsnake.” Auerbach recalls first hearing the original version “in high school,” but feels their interpretation is “definitely Junior Kimbrough’s take on it. It’s almost a disco riff!”
The Black Keys from the album “Delta Kream“. Pre-order new album Delta Kream out May 14th via Nonesuch Records:
The day after we wrapped “Getting Into Knives” we drove from Memphis to Muscle Shoals and recorded another album. This had been our plan all along, but 2020 had a way of expressing its feelings about plans. All the outside world was wild dark news and the record we made over the next week reflects that. Been waiting to tell you about it. Please welcome our solitary companion in the shadows, “Dark In Here”
“This is probably the most autobiographical song on the record; the narrator is me, driving in from Claremont to Long Beach to see metal shows at Fender’s during a stage of my life when I wasn’t really sure who I was,” John Darnielle says about the latest single off The Mountain Goats’ new album, “Dark In Here”.A time of being adrift, of being uncertain, a time with more fear of the unknown than hope for the future for me, I can see now. Anyway! That is what the song is about, and I know who I am now: I’m the singer from the Mountain Goats.
When the zone hits I sort of have to serve it and at some point along the way I was writing “the next album” and it turned out I had something like twenty-six, twenty-eight songs, something like that. Mgmt said: what about two albums? And the idea was, record them in two studios, announce & release one normal style, surprise release the other on opening night of tour 2020. Open the set that night with “Dark in Here.” Fun idea, right? Except 2020. By the time I got home from the sessions for “Dark in Here” the world was changing so I wrote and recorded “Songs for Pierre Chuvin” in ten days, and “Dark in Here” retreated to its space in the shadows. It was recorded the week after “Knives.” We took a day to drive down from Memphis to Muscle Shoals, and went right back to work. The seven days that followed are a memory with its own gravitational pull now: our time locked away inside FAME studios while the world beyond the doors began to convulse, just ahead of a great stillness this album was recorded as that forbidding stillness dawned and I think it sounds like it, really. Peter considers it a sort of harder-toothed cousin to “Get Lonely.” I am not a great keeper of secrets and it’s been wild to be on here all the time not telling you I GOT SOMETHING ELSE, TOO — but behold, “Dark In Here“.
“The Slow Parts on Death Metal Albums” by the Mountain Goats from their new album ‘Dark In Here’ coming June 25th, 2021 on Merge Records.
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The Fat Angel Sings 