The Underground Youth’s “The Falling” is the band’s first album since 2019’s Montage Images of Lust & Fear. Frontman Craig Dyer’s deep, moody, monotonous vocalizations a la Orville Peck are at the forefront of the The Falling’s sound, backed by an ever-present acoustic guitar. The album’s opening title track is suspenseful and biblical, hypnotically inviting the listener in with a dark charm. Other standout tracks include the poetic, harmonica-infused “Vergiss Mich Nicht” and “Cabinet of Curiosities,” a love song vaguely evocative of a Spaghetti Western.
The Underground Youth is a Manchester-born, Berlin-based group led by Craig Dyer their tenth album, ‘The Falling’, via Fuzz Club Records. The new full-length sees Craig and band trade their acerbic post-punk melancholy for a more refined and stripped-back sound that, instead, enters the world of romantic, shadowy folk-noir. A marked departure from the primal intensity often heard on the band’s previous work, ‘The Falling’ showcases a softer, more cinematic musical landscape shaped by acoustic guitars, piano, accordion and a heavy presence of violin and string arrangements. It’s not just the instrumentation and atmospherics that have undergone a transformation on this record, it is also Craig’s most sincere and introspective work to date.
Lyrically this album finds me at my most honest and autobiographical. I still shroud the reality of what I have written within something of a fictional setting, but the honesty and the romance that shines throughout the record is more sincere than it has been in my previous work. The idea was to strip back the band to allow for lyrical breathing space”, Craig reflects on the album.
With the original plans of heading into the studio upon their return from their 2020 USA tour grinding to a halt – the tour cancelled midway through due to the Covid-19 outbreak and followed by months of isolation in their Berlin apartments – the album is also very much a product of the distressing and unfamiliar world we now find ourselves in. As a result of the pandemic, ‘The Falling’ was recorded between Craig and guitarist/producer Leo Kaage’s apartments-turned-home-studios (also in the band is Craig’s wife, the artist Olya Dyer, and Max James, who formerly played in Johnny Marr’s live band): “The album sees me going back to my writing approach from our earliest records, writing the demos as stripped back acoustic tracks at home. What started out as a set of romantic and deeply personal songs also took on the surrounding frustrations and feelings towards the situation we found ourselves in. Born from the heartbreak of how the worldwide pandemic has changed the industry we were thriving within, this album also functions as a love letter to the past.”
Taken from the album ‘The Falling’ – Released by Fuzz Club on 12th March 2021
When you’re Paul McCartney, you can do basically anything, and he’s enlisted a true all-star line-up of musicians for his new album.
The music legend has announced a new album featuring a line-up of star musicians who will cover, remix or reinterpret tracks from his 2020 album McCartney III.McCartney III was the singer’s 18th solo album and a continuation of his albums McCartney (1970) and McCartney II (1980). Way to keep us waiting, Paul. It turned out to be worth the wait though, earning him his first U.K. number one solo album since 1989 and making it to number two on the U.S. Charts.
The album was a product of COVID-19 lockdown, recorded in early 2020 at McCartney’s studio in Sussex, England. Like previous McCartney albums, he was a one-man band, performing all the instruments himself.
This upcoming album is definitely not a solo effort though. And when you’re a former Beatle, you can collaborate with whomever you want:St. Vincent, Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, Beck, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, Damon Albarn, Blood Orange, Khruangbin, and Anderson Paak are just some of the stellar artists helping out on the album.
He’s also cleverly tapped the inescapable guitar-destroyer superstar Phoebe Bridgers for a duet. Even Idris bloody Elba features. So far we have Dominic Fike’s version of ‘The Kiss of Venus’, which you can check out below.
McCartney III Imagined Tracklist:
01 Find My Way [ft. Beck] 02 The Kiss of Venus (Dominic Fike) 03 Pretty Boys [ft. Khruangbin] 04 Women And Wives (St. Vincent Remix) 05 Deep Down (Blood Orange Remix) 06 Seize the Day [ft. Phoebe Bridgers] 07 Slidin’ (EOB Remix) 08 Long Tailed Winter Bird (Damon Albarn Remix) 09 Lavatory Lil (Josh Homme) 10 When Winter Comes (Anderson .Paak Remix) 11 Deep Deep Feeling (3D RDN Remix) 12 Long Tailed Winter Bird (Idris Elba Remix) (physical release exclusive)
McCartney III Imagined is scheduled for release on April 16th via Capitol Records.
Sofia Verbilla has always been good at telling stories in the songs she makes as Harmony Woods. On her 2017 debut Nothing Special and its 2019 follow-up Make Yourself At Home, the Best New Band honoree occupied narratives that let her navigate thorny situations from a distance, like on her pair of “Best Laid Plans” songs that depicted two characters who know a relationship has failed but are unwilling to meet its inevitable end.
Her third album, “Graceful Rage” which is being released this week is a good deal more personal, or at least it seems that Verbilla is finally ready to let down the shield of Harmony Woods, a name-like moniker that allows for some distance from what she’s singing about. From its very first track, Graceful Rage is withering and direct. “I’m tired of being led to believe things aren’t what they seem when they’re standing right in front of me,”
Philadelphia’s Harmony Woods surprise-released a new album, “Graceful Rage”, on Friday. Produced by Bartees Strange, the newest LP follows 2019’s Make Yourself at Home. Power courses through Harmony Woods’ latest creation, an album that songwriter Sofia Verbilla describes in a statement as “a record about confronting the emotional rubble that this trauma leaves in its wake.” “Graceful Rage” the band’s third LP basks in the sheer magnitude of letting revelations and recoveries blossom on their own terms.
Verbilla lyrically explores the great disappointment of having a personal idol fall from grace in your mind’s eye, and the rush of emotions that follows. Standout tracks include the haunting and raw ballad “Easy” which opens with chamber choir-esque layered vocalizations from Verbilla. The impassioned pop-punk of “God’s Gift to Women” is particularly scathing, with notable one-liners like “You’re not the person the world person the world pretend you are” and “I watch the skeletons fall / this is your wrecking ball.” Potent and gripping, Graceful Rage is an apt name for a record that so masterfully turns Verbilla’s bitterness into a work of art.
She frequently pulls from the geography of Philadelphia, in Rittenhouse Square with its cringing pigeons or the Fishtown row homes she walks by while trying not to fall apart. She likens public perception and her own relationships to cities, seemingly impenetrable fortresses until they come crumbling down. “Your city’s not as bright as you think/ Demons hidden inside all the buildings,” she sings on “God’s Gift To Women,” a song directed at that features some venomous put-downs like: “Keep writing those records about how you know best/ Like you’re a walking fucking copy of Infinite Jest.”
Produced by Bartees Strange, the songs alternate between sounding like billowing thunderclouds and the calm after a rainstorm. Verbilla’s voice has never sounded better and neither have the backdrops she surrounds herself with, filled with searing guitars and bashing drums.
All songs written by Sofia Verbilla Vocals/Guitar/Piano – Sofia Verbilla Bass – Josh Cyr Drums – David Juro Additional Guitar – Bartees Strange
Cello – Kate Rears Horns – Brian Turnmire Lap Steel – Graham Richman
New Zealand’s Yumi Zouma continue to make beautiful, gentle indie-pop worth swooning over on album number three “Truth Or Consequences”.
Their dreamy aesthetic remains intact, but there’s a heightened sense of confidence in the group’s songwriting and the way these songs are presented that makes it stand out from their past work. Truth or Consequences stems from sessions in Los Angeles, London, and Christchurch, where Yumi Zouma actively took a collegial approach, often working note-by-note, to ensure the foundations of the album reflected a sense of togetherness.
n the early 2010s, the members of Yumi Zouma spent time together on a New Zealand street that gave its name to their first single, “The Brae.” After the 2011 Christchurch earthquake destroyed that street and much of the city, its members took off for other parts of the globe and soon began writing their first songs over email.
As a result, the band was born, and distance became a recurring theme in Yumi Zouma’s work. This makes sense given the far-flung cities the group of musicians currently call home: New York City for Burgess, London for Ryder, Wellington for Campion, and Simpson remaining in their native Christchurch. Of course, distance can also manifest metaphorically, and it’s in these figurative chasms that Truth or Consequences, Yumi Zouma’s third album and first for Polyvinyl, finds its narrative: romantic and platonic heartbreak, real and imagined emotional distance, disillusionment, and being out of reach. There are no answers, there’s very seldom closure, but there is an undeniable release that comes from saying the truth, if only to oneself.
“In the age we’re living in, there’s an emphasis on making things clear cut” says Burgess about the album’s title. “But in life and in art, nothing is ever that definitive. The truth is usually in the grey zones, and I think that’s so much of what we were trying to explore and understand on this album.”
Whilst exploring these realms, Yumi Zouma deliberately pursued a deeper sense of collaboration in order to craft a record that reflects the bond between them. Produced by the band and mixed by engineer Jake Aron (Solange, Grizzly Bear, Snail Mail), Truth or Consequences stems from sessions in Los Angeles, London, and Christchurch, where the band actively took a collegial approach, often working note-by-note, to ensure the foundations of the album reflected a sense of togetherness.
“We wanted to make the song writing process as egalitarian as possible. Completely sharing the process helped us feel like we were capturing a purer sense of atmosphere,” says Ryder.
Much like how the first moments of a new year can usher in a wave of emotions, the first notes of Truth or Consequences wash over the listener with the contemplative yet rapturous opener “Lonely After,” in which Simpson softly sings “I was embarrassed when I knew who I was, so wild and zealous and overly down for the cause.” As Burgess recalls, it’s about “that pit in your stomach when you start to question your own identity,” who wrote the first lines of the song one lonely New Year’s Eve, during the nebulous beginnings of a budding relationship.
Lead single “Right Track / Wrong Man” exhibits a Balearic tempo and bass-heavy energy that belies its underlying tension. Simpson reveals, “At the time I was living with a boyfriend who was quite lovely, but there wasn’t that passion or excitement that you imagine for yourself when you’re young. That song is about accepting that something’s not working, and deciding to just be on your own for a while.” Album centerpiece “Cool For A Second” coalesces the motif of isolation and its ensuing fallout into a letter to a past connection: Whilst on “Truer Than Ever,” the band draws inspiration from the classics to radiate a brazen spirit of perseverance. “I love the duality in a lot of disco songs, where they’re incredibly upbeat, but there’s real frustration in the lyrics – sort of like, ‘Nothing’s going the way I want, but I’ve got to deal with it any way I can,’” Simpson says.
Throughout, Simpson’s voice gives weight to whispers of impressionistic poetry, shielding hard truths with soft tones, while Burgess’ vocals reveal a rarified dimension of raw and lucid romanticism. With this being the first Yumi Zouma album to feature live drums, courtesy of Campion, Truth or Consequences is a testament to the success of the band’s approach – a unified body of melody that mines the spaces in between.
It’s a gorgeous record whose depth has only grown richer as we’ve been able to spend more time with it. As we begin to enter spring it feels only right to revisit this hopeful, loving album made by long-distance friends. I hope you put it on and take a long walk out in the sunshine.
The quaint, atmospheric synthpop of ‘Southwark’ is hugely charming, the upbeat-but-gentle rollick of ‘Cool For A Second‘ has one of the best choruses the band has conjured up yet and there’s an immediacy to ‘Right Track / Wrong Man’ that makes it immediately endearing.
Some might say there’s a vintage feel to Yumi Zouma’s brand of synth-heavy indie-pop, but it’s more of a timeless feel. These songs shimmer now and will no doubt age beautifully.
we’re thrilled to reveal the first group of wonderful artists who will be performing in our wild and spectacular deer park this summer. Further announcements will follow very soon, but we’re delighted to tell you Van Morrison, Saving Grace featuring Robert Plant & Suzi Dian, Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls, Imelda May, Jade Bird & Ward Thomas are all coming to Black Deer in June. Check out the other great artists confirmed & remember more names will follow shortly.
“Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!” is the debut studio album by the American new wave band Devo. It was originally released in August 1978, on the labels Warner Bros. and Virgin. Produced by Brian Eno, the album was recorded between October 1977 and February 1978, primarily in Cologne, Germany,
The album received somewhat mixed reviews from critics and peaked at No. 12 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 78 on the U.S. Billboard chart. Recent reviews of the album have been more uniformly positive and the album has charted on several retrospective “best of” lists from publications including Rolling Stone, Pitchfork Media and Spin.
On May 6th, 2009, Devo performed the album live in its entirety for the first time as part of the Don’t Look Back concert series curated by All Tomorrow’s Parties. On September 16, 2009, Warner Bros. and Devo announced a re-release of Q: Are We Not Men? and Freedom of Choice, with a tour performing both albums
In 1977, David Bowie and Iggy Pop received a tape of Devo demo songs from the wife of Michael Aylward, guitarist in another Akron, Ohio band, Tin Huey. Both Pop and Bowie, as well as Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, expressed interest in producing Devo’s first release. At Devo’s New York debut show in 1977, Bowie proclaimed that “this is the band of the future, I’m going to produce them in Tokyo this winter.” Eventually, Eno was chosen to produce the album at Conny Plank’s studio located near Cologne, Germany. Bowie was busy with filming Just a Gigolo but helped Eno produce the record during weekends. Two tracks, “Come Back Jonee” and “Shrivel-Up”, were recorded at Different Fur in San Francisco, California; proprietor Patrick Gleeson co-engineered the album. All tracks were mixed at Plank’s studio. Since Devo was without a record deal, Eno paid for the flights and studio cost for the band, confident that the band would be signed to a record contract. In return for his work on the album, Eno asked for a share of any subsequent deals.
The recording sessions were a source of frustration for Eno and Devo. Eno found the band unwilling to experiment or deviate from their early demonstrations of recorded songs. Devo later admitted that “we were overtly resistant to Eno’s ideas. He made up synth parts and really cool sounds for almost every part of the album, but we used them on three or four songs.” A majority of the tracks were later remixed by David Bowie; excluding “Space Junk”, and “Shrivel Up”, which had Eno’s production still intact.
After 16 years of eligibility, Devo snagged their first Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nomination in 2018.
It’s a long time coming, say fans. “It took this long for Devo to be nominated simply because their highest charting song, “Whip It,” only got to No. 14, and the history of this process holds that a band gets in either, and mostly, because of popular, commercial success or singular artistic influence,” notes David Giffels, co-author of the band biography Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!
“Critics had a hard time figuring Devo out initially, and they were constantly subverting both the commercial and critical systems. So, they sort of undermined the usual expectation of a rock band in terms of its route through the Rock Hall sausage machine.”
Gerald V. Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh were art students moonlighting in the music world while attended Kent State University. They were there on May 4th, 1970, when the National Guard shot and killed four college students and injured nine others during a protest. De-evolution was happening before their eyes.
The band’s line-up solidified by 1976 when Casale and Mothersbaugh were joined by their respective brothers, both named Bob, and drummer Alan Myers. From there, they slowly infiltrated the mainstream, influencing generations of artists along the way.
They Made One of Rock’s Best Debut Albums, David Bowie famously announced during a 1977 gig at Max’s Kansas City that he was going to produce Devo’s debut album, and that helped secure the band a major-label record deal. Brian Eno ended up working on most of that LP, 1978’s Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, which almost immediately found fans, as well as many critics, with its herky-jerky interpretation of the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” The album’s other tracks showed that there was much more to them. “Jocko Homo” and “Uncontrollable Urge” revealed punk roots, while other tracks showed off their experimental nature.
Devo were not Just a Band but an Art Project, A photo of golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez was used for the early “Be Stiff” single as a comment on commercialism. They made a short film all about their theory of de-evolution. And they they were one of the first American bands to embrace video as a new medium. “They pioneered the use of video, predating MTV, and created a new kind of art — the music video — within the rock ‘n’ roll genre at a time when very few new frontiers were left,” says Giffels. “Devo owned the art of video, uniquely and with complete authority.”
They Were Sincere About That De-Evolution Theory, Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale believed that modern society hit its peak and was making a downward slide in the form of de-evolution — that mankind was regressing biologically and as a society. This increased conformity among the masses led to the group’s famous yellow hazmat stage outfits, stiff organized movements and songs that embraced and mocked cultural norms. “Let’s be honest, is there any question that de-evolution is real?” Casale asks UCR. “Did you think we were joking?”
They Managed to Push Their Way Into the Mainstream, Even though their debut album was certified gold, 1980’s Freedom of Choice was even bigger, selling more than a million copies, thanks, in part, to the hit single “Whip It.” Over the years, they’ve released studio LPs, live records, compilations, EPs, singles and a soundtrack, and are one of the most easily recognized bands from the era. They have some high-profile fans, including Neil Young, who included the band in his 1982 movie Human Highway. And Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale have worked on, separately and together, music used in commercials, TV shows and movies, including Pee-wee’s Playhouse, a Diet Coke ad and several of director Wes Anderson’s acclaimed films.
Their Influence Is Super-Huge, Devo’s famous fans and early champions include David Bowie, Brian Eno and Neil Young, but their influence since then has included bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Arcade Fire, all of whom have covered the group onstage or on record. Their robotic rhythms can be heard in countless punk, New Wave, college rock and indie-rock artists throughout the decades. “If you were going to identify a band from the New Wave genre, which certainly deserves a presence in the hall, Devo defined the sound and the look in a quintessential way, and with more artistic and cultural depth, in my opinion, than any other candidate,” says Giffels.
Few albums have announced a band as sufficiently as Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo. The record says everything you need to know about the band Devo, and while in 2021 the prospect may feel a little passe, in the late seventies, the mere concept of Devo was revolutionary. For that reason alone, the band go a long way to define the very nature of post-punk music.
Not necessarily the band’s best album, Are We Not Men? is certainly their seminal moment in musical history. It was this album that allowed a generation of music lovers to cock their head sideways and attack rock music with a brand new view. Devo are undoubted pioneers of the post-punk genre and kept the keen spirit of experimentation at the forefront of everything they did.
Devo
Mark Mothersbaugh – lead and background vocals; keyboards; guitar
Gerald Casale – lead and background vocals; bass guitar; keyboards
Bob Mothersbaugh – lead guitar; backing vocals
Bob Casale – rhythm guitar; keyboards; backing vocals
FIRST FULL ANNOUNCEMENTS for LONG DIVISION FESTIVAL 2021.
Here we go; after Monday’s sneak peak, here’s our first full batch of artists for 2021. All in Wakefield City Centre within easy walking distance, in a range of weird and wonderful Wakefield spaces. Just £30 for your wristband to wander around as you choose. We’ve got group discounts too.
We started this in 2011 not really knowing what we were doing. We just knew we want to get people to Wakefield to see some great grassroots artists breaking through, whilst checking in with a few musical legends on the way. It’s been a pretty tough ten years, but we’re still here. You’re still here too. So, let’s get together and celebrate the fact, right?!
Tickets available now (with our currently reduced capacity, they are well over half gone).
Perhaps what distinguishes “Green to Gold” from the rest of The Antlers’ canon is its, well, sunniness. Conceived and written almost entirely in the morning hours, Green to Gold is the band’s first new music in nearly seven years, and easily their most luminous to date. “I think this is the first album I’ve made that has no eeriness in it,” singer and primary songwriter Peter Silberman asserts. “I set out to make Sunday morning music.”
The brighter outlook emerged, paradoxically, after a succession of ominous events. Following 2014’s Familiars, it looked iffy whether there would even be another Antlers album, after the onset of Silberman’s auditory problems. Affecting his left ear, it was a condition that left him struggling to cope with commonplace noises. Feeling assailed by the cacophony of Brooklyn, it necessitated that he retreat to a less complicated, more serene world. So, leaving his band, he moved to Upstate New York in 2015, close to where he spent his childhood.
What grew out of that exile was Impermanence, Silberman’s sparse, graceful 2017 solo album that chronicled the disorienting journey through the world of his temporary hearing loss and dislocation, which he feared might hamper his ability to ever make music again. That issue was complicated further after touring Impermanence, when Silberman was diagnosed with lesions on one of his vocal cords, requiring surgery for their removal and vocal therapy to retrain his voice to sing. “Doctors prescribed vocal rest — long periods every day without talking or singing,” Silberman explains. “I took these health obstacles as a sign that I should change course for a little while. I hadn’t made a full stop like that since The Antlers began.”
The problem was, Silberman wasn’t even sure he wanted to keep making music. “I’d love to say that after recovering from my hearing and vocal issues that I felt a newfound sense of determination and inspiration, but I really didn’t. I was drained,” says the musician quietly. But he still felt the strong pull to spend time and work with longtime drummer Michael Lerner, and frequently invited him up to visit the idyllic hamlet he now called home. The two friends’ days typically involved long walks in the woods, but routinely ended up in Silberman’s converted-garage studio. “I would record him playing drums in the studio while he listened to old soul and R&B songs in headphones. I couldn’t even hear those songs, I was just listening to him play along and hitting record,” laughs Silberman. “I just sensed we couldn’t begin with an entirely blank canvas, and those drum recordings ultimately served as starting points for the songs that followed. But at the time, we were merely attempting to make music together again, without really knowing how to approach it, or to what end.”
Unlike other Antlers albums, Silberman didn’t feel compelled to turn a human experience into a circuitous mythology. He chose a more direct approach: documenting two years in his life, without overthinking or obscuring what the songs were about. “Most of the songs on Green to Gold are culled from conversations with my friends and my partner. It’s less ambiguous about who’s speaking and who’s listening,” says Silberman resolutely.
Which might have everything to do with the fact that Silberman had found himself in a new relationship providing much of the impetus for the sense of hope, renewal and returning to where you belong on this album — both emotionally and geographically — beginning with Wheels Roll Home, with its chiming guitars, swaying-yet-sturdy drums and aura of romantic inevitability and deep connection.
Solstice is a languid, light-filled memory with Silberman’s effortless falsetto recalling the innocence of childhood summers, where time seemed infinite and days long, while Stubborn Man is a job application, a confession and an admission of foibles, in this graceful slow dance that finds Silberman more forthcoming than he has ever been in any Antlers song. Album standout, “Just One Sec” intentionally strays into Americana territory. With a weeping slide guitar, banjo and a vocal that recalls early Cat Stevens, it’s as deft and piercing as an Emily Dickinson poem, and as clever as a cowboy’s lament. It Is What It Is, feels half-celebratory and half-funereal, shot through with the wisdom of the Tao, whisper sung as woodwinds moan softly in the background against a steady back beat.
Volunteer is a haiku, an incantation, but most of all a parable about getting out of one’s own way and allowing nature to take its course, something Silberman and Lerner seemed to have elegantly done on this record. Title track Green to Gold is an ouroboros of a song, beginning and ending at the same place, as seasons change, and the outer landscape mimics the inner map. But most importantly, it reveals the lessons of the natural world, both human and otherwise. Album closer Porchlight is an outlier, with a cocktail lounge piano pecking out the stylish melody line, accompanied by an almost country shuffle about hovering between two worlds, but finding your way back to terra firma.
But the biggest difference between Green to Gold and The Antlers’ back catalogue is its arrival at a kind of quiet normalcy after a number of rather anxious records, in the same way Neil Young’s Harvest Moon does; a softer, gentler album that the august artist made after recovering from a case of tinnitus himself.
Vocals, guitar, bass, pedal steel, piano, and organ by Peter Silberman Drums and percussion by Michael Lerner
Bass clarinet on “Wheels Roll Home” by Jon Natchez Violin and viola on “Solstice” by Will Harvey Cello on “Stubborn Man” by Brent Arnold Banjo on “Just One Sec” and “Volunteer” by David Moore Slide Guitar on “Just One Sec” by Dave Harrington Baritone saxophone, flute, clarinet, and french horn on “It Is What It Is” by Kelly Pratt Guitar on “Green to Gold” by Tim Mislock
“Just One Sec” by The Antlers from the album ‘Green To Gold’, available March 26th
Limited edition dark green vinyl. Available exclusively via the band’s online store
Jenny Lewis and Serengeti struck up a friendship after a chance encounter at a music festival in 2018, and that friendship has now borne musical fruit. During lockdown, the indie-rock icon and the idiosyncratic Chicago indie rapper recorded five songs together, co-produced by Fog’s Andrew Broder. We’ve already heard a couple of those collaborative tracks, “Unblu” and “VroomVroom.” Today, we’re hearing one more.
Their new track is “Idiot,” a slinky track with Serengeti’s deadpan bars and Lewis’ beguiling vocals over skittering beats and keyboard plinks. “Jenny sent the beat and it’s always a great joy, it’s fun to do,” Serengeti explains. “I wrote a small rap about a man who gets knocked out by his mom’s boyfriend and then reconnects with his high school girlfriend.”
“These songs with Dave start with a late night feeling and access to — because of where we’re at right now in the world — whatever you have in your house that makes a sound,” Lewis says. “Or, I don’t have Pro Tools, so I use my phone, and I’ve got a little drum machine and a drum kit. Sometimes when I’m doing my vocals, Forensic Files is on in the background. That makes it onto the track because that’s just what’s happening.”
Jenny Owen Youngs grew up in the forests of northern New Jersey and now lives in coastal Maine, where she spends much of her time writing with and for other artists, making podcasts, and working on her next record. Her songs have appeared in Bojack Horseman, Weeds, Suburgatory, Switched at Birth, and elsewhere. If you need her, she’s probably in Skyrim right now. The indie singer-songwriter Jenny Owen Youngs last fall when she covered Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” in the lead-up to her Night Shift EP and Blink-182’s “Dammit” for a compilation featuring 27 covers of Blink-182’s “Dammit.” Since then she’s launched a new band called L.A. Exes, and today she’s back with a new solo EP.
Echo Mountain features a smattering of original singles plus a demo and a remix. It sets a mood throughout, soft and meditative and warm, suggesting Youngs is still going strong a decade and a half into her career. The only previously unreleased track on the EP is “Dungeons And Dragons,” which Youngs says “is about using a role playing game as an early escapism tool. It’s also about the fear of turning into the worst parts of the people who raise you.” Hear that one and the rest of Echo Mountain.
The Fat Angel Sings 