Dre Babinski is happy to be taking photos at the Edendale Branch Library. She’s not a stranger to the Echo Park spot; it’s near her home and a prime people-watching location. But she’s also happy that the location isn’t definitively Angeleno. We’re not shooting with the LA skyline in the background or at Urban Lights or one of the many other spots that place images firmly in a time and space. “I think of Steady Holiday as bigger than just a Los Angeles project,” she says, owning her ambition.
This isn’t the logical conclusion of years slaving away as an unappreciated songwriter. Babinski spent years not as a bandleader, but as a side-player in bands like Hunter Hunted, Dusty Rhodes &the River Band, and Miracle Days. Often projects would require her to play violin, the instrument she trained on in her school years, but Steady Holiday is a result of her picking up a guitar and writing on an instrument she was less experienced with, resulting in material that merges calm indie pop with gentle psychedelic intonations. Her songs sound like transmissions from an old soul, toeing the line between antique and contemporary.
“One of the things I’m trying to let go of as an artist is the ideas that prowess is important,” she says. “It is to a certain degree. I want to be able to play my songs. Beyond that, creation is so much more important than technicality or cleverness or all the heady, educational things that really haunt me.”
Babinski offered up her debut as Steady Holiday in June, being invited by Paul Tollett to play Coachella this year before the album had even dropped. And though she’s still very much supporting Under the Influence, including an upcoming tour opening for Islands and a local LA headline date at the Bootleg Theater on November 15th, she’s also looking forward to what’s next, ready to test the limits of where her creative endeavors can take her.
The live album “Return to Greendale” will be released in several formats: Double vinyl, a 2 CD set, and a limited-edition deluxe box set that includes a Blu-ray of the full concert, a DVD of “Inside Greendale” (the making of the album documentary), 2 LPs and 2 CDs. The film of the ambitious live show captures the vibrancy of Neil Young and Crazy Horse on stage in a unique multi-media experience. It seamlessly blends together the live performance, the actors portraying each song, with the story occasionally enhanced by scenes from the “Greendale” – The Movie. Both the live concert film and the Inside Greendale documentary are directed by Bernard Shakey and produced by L. A. Johnson.
Return To Greendale Track Listing for audio and Blu-ray:
1. Falling from Above 2. Double E 3. Devil’s Sidewalk 4. Leave the Driving 5. Carmichael 6. Bandit 7. Grandpa’s Interview 8. Bringin’ Down Dinner 9. Sun Green 10. Be The Rain
On the 2003 tour, Neil Young and Crazy Horse were joined on stage by a large cast of singers and actors to perform the story Neil Young wrote about the small town of “Greendale” and how a dramatic event affects the people living there. The ten songs from the powerful original album are performed in sequence, with the cast speaking the sung words – adding to the intensity of the performance. The film of the ambitious live show captures the vibrancy of Neil Young and Crazy Horse on stage in a unique multi-media experience.
Singer/songwriter Julie Byrne and multi-instrumentalist Jefre Cantu-Ledesma shared a collaborative track “Love’s Refrain” for Mexican Summer’s Looking Glass series. “Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s original version of love’s refrain is a song that always felt limitless to me,” Byrne says. “When I first started writing the lyrics for the collaborative version, I would walk and listen to the song at dusk, sometimes I would walk for hours, playing it over and over again on headphones like I did with music I loved when I was a teenager.
Released October 15th, 2020
Written by Julie Byrne and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
Vocals performed by Julie Byrne, Instrumentation performed by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma Additional instrumentation performed by Trayer Tryon.
No Bad Words For The Coast Today: The Execution Of All Things Covers Comp is a compilation featuring 14 artists, celebrating the band Rilo Kiley and their seminal 2002 album release. From now until November 6th, 100% of proceeds from Bandcamp (pre-order/digital downloads) will be donated to G.L.I.T.S., a New York City-based non-profit organization dedicated to supporting transgender people, offering asylum and urgent care for community members. After that date, 50% of the proceeds will go to the artists and the other 50% will go to G.L.I.T.S.
Mannequin Pussy shared a new cover of Rilo Kiley’s “The Execution Of All Things,” with the band giving a darker rock spin on the classic title track. It’s the latest glimpse from the forthcoming Rilo Kiley covers compilation, No Bad Words For The Coast Today: The Execution Of All Things Covers Comp. Previously, Sad13 had shared a cover of “Paint’s Peeling” for the compilation’s first single. Other artists who appear on the compilation include Diet Cig, Adult Mom, Lisa Prank and many more.
Mannequin Pussy’s Marisa Dabice said of their cover: Rilo Kiley is the band where I can confidently say that they are simultaneously one of my favourites but they also give me musical amnesia. By that, I mean I can obsessively listen to their discography for months because then I remember how much I love them, it’s like discovering them again for the first time, that sense of wonder for the songs never goes away – no matter how many times I’ve gone through their albums. I’m awestruck by Jenny’s gift for prose and poetry and her expressive voice, Blake’s tremendous capacity to create “noodly” riffs that never sound cheesy but that always perfectly complement and elevate every song. Listening to this band you can sense the collaboration. Collaboration between talented people can create magic and that’s what they are to me – musical magic.
“No Bad Words For The Coast Today: The Execution Of All Things Covers Comp”
There’s nothing like a near-fatal car accident for resetting a person’s perspective. Two years ago, not long after the release of Mipso’s fourth album, Edges Run, three members of the indie-Americana quartet—vocalist and guitarist Joseph Terrell, vocalist and fiddle player Libby Rodenbough, and touring drummer Yan Westerlund—got in a car accident that left Terrell bloodied on the asphalt. Their new record Mipso puts Terrell front and centre for the most part but accords more space to Rodenbough, mandolinist Jacob Sharp, and bassist Wood Robinson, the chief players in the North Carolina four-piece.
Even when they’re on lead, they share the spotlight with their peers, which means that harmony takes on the fullest meaning of the word over the course of the album. Terrell, Rodenbough, Sharp and Robinson sing in accordance with each other, sure, but they’re also singing about their collective shock and grief at having come so close to suffering losses, whether from breaking up or losing their lives.
Jacob: “Hourglass” is about shedding the imposed expectations of life we all carry and what it means to arrive at a destination you had convinced yourself you needed to go and find the same emptiness you were surrounded by on the journey to get there. More about getting off a treadmill than finishing a race. On this album I hoped we would collaborate and write together in a different way than we had previously. This song represents that process and accomplishment so well. I had a verse and a howl and knew I needed help stitching it all together. Libby had a chorus, Joseph quickly found a second verse, and Wood and Yan settled into a groove that brought it to a sonic territory we hadn’t been together before. And it all gave more meaning to the nuggets of the song than I knew it to have on my own. Joseph: I love when two totally separate ideas fit together unexpectedly. Not like puzzle pieces, which were made for each other, but in the way two ingredients create a new flavour.
Sometimes one person’s song is just one taste, and it needs someone else’s idea to gain some context, to allow some tension between the two of them, to pose a question. Libby: This song began as an experiment, combining an orphan verse Jacob had written and an orphan chorus I had kicking around. The verse was about the frantic feeling of always trying to beat the clock; the chorus was about realizing the things you were once striving for don’t exist anymore, or maybe they never did. It occurred to us that these two somewhat converse kinds of unease often go together: our anxiety about running out of time morphs into an anxiety about “the times.” Both our sections of song lent themselves to an uptempo pop groove, which felt appropriate for the kind of electric paranoia in the lyrics, though it was somewhat unfamiliar territory for the band. Wood and Yan fell into that groove very naturally, and the rest of the band fell in behind them.
This week, Kevin Morby has shared the title track from his forthcoming album “Sundowner”, due out on October. 16th via Dead Oceans Records. “When I first moved back home to Kansas after having lived on both coasts for over a decade, I found myself – for the first time – dreading the sun going down,” Morby said. “This was a foreign feeling for me. In both Los Angeles and New York, I resisted the day light and thrived in the night – something I have sung about many times, most notably on my album “City Music”. But suddenly there I was, isolated in the Midwest in late autumn – the days growing increasingly shorter – chasing the sun as best I could.”
After five solo albums, Kansas City singer/songwriter Kevin Morby hasn’t missed a beat, and his sixth entry Sundowner continues that hot streak. Sundowner is perhaps less ambitious than his 2019 double album and spiritual escapade Oh My God, but any time Morby invites you on a lowly, dusty folk rock journey, you better get moving because it’s always worth it. If you’ve had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Morby’s vocal, melodic and guitar quirks, you’ll find many of those here, along with his breath-taking intimacy and thoughtful pastoral tales.
No question about it, this is Kevin Morby’s best album to date. Formless, playful slacker rock as absurd as the year. Songs, like sunsets, are fleeting, and it’s only due to a willingness and desire to catch them that you ever, if even only for a moment, grab a hold of one. When writing “Sundowner”, Kevin Morby was lucky to have had the Tascam 424 there to help capture both. Sundowner is his attempt to put the Middle American twilight – it’s beauty profound, though not always immediate – into sound. It is a depiction of isolation. Of the past. Of an uncertain future. Of provisions. Of an omen. Of a dead deer. Of an icon. Of a Los Angeles themed hotel in rural Kansas. Of billowing campfires, a mermaid and a highway lined in rabbit fur. It is a depiction of the nervous feeling that comes with the sky’s proud announcement that another day will be soon coming to a close as the pink light recedes and the street lamps and house lights suddenly click on.
As the songs kept coming I cleared out the crowded shed that was sitting dormant in my backyard and built a makeshift studio before adding drums, lead guitar and piano to complete the demos. Each day I would teach myself basic recording techniques, watching the channels illuminate and pulse as if the machine were breathing, and then emerge in the evenings as the sun was getting low: – around 5:30 in the winter, when the Kansan sunsets look icy and distant, like a pink ember inside of a display case, and 9 o’clock in the summer, when the sunsets are warm and abstract.
“Sundowner” the new song by Kevin Morby off ‘Sundowner’, out October 16th on Dead OceansRecords.
Sibling duo the Oh Hellos have been musical collaborators for years, but Maggie and Tyler Heath have never undertaken anything quite like their latest project — four EPs framed around a question. The Austin-based artists were more interested in following whatever threads of inquiry their curiosity might reveal. By the time they were done, they’d undertaken a deep-dive examination of faith, one they expected would pan out as a “deconstruction slash reconstruction,” according to Maggie. Instead, they experienced an implosion or sorts.
Their first release, in late 2017, was Notos, named for the god of summer’s south winds — and dangerous storms. Euros, named for the god of east winds and autumn, followed in early 2018. Neither, obviously, was released to coincide with its actual season — a pattern that continued with Boreas, named for the north winds that bring winter’s freeze, and Zephyrus, who brings spring’s gentle west winds. Boreas ; Zephyrus’ release day is today (October. 16th).
They’d actually intended to release Boreas last winter. “Go figure you wouldn’t be able to exactly map out what you’re going to believe after several years of questioning your faith and your upbringing and your head, you know?” Maggie notes. “So just to make sure we were leaving plenty of room for us to be honest with ourselves, and honest with the project, took longer than we expected.”
And then the pandemic arrived. Eventually, they decided to stop waiting and unleash the winds of winter and spring. Each segment is filled with multi-layered orchestral arrangements, richly textured harmonies and lyrical complexity. Their distinctive style brings to mind progressive folk-rock predecessors Renaissance, Fairport Convention, the Strawbs, It’s a Beautiful Day and Steeleye Span.
Tyler admits he knows none of those bands. The Heaths list Fleet Foxes, Sufjan Stevens as influences. “We are very bad at nailing down exactly where we sit on the genre spectrum,” Tyler confesses, adding, “We have appreciated when people describe us as folk punk.”
These carefully constructed works, in which each note seems lovingly placed, then given enough space to define its own contours. The juxtapositions are so seamless, it takes a minute to realize the lovely 46-second interlude of “Holding on Where I am Able” is a separate work and not just an introduction to “Theseus.”The Heaths are pretty sure their Celtic lean comes from Irish lineage on their mother’s side. Being the daughter of a band director, she set them on their musical path early. Their father, who’d played music in school, also encouraged them.
Born four years apart (Tyler came first), they grew up in Angleton, Texas, near Houston. Maggie sang in church and school choirs. Tyler didn’t, but became fascinated with harmony because his mother would always harmonize on church hymns instead of singing the melody. It stuck with him. He started writing songs as a young teen. “At some point, I realized I was enjoying singing and song-writing enough that I sought out some voice lessons, just to make sure that I wasn’t gonna build any bad habits that would damage my voice,” he says.
Maggie received some classical vocal training while attending Texas State University in San Marcos. Tyler studied music composition at the University of Texas at Austin, then moved to San Marcos, where he and Maggie started collaborating about nine years ago. Now living in North Austin, they intentionally moved within walking distance of one another. They do most of their recording at Tyler’s home studio.
Though they share credit as producers on their albums, Maggie tends to do the writing and Tyler the arranging. When they perform live they bring a big bunch of players — including some who came up in punk and hardcore scenes.
They’re not out to re-create every sound on their albums, however. “We reinvent it live,” Tyler says. “There’s a lot of adaptation and translation. And then there’s a lot of additional arranging, where we look for the parts that we feel are the most important to get across live. “We have to condense down the music so that it still feels the same, or brings you the same emotions, without being able to literally have 10 guitar parts all happening at once to create these big, expansive textures,” he adds. “Pretty early on, we realized we’re not gonna hit this note for note, but that’s probably OK. How can we just lean into that? As much energy and intensity as we squeeze into the records, I feel like the live show is just cranking up that dial even further. Just trying to have as much fun as possible. And also get the aggression out a little bit.
The series concludes. Zephyrus, the final cardinal wind of this project, brought the gentle warmth of spring that summoned up a new year of growth rooted in the fertile ashes of all the structures that keep us isolated and unfeeling — the kind of growth we can see in ourselves, if we can muster the courage to be vulnerable. The arrangements mirror and embrace this shift, rising up like tender leaves breaking through concrete and cascading down like mountain rivers surging with the first thaw of the season. It’s been a long year; thanks for listening.
released October 16th, 2020
Produced by Maggie Heath, Tyler Heath
Written by Maggie Heath, Tyler Heath
As the follow up to Jeremy Ivey’s 2019’s debut, the much acclaimed “The Dream and the Dreamer”, his new album Waiting Out the Storm takes a topical turn with songs that allude to the malaise that’s seeping the nation in the wake of our current political maelstrom, a concurrence of natural disasters, the Covid pandemic, and the growing resolve of the Black Lives Matter movement and the racism found in its stead.
It’s not a preachy record by any means, but it does stir some sentiments and speak to those issues and concerns that have forced Americans to wake up and take notice, no matter which side of the divide they happen to be on. “Yeah, it was actually written before my first album was released, but these kind of things have been making headlines for a while,” Ivey suggests when asked about the origins of his stirring new songs. “Racism, violence and greed have been the backbone of civilization for some time.” Ivey adds that he’s injected his own insights into this material, suggesting that he’s been more than a mere outside observer. “Yes, I’ve lived inside each one of these stories,” he affirms somewhat obliquely. “I’ve seen Walt Disney, Al Capone and Oprah hanging out with Warhol.
I’ve seen the queen of doom wringing her hands and holy meat walking down the street. I’ve seen the shattered windows of clinics and prostitutes in steel-toed boots too. It’s all truth.” Given that Ivey seems resigned to a more pessimistic perspective, suffice it to say he views things from a decidedly bleak point of view. “Our country has lost every bit of morals and dignity, but maybe our country never had that in the first place,” he insists. “We need to wake up and start treating each other the way that we want to be treated, because if that doesn’t happen, you think this pandemic is bad? There will be a great judgment on this world and everyone in it if we don’t take this kind of thing seriously. When one person kills another person, and it’s known publicly, and no one is tried or punished for it, the end is near. Things could get much worse.”
I can’t say enough great things about this album and this man. These songs are a very realistic view of our world. The pictures Jeremy paints are both sad and hopeful. He truly is a word smith for our times… I can’t wait for all the great things yet to come his way. Recorded with his group The Extraterrestrials, and produced by his wife Margo Price and with contributions from members of her backing band, the album is, he says, was the result of the pair’s ability to work well together and remain, as he describes it, “relaxed and focused.
The Band:Jeremy Ivey – guitar, vocals, harmonica, piano, synth The Extraterrestrials are: Evan Donohue – guitar, vocals Coley Hinson – bass, vocals Alex Munoz – guitar, lap steel Josh Minyard – drums, percussion Special guests: Margo Price – vocals, percussion Dillion Napier – drums, percussion Micah Hulscher – organ, piano, synth, electric piano Dexter Green – vocals and additional arrangement on Movies.
Released October 16th Production – Margo Price Co-production – Jeremy Ivey and The Extraterrestrials
Deep Sea Diver is Jessica Dobson, Peter Mansen, Garrett Gue & Elliot Jackson. Emotions abound; inarticulable. We understand fully that we are releasing an album at a time when a lot of people are experiencing economic hardship. So many people have lost their jobs, can’t pay rent, and are not in a place to buy anything other than what is essential for living. This album, so far, sounds very personal and reflective. Lots of intricate sounds and meticulous effort was put into the sound! Dobson, who was signed to Atlantic Records at 19-years-old, has experienced just about every high and low when it comes to the music business in the years since. And in an era when bands, venues, tours and everything else are experiencing atrophy, Deep Sea Diver is fairing – knock on wood – pretty well. In some ways, better than ever. Ever since their solo single release in April to their new LP out on the famed ATO record label, things have oddly, paradoxically fallen into place for the band.
The new 10-track album has been finished for a year. But it can take a while for a record to find the right placement. With ATO, Deep Sea Diver has found that home. “Impossible Weight” is stellar. Each track sticks out, impresses. “Eyes Are Red (Don’t Be Afraid)” feels like a rush of energy after running a race through New York City. “Shattering the Hourglass” inspires, saying forget the construct of time. “Wishing” pulls at the heart. And “Impossible Weight,” which features Sharon Van Etten, is a blistering eruption of rock. The LP pops with tight rhythms, bright guitars and Dobson’s clearest, crispest vocal performance to date.
“Everything has always been backwards for Deep Sea Diver,” Dobson says. “It’s been an uphill battle. Self-releasing records is really hard and we’ve done that so many times. But with quarantine, we took the approach of saying ‘screw the music business.’”
Jessica Dobson, frontwoman and principle songwriter for the Seattle-based band, Deep Sea Diver, was adopted. While this is indeed a very personal bit of information it is also pertinent to the story of the band’s new LP. Any work of art takes a lifetime to create. While, in truth, from first note to final mix, a song may take, say, a year or two, the work is, in actuality, a culmination of a person’s entire existence. It wasn’t until recently that Dobson met her birth mother, which was both monumental and fascinating for the expert musician. The encounter is one of several recent marvelous moments for Dobson and her percolating, neon-electric-sounding group, which is set to release its latest LP, Impossible Weight .
The Pixies are back with a new single titled ‘Hear Me Out’ and the music video is something to behold. COVID-19 may have caused the alt-rock icons to scrap some big touring plans in 2020 but the band haven’t been twiddling their thumbs in iso as they’ve just released their first new banger of the year. Pixies release a limited edition double A-side single. Pressed on 12” yellow vinyl, it features the new track Hear Me Out alongside the band’s gritty interpretation of the T-Rex classic Mambo Sun. Hear Me Out represents the first new material from Pixies since the release of their seventh album Beneath The Eyrie last year,
Recorded during the sessions for their 2019 album Beneath The Eyrie, ‘Hear Me Out’ will be released alongside a cover of T-Rex’s ‘Mambo Sun’ on a 12″ vinyl on Friday, October 16th.
The song itself is pretty textbook Pixies (meaning that it’s pretty great) that sees the spotlight shine on bassist/vocalist Paz Lenchantin as not only does she handle primary vocal duties on ‘Hear Me Out’, she also co-produced and stars in the music video. Paz Lenchantin’s honeyed, hypnotic vocals delivering a message that has grown in relevance since it was written. Delivering melody and visceral power in equal measure, it captures the Pixies’ classic style, and is elevated with a spaghetti western-style guitar motif courtesy of Joey Santiago. The song was written by frontman Black Francis and Lenchantin at Dreamland Studios during sessions for Beneath The Eyrie,
And what a music video it is. Filmed in Taos, New Mexico and co-starring Henry Hopper, the video is something of a surrealist Western comprised of people being creative, whether it’s filming something on a camera or paint, all of which is packed into three eye-catching minutes.
Talking about ‘Hear Me Out’, Lenchantin says: “‘Hear Me Out’ is about things not turning out the way we hoped, but knowing that it’s going to be ok regardless. Black [Francis] started the melody phrases on an old organ.
“I loved it right away, so he asked me to take a pass at the lyrics. The song has an evocative melody that inspired the lyrics to come out straight away.”
Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago also added his two cents to how the single came about: “Paz sounds like she’s talking to a guy with deaf ears. I did a western-style riff at the end of verses, which was like giving her a gun so the dude would pay attention.”
The Fat Angel Sings 