“Somewhere in far West Texas – ”a place where the dead outnumber the living” – the band Ak’chamelThe Giver Of Illness are fourth world post-colonial cultural cannibalists circumcising the foreskin of enlightenment. Throughout years they have designed a unique sound evoking a sort of haunting, deep psychedelic folk music. This is a fascinating journey through funeral folk, mystic, psychedelic rock, and so on, and so forth.”
First vinyl release of Ak’chamel after a prolific cassette discography, “The Totemist” marks a new direction for the mysterious group. Equipped with studio quality recordings and a (somewhat) lighter tone, opposed to the oppressively lo-fi sound the group is known for. Performing in homemade costumes and masks, they have played festivals in various cities around the U.S gaining international attention from Vice, The Wire, Tiny Mix Tapes, Consequence of Sound, and many more. They have amassed over 10 cassette albums and 1 VHS full length film.
This is a deep psychedelic-folk album with hints of mysticism, some of which was written and recorded in a ghost-town in the Chihuahuan Desert in far West Texas – a place where the dead outnumber the living. Various overdubs and field recordings were captured in the historic Terlingua cemetery : an ancient burial ground filled with small grottoes and graves made of sticks and stones. This being the final resting place for miners who succumbed from illnesses derived from the toxic rare-earth element known as mercury.
Ak’chamel, The Giver of Illness are fourth world post-colonial cultural cannibalists circumcising the foreskin of enlightenment. Performing in homemade costumes and masks, they have played festivals in various cities around the U.S gaining international attention from Vice, The Wire, Tiny Mix Tapes, Consequence of Sound, and many more. Enter the fourth world now !.
Barcelona’s Mourn. They’ve just dropped ‘This Feeling Is Disgusting’ and it’s a perfect indie rock banger – two-chord punk guitars, sweet/rageful vocals, jumpabout beat. “Self Worth”, out now via Captured Tracks, is the Barcelona trio’s fourth album, and it follows 2018’s Sopresa Familia, which was characterized by the seething anger Mourn felt after being manipulated by their previous record label. Self Worth is imbued with a similarly intoxicating vigour and celebration of each other, but it also has a cool confidence, and both melodic ease and intrigue. With an approach to rock and post-punk that’s both straightforward and unusual, Mourn remain one of the most underrated bands going.
Adversity does not incite the best feelings: frustration, anger, fear, anxiety – nothing unusual for today’s world. The members of Mourn know quite a bit about these setbacks, but a latent belief persists within: the negative will eventually become positive. It’s the belief of facing and overcoming a problem. To come out reinforced: the wonder of resilience. It’s the belief of what they are worth, whatever people say. It’s the name they chose for their new album: Self Worth.
And it’s precisely self-worth that took Mourn this far. Their journey was premature, with their self-titled debut album – released in 2014 when all the members were still minors – earning them widespread critical acclaim and devoted fans. They followed with two more: Ha, Ha, He (2016) and Sorpresa Familia (2018), and became intercontinental with tours in North America, Europe, and Japan. An indie dream come true for Jazz Rodríguez and Carla Pérez Vas, both born in 1996 in El Maresme, Catalonia, where the two became inseparable in high school. That bond remains today, and when their voices and guitars combine it is pure fire.
Of course, there were obstacles along the way: a local label with mismanaged finances and careless managers, and more recently, a line-up change with Antonio Postius no longer on the drums. The band isn’t the same as when they formed. The world isn’t either. Mourn grew up, and that’s evident in the songs that make up Self Worth. Their melodies – energetic and captivating – venture into less level grounds, and their lyrics show their newfound readiness to tackle issues of a different weight and size.
Self Worth began to take shape in the spring of last year. Back then, things weren’t going so well. “We were in a very bad moment; the group dynamics were no longer working with Antonio. We didn’t feel like we could write a record with him. It didn’t work. So in the end he left,” Jazz recalls. “I think his departure was something that had to happen. We no longer understood each other. And it got to the point where it wasn’t comfortable, either on tour or in rehearsals. So it was a very positive change. It gave us the peace of mind we needed,” Carla adds. In May, once freed from the “bad vibes”, Jazz and Carla took refuge for almost a week in a small house in the mountains, near the Pyrenees in France, to start projecting their next album. No phones, no internet. Just what they needed to write and record demos. New melodies, lyrics and guitar parts appeared, and with these first songs, they returned to Catalonia, where Leia Rodríguez – bassist and sister of Jazz – and Víctor Pelusa – the new drummer – were waiting. “We finished it with the four of us together, at the end of that summer,” Carla says. Jazz: “We’ve been able to enjoy the process of writing an album throughout the summer. In the past that could only happen under pressure.”
The track is from forthcoming album, “Self Worth”, out October 30th via Captured Tracks.
“The song is really about fear of the future, being anxious about what’s going to happen, not knowing if you’re going to be able to earn a living or not. It’s a really happy song, but one that represents being stressed out. The idea of “I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford an apartment any time soon, but hey, let’s dance and have fun!” That’s the concept behind it, and that’s what I was thinking about while writing the lyrics. I also thought about my parents, and everyone’s parents. They often have high expectations for you, or they want a certain lifestyle for you, and you don’t always agree with that. So you try so hard to do life your own way, but you’re super stressed out and you’re scared, and every now and then you think “Is it worth it?” In the end, I think it’s worth it.”
Official video for “This Feeling Is Disgusting”, from Mourn’s new album “Self Worth”
It only takes a few seconds of their single “In / Out” to realize that En Attendant Ana have something special. “Shred” isn’t a word you’d normally associate with jangle pop, but it can definitely be used to describe the chiming, pummeling riff that’s sprinkled throughout the Parisian band’s single. Margaux Bouchaudon’s vocals evoke Stereolab’s Lætitia Sadier and Alvvays’ Molly Rankin—she was practically genetically engineered to sing perfect, hyper-melodic dream pop. It would be unfair to dub them a dream pop outfit—they tap into avant-pop, post-punk and college rock with similar ease.
With their second album Juillet, they subvert listeners’ perception of them on nearly every track. “From My Bruise to an Island” is a soothing, horn-led ambient piece, “Flesh or Blood” is incisive post-punk at its best and “Words” drops a warped synth interlude alongside wailing brass. They approach familiarly blissful indie-pop (“Do You Understand?”) with as much care as they do their more complex, off-kilter moments. It’s rare to find such thoughtfulness in a record so unabashedly tuneful.
Taken from the Paris, FR quintet’s sophomore album “Juillet”, out January 24th, 2020 via Trouble In Mind Records
Nebraska songwriter David Nance returns to Trouble In Mind Records with his fifth (proper) studio album “Staunch Honey”, his follow-up to his acclaimed 2018 album “Peaced and Slightly Pulverized”. Returning to the home-recorded magic of his early albums, “Staunch Honey” was recorded entirely to tape by Nance himself at his Omaha home with the occasional assistance from his long time live bandmates Jim Schroeder & Kevin Donohue.
Guitar man David Nance continues his prodigious output of underground heartland rock with what might be his most accessible album yet. “Staunch Honey” sounds instantly timeless, but also as fresh and unique as any other rock album that came out this year. “My Love, The Dark and I” is probably the best union of Nance’s country-rock influences and his lo-fi aesthetic, without the confrontational squeal of his “Silver Wings” cover, but with just enough of a rough-hewn, homemade feel to please fans of Honey Radar or, well, Nance’s earlier, rougher records. Normally a White Light / White Heat kinda guy, “July Sunrise” and its loping guitar lines is more The Velvet Underground, but with Nance singing like Tony Joe White instead of Lou Reed. “Learn the Curve” is a slinky, bluesy vamp, while “If the Truth Shows Up” finishes the whole thing up with the stoned-out-of-its-mind psych chug of Endless Boogie. If you ever wanted to hear one of Dickey Betts’ almost saccharinely upbeat Allman Brothers songs turned into a smokey, hazy space journey, you’ll probably want to listen to “Gentle Traitor” which starts off with the colourful, chiming guitars of Betts songs like “Blue Sky” and “Jessica,” before drifting off into the cosmos. Nance has been keeping up the good fight for years now and with Staunch Honey, he might finally win over your rock ‘n’ roll uncle.
Many of the tunes on “Staunch Honey” feel like classics, but that’s because in Nance’s hands – they are. Not content to let the album go by without the rumble of guitar, “If The Truth Ever Shows Up” closes out the album. It’s an instrumental jam with Nance wrangling and riffing on a gut-punching guitar solo for 6-plus minutes that feels very much like the end credits to a long-lost midnight movie.
Some psychedelic albums reach a hypnotic end cheaply. But “Shadow Talk”, the second album from Chicago experimental five-piece Cafe Racer, reaches heady emotional and sonic heights, not by leaning on overused effects or sprinkling meaningless, abstract imagery, but by expecting more out of a song and its lyrics. Shadow Talk is all about finesse and dynamics—melodies cascade with subtlety and spark with a euphoric glow. They’re also masters of grooves both meditative and invigorating, and they experiment with foreground and background sounds in mind-numbing ways. It’s an extremely calming album until it isn’t—the guitar and synth fury on “Faces” is life-affirming, the guitar solo in “Exile” is painfully emotive and its subsequent outro track creates blistering, ambient havoc. It’s a moody, empathetic album, bolstered by repetition and the palpable scenes they create, whether that’s an imagined, heavenly gorge or the melancholy urban landscapes you traverse every day.
Cafe Racer continues Chicago’s long tradition of indie-rock / post-punk / whathaveyou, but with splashes of psych. Fluid but not overly studied. The debut album from Chicago five-piece Cafe Racer arrived in 2018 with Famous Dust, which artfully wobbles as much as it confidently struts. Their ability to make keyboard and guitar sounds bend, zigzag and squeal was already well-developed, so by the time they released their 2020 follow-up Shadow Talk, they were firing on all cylinders. With art rock, psych and krautrock as their backbone, they lock into immersive grooves, but even when a groove is dismantled or they’re building up to another one, Cafe Racer have a way of dazzling with subtle, snaking riffs and luscious vocals.
Written and Performed by Cafe Racer: Michael Santana, Adam Schubert, Rob McWilliams, Andrew Harper, and Elise Poirier. Saxophone on ‘Breathing’ performed by Spencer Ouellette.
We got our first glimpse of the forthcoming collaboration between Scottish singer/songwriter James Yorkston and Sweden’s genre-hopping Second Hand Orchestra last month, when they released the single “Struggle.” Now, with the album The Wide, Wide River just a month away, they’ve released a new single and video. “Ella Mary Leather” is an improbable-sounding name, but she was a real person – an English folk song collector of the early 20th century. Yorkston clearly likes the way the name sounds (“Ella Mary Leather I regret ya”), since the actual Leather is not the subject of the song. Instead we get a story of mixed emotions – most clearly, regret and nostalgia – and a tale driven by insistent piano and acoustic guitar, with just the right mix of emotions in the strings. “Ella Mary Leather” was a Herefordshire based folk song collector in the early 20th Century, but James Yorkston and The Second Hand Orchestra (JY and TSHO)’s song is not about her. Yorkston explains: “No, it’s not about Ella Mary Leather. I am just using her lyrical name as a mask, to protect the innocent…” Over a wealth of percussion, violin, nyckelharpa, Yorkston plays buoyant piano as he sings us a story about a friend from many years ago.
The video was shot in Stockholm; the album comes out on January 22nd. Watch for Yorkston and the band doing a remote live set for our Soundcheck series around that time. The Wide, Wide River is a soothing, warm and sublime listen, whilst also highlighting Yorkston’s skills for song writing, collaboration and as a musical conductor. The album takes in past loves, advancing age and friends, now gone, whilst also containing some of the most sanguine songs Yorkston has ever made.
James Yorkston & The Second Hand Orchestra – “Ella Mary Leather,” taken from forthcoming album ‘The Wide, Wide River,’ out 22nd January 2021 on Domino Record Co.
One of our favourite singles of 1967 is The Box Tops‘ “The Letter.” We’ll try to tell its story in about the length of time that the song lasts: which is a super short 1:58.
The song was written by a 23-year-old named Wayne Carson Thompson whose country music-singing father had spoon fed him a lyric which would ultimately become the first line of the song: “Give me a ticket for an aer-o-plane.” The younger Thompson got the completed song to the Memphis-based “Chips” Moman, who though just 29 was already a veteran producer, songwriter, label exec and studio owner.
Moman gave the song to a staff production assistant, Dan Penn, who corralled a local quintet into the studio to record the tune. The lead singer, Alex Chilton, was only just 16 years old – not a typo, born December 28th, 1950 – when the song was recorded. Penn is quoted as saying: I hadn’t even paid any attention to how good he sang because I was busy trying to put the band together… I had a bunch of greenhorns who’d never cut a record, including me… I borrowed everything from Wayne Thompson’s original demo – drums, bass, guitar.”
The band’s other original members included lead guitarist Gary Talley, bassist Bill Cunningham, John Evans on keyboards and drummer Danny Smythe, who died (at 67) in July 2016. No cause of death was announced. Alex Chilton died March 17, 2010.
Our Classic Video is a rather unconvincing lip synch version of the great song. Whoever set up the shoot could’ve at least placed some microphones…That sound you hear at the 1:34 mark? An aer-o-plane taking off via a special effects recording that Penn edited in, against Moman’s wishes. Penn, steadfast, won the argument.
The single was released in the summer of 1967 and on September it was No1 in the U.S., where it would stay for four weeks, selling over one million copies. It ranked as the #2 song on Billboard‘s 1967 singles chart. (Joe Cocker would famously record a version of it in 1970 that would become his first big pop success. Here’s a live version from later that year at New York’s Bitter End where, if they had a liquor license, young Chilton wouldn’t have been allowed to drink.
The Box Tops would have another huge hit in 1968 with “Cry Like a Baby.” The group disbanded a few years later. Chilton went on to form the influential power pop group Big Star. Chilton died at 59 of a heart attack in 2010. And what of songwriter Wayne Carson Thompson? Five years later, in 1972, he wrote “Always on My Mind.”.
Shopping are all about propulsive bass lines, primitive disco-not-disco drums and guitar lines sharp as broken glass. The band was formed in 2012 by members Rachel Aggs (guitar), Billy Easter (bass) and Andrew Milk (drums), who’ve all done time in a plethora of notable UK DIY bands including Trash Kit and Wet Dog.
Shopping were barely a few dates into a worldwide tour when it all got cancelled. They were supporting their new album ”All Or Nothing,” and things had been going quite well up to that point – press, radio, and fan reactions were great, as the album was a most accessible advancement of their earlier sound.
They had just begun on the west coast of the US and were on their way into the legendary Seattle radio station KEXP for a live session when things started getting dicey. Soon after, they got the news that all their dates had been cancelled across the US, UK, and EU. The money they’d spent on flights and visas would be lost. After hunkering down at a friend’s house, the band flew home a week later.
While fans can’t attend one of their absolutely thrilling live shows for a while, these live recordings serve as a placeholder until touring can happen once again. And yet, even after suffering such financial disaster from the tour cancellations, the band have now chosen to donate their profits from this release to the Bail Project and National Memorial Family Fund.
As Live albums go Forget “The Song Remains The Same” the 1970 bootleg “Live On Blueberry Hill” captures Zeppelin at the peak of their powers better than anything else, Sure, Led ZeppelinIV and Physical Grafitti are generally accepted as Led Zeppelin’s twin peaks, though you could find someone to make a case for each of their albums (even In Through The Out Door). But it’s the 1970 bootleg Led Zeppelin Live On Blueberry Hill that is the true connoisseur’s choice when it comes to Zeppelin albums.
Bootlegs and Zeppelin have been synonymous for over decades. Despite manager Peter Grant’s heavy-handedness when dealing with anyone he caught taping their shows, Zep became the most bootlegged act of all time.
The band’s impact on their initial American tours made them a prime target for the then emerging bootleg recording business. From their inception, it was more than evident that Zeppelin’s studio output was just the starting point. On stage was where the real action occurred, as they constantly improvised and expanded their material. Peter Grant summed it up when he stated: “Led Zeppelin was primarily an in-person band… that’s what it was really about.”
On the night of September 4th, 1970, during their sixth American tour, two separate teams of fans were intent on taping the Led Zeppelin gig at the Inglewood Forum in Los Angeles. Both parties came away with lengthy representations of the band’s then current state of play, recorded on reel-to-reel machines close to the stage.
Regardless of which version you hear, the sheer authenticity of the performance shines through. The dynamic thrust of Bonham’s drums, the sinewy grind of Page’s guitar, Jonesy’s resonant bass lines and melodic keyboards, plus the outstanding clarity of Plant’s vocal shrieks (enhanced by the echo unit used at the time), all merge into a ferocious mix that magically recreates the electricity of the occasion. The sleeve notes describe it as “One hundred and six minutes and fifty three seconds of pure alive rock.
The recording that would become known as the album Led Zeppelin Live On Blueberry Hill was captured by a pair of West Coast bootleggers whose previous credits included Dylan’s Great White Wonder set and the Stones’ Live’r Than You’ll Ever Be. Another bootlegger known as Rubber Dubber also recorded the show and quickly issued it as a double album stamped Led Zeppelin Live Los Angeles Forum 9-4-70. The more commonLive On Blueberry Hill on the Blimp label version with a distinctive surreal cover insert, also came out within weeks of the show.
Moments to relish include the unpredictable Communication Breakdown medley that included Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth and The Beatles’ I Saw Her Standing There, plus the Zep I opener Good Times Bad Times. Not forgetting freshly minted nuggets from the soon to be released Zep III album such as Since I’ve Been Loving You and the rarely played live Out On The Tiles. A lengthy Whole Lotta Love turned into a rock’n’roll juke box as they randomly threw in covers of Buddy Holly’s Think It Over and Leiber, Stoller & Barrett’s Some Other Guy – a formula they repeated with a breathless encore rendition of Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill.
Back in their heyday, bootleg recordings of Led Zeppelin offered a whole new perspective on the band. This remains as essential a part of their discography as any of their official albums. To paraphrase the great Fats himself, Led Zeppelin Live On Blueberry Hill is still an absolute thrill. From the 1980s the bootleg became available on CD as a 2-disc set, often under the titles Blueberry Hill and The Final Statements. An historic show immortalized on the first-ever LP bootleg, Blueberry Hill. After the concert, JP, RP and JB jam at the Troubadour with Fairport Convention. “It was mainly Plant and Page who got up onstage and joined Fairport. They did things like “Hey Joe,” “That’s Alright Mama,” “Mystery Train,” and other stuff. This was after Sandy Denny had left Fairport, so it was the all-male Fairport lineup. Joe Boyd
Setlist:
Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker, Dazed and Confused, Bring It On Home, That’s Way, Bron-Yr-Aur, Since I’ve Been Loving You, Organ solo / Thank You, What Is and What Should Never Be, Moby Dick, Whole Lotta Love (medley incl.: Let That Boy Boogie, Who’s Loving You Tonight?, I’m Movin’ On, Red House, Some Other Guy, Think it Over), Communication Breakdown (medley: incl. Good Times Bad Times, For What It’s Worth, I Saw Her Standing There), Out On The Tiles, Blueberry Hill.
David Ramirez was a great folk singer, but he hasn’t been for some time. To be clear, it’s not because he’s fallen off, but because he’s moved so far from the sounds of his early albums. That sound peaked with 2015’s Fables, a stunning collection of Americana. Ramirez followed that one up by listening to the Cure and releasing the surprising but equally good “We’re Not Going Anywhere” just two years later. Now Ramirez moves further away – consider the folk and country influences gone – with the complex, R&B-driven My Love Is a Hurricane. While the music surprises once again, it also keeps Ramirez’s strengths (his song writing and his vocals) at the fore, focusing the proper narrative on Ramirez’s career, not on his unexpected changes but the remarkable consistency at the centre of his art.
In a live setting, it becomes apparent how big Ramirez’s voice is; he sings more coolly on record much of the time. Here, “I Wanna Live in Your Bedroom” highlights that power. He’d be testing the song on the road since at least 2018. The music leaves plenty of space for Ramirez’s voice as he builds his longing, and the reverb on the vocals helps fill in the space. The cut would be effective with no instrumentation, and Ramirez makes the smart choice of leaving some piano primarily to create the frame for the song.
His vocals shine on every track, but most of the album focuses more on groove than “Bedroom” does. The title track brings a little gospel into the mix. The song uses dynamics to help articulate Ramirez’s passion. It stays under control throughout, but its surges show the tumult of the singer’s “hurricane”. The following track, “Hallelujah, Love Is Real!” turns that storm into a focused celebration, an epiphany of the possibilities of love despite a history that says otherwise.
“My Love Is a Hurricane” was initially conceived as a collection of love songs for David Ramirez’s other half. One abrupt breakup later, and it became a nuanced exploration of love and what comes after. It ranges from passion and dedication to desperation to doubt to resilience, all without simplifying an unnavigable emotional storm.
David Ramirez “My Love Is A Hurricane” (Thirty Tigers, ) David Ramirez is releasing his fifth album ‘ My Love Is A Hurricane ’ via Sweet World/Thirty Tigers, the second not self-produced after first using an outside producer on 2017’s ‘ We’re Not Going Anywhere ’. This time that role goes to Jason Burt (who has worked with Leon Bridges), and the album explores different musical influences moving away from the more traditional Americana of his earlier work.
Ramirez’s latest album began in the throes of a joyous romantic relationship but persisted through its demise. Even so, the album brings encouragement, even the track titled “Hell” brings some fire in its retro-R&B sounds. Ramirez resisted the impulse to turn dark and inward, maintaining an open-hearted approach to his pop record. The album opens with a question to a lover and closes with a call to prevail. Ramirez, in any form, doesn’t go small, and matching this romance with these sounds lets him fully express his unbowed feelings.
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The Fat Angel Sings 