Last month we had the pleasure of introducing the sombre country rock ballad “Shiny Bone” ahead of a more comprehensive introduction to Athens country rock ensemble The Pink Stones, and today the group is sharing another track with us before the release of that debut record via a stripped-down live set. With just two of their six members performing, John Neff and Hunter Pinkston set up with their guitars outside Athens’ Old Clarke County Jail—a landmark across the street from the offices of their label, Normaltown Records—to perform the track from the band’s forthcoming debut, Introducing… The Pink Stones.
Matching that previous track’s energy, the acoustic and slide guitars on this play through of “Nothin’ New” also match the overcast skies and eerie background imagery of their setting. The Super Canoe–produced visual a sight to behold, and complements a sound to get excited about—watch that short set below ahead of the release of Introducing…, out April 9th.
John Neff joins Hunter Pinkston outside Athens’ Old Clarke County Jail to perform the track from the band’s forthcoming debut, “Introducing… The Pink Stones“.
Underground rock festered and splintered as it spread through the U.S. in the mid-’90s, the alternative boom giving rise to microcosmic regional scenes singularly focused on feral powerviolence or screamo songs about breakfast. Boston’s Karate emerged as a force that could grip a national youth movement whose disparate tastes still commingled in the inky pages of fanzines overflowing with florid prose and on concert calendars for volunteer-run DIY spaces, community centres, and bowling alleys. In this world, Karate’s music was an enigma, one equally inviting to sneering punks and highfalutin indie-rock aficionados. Their 1996 self-titled debut, issued on Southern Records, set the standard. Lasooing together white-knuckle post-hardcore tension, sharply focused slow-core serenity, and resplendent jazz complexity, Karate eschewed settling in any one definiable style. But they certainly used the language of punk to get their point across; occasionally, guitarist Geoff Farina abandons his warm, hushed cadences for a hoarse shout that made him sound ragged, intensifying an aggression that burst out with every snaggle toothed guitar riff or drum snap that went off like canon fire. Few followed their path—but who could keep up? Karate could make pensive moods blossom into feverish rollicking (“What Is Sleep?”), gracefully tip-toe around aggressive punk explosions without getting bent out of shape (“Bodies”), and stretch out slow core’s quietest reveries till their reflective notes sound ripped from an improvisational jazz session (“Caffeine or Me?”). Karate formally introduced the trio as a vital part of an independent U.S. punk scene stubbornly flowering in the face of the major labels’ ’90s harvest.
Treading the line between Pixies, Hole, and a particular guitar pop je ne sais quoi, Du Blonde’s fourth album is a punchy splash of acerbic melodic colour. written, recorded and produced by Du Blonde (aka Beth Jeans Houghton), ‘Homecoming’ is a refreshing taste of pop-grunge finery, featuring guests including Shirley Manson, Ezra Furman, Ride’s Andy Bell (ride/oasis), the Farting Suffragettes, and members of Girl Ray and Tunng among others. the album began as a few songs hashed out on a porch in la in early 2020, as Houghton’s desire to create something self-made and self-released merged with the then incoming pandemic.
Fans of Du Blonde’s previous two studio albums (2015’s ‘Welcome Back to Milk’ and 2019’s ‘Lung Bread for Daddy’) might be surprised to find that ‘Homecoming’ takes on the form of a pop record. the garage rock, grunge and metal guitar licks that have come to define Du Blonde are still there in spades, but as a whole the direction of the album is pop through and through. Houghton’s freak flag is still flying high however, a fact that’s no more apparent than on ‘Smoking Me Out’, a bizarre mash up of 80’s shock rock, metal and 60’s pop group harmonies. this defiant and energetic attitude can be heard throughout ‘Homecoming’, whether writing about her medication (30mg of citalopram, once a day), her queerness on ‘i can’t help you there’ (“I’ve been a queen, I’ve been a king, and still I don’t fit in”), to the joyous and manic explosion of ‘Pull The Plug’ (“say that I’m deranged, but I’ve been feeling more myself than ever”), Houghton is nothing if not herself, full force and unapologetic in her approach to writing, playing and recording her music.
Due for release in April 2021, ‘Homecoming’ is the first record to be engineered, produced and self released by Du Blonde. Written and recorded over several sessions between Los Angeles, London and Newcastle, ‘Homecoming’ is a no holds barred collection of Garage, Glam and hard rock finery, featuring a couple of tear-your-hair-out slow saddies for good measure.
Since 2007 these DIY sonic alchemists have been creating whacked out soundscapes and songs that appear to have been born from another universe, all from the confines of their sonic bunker
The Cult Of Dom Keller make the kind of experimental goth-tinged psych that, has thus far, eluded 2016. Fans of Swans and The Icarus Line will find plenty to entertain them here – this is a band unafraid to take risks.
The band have pushed themselves sonically on this album, it’s by far their most experimental release to date. It’s also an album rooted in darkness. “The new album deals with the theme of uncertainty, and put more simply – the end.” That theme resonates throughout the entire album.
In a world full of change, last year was the one Brighton/London band Foundlings got in a pickle with some music bigwigs in the USA, subsequently forcing them to change their name to Hadda Be (taken from Allen Ginsberg’s poem ‘Hadda Be Playing on the Jukebox’).
First new track ‘Another Life’ under their new moniker comes along with recent introduction of Ben on bass, who, with his love of all things electronica, has enabled Hadda Be to combine their previous work with new energy and a punchier sound.
Recorded last year at the Brighton Road Studio, the track starts with a flourish of Matthew’s guitar licks combined with generous helping of Olly’s drums. The song is straight out the gate sonically, but combine that with innocence of Amber’s vocals and some under the shelf bass-notes, creates a great tune about how we see ourselves in rose-tinted glasses compared to the hard reality of the ‘real’ you. Propelled by scuzzy riffs and thrashing racing beats, ‘Wait In The Dark’ shows us a heavier side to Hadda Be than what we might be used to, proving them as a band who are able to constantly hone their sound, reluctant to be pigeon-holed into any one genre.
With a gritty, frenzied energy and shades of the whirring splendour of Sonic Youth, it builds with a frenetic tension to a magnificent, swirling cacophony. Oozing a riotous, grunge-infused spirit, it offers all the fuzzed-out, angst-driven power we need to motivate us through the next few months, when hopefully brighter things – and the possibility of live music – will be on the horizon.
(FKA Foundlings) Post-punk inflected stomps and melancholic indie-pop • Based in Brighton & SE London • Debut album, “Another Life“, arriving April 2021, It’s the second single to be taken from our forthcoming debut album ‘Another Life’.
Here’s what they say about it: “Hi, Hope you’re doing well. “’Wait In The Dark’ is a direct and visceral reaction to the turbulent political and cultural times we find ourselves in. There’s a lot of anger and passion in this song. It felt liberating to have a moment on the album where we really let loose, not allowing ourselves to be wrapped up in analytical posturing. Like with our first ever single, ‘Misery’, the track started off with a bass line and everything else was built up from there. We’re particularly excited about getting this one out on the road.”
We released our new single Wait in the Dark today. Would love to hear what you think! , Our forthcoming debut album ‘Another Life’ is available to pre-order on four different colours of vinyl and CD via our label Last Night From Glasgow’s
Following the release of their debut EP “Waves”, The Galway’s band’s how they finessed their sound in the absence of live music. You’d think with the amount of time we’ve spent on Zoom in the past year, we’d have mastered it by now. However, Galway upstarts Newdad there is some virtual waiting room hokey cokey in the four piece’s attempt to rejoin with a working camera.
The Galway band, having spent several years honing their alternative-rock sound, have found themselves numerous ones-to-watch list for 2021 and have featured on BBC 6 Music’s A-List. Additionally, they’ve just released their long-awaited debut EP Waves, a collection of dreamy, reflective songs that only continue to bloom the more you listen to them. Singer and guitarist Julie Dawson’s lyrics softly pull at the skeins of what could be the simplest of interactions and emotions, bringing them into focus and drawing out what is profound. Their music bears a distinctive shoegaze-informed sound and their deftness in combining old fuzz with modern softness has seen them aligned with the likes Just Mustard, The Magazine Club and Joanna Gruesome.
Having spent years gigging in front of people, lockdown left the band without a live audience to bounce songs off, something that has taken some getting used to. “It’s annoying sometimes in practice where we’ll play them with all the energy we would during a live set and we’ll be like ‘That’s a fucking tune.’ and then we’ll be like, ‘Wait, is it a tune? Nobody’s said it was a tune!’ laughs drummer Fiachra Parslow.
Are You Listening? Festival, Various Venues in Reading, Reading – 22nd April 2017
Can’t fault this brilliant day out in Reading, especially as the performances were so good. Shame were loud and obnoxious (though a bit less than I’d expected) and had plenty to complain about but the tiny stage at the Oakford made for a memorable set. Anna Meredith and her ‘band’ (tuba or cello anyone?) played with infectious enthusiasm and real virtuosity, blurring the lines between genres and just giving everyone a great time.
Island are an Alternative guitar band from London. The band include frontman Rollo Doherty’s, guitarist Jack Raeder, bassist James Wolfe and drummer Toby Richards.
Their music is arena-baiting, both explosive and atmospheric. With Gigantic hooks emotionally build with ambient blues and immersive catchy song-writing. “Everyone’s The Same” is the raw and direct follow up to Island’s previous shimmering single “Octopus.” The contrast between the two tracks perfectly highlights the band’s unique dynamic range and risk taking in their new song writing process. The grungy slacker slow jam begins with a deceivingly simple statement proposed softly by singer Rollo Doherty. For the next two and half minutes, distorted bass lines and chunky, to-the-point drums, ooze into your psyche while the reverb drenched lead guitar hooks you in and perfectly complements the raspy and catchy cacophony. “Everyone’s The Same” is out now via Frenchkiss Records.
Dinosaur Jr. have shared a new single and music video, “Garden.” The track was written by co-founder and bassist Lou Barlow, and it marks the second single off their forthcoming record “Sweep It Into Space”. The new video was shot in Western Massachusetts. It was directed by Lou and Adelle Barlow, with John Maloney contributing illustrations and Chloe Hemingway providing animation.
“Everyone seemed to want a disruption in the order of American life, it seemed necessary. Then it happened,” Lou Barlow says of the track. “It began as a bitter lamentation but as I was finishing the lyrics, singing over the instrumental version of the song while driving to J’s through the miles of farmland that separate his studio in Amherst and my home in Greenfield (Massachusetts), I saw a sign on a shed: Back to the Garden. I was looking for a resolution, where do we go when faced with such dramatic confusion? Back to basics, back home, back to the garden.”
The single is a wash of colliding influences as ’60s Brit-pop tones give way to Barlow’s ’00s alt-rock delivery. Aesthetically, a certain attitude of apathy coalesces with the paradoxical image of the band exploring a snow-capped garden in Western Massachusetts. The video also features shots of a scenic bend in the Connecticut River, which Barlow noted isn’t far from the site of the first-ever Dinosaur Jr. music video, “Little Furry Things”. In addition to the live-action shots of the band, the “Garden” video also hosts artwork by the band’s tour manager John Moloney, who routinely sketches caricatures of the band.
The Fat Angel Sings 