Post-punk band Sourdough have released their exhilarating new single ‘My Lines’ via Vandalism Begins At Home Records, A song born out of frustration but soon breaks out from any barriers creating a defiant punk song. Sourdough were formed in summer 2018 but since then the trio have gained quite a reputation from audiences in London & surrounding cities. Combining catchy hooks with fuzzy guitars & a fluent rhythm section the trio have definitely made their impact on the live music scene playing various festivals including Wilkestock Festival. The band now seem to be turning their attentions to writing impressive songs in the studio with what will be their 3rd single ‘My Lines’.
‘My Lines’ is a Nick Cave inspired Molotov cocktail of eloquent self reflection & incendiary riot starting. The opening line ’I wish I was a vampire; I’d suck the soul out of every situation I’ve ever been involved in’ is a reference to a Nick Cave quote which pays homage to a creative genius but also broods anarchy straight from the off. The song is played at a blistering pace and is accompanied by loud & raw vocals which fit the theme of the song superbly.
Here’s our new thrasher, My Lines. Brought to you by Vandalism Begins At Home Records. With their talented song writing & punk rock sound Sourdough will definitely be a band to keep your eyes on in future as they continue to branch out to wider audiences. Would highly recommend for fans of Fontaines DC & IDLES.
On October. 9th, Yo La Tengo will release “Sleepless Night” a new EP featuring a slew of covers, including a newly released version of The Byrds’ “Wasn’t Born To Follow. The project arrives after Yo La Tengo originally collaborated with Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara to create these tracks for a recent retrospective.“ We met Yoshitomo Nara in 2003, would see him at his art shows and our concerts,” explained YLT’s Ira Kaplan via press release. “…To make the catalogue of his 2020 exhibit at LACMA more personal, the idea came up to include an LP of some of Nara’s favourite songs as part of a deluxe edition. We were asked to provide one side of the LP (and that one track be a new composition), with the other side being another six songs selected by Nara, in their original versions. Here are the six songs we contributed to the LACMA record, chosen in collaboration with Nara.”Other selections include work by The Delmore Brothers, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Lane, and The Flying Machine.
The Matador version of the EP is a single-sided 12” with original cover art by Nara, a drawing of the band by Hubley, and an illustration by McNew etched on the record’s flip.
Ira Kaplan on ‘Sleepless Night’:
We met Yoshitomo Nara in 2003, would see him at his art shows and our concerts. We dj’d at an opening at the Asia Society, and on another occasion he drew a picture of Georgia strangling me on a Gloomy pencil case that became one of Georgia’s prized possessions until it was stolen from her at the bar at the K-West hotel in Shepherd’s Bush. To make the catalogue of his 2020 exhibit at LACMA more personal, the idea came up to include an LP of some of Nara’s favorite songs as part of a deluxe edition. We were asked to provide one side of the LP (and that one track be a new composition), with the other side being another six songs selected by Nara, in their original versions. Here are the six songs we contributed to the LACMA record, chosen in collaboration with Nara.
I probably was introduced to “Blues Stay Away from Me” on NRBQ’s Workshop lp, working backwards to the Louvin Brothers and the Delmore Brothers (with a detour to Doug Sahm and Band). Our version was recorded by Mark Nevers in February 2011. Charlie Louvin had died just a couple of days before. We were on a tour with William Tyler that came to an end in Nashville. The three of us and William and Kurt Wagner threw together an arrangement of “Blues Stay Away from Me” as a tribute and closed our show at the Exit/In with it. Since we were hanging around Nashville for a few days before going home, we went to Mark’s studio and recorded it.
“Wasn’t Born to Follow” was recorded by Gene Holder as part of the sessions that resulted in Stuff Like That There. Dave Schramm on lead guitar. I’m sure I heard the Byrds’ song for the first time when my mom took me and a bunch of my friends to see Easy Rider. (One kid was forbidden by his parents from joining us, as was my younger brother. My dad took my brother to see Butch Cassidy instead, and I’m guessing my friend stayed home and did homework.)
Ronnie Lane didn’t write “Roll On Babe,” but his is the version we’re covering. James recorded it in Hoboken. (And that song was among the songs Georgia played when we dj’d at the Asia Society.)
While making ‘And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out’ in Nashville, Roger Moutenot recorded Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” for a John Peel birthday show. As best as we can tell, we sent the one and only copy of the master to England. Yes, we’re as dumbfounded as you are, if not more so. After a lot of sleuthing, we came up with this.
“Bleeding” was written by us, recorded in Hoboken by James.
James also recorded The Flying Machine’s “Smile a Little Smile for Me” for Michael Shelley’s Super Hit Tsunami!, available to people who pledged to WFMU’s 2019 fundraising marathon.
Track List:
Blues Stay Away
Wasn’t Born to Follow
Roll On Babe
It Takes a Lot to Laugh
Bleeding
Smile a Little Smile for Me
‘Sleepless Night’ is the new EP from Yo La Tengo, out October 9th on Matador Records.
A new best-of box set of John Lennon’s solo work will arrive on October. 9th, which would have been the Beatle’s 80th birthday. The new set, titled ‘Gimme Some Truth. The Ultimate Mixes‘ was executive produced by Yoko Ono Lennon and produced by Sean Ono Lennon. The two handpicked 36 of Lennon’s solo tracks, which “have all been completely remixed from scratch, radically upgrading their sonic quality and presenting them as a never-before-heard Ultimate Listening Experience.” (Quote via press release.)“John was a brilliant man with a great sense of humour and understanding,” wrote Yoko Ono Lennon in the preface of a 124-page book included in the Deluxe Edition (quote obtained via press release). “He believed in being truthful and that the power of the people will change the world. And it will. All of us have the responsibility to visualize a better world for ourselves and our children.
Unearthed, never-before-seen 8mm footage filmed in John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s home features in the new video for “Look at Me,” from the upcoming John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band-The Ultimate Collection reissue, due out April 16th.
The video — which also utilizes the “Ultimate Mix” of “Look at Me” — boasts between-takes footage from a pair of the couple’s short films,Film No. 5 (“Smile”) and Two Virgins, both filmed by camera operator William Wareing at Lennon’s Kenwood home in 1968.
The intimate side-by-side footage — unseen by the public before its release Thursday by the John Lennon Estate — offers a glimpse into Lennon and Ono’s domestic life, as well as shots of Lennon strumming an acoustic guitar and his drum skin from the Sgt. Pepper’s album cover.
Capitol/UMe and the Lennon estate previously shared an updated video for “Mother” from the massive John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band 50th anniversary reissue, which features 87 never-before-heard recordings, including 14 “Ultimate Mixes” of the album’s tracks that strip off producer Phil Spector’s effects, tape delays, and reverbs.
The truth is what we create. It’s in our hands.”The box set will come in various forms, including the Deluxe Edition, which will come along with the book, postcards, a fold-out poster and a bumper sticker. For more information on the various packages, head to johnlennon.com. In addition to the box set announcement, the Lennon estate also shared one of the tracks from Gimme Some Truth: a remixed edition of “Instant Karma (We All Shine On).”
Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) · John Lennon · Yoko Ono
As part of the celebrations for John Lennon’s 80th birthday, his most vital and best loved solo recordings have been completely remixed from scratch for a new collection:
“Interzone” is the third full-length album by New York’s electro post-punk duo The Vacant Lots, to be released on Fuzz Club, Friday, June 26th, 2020. A genre-blending synthesis of dance and psych, Interzone is made for secluded listeners and all night partygoers, meant for headphones and the club.
Uninhibited by the limitations of two people and continuing their mission of “minimal means maximum effect,” The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud and Brian MacFadyen create an industrial amalgam of icy electronics and cold beats with detached vocals and hard hitting guitars. Interzone’s trance-like opener ‘Endless Rain’ and the kinetic krautrock stomper ‘Into The Depths’ are followed by scintillating dark disco anthems ‘Rescue’ and ‘Exit’. Side 2 kicks off with 80’s synth-pop track ‘Fracture’ and haunting after-hours minimal wave ‘Payoff,’ while ‘Station’ and album closer ‘Party’s Over’ deal with disillusionment and conquering one’s indifference to make real change.
The album creates order from chaos and delves into escapism, isolation, relationship conflicts, and decay. With nods to William S. Burroughs and Joy Division’s song of the same name, “Interzone is like existing between two zones,” Jared says. “Interzone doesn’t mean one thing. It can mean different things to different people depending on their interpretation. Working on this album was a constant struggle reconciling internal conflicts with all that’s going on externally in the world. Interzone in one word is duality.”
“Jared and I bounced ideas back and forth while working in seclusion on opposite coasts. We would just send files to each other until the songs were arranged. Then we met up at the studio in Brooklyn where we were fortunate enough to borrow Alan Vega’s Arp synth and finished recording with engineer Ted Young. We then worked with Maurizio Baggio to mix it,” recalls Brian. After the band finished producing Interzone, long term visual collaborator Ivan Liechti designed the album artwork.
The Vacant Lots have released singles with Mexican Summer and Reverberation Appreciation Society, collaborated on their debut album Departure with Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom, their second album Endless Night with Alan Vega, and most recently on their two EPs, Berlin and Exit, with Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe at his studio in Berlin. The group has toured with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Suicide, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Growlers, Dean Wareham, The Dandy Warhols, and Spectrum.
Reflecting on the new album, Jared says, “We don’t want to waste people’s time and we want people to play it over and over. Our mantra is ‘is it bulletproof? 8 songs. 30 minutes. It’s about intention and vision.”
Released June 26th, 2020
All Songs & Music Produced by the Vacant Lots, Are Jared Artaud & Brian Macfayden
Pop singer Troye Sivan is back with his highly anticipated new EP “In A Dream”, which he only just announced last month. The record features previously released singles “Easy” and “Rager teengager!” (listen below). Sivan recorded most of the album alongside producer Oscar Görres (The Weeknd, MARINA, Tove Lo) between Stockholm and Los Angeles just before the pandemic caused everything to shut down. “A story that’s still unfolding, this small collection of songs explores an emotional rollercoaster period in my life when the feelings and thoughts were most shockingly fresh,” Sivan said in a press statement. “Revisiting these songs and moments is tough, but I’m proud of this music and excited to have it out in the world.”
For the first time in years, Troye Sivan is bored. When the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to loom earlier in 2020, Sivan retreated from his Los Angeles home to spend time with his family in Melbourne – only to find himself subject to the city’s restrictive lockdown, stuck inside for longer than he could have imagined.
Not since Sivan was a teenager has he been so removed from the head rush of life as a global pop star. “It’s crazy to be doing this again at 25… I slipped back into old habits so quickly. It’s funny – give me three months, six months, however long it’s been to do absolutely nothing, and I completely regressed back to 17-year-old Troye, lying in my bed, just watching dumb shit on YouTube.”
Sivan was widely expected to release his third album this year, but instead returned from stints in LA and Sweden with the six-track, 19-minute ‘In A Dream’, a record he describes as “this very intense, potent little thing”. So why release an EP, and not an album?
‘Easy’ is shockingly intimate even by Sivan’s standards, with a chorus that drops us into the fire of a lovers’ reunion: “What the hell did we do? / Tell me we’ll make it through / ’Cause he made it easy / Please don’t leave me…” It’s so raw that it’s almost uncomfortable to listen to, if not for the song’s warm synths: ’80s-styled yet utterly timeless. “There’s a lot of different sonic moods on this EP, and I truly think the only throughline is that they’re all extremely personal, and precise in their emotion,” he says. It’s true: on ‘In A Dream’, his perspective is sharper, more cutting than before, with a hint of gentle self-deprecation – even when he’s singing in metaphor.
Troye Sivan’s music palette and reference points are so tasteful that it’s easy to discredit what the 25-year-old pop prodigy has to say. He sidesteps the crowd-pleasing ‘80s-indebted synth-pop of 2018’s Bloom for an EP that’s more contemporary and intimate, even claustrophobic. He’s at his most heartbroken on the restrained ballad “Easy” while elsewhere he uses harsh electronic dissonance (the experimental “Stud” and “Rager Teenager!”) to work through the push and pull of his more aggressive sexual and emotional fantasies. Finally, no one can say he’s just a twink with a good ear.
“Easy” and “Rager teenager!” available now: ‘In A Dream’ EP:
While drumming for Ottawa, Canada pop punk trio White Wires in the early 2010s, Allie Hanlon began a side project for her songs. Taking the name of the band from a Redd Kross track, Peach Kelli Pop’s tunes were short, sticky pop songs about made-up dances, summertime, and having fun in the cutest way possible. Hanlon played all the instruments herself, recording them in time-honored lo-fi fashion. She made a series of records for Burger, moved to Los Angeles when White Wires ended, and with a live band bringing her songs to life, became a fixture on stages around the world. With each album, Hanlon expanded the band’s sound a little, even bringing in other musicians to help out, and by the time of her 2018 record Gentle Leader, Peach Kelli Pop had moved to Mint Records (once the home of the band’s spiritual forebears Cub) and established themselves as a first-rate punk pop band.
The day before the release of our third album, ‘Truth or Consequences’, the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 an official pandemic. We’d arrived in the United States that morning to play the first show of our North American album release tour in Washington D.C. At this point, all of the tour dates were still set to go ahead, and we were excited to promote an album we had worked on for the last two years. This run was set to be our first ever fully sold-out US tour. The atmosphere was excitable, a little tense, optimistic. However, the chain of events that followed meant that by the time we finished our set that evening, restrictions on venues had been enacted by local governments across the country, and one-after-another, all of our remaining tour dates were cancelled. The performance at DC9 was the first and last show of the ‘Truth or Consequences’ album tour. It was all over, we went our separate ways and flew home the next day – on our album’s release day.
Touring is often the final piece of the puzzle that is an album campaign – the part you fixate on alone in a room, when you perfect a song and imagine how a crowd will react. You may have listened to certain songs a hundred times during the making of the record, but when you’re out on stage, face-to-face with an audience, this is when you start to truly re-contextualise and re-interpret the music, exploring the boundaries, focusing in on different parts of each song’s musical fabric. A new vocal harmony there, a new bassline there – perhaps you add different chord voicings on guitar, or new drum fills that set a new-found intensity to a section.
So after returning home and spending a few numb weeks adjusting to this strange new way of life, April came, the reality set in, and we quickly started to miss that feeling of exploring our new songs by night. We’d missed out on such a crucial part of the process – with no concrete idea of when we might next get the chance. It felt too soon to move on – we felt the pull to work on new music, but still felt a strong attachment, an unresolved connection to this new record that we’d laboured over and had waited so long to release.
Writing new music around them, we took the songs of ‘Truth or Consequences’ and found ourselves a new way of re-contextualising them safely, amidst the tragedy and fear going on in the world outside our windows – and the Alternate Versions were born. We encouraged each other to be bold, fearless, and to experiment like we would on stage – but from the comfort of our own bedrooms, living rooms and hallways. This new reimagining of ‘Truth or Consequences’ is the result of that process. Ten new arrangements that reflect our feelings of optimism, helplessness, and a desire to keep exploring.
Yumi Zouma are: Christie Simpson, Josh Burgess, Charlie Ryder, and Olivia Campion.
With their songs appearing on Black Mirror and Made In Chelsea before their debut album was even released, Kidsmoke are proving that there’s plenty of life in guitar music yet. Echoing the sounds and mood of both The War On Drugs and The Cure in equal measure, the North Wales five-piece have stumbled upon a brand of glistening guitar-pop and heartlands rock that is packed to the rafters with shimmering arpeggiated guitar melodies and lustrous, beautifully crafted rhythms and vocal hooks. By way of a bright blue beginner’s guitar Sophie Ballamy tells us how it all began, “When I was about 13 a few of my friends at school were learning guitar and I just thought it was the coolest thing ever.
My Dad is pretty handy on guitar, but I’d somehow never known about that before, so when I mentioned I’d like to learn he dug out an old electric guitar from somewhere that my uncle had built. That was it, I was hooked. I’m not sure what that guitar was or where it is now – all I know is that it was bright blue, and I immediately wanted to be Jimi Hendrix.” I tend to play quite intricate, melodic guitar parts for Kidsmoke so I think that’s where that comes from. For me, it’s most important to put down what’s right for the song, so whatever I end up playing it’s always carefully considered.
There were a lot of different influences really, but I think you can hear how much we love 80s bands like The Cure, Prefab Sprout and The Smiths – there’s a balance of light and dark that runs through a lot of our work and you can definitely hear that in those bands.
Kidsmoke are proud to present “The Bluest You”, from their album ”A Vision In The Dark” (released via Libertino Records, 2020)
“The Fountain” was supposed to be a full length album but as the songs took shape, I realized that there was something cohesive going on with a smaller batch. They all focused on the theme of platonic love with a sense of gratitude. I think that traditionally, I had mostly written yearning, romantic odes and it was nice to focus on what was right in front of me and have a record be about that for a change. A big part of this project for me is about trying to reflect on the years I’ve spent touring and playing in different bands, mostly punk bands who played in warehouses and never released records. I want this project to be a part of that legacy.
So much of those old scenes were about celebrating the time we were living and the friendships we were forming and so this is sort of my older take on those excited sentiments. Basically, what does a punk song about friendships look like 20 years later? Probably a little slower, a little softer and a little more melancholy.
The Night Shop is the Song writing project of Justin Sullivan (Kevin Morby, The Babies, Flat Worms). Songs from the cafe of eternal youth.
Justin Sullivan: vocals, guitar Tiffanie Lanmon: drums Jarvis Taveniere: bass, guitar, piano Anna St. Louis: vocals
The music world this week lost a massive talent far too early when it was announced that Americana singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle had passed away from undisclosed causes at the age of just 38.
He was the son of country music mainstay Steve Earle, and named for his father’s friend and mentor Townes Van Zandt, and this rich pedigree flowing through his veins was wrought clear by both his obvious musical acumen plus the way he was so defiantly determined to forge his own path and do things his own way.
Earle leaves behind eight beautiful albums – the most latest being 2019’s The Saint Of Lost Causes – and a tragically young family (he and wife Jenn Marie only welcomed daughter Etta St. James into the world in 2017), but also the indelible marks he made on the lives of countless people whose paths he crossed along his too-short but action-packed journey. A genuinely fun guy to be around, he was charismatic and opinionated and incredibly open about his own past, completely willing to steer conversation towards the many trials and tribulations he’d faced, and the addictions he’d battled since his early teens.
The impact of his immaculately authentic song writing and consummate performance skills was immediate and invigorating, and when he burst into a stripped-back but hauntingly beautiful cover of The Replacements’ Can’t Hardly Wait, a great version of which followed on Justin’s subsequent album Midnight At The Movies (2009).
From the very beginning was that this was a guy who was not living in his father’s shadow. He didn’t have to come out and say it, but you just knew it. He wanted to pave his own path, and he wanted to lay those bricks – rightly or wrongly – in the way that he saw fit and the way that he thought it should have been. I admired that, because it would have been very easy for Justin in the early stage of his career – around that first album [2008’s The Good Life] and EP [Yuma(2007)] – when it would have been very easy to talk up his father and milk those connections. There were references to it in interviews, but he’d never use it as a calling card. The Americana genre with which Earle is usually synonymous is a large and often nebulous catch-all, but Earle was equally at home mining sounds and emotions from the soul, blues, folk and even rock’n’roll realms as he was from the country music at Americana’s heart. More than that it was the way he so effortlessly brought a modern spin to those old-timey foundations that made his music so widely accessible. But they didn’t see a country act in Justin, they saw a guy onstage who knew his craft and knew his songs and knew how to deliver those songs in a way that made you feel sitting in the audience like you’re the only person there, in the way that Bruce Springsteen does.
“And you kind of get locked in this zone where you think that you’re the only person in the room and that is a gift – an absolute gift – that not many artists possess, but Justin Townes Earle, was one of those who could do it. He’d take you to a place night in, night out that you wanted to go to, because that’s why you were there. “And he knew that, because that was his job. He rolled up the sleeves, put the guitar on and went to work. There was a lot of fun along the way. But seeing Justin playing live is that every time he walked out onto a stage he was doing the best he could at that point.”
“I feel like Justin was a lynchpin to a whole lot of people who lifted their game because of him,” he offers sadly. “He came out kinda rippin’ at his guitar and it inspired a whole generation of songwriters to rip at that claw-hammer finger-pickin’ style and not be timid when you’re writing songs. “He had that Replacements kinda snowball – that relentless drive and that punk element – to country and modern song writing, . He was an important figure for everyone, it was just crazy. He was also a great raconteur – he’d always tell stories and he was always quite open onstage and quite honest. He was a great, great showman. The breadth of fans at his gigs was incredible, Justin would attract people like 70- and 80-year-olds who loved that classic throwback country songwriting – that dusty 78s-era gramophone country – but then you’d have rockabilly kids in their 20s and punk kids, people who love The Replacements. He had that extraordinary breadth of reach.
“Justin was such a rollercoaster ride of confidence and fragility – he was the extreme of every adjective you can imagine – and people could relate to his journey and his ride. People followed him and they related to him on his ups and his down and his variation from tour to tour in his states of mind, and that made him approachable and incredibly easy to follow and kind of befriend.
He was always incredibly interesting and a song writing genius – so you couldn’t really ignore him, and that’s really rare. He had a force of personality that’s really rare in the music industry these days, apart from the obvious loss – is just the talent that Justin had, it was so immense but in many respects it didn’t reach it’s peak, and that’s terribly sad.
He was a guy who gave a lot onstage, and the talent that Justin possessed was almost inconceivable. He brought a whole lot of rock’n’roll to Americana, he was a real rock star – and sadly you can’t help but feel that he had so many great songs left in him, that his best work was still to come.
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