When not working as part Vancouver post-punk collective Crack Cloud, Daniel Roberson makes gorgeous, eerily chill music as “Peace Chord”, with piano, ambient synths and layers of harmony as its primary elements. Peace Chord’s self-titled debut, Peace Chord was made in the shed behind the communal house that I and rest of Crack Cloud live in. I recorded most of it there, as well as in my parent’s living room, during and after the making of Pain Olympics with Crack Cloud. In that ramshackle space I found stillness for the first time after three years of oscillation; between harm-reduction work in overdose prevention sites and low-barrier shelters, and tour with Crack Cloud. In the stillness of that space, I was afforded time to reflect on the thoughts and experiences that had gone unseen: Loss of love. The dying of my grandfather. The dying of friends to overdose. Seeing new countries. Bearing witness to celebration and trauma. While I was writing, I was also building a Buchla 200 synthesizer, learning to weave on a loom, keeping my hands busy. Like treading water, providing buoyancy to process and meditate on these experiences.
Weaving a spiritual lens through which I can interpret what I’ve seen.
‘Memo’ is a song from the debut album ‘Peace Chord’. Recorded, Produced and Performed by Peace Chord (Daniel Roberson)
Ty Segall’s proto-metal-style power trio Fuzz were supposed to be on tour right now supporting their third album, including two February shows in NYC. Those dates, which had already been postponed from the summer, have been postponed again, but to tide you over they’ve taped a short live set at Gold Diggers Studio1 in Los Angeles and have shared it with the world.
The band, which feature Ty Segall on Drums/vox, Charles Moothart on guitar/vox and Chad Ubovich on bass/vox, plow through four songs — “Nothing People,” “Mirror,” “Close Your Eyes,” and “Loose Sutures.” Says label In the Red, “This performance will be available on our youtube page for a limited time only. From the Wolf Moon to the Snow Moon, to be exact (1/28/21 – 2/27/21).”
Surprise!! In The Red Records is proud to present to you a brand new live set from Fuzz, recorded here in Los Angeles at Gold Diggers Studio 1. Why? Simply for your enjoyment. This performance will be available on our youtube page for a limited time only. From the Wolf Moon to the Snow Moon, to be exact (1/28/21 – 2/27/21). Enjoy! Set list: Nothing People Mirror Close Your Eyes Loose Sutures
Fuzz have now rescheduled the dates for April, which also doesn’t seem very likely to happen, but who knows?
It’s been 10 years since the release of “Turning On”, Cloud Nothings’ debut album. Singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi was just 18 years old when he began recording the album, creating each track in his parents’ basement in Cleveland, Ohio. Over one winter, Baldi produced an album of taut, lo-fi guitar-pop songs, playing each instrument himself. His music gained traction in the increasingly popular music blog circuit, allowing Baldi to book his first shows in new places, like New York City. He gathered a band together to play live, and Cloud Nothings were on their way. The band has accomplished a great deal since “Turning On”, signing to Carpark Records, releasing seven albums, and headlining numerous international tours. Yet, their debut isn’t dusted over in the band’s history. “Turning On” still remains the stripped-back core of Cloud Nothings style: raw and grungy, filled with catchy earworms that are surprisingly pop. The album carries all the stored potential of someone ready to venture off into the world, a feeling that bursts with energy even 10 years later.
All the tracks on “Turning On” are eruptive and restless, its lo-fi quality embodying the desperate need to record an idea by any means necessary. Songs like Hey Cool Kidencapsulate Baldi’s talent for churning, hook-filled guitar. The vocals on songs like “Can’t Stay Awake” are distorted, with scattered lyrics that echo the angst of a teenage diary. As a whole, the album delivers dissonance and edge, without sacrificing the authentic romanticism of someone who is on the verge of something big and doesn’t know it yet.
A necessary album to fully understand the world of Cloud Nothings, “Turning On” is a welcome return to the band’s origins before the release of their eighth album, “The Shadow I Remember”.
Uncut’s John Robinson awarded “TurningOn” 4 stars saying the music was “tuneful, witty and sounds fantastic”. Spin ‘s Josh Modell wrote that “Baldi has a melodic knack that approaches Guided By Voices at their prime”.
Led by singer-songwriter Carl Coleman and Danish songwriter/producer Caspar Hesselage, critically acclaimed eclectic band Palace Winter expertly marry disparate styles and blur the distinguishing lines of genres to create their own unique ambient folk-synth sound which at once feels timeless yet fresh.
Having given rise to a huge cult following and found fans amongst the critics and public alike, they have recently released their third album …Keep Dreaming, Buddy which has seen the pair once again blast off on their on trajectory, crafting what many consider to be one of the best records of the year.
Taking their title from an old hotel found in the south of France, Copenhagen-based duo Caspar Hesselage and Carl Coleman formed Palace Winter having met on the road and touring together as separate acts during 2013. Following a couple of jamming sessions, both felt inspired by the others daring need to try something new.
Fusing together disparate sounds, underlining aspects of folk, indie pop and even country with electronic beats, their band drew immediate attention with the release of first EP Medication the almost two years later and began receiving prominent airplay on BBC 6 Music whilst creating a huge online stir with the music press.
Excitement was already high when debut album Waiting For The World To Turn dropped in 2016, which more than met the incredible anticipation they had self-generated. The huge demand led to an intense period, packed full of shows which took a real strain on the band which they had recruited. And so, the decision was made to return to working as a duo when they returned to the studio, leading to the creation of their superb second album Nowadays.
Last year saw Palace Winter drop new album …Keep Dreaming, Buddy, their first full length record for two years. Released at the end of October via Tambourhinoceros; their third LP saw Hesselage and Coleman at their most ambitious as they began to embrace wider influences, with elements of hip hop, 80’s synthpop and 90’s indie rock all heard in the mix.
Hesselage explains that their latest LP is “a cry for freedom” at a time when they felt a sense of crisis in the band. Whilst they have made a defining artistic statement by striving to explore further sonic avenues and creating what many consider their best work yet – thematically there remains a sense of ambiguity which is also reflected in the title; “A passer-by might cry it out on a busy city street, or your partner might whisper it patronisingly under their breath.”
Palace Winter have announced unmissable headline dates for their promotional tour in support of their awesome new album …Keep Dreaming, Buddy. See them play shows throughout November, with tickets already selling fast
Music produced and written by Caspar Hesselager and Carl Coleman Performed by Carl Coleman (vocals, guitars), Caspar Hesselager (synth, rhodes, percussion, programming), Soffie Viemose (vocals) and Jens Bach Laursen (drums)
Laura Marling’s gorgeous performance at the beginning of the global lockdown, “Live From Union Chapel”, became a defining moment of this year’s new normal. Pressed to vinyl exclusively for recordstore.co.uk to celebrate her seventh studio album Song For Our Daughter being named Album of the Year.
Laura Marling’s exquisite seventh album ‘Song For Our Daughter’ arrives almost without preamble or warning in the midst of uncharted global chaos, and yet instantly and tenderly offers a sense of purpose, clarity and calm. As a balm for the soul, this full-blooded new collection could be posited as Laura’s richest to date, but in truth it’s another incredibly fine record by a British artist who rarely strays from delivering incredibly fine records.
Taking much of the production reins herself, alongside long-time collaborators Ethan Johns and Dom Monks, Laura has layered up lush string arrangements and a broad sense of scale to these songs without losing any of the intimacy or reverence we’ve come to anticipate and almost take for granted from her throughout the past decade.
Music, as the sociologist Simon Frith long ago pointed out, is “an experience of placing: in responding to a song we are drawn, haphazardly, into affective emotional alliances with the performer and with the performer’s other fans”. Music makes you feel things, it’s about shared emotional experiences. And while, since the invention of the Walkman, those experiences are possible in the isolation of one’s own headphones, nothing can begin to touch the communal concert experience.
Performing alone onstage in a concert space, the audience unseen and unheard, can’t be easy, which is perhaps why Laura Marling’s live stream from the Union Chapel in Islington, North London, was bloodless and, frankly, rather boring. A dozen songs were left to speak entirely for themselves over the course of 80 minutes, the only other form of communication non-verbal glances and facial expressions exchanged with her guitar tech. No word of greeting. Not even much of a smile.
The Chapel looked beautiful, light pouring in – not “like butterscotch”, for it was the wrong time of day – through the stained glass windows. Candles and a rug adorned the stage, Marling alone on it with just her Martin and Guild guitars for company, clad in boots and jeans and a pale polo-neck. The occasion was a ticket-only benefit for The Trussell Trustand Refuge, two vital charities, so good on Marling for stepping up and stepping out. But perhaps the show might have worked better if she’d taken a leaf from Mary Chapin Carpenter’s book and engaged with the audience via less sophisticated technology – anyone who’s dipped into Carpenter’s series of Songs from Home, 23 so far, Angus the golden retriever an elegant companion, will know what I mean. It’s chatty and intimate; she smiles, takes us into her confidence, a guest in her home. The intimacy draws you in.
Marling looked up and out into an audience that wasn’t physically there, yet with no attempt to communicate directly with those at home, as “live” TV tries to do. She drew mostly on songs from Once I Was An Eagle (2013), including the “suite” which comprises the first four songs, and Song for Our Daughter, released in April and with which she would in normal circumstances be touring. There was also a dip back into her 2008 debut, Alas, I Cannot Swim, for “Tap at My Window” and her second album, I Speak Because I Can, with “Rambling Man”. She closed with “Once” from Eagle.
All credit to Marling for doing the gig – and particularly for bringing forward her latest album by four months because of the crisis: most artists have been postponing releases. She’s a skilled guitar player, mixing elements of Travis-style picking with some nifty riffs and runs, often in open tunings – which she’s been discussing in an engaging series of lockdown tutorials. She has compared playing live to having toothache, which can’t be fun, and you feel she’s better with a band. Marling’s young still, just 30, with seven much-garlanded albums under her belt, her writing revered by many as being up there with Joni Mitchell. Perhaps you need to be her age and younger to fully appreciate it but it always seems to me simply derivative, uneven, and unfinished. Take this, from “Alexandra”, which opens her latest album:
You had to say
You feel too bad
You could not bear
Be understood
I had to try
A fuck to give
Why should I die
So you can live
What did Alexandra know?
What, indeed. And I have to say I don’t much care.
She opens with ‘The Suite‘ otherwise known as the four song medley that begins her fourth album Once I Was An Eagle, consisting of ‘Take The Night Off’, ‘I Was An Eagle’, ‘You Know’ and ‘Breathe’.
Naturally she leans heavily on her new record, so it’s fortunate that it is destined to be regarded as possibly the 2020 Lockdown classic album. Few artists have owned the situation we have all found ourselves quite like Laura Marling has. She was quick off the mark by beginning guitar tutorials twice a week, bringing a regular, intimate experience that very few have been able to match. She surprises the world with the LP months early and now breaks the mould by staging the first proper gig of this era, in a real venue and making an event out of an empty room.
‘Fortune’ is exquisite and heart-breaking, almost as much as ‘End of the Affair‘ but ‘Goodbye, England‘ is given an added weight and poignancy by the state of the country. The disease arrived and the sun came out and now the white cover of winter seems like another time, a Narnia like world that didn’t require distance or face covers or quarantine in your home for months on end.
The solitary offering from her debut record, Alas, I Cannot Swim, is the stunning ‘Tap at my Window‘ that holds a personal significance and is seldom given a live outing so is particularly welcome.
Reportedly two thousand people tuned in and it is hard to imagine anyone leaving having not felt uplifted, emotionally improved and even feeling they’d been in the room with her all along.
The beautiful third album from the New Orleans-based singer-songwriter Esther Rose. It’s all about transience and change, but her voice is a brilliant centre point and protagonist to keep it all flowing along. Another really delicious young voice as part of the Full Time Hobby family.
Esther Rose was in perpetual motion when she wrote her third album, “How Many Times”. In the span of two years, she moved three times, navigated the end of a relationship, and began touring more than ever. The New Orleans-based singer-songwriter used that momentum while she penned her third studio album. That’s why, as the album title’s nod to the cyclical nature of life implies, there’s a rush that accompanies How Many Times as if you’re experiencing an awakening, too.
Esther Rose announced her new album How Many Times, due out on March 26th via Father/Daughter Records and Full Time Hobby. It’s her third full-length, and it follows her 2019 album You Made It This Far. The announcement also came with a Sarrah Danziger-directed music video for the title track. The new single mixes Rose’s tried-and-true country roots with a doo-wop-esque sway and some sha-la-la’s for good measure. Add fiddle, lap steel and acoustic guitar to Rose’s winsome, compassionate vocals and timeless tale of heartbreak that needs to be numbed, and what’s not to love? “It’s not really just about feeling better, it’s about feeling it, whatever it is,” Rose says of her forthcoming album.
Rose expands her alt-country sound into a blossoming world of folk pop and tender harmonies. A collection of complete takes recorded live to tape with rich instrumentation, soul-tugging hooks, and resonating vocal melodies, How Many Times carries you into the room in which it was made. There to help realize this was co-producer Ross Farbe of synthpop band Video Age, who Rose also credits for bringing a stereo pop glow to these new songs.
Rose’s journey through the past few years has been one of saying yes to new opportunities, all while nurturing and playing in bands in the New Orleans country music scene. The arrival of How Many Times is evidence of the sweeping growth Rose has undergone, both personally and artistically. She’s turning towards her troubles and facing them head-on, ready to feel whatever’s necessary in order to keep growing upwards and outwards.
The Band:
Matt Bell: Lap steel Lyle Werner: Fiddle Esther Rose: Vocals + Acoustic Guitar Cameron Snyder: Drums + Harmonies Max Bien Kahn: Electric Guitar + Harmonies Dan Cutler: Upright Bass + Harmonies Ric Robertson: Acoustic Guitar on Track 7 Howe Pearson: Drums + Harmonies on Tracks 3, 5 Gina Leslie: Electric Bass + Harmonies on Tracks 3, 5
All songs written by Esther Rose
‘How Many Times’ out March 26th, 2021 on Father/Daughter & Full Time Hobby.
Rockford, Illinois band Cheap Trick announced the release of their 20th album, “In Another World”. The album will be available on April 9th. The veteran band also released the first single from the record, “Light Up the Fire.” The album follow-up to 2017’s Christmas Christmas will be available in standard CD and digital formats along with blue and spattered vinyl at independent record stores and as a limited-edition picture disc, “Produced by long time associate Julian Raymond, “In Another World” sees Cheap Trick doing what they do better than anyone – crafting indelible rock ‘n’ roll with oversized hooks, mischievous lyrics and seemingly inexorable energy,” BMG Records said in a statement.
The statement notes that the coronavirus lockdown had forced Cheap Trick off the “endless highway” for the longest period of their career and that they intended to return “as soon as they can.”
“This band is held together by music,” singer Robin Zander said. “It’s the super glue that keeps us writing and putting records out. The reason we started the band in the first place was to tour and write songs and put records out. If all that went away, there would be no point then, would there?”
The press release notes that the album “further showcases Cheap Trick at their most eclectic, touching on … distinct sounds and song approaches, from the swampy Chicago blues number “Final Days” (featuring fiery harmonica from Grammy Award-nominated singer and Wet Willie frontman Jimmy Hall) to a timely rendition of John Lennon’s still-relevant “Gimme Some Truth,” originally released for Record Store Day Black Friday 2019 and featuring the instantly recognizable guitar sound of erstwhile Sex Pistol Steve Jones. As irresistible and immediate as anything in their already awesome catalogue, “In Another World” is Cheap Trick at their irrepressible best, infinitely entertaining and utterly unstoppable.
The band also announced some new tour dates, starting with U.K. appearances in April and followed by North American dates from April to October, some of which are rescheduled from last year.
The statement notes that the coronavirus lockdown had forced Cheap Trick off the “endless highway” for the longest period of their career and that they intended to return “as soon as they can.”
“This band is held together by music,” singer Robin Zander said. “It’s the super glue that keeps us writing and putting records out. The reason we started the band in the first place was to tour and write songs and put records out. If all that went away, there would be no point then, would there?”
Australian rock outfit King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are starting the new year with the arrival of another new single, “O.N.E.”. Released on Thursday, the latest recording from the workhorse rock band follows the track “If Not Now, Then When?” shared back in December.
Opening with some gentle, slightly-mystic notation to start the 3:40 minute song, the music quickly livens up with a Middle Eastern swing and just enough added distortion to match their trademark fuzz-rock sound. The band continues to explore notation and melody arrangements often heard in older parts of the world within their own song writing, and do so without forfeiting the energizing, adrenaline rock production for which they’re known and loved.
The song’s animated music video was directed by Alex McClaren, who added of his efforts in a statement,
The song itself feels as if it’s constantly moving along so I tried to keep the visuals continually moving forward and sliding into different visual styles and landscapes. I felt the mix of stop motion and collage through the use of found imagery and the band would help compliment the track’s lyrics and themes as I interpreted them, of dreams, nightmares, climate change, dystopias, and utopias, as well as referencing events that took place during the making of the video over 2020. All video of the band was shot by Ambrose during the second lockdown restrictions and I had to give notes on shooting and direct remotely which was strange but so was everything during that period.
“O.N.E.” and “If Not Now, Then When?” are both expected to appear on the band’s next studio album, L.W., which would follow the surprise arrival of K.G. back in late November. The Middle Eastern music-inspired album was one of the selected works included in Live For Live Music‘s “Best Psychedelia Albums Of 2020” staff picks. This forthcoming album is reportedly one of three records the band plans to release in 2021.
It’s been fascinating to follow Jack Cooper’s musical arc over the course of the past decade. As one half of the duo Ultimate Painting, the UK musician distilled elements of the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead to create some of the best guitar-pop albums of the 2010’s. Following Ultimate Painting’s sudden demise, Cooper redirected his efforts into an understated solo LP, collaborations with Parquet Courts’ Andrew Savage, and most recently, Modern Nature.
Maintaining his prolific output, mini-album Annual marks Modern Nature’s fourth release since their debut EP in March 2019. Here, Cooper teams up with Jeff Tobias of Sunwatchers and percussionist Jim Wallis, creating a patiently pastoral sound that blooms in slow-burning splendour.
Alternating between mood-setting instrumentals and more traditional songs, Annual follows the cycles of the seasons from springtime rebirth to scorching summer heat back to the stillness of winter. Jeff Tobias’s slinking sax lines flicker with the spiritual jazz beauty of Pharoah Sanders or Wayne Shorter, while the album’s whisper-soft touch resonates with an indefinable sacredness that recalls Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock—perhaps the highest compliment that can be paid to any artist for certain music fans.
Growth with no reward. Finding strength in your less desirable traits. Coming up with the perfect comeback hours later in bed, glaring at the ceiling. Asking yourself: am I improving, or am I just changing into something unrecognizable? Chicago quartet Ganser probe the futility of striving for self-growth during the chaos of our times for dark comedy and jagged sounds on their potent new album “Just Look at That Sky”, released July 31st on Felte Records. Co-produced with Electrelane’s Mia Clarke and engineer Brian Fox, this is an assured, fully realized triumph of a record from an art-punk band that’s figured out how to focus on making great art, even if everything else around them falls apart.
The album drew critical praise from the likes of The Quietus, Sound Opinions, Bandcamp, Brooklyn Vegan, CLASH Magazine, and more. The quartet is back now with a series of remixes, the first being album closer “Bags For Life,” remixed by Andy Bell of shoegaze legends Ride, under his dance moniker GLOK.
Their remix EP, Look at the Sun, will contain remixes from artists the band admires, has played with, or met online during quarantine and drops in full in the spring of 2021. Who will be next?
The Fat Angel Sings 