Francis Of Delirium are a duo out of Luxembourg matching Jana Bahrich, a 19-year-old Vancouver native, with the significantly older drummer and producer Chris Hewett, who hails from Seattle. They’re dropping their new EP “Wading” in April on Dalliance Recordings, which has released music from the likes of Gia Margaret and Common Holly. It’s preceded today by “Let It All Go,” a talky and anthemic multi-segmented track that climaxes with Bahrich repeatedly yelling, “Aren’t you tired of being alone?!”
Francis Of Delirium is the product of an unlikely collaboration: Vocalist Jana Bahrich is a 19-year-old from Vancouver, drummer Chris Hewett is almost 30 years older and from Seattle, but the two met and teamed up in Luxembourg, of all places. Together, they’ve made spiky, grunge-inflected indie rock on Wading, a sophomore EP released this past spring. But the band is already changing, still in the early stages of crafting their sound: More recent singles “Come Out And Play” and “All Love” leaned in a more atmospheric, shoegaze-oriented direction, and they were the best songs Francis have released yet.
With an accompanying claymation-filled music video. “Let It All Go” unfurls with an energy on the brink of self-detonation. It’s a steamy, cathartic breakup song drawing on classic indie rock and emo, marked by Bahrich’s exasperated spoken vocals and climaxing with violently euphoric yelps of “Aren’t you tired of being alone?” Instead of shying away from the ugliness of relationships, it displays it shamelessly, while also lending self-forgiveness. Bahrich says the new single “feels like this vertigo, justifying and grappling and releasing.
This week Cherry Glazerr (the Los Angeles-based band led by Clementine Creevy) shared a new song titled “Big Bang.” It marks their first music release of 2021, and is out now on Secretly Canadian Records. Cherry Glazerr shared their first new music of 2021 with a single titled “Big Bang.” inspired by lead singer Clementine Creevy’s time spent listening to DJ Koze, Caribou, Yaeji and Kaytranada. The bass-heavy, atmospheric track is marked by Creevy’s silky vocals and fits of endlessly catchy pop. “I wanted to give it a sort of early ‘aughts pop production feel, with the interplay between the acoustic guitar figure and the bass synth and the 808 hits during the choruses,” Creevy says. “The lyrics came from feeling like I was growing apart from someone who was close to me in my life, and the song is essentially about heartache, but it’s euphoric at the same time. That’s what I like about it — the intensity of those very personal feelings paired with a sort of huge, exposed energy. I feel like I was able to let a lot out with this song. It feels really special to me.”
Creevy speaks about the song in a press release: “Some songs take on a lot of forms until they finally end up the way they do and this was one definitely one of those. It lived a few different lives for sure, I just kept changing up the rhythms until I was like, ‘oh yeah that’s it right there!’”
She adds: “I wanted to give it a sort of early ‘aughts pop production feel, with the interplay between the acoustic guitar figure and the bass synth and the 808 hits during the choruses. The lyrics came from feeling like I was growing apart from someone who was close to me in my life, and the song is essentially about heartache, but it’s euphoric at the same time. That’s what I like about it the intensity of those very personal feelings paired with a sort of huge, exposed energy. I feel like I was able to let a lot out with this song. It feels really special to me.”
The band released a new song titled “Rabbit Hole” in December of last year. Their most recent album, Stuffed & Ready, came out in 2017 on Secretly Canadian.
This week Ryley Walker announced a new album, sharing a song from it titled “Rang Dizzy.” The upcoming album, “Course in Fable”, will be out on April 2nd via Walker’s own Husky Pants label.
“Rang Dizzy” is made up of such poetic lines as: “I extend my hand to all probable possibilities/That I may be baptized in seltzer from glaciers” and “As the cherry water runs down my spine/I recall coupon codes from minimum wage jobs/Unionized by labor kept in sheep skin/Saving up for tires that light up when you drive them.”
“Rang Dizzy,” is a free-flowing tune that incorporates some jazz influence into the mix. Like the album as a whole, the song was produced by Tortoise’s John McEntire.
As Walker noted, he doesn’t have any fancy new press photos for this album cycle yet, as he tweeted, “i didn’t have time to go to the woods or an alley to take press photos of me looking away from the camera cause I’m packing records. this is all I got.”
Walker’s most recent original solo album was Deafman Glance, which came out in 2018 on Dead Oceans. Later that year, he also released The Lillywhite Sessions, a cover album of an unreleased 2001 Dave Matthews Band album. Also that year, he and Charles Rumback collaborated on the album Little Common Twist. Now, he’s soon to be back with another solo record: Walker has announced Course In Fable, which is set to come out on April 3rd via his own Husky Pants Records.
Releases April 3rd, 2021
Ryley Walker- Guitar/Vocals Andrew Scott Young – Bass/Piano Bill MacKay – Guitar/Piano Ryan Jewell – Drums/Percussion John McEntire – Engineer/Mixing/Synth/Keys/Vibraphone Douglas Jenkins – String Arrangements/Cello Nancy Ives – Cello
“And It’s Still Alright” is out now Listen to “Redemption” written for and featured in the upcoming film “Palmer”. Singer Songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff’s end-credits song, “Redemption,” is garnering awards buzz for as the race for best original song continues.
Says Rateliff, “For me, the song is about what I saw in the film, and what I see out there in the world, of continuing to struggle until we find some kind of peace and some kind of answer. It’s about hope and connection. At the end of the song, there’s the line ‘we keep running until we learn to find peace’.” Rateliff says. He drew inspiration for “Redemption” through finding familiarity with the film’s protagonist, Eddie.
Growing up in rural Missouri, Rateliff saw “good people trying to move away from bad situations and trying to get ahead, and stumbling when they try to move forward.”
Timberlake had conversations with Rateliff over the phone to convey to him the essence of the story. The song’s title was born out of one of those conversations, where Timberlake described a “redemptive” courtroom scene, with the wording becoming etched in Rateliff’s mind.
To build the track, Rateliff says he started with a guitar and then layered his voice and added drums. He reached out to a singing group of three sisters he’d met when asked to perform at a Black Lives Matter rally in Englewood, Colorado. He also enlisted some of his band members in his group, the Night Sweats, to add claps and other percussion.
Synopsis for the film: After 12 years in prison, former high school football star Eddie Palmer returns home to put his life back together—and forms an unlikely bond with Sam, an outcast boy from a troubled home. But then, Eddie’s past threatens to ruin his new life and family.
Palmer is directed by Academy Award winner Fisher Stevens (Stand Up Guys, Before the Flood) from a script by Cheryl Guerriero . The film stars Justin Timberlake (The Social Network, Alpha Dog), Juno Temple (Atonement, “Ted Lasso”), Alisha Wainwright (“Raising Dion,” “Shadowhunters”),
“Redemption” Written and performed by Nathaniel Rateliff .
Buck Meek released a video for “Halo Light” this week. The video was filmed during the recording sessions for “Two Saviors” in the New Orleans Victorian house called Wonderland where the album was laid to tape. It’s the same take of the song as appears on the record and features Adam Brisbin (guitar), Austin Vaughn (drums), and Mat Davidson (guitar/pedal steel/bass). The video was shot and directed by Riley Engemoen and edited by Alex Winker (fellow Austinites!).
Some words from Buck about the song: “I wrote Halo Light in two seasons – first as a healing process to accept loss as the seed of new growth – then, by a long string of coincidences, I ended up at Joni Mitchell’s home on New Year’s Eve, at a party filled with her old friends, all standing around the piano singing,” says Buck. “She held court in the centre of the room in an easy chair, like an ascended master, speaking with people one at a time with absolute presence. I remember her eyes being purple. I spoke with her briefly at the end of the party, and was struck so deeply by how the ephemerality of the human body and soul can manifest a collection of work for others to reflect upon and live through for generations to come, expanding outward. I wrote the chorus and finished the song that night when I returned home.”
“While the Big Thief guitarist’s solo work makes more room for American country music than his main band, it offers much of the same warmth and whispery intimacy.” – Pitchfork
“A gentle, charming country-folk treasure from a songwriter and guitarist of real pedigree.” – Guitar Magazine
Guitar performed by Buck Meek and Adam Brisbin Drums performed by Austin Vaughn Pedal Steel and Bass performed by Mat Davidson Produced and Engineered by Andrew Sarlo
Cory’s first solo, ‘The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo’, was an intense affair, a grand experiment that produced inspiring, unconventional music – but this time around, he wanted to breathe a bit easier, to feel that breath in the music as well. So he and his band drove out to the desert to record in a low stress environment: Brian Harris’ Cactopia, a house surrounded by 6ft tall sculptural psychotropic cacti. They built a studio inside and then they made music and lived off pots of coffee and chili and cases of Miller High Life as they played guitars, bass, keyboards and drums in what seemed increasingly like a living biomech, their tech made out of fungal networks and cacti needles.
Waiting placidly for end of days, a rictus grin flashing winningly as he summons strength for the already-in-progress epic clash, Cory Hanson delivers a new music video for Pale Horse Rider. The third single/title track from the forthcoming album ascends to climactic heights (both within itself and in the context of the larger record coming into view) via majestic country gospel-inflections and ambient steel guitar, swelling to a repeated chorus radiating with cries of catharsis from our Cory. Like the two before it, this new song is insanely amazing! The “Pale Horse Rider” video pairs sumptuous sunny California imagery to lyrics anointing the arrival of mass destruction while Cory acts as demonic guide to the future wasteland, skipping about the scene impishly. The stakes are high – and driven calmly through the heart of the matter. Out with the old, in with the new age.
Watch the title track today, but heed the note below –Pale Horse Rider is still approaching, but has slid back in time slightly, to allow for end-of-eon-type delays and adjustments. All the better to allow you to obsess on these advance singles! : The digital release date has moved to April 16th. Physical orders will be delayed, with a new ship date of May 21st.
It was loose and flowed onto tape well. Recorded by Robbie Cody and Zac Hernandez (who assisted on Wand’s ‘Laughing Matter’), the sounds were great from the get-go. First takes were mostly best takes. Fuelled with DNA lifted from country-rock cut with native psych and prog strands, Cory guided his craft toward the cosmic side of the highway, a benevolent alien in ambient fields hazy with heat and synths, early morning fog and space echo spreading the harmonies wide.
‘Pale Horse Rider’’ got a lot to get out of its mind, looking around and seeing that, on the surface, things don’t always look like much. A lifelong Californian, Cory’s naturally found himself standing to the left of most of the country. The west may be only what you make it; these days, the roadside view looks exceptionally sunbleached and left behind. ‘Pale Horse Rider’ eyes the city, the country and the fragile environment that holds them both in its hands – a record as much about Los Angeles as it can be with its back to the town and the sun in its eyes; as much about nostalgia as new music can be with the apocalypse over the next rise.
Cory’s adroit ability to flip through the gains and losses of any given moment with a simple line or two is given delicate bloom on the latest single “Bird of Paradise.” An ominous fever dream of opaque moral lessons (a la Bobbie Gentry’s “Refractions”), “Bird of Paradise” is a flowing ballad sparked from within by bubbling guitar arpeggios, glittering electric keyboards and arcs of steel guitar like falling stars shooting through the night sky. Moods of estrangement and desire play out delicately in the shadowy grid of a deserted urban landscape.
On ‘Pale Horse Rider’, Cory Hanson moves ceaselessly forward. The old myths weave and waft, the shadows of tombstones flickering in the mirages and the light that lies dead ahead.
Title track from “Pale Horse Rider,” to be released on LP/Cassette/CD/Streaming on March 12th, 2021, from Drag City Records.
Mo Troper’s recording and production methods skew DIY—a fitting approach given his musical influences. “I was sort of just working with what was available to me, which wasn’t a lot,” Troper says of his experience crafting this album “I don’t actually have a drum kit or a guitar amp right now, so I knew I was going to have to rely on, like, Apple Loops and GarageBand presets. I suppose I was trying to go for something like the Lightning Seeds, or anything else from that strange era of British music where indie pop and shoegaze sort of overlapped. I was also listening a lot to the Tokyo-based songwriter Yokosawa Shunichiro’s newest album, Zettai Daijoubu, which is really ornate, artful bedroom pop.”
“I don’t have any impressive synthesizers or anything,” he adds, “so a lot of the sounds are actually sampled from old video game music. There’s a kick drum taken from Super Mario RPG and one of the arpeggiators samples a specific noise from Yoshi’s Island.”
All proceeds go to Defense Fund PDX, a support group that prioritizes marginalized people in jail and Portland’s houseless population, It’s Mo doing the Beatles. Take my money, no questions asked. Please do Abbey Road.
Mo Troper: vocals, guitars, bass, keys, drums, programming
Tyler Blue Broderick: vocals on “Yellow Submarine”
recorded and mixed by Mo Troper at home in late 2019/early 2020
all songs written by Lennon-Mccartney, with the exceptions of “Love You To,” “Taxman” and “I Want To Tell You,” written by George Harrison. recorded and released with permission from sony/atv music publishing and sony atv tunes llc.
For their new EP, Philadelphia’s The Obsessives met up with producer Will Yip to get the best out of them in the studio. The result? A 3-song EP called ‘Monastery’ that finds the band settling on a mellowed sound after having gone through numerous stylistic changes over the years that ranged from grunge and alternative to more math-y endeavours.
They kick things off with single ‘Lala,’ a breezy slice of dream pop with a synth solo, big hooks and warm layers of twinkly guitars that make the song feel weightless. Equally easy-going is ‘I’ll Always Love You,’ a song that benefits especially from its simple yet highly effective chorus. Rounding things out is a cover of the Breeders’ 1993 classic ‘Divine Hammer,’ which The Obsessives have not only slowed down, but only stripped down. An unfortunate choice, as the result is a rather lifeless shell of a song that does not hold up to the original, leaving the listener behind on a bit of a sour note.
Says Katy: I’ve always been uneasy with the idea of alternate universes, or realities. Even choose-your-own-adventure books used to stress me out. I wondered if it might be equally interesting and more helpful to consider “alternate universes” something as simple as other people. Around the time I wrote this song, I had been considering what I’d retain from a relationship if or when it ended—what I might be left with in the long run, after it didn’t hurt anymore. I realized that it’d be an alternate version of myself. Hell, how many parts of whatever I call a self aren’t even accessible without a particular interaction? “Portals” is me thinking about the alternate, purely interior worlds that slide open with each person/universe we intersect with, and if what we think of as “closeness” to that person has anything to do with what gets opened.
Katy Kirby released a new single this week “Portals,” accompanied by a nostalgic lyric video created by our new designer Sarah Goldstein.
“Katy Kirby’s Timeless Songs Are Wonderful Leaps of Faith …The best debut album of 2021 so far.” — VICE / Noisey Next
“Clearly putting her own twist on pop” — Bob Boilen, NPR All Songs Considered
Katy’s been included on: VICE’s 10 Albums That Will Get You Excited for 2021, Paste’s 40 Albums We’re Most Excited About in 2021, The Line of Best Fit’s 50 Artists on the Rise in 2021, Stereogum’s 101 Most Anticipated Albums of 2021, Paste’s 30 Best New Artists of 2020 and more…
Milly is a rock band from Los Angeles led by principal songwriter Brendan Dyer and backed by Spencer Light on guitar, Yarden Erez on bass, and Zach Capitti Fenton on drums. In January, 2020, Milly drove to rural Colorado to record their new five song EP, Wish Goes On, with Corey Coffman of Gleemer at his home studio. With its sweet bounce of a melody carved into a wall of dense guitars, “Denial” is the second single released from these sessions. Milly’s new track is sadder and more subdued than their previous Wish Goes On single “Star Thistle Blossom,” which Lizzie Manno described as “the most straightforward rock song they’ve released so far” and a “delectable wash of grunge-tinted shoegaze guitars” upon its October release. “Denial” is more of an off-speed pitch, albeit one with hooks aplenty. “Galaxies wish you well / Come back again, come back alone / Do you wish that you could come back here?” sings frontman Brendan Dyer, longing for something he can’t bring himself to acknowledge that he can’t have. “We’re gonna wish on it,” he insists over a comforting blend of acoustic and electric guitar fuzz, cymbal crashes roiling as the song crescendoes, only to collapse.
‘Denial’ is about the idea of being fixated on something but knowing deep down it’s gone,” Dyer explains in a statement. “I was living in N.Y. at the time I wrote it and was going back and forth between there and Connecticut. I was really trying to capture the feeling of being alone and why it was hard for me to digest how that felt. My hometown spots feeling different after leaving, people moving on with their lives,
L.A. slowcore quartet Milly’s first new material of 2021 is the second single from their forthcoming Wish Goes On EP, due out April 9 on Dangerbird Records. “Denial” arrived Friday alongside a surreal music video, directed and animated by Mark Cheche.
Official video for “Denial,” from MILLY’s new EP ‘Wish Goes On’ coming April 9th, 2021.
The Fat Angel Sings 