Archive for the ‘MUSIC’ Category

JON ANDERSON – ” 1000 Hands “

Posted: December 6, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Originally issued solely via his website, the latest solo album by the long time Yes vocalist got an official release this year. Yes-mates Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Alan White and Rick Wakeman are among those dropping by the studio to add assistance.

When Jon Anderson quit Yes in 1980 some wondered what on earth he was going to do. However in a few short years he’d established himself as a solo artist of note and hit the charts with Vangelis. All before rejoining Yes who went on to be bigger than ever. On the back of his recently re-released second solo album Song Of Seven cover star Anderson reflects on that period of his career and details the upcoming reissue of Olias Of Sunhillow.

Never to stand still musically, he is currently releasing an album he started 29 years ago, now called “1,000 Hands” a reference to the fact that numerous guest musicians perform on the album, including Ian Anderson, Billy Cobham, Jean Luc Ponty, Chick Corea, Zap Momma, Chris Squire, Alan White Steve Howe and many more. This album produced by his friend Michael Franklin really speaks to the power of a musical life still in the throes of a fervent artistic endeavor, always wanting new experiences in music, always wanting to surprise the listener. The album is scheduled for release in 2020.

Finally, in Jon’s words: “Music is our spiritual connection to the soul, that’s why people all over the world connect to Music and to each other through Music”.

From the Album 1000 Hands

ZOLA JESUS – ” Krunk “

Posted: December 6, 2020 in MUSIC
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Zola Jesus signed to Sacred Bones in 2008. In the seven years that followed, we released eight albums together (three LPs, two EPs, two 7”s, a CD-R, and even a DVD). We discovered her via Myspace, which was the common A&R vehicle of the early- to mid-Aughts. Nika is the sole member of Zola Jesus.

I first heard the song “Krunk” (Crane) while listening to a collection of songs sung by Lousine Zakarian, a renowned Armenian soprano. Her recording was so devastatingly beautiful, it spoke to me on many levels. The song evoked so much yearning and sadness, yet at the same time it felt so delicate, like her voice could lift off and fly away. It felt like the purest expression of the ineffable Armenian Soul. I never thought I’d be able to do the song justice, and I still don’t, but the song is so meaningful to me that performing it became a compulsion. Once I heard about the crisis happening in Artsakh, my heart really pained for the Armenian people. They have survived genocides, wars, battles for autonomy and independence, and now this — fighting to reclaim a sacred place that represents so much of their ancient heritage and resilience. I wanted to honour and pay my support to the Armenian Soul, and to acknowledge all the lives tragically lost this year in the war with Azerbaijan. Nika

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Proceeds of this song will go to the Armenian Fund, to help support the needs of civilians on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh.)

Released December 4th, 2020

ELIZABRETH COOK – ” Aftermath “

Posted: December 6, 2020 in MUSIC
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With some of the best songs of her career, her band Gravy at her side, and producer Butch Walker behind the console, Nashville singer-songwriter Elizabeth Cook headed to L.A. to make a banger of an album. While it may be more West Coast shine than Tennessee dirt, the country livin’ in the lyrics is unmistakable. She writes of playing loose with the truth in “Two Chords and a Lie,” drops redneck bon mots like “Don’t go selling crazy/We’re stocked up here” in “These Days,” and puts you right in the room with her and her ailing father in “Daddy I Got Love for You.” Egged on by Walker in brawny tracks like “Bones,” Cook even reveals her inner rock goddess. The results are glorious.

“Two Chords and a Lie “ by Elizabeth Cook Written by : Elizabeth Cook Produced by : Butch Walker

MARY TIMONY – ” Mountains ” (20th Anniversary Expanded Edition)

Posted: December 6, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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To date Matador’s Revisionist History series has set its focus on the hallowed year of 1995 – surfacing critical releases by Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Guided by Voices, and Chavez.

Today, however, we whirl the dial on the in-house wayback machine and travel toward the future: the year 2000 and Mary Timony’s debut solo album, ‘Mountains’, which will be reissued on January 15th. Remastered by Bob Weston, Mountains comes back to us as a gold foil-embossed gatefold 2xLP and will include the previously unreleased original takes of “Return to Pirates,” “Poison Moon,” and “Killed by the Telephone,” which were delivered along with the original master tapes 20 years ago, but were omitted from the final album. The record is completed by a newly recorded orchestral version of “Valley of One Thousand Perfumes” produced by composer Joe Wong (Russian Doll, Midnight Gospel) and mixed by Dave Fridmann.

At the turn of the century, Timony (Ex Hex, Wild Flag, Hammered Hulls) was already a celebrated presence in American underground music – a fixture of D.C. and Boston rock ’n’ roll via her work in Autoclave and Helium respectively. By 1998, though, Helium was drawing to a close and Timony was feeling uncertain about the future. “I had never been good at the rock’ n’ roll business, and making a living from being in a band just didn’t seem like it was in the realm of possibility for me,” she writes. “I just knew I wanted to make another record because that was the part of being in a band that I liked the most.”

At the time of its original release, Timony called ‘Mountains’, “A Trip to the New Underworld.” “A bunch of hard stuff was happening in my life: family illnesses, people dying, people leaving, relationships ending. I fell into a deep depression,” she explains. “I tried new ways of making music: I tried writing songs without any filter at all, and I purposely didn’t think about what the music would sound like to anyone else. I was only interested in describing what was in my head.”
Recorded and mixed in Boston alongside Christina Files and Eric Masunaga and in Chicago with Bob Weston, Mountains found Timony dialing into territory that was barer and more confessional than her work in Helium. Stark arrangements were augmented with newly ornate instrumentation — piano, vibraphone, and viola — and the lyrics were tinted with slyly occult imagery.

“Listening back to Mountains now I am struck most by how raw it sounds,” says Timony. “I hear the depression and angst, but also I hear all of that darkness disappearing through the power of music and friendship—and turning into songs during those happy and productive months recording and hanging out in Christina’s loft in downtown Boston.”

Today, you can also watch Timony in the Brett Vapnek-directed short film, “Dream Machine” (1999).

HALSEY – ” You Should Be Sad “

Posted: December 6, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Halsey has no inhibitions when it comes to getting raw emotionally — and Manicis her most fearless move yet. She chases her darkest anxieties all over the spectrum, from hip-hop to rock to country, in hits like “Without You” and “Graveyard” — the kind of album where you can find Alanis Morissette, Suga from BTS, Jennifer’s Body samples or a voicemail pep talk from John Mayer. Halsey has the too-much too-young celebrity blues: as she sings, “I remember the names of every single kid I’ve met/But I forget half the people I’ve gotten in bed.” Yet she wrestles with her issues in her own unmistakably real voice

“Poetic lyricism and [a] tendency to deliver dark, angsty verses disguised as fun, catchy pop songs.” – Madelyn Tait. The continued renaissance of Halsey thrives in the US songstresses latest release. As usual, the electro-pop hitmaker knocks it out of the park in terms of the songs themselves, but Manic is thematically miles ahead of her previous releases and well beyond her 25 years.

Known offstage as Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, the singer takes her newest LP as a chance to deep-dive into her own internal battles with bipolar disorder and channel those internal struggles into a creative triumph. It’s more personal, emotive, intense and compelling than anything Frangipane has put out before, and a thoughtful peek beyond the curtain to the woman behind the moniker.

Halsey’s new album ‘Manic’ out now!

PURE BATHING CULTURE – ” The Downtown Lights ” (Feat. Ben Gibbard & San Fermin) The Blue Nile Cover

Posted: December 6, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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hi friends! we’re excited to announce that our version of The Blue Nile’s “Hats” is being rereleased and will now be available to stream everywhere for the first time! it will be out in full 12/18 via Better Company. it’s been remixed and remastered and features additional arrangements by the wonderful San Fermin today you can hear The Downtown Lights featuring backing vocals from the great Benjamin Gibbard.

The Portland based indie pop outfit Pure Bathing Culture have covered the Blue Nile’s 1989 album Hats in its entirety. In a statement, Pure Bathing Culture’s Sarah Versprille said, “We became immediately obsessed with their world of nostalgia and longing and the way the songs were simultaneously extremely sad at times but also intensely romantic and modern. It made us feel like the music we wanted to make was validated in some way by the fact that their music had already existed in the universe.” Listen to their take on “Saturday Night,” featuring Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard.

The album is part of Turntable Kitchen’s Sounds Delicious series, which finds artists covering their favourite albums in their entirety. (Previous entries included Ben Gibbard’s take on Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque, Jonathan Rado doing Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, and Mutual Benefit playing Vashti Bunyan’s Just Another Diamond Day). Pure Bathing Culture’s Hats is limited to 1,000 copies and is available exclusively through Turntable Kitchen.

VIAGRA BOYS – ” Creatures “

Posted: December 6, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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This week Swedish post-punk band Viagra Boys released a video for their new song “Creatures,” which will be featured on their upcoming album Welfare Jazz, out January 8th, 2021 via YEAR0001. The quirky, Erik Kockum-directed video picks up where their previous video “Ain’t Nice” left off, where band member Sebastian Murphy is shown continuing to wander around an 18th century estate.

Welfare Jazz features production by Matt Sweeney (Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Run the Jewels), Justin and Jeremiah Raisen (Yves Tumor, Kim Gordon, Sky Ferreira), and past collaborators Pelle Gunnerfeldt and Daniel Fagerström (The Hives, The Knife). Viagra Boys’ most recent release was their Common Sense EP, which came out back in March also on YEAR0001. 

YEAR0001 is a multidisciplinary record label, management and creative studio founded in Stockholm in 2015.
Our vision is to act as an independent incubator active in the landscape of music, culture, fashion and technology. We believe in using transparency and co-creation to achieve a more sustainable landscape for our artists and creators.

From the album ‘Welfare Jazz’, out January 8th on YEAR0001

MIDNIGHT SISTER – ” Foxes “

Posted: December 6, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Midnight Sister, the Los Angeles-based duo of Juliana Giraffe and Ari Balouzian, are releasing a new album, “Painting the Roses”, on January 15, 2021 via Jagjaguwar. This week they shared another song from it, the glam-sounding “Foxes,” via an Oliver Bernsen-directed video for the single. Midnight Sister – the project of intense creatives Juliana Giraffe and Ari Balouzian – is brought to you by the isolating landscape of the San Fernando Valley – its colours, its diners, its lunatics, its neon lights. Both lifelong residents of this storied valley, Giraffe and Balouzian have only become more inspired by the area’s mythology over the years, its two-faced magical wonderland and tragic circus. And Saturn Over Sunset works almost as an album version of Altman’s Shortcuts, each song a character study of the valley’s odd personae. Giraffe, 23, the daughter of an LA disc jockey, was raised almost exclusively on disco and Bowie. Her lyrics and lyrical melodies, informed very much by her film-making background, were composed gazing out from a tiny retail window on Sunset Boulevard. Her Rear Window-like longing allowed her imagination to run wild and cook up the wild narratives that would fill Balouzian’s compositions. Balouzian, 27, is classically trained and already a go-to arranger for odd-pop names like Tobias Jesso Jr. and Alex Izenberg. Midnight Sister represents a first for both of them. It’s Giraffe’s first time writing and performing music. And it’s Balouzian’s first foray into playing true pop music. 

“The album culminated into what felt like an interesting movie of dramatized characters that were around us for 

Giraffe had this to say about the song in a press release: “The song and video explore the relationship between performer and performance. Dissecting what it means to feel trapped by someone’s/something’s gaze and how the inherent invasive nature of the camera corners the performer through a dance of reality.” When Painting the Roses was announced in October the band shared the first new song from it, “Doctor Says,” 

Painting the Roses also includes “Wednesday Baby,” a new song first shared in September via a video for it. Painting the Roses is the duo’s second album, the follow-up to their 2017-released debut album, Saturn Over Sunset, also released by Jagjaguwar. Midnight Sister’s art-pop would appeal to fans of Broadcast, influential ’60s pioneers such as The United States of America and The Free Design, and Charlie Hilton.

Midnight Sister  ‘Panting the Roses’, out January 15th 2021 on Jagjaguwar Recordings.

ARAB STRAP – ” Compersion Part 1 “

Posted: December 6, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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See the source image Last week Scottish duo Arab Strap (Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton) announced their first album in 16 years, “As Days Get Dark”, making the announcement in tandem with the release of a new single, “Compersion Pt. 1,” which will be featured on the album. As Days Get Dark will be out on March 5th, 2021 via Rock Action. Frontman Aidan Moffat talks about the meaning of “Compersion Pt. 1” in a press release, where he says that the song “depicts a quest to find the ever-elusive unicorn; to bond fluidly—and safely with the like-minded and adventurous, in the comforting arms of an anonymous hotel…and the stark realization that you never really wanted it.” Speaking on the album, Moffat states, “It’s about hopelessness and darkness, but in a fun way.” Moffat goes on to clarify that the intent for this latest album is not to “recapture the ’90s,” but to capture something new and unexplored for the group. “This album feels like its own new thing to me,” he says. “It’s definitely Arab Strap, but an older and wiser one, and quite probably a better one. I’ve never been interested in making slick records, but the new stuff sounds much fuller, brighter and better because we actually know what we’re doing. I think for a long time we didn’t know how to express what we wanted in a studio.” Nonetheless, he still reaffirms that “we’re still doing what we always do: Malcolm [Middleton] gives me some guitar parts then I’ll fuck about with them and put some drum machines and words over the top.” Bandmate Malcolm Middleton also had a few things to say regarding the album in a press release: “We’ve had enough distance from our earlier work to reappraise and dissect the good and bad elements of what we did. Not many bands get to do this, so it’s great to split up.” For this album, Moffat and Middleton have reconnected with producer Paul Savage. “Paul brings comfort and trust,” says Middleton, “and a sense of continuity.” Middleton makes a final statement regarding the band’s reunion and the new sonic direction they are exploring on the album: “There’s no point getting back together to release mediocrity.” In September, Arab Strap released the single “The Turning of Our Bones,” which was the first song they had released in 15 years and is the album’s opening track. The band’s last album was 2005’s The Last Romance. Scotland’s Arab Strap—the duo of Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat—dissolved amicably in 2006, not long after the release of their album The Last Romance. Their separation lasted for more than a decade, with the pair reuniting on stage for a handful of festival dates in 2016. But September brought “The Turning of Our Bones,” Arab Strap’s first new song in 15 years, and they announced the album with the track “Compersion Pt. 1” later in the year. Moffat has said As Days Get Dark is “about hopelessness and darkness, but in a fun way.” Our new album ‘As Days Get Dark’ will have an indie record shop exclusive pressing of Two Tone (clear + black) colour vinyl. Out 5th March 2021.

LITTLE BARRIE – ” Quatermass Seven “

Posted: December 6, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Little Barrie are a London Based Trio. Emerging in 2000 “with Can and The Meters in my head” but wanting “more Chuck Berry thrown in”. Little Barrie have released 5 albums.
Following the passing of Virgil Howe in 2017, The band underwent a healing process in the studio.
With Malcolm Catto, sticksman for The Heliocentrics, the new album ‘Quatermass Seven’ emerged from this emotional exile. 

Born in a Dalston basement, Quatermass Seven by Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto could only have been produced in the colourful streets of sprawling London. Driven by the three contributing musicians’ 25-year plus journey through multiple genres and inspirations, what you hear within its seven tracks is the ‘60s British blues explosion colliding with a mid ‘70s Bronx block party; Haight Ashbury acid rock mashed up with Manchester’s summer of love circa ’88; or a prime slice of UK freakbeat broadcast from New York’s jazz underground, emerging kicking and screaming above London city tower blocks.

This meeting of minds between guitarist Barrie Cadogan, bassist Lewis Wharton and drummer Malcolm Catto represents a re-birth of sorts for Little Barrie, with these their first recordings since 2017’s critically received Death Express album, and the sad and untimely passing of friend and drummer Virgil Howe. Following a difficult period of soul searching for both Barrie and Lewis, they made the decision to record again: knowing they weren’t looking for a replacement for Virgil, or to replicate past glories, alleviated some of this inherent pressure. “I’ve never seen the point in making ‘Death Express’ or ‘Surf Hell’ again, and we said quite clearly to Malcolm that we wanted to do something different”, states Lewis. “I just saw it as me, Barrie and Malcolm running through some ideas – as the mixes evolved and shaped up, it made sense that it became the next Little Barrie record.”

With most tracks recorded live with minimal overdubs, produced by Malcolm at his Quatermass studios in Hackney, The Heliocentrics’ main man brings new flavour to the band’s rhythm section by blending his power behind the drums and his expansive mixing desk skills to take Little Barrie’s music into new territories. Joined by old friend and engineer Seb Lewesly on the boards, you can hear seasoned musicians Cadogan and Wharton more than rise to the challenge, producing something familiar yet unchartered – head music for breakbeat disciples and guitar lovers alike. “Let’s just go in and do some playing and see what happens”, mottos Barrie – “and we ended up with more than we ever intended.”

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As upfront as it is subtle, Quatermass Seven pushes past influences towards the contemporary. Telepathy bears ‘After After’, eight minutes of instrumental improvisation, cut live to tape and seeing Barrie’s guitar snake and weave, Catto going deep in the pocket and Wharton deploying a bassline to die for. The multi-layered, defiantly lyrical ‘Steel Drum’ is a gonzo earworm you’ll find hard to shake. Also see the moody bounce of ‘You’re Only You‘, the late night strut of ‘Repeater #2’, or the downbeat, hazy opening verse of ‘Repeater #1’ which suddenly explodes into heavy funk and acid-fried guitar work. Recorded on Catto’s treasure trove of analogue gear, and mastered onto ¼” tape, the overall effect is guitar, bass and drums finding the sweet spot where genres collide.

What Quatermass Seven delivers is a darker, deeper and more expansive set of grooves, layered with frazzled and flawless guitar lines and flowing melodies, as well as pointing toward a future of exciting new musical opportunities. “Still here, so fine, just a little darker state of mind” sings Cadogan on ‘Steel Drum’: words which sum up hope in times of uncertainty, whilst (maybe) unintentionally offering a perfect description of the music contained herein. 

Released October 16th, 2020

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