The Bay-area’s own formidable Dark Anarcho post-punk act Ötzi are riding out these tenebrous times with a whirling tempest of their own, in their new album aptly titled Storm.
This, the band’s sophomore album, is unrelenting in its sonic deluge of captivating melodies led by K. Dylan Edrich”s guitars cutting the air with her punk driven riffs like the cold fingers of the band’s titular mummified human, coupled with the flawless efforts of drummer Gina Marie, and bassist Akiko Sampson, whose rhythm section marches forward against the elements, driven by fervent emotions of anger and sorrow that are channel Sampson’s stalwart vocals.
Oakland punk outfit Ötzi’s recent single “Hold Still,” taken from their new album “Storm”, out now via Artoffact Records. “Hold Still” is a snappy marriage of classic punk-pop and gothic post-punk as their effervescent pop chorus melodies co-exist beautifully with their moody guitar echo. “I see the ocean in your eyes / I’m reaching for you / Tears reflecting darker skies / I’m all around you,” their dual vocalists sing, reflecting the inseparable bond between interpersonal and political despair with poetic grace.
“We’re so overwhelmed by the awful things happening in the world, that sometimes it’s hard to see the good that exists right in front of us,” says drummer and vocalist Gina Marie. “The song was written to express love and appreciation for that one person who gets you through the day.”
Watch the video for “Hold Still”, which features new member, and multi-instrumentalist Winter Zora on keys, below:
On the records ardent resolve, that pushes ever onward with defiant optimism, Bassist/vocalist Akiko Sampson explains further: “The darkness of our sound doesn’t come from existential dread or moroseness, it’s a reflection of the lives we’ve lived as femmes in an often hostile world. We express all this mourning and anger through our music, so playing is always cathartic for us. But afterwards, what we’re left with is a sense of hope and a vision for what can be. So in this album, we wanted to incorporate all of those dimensions. Because that’s what ‘Storm’ is about – huge, violent life changes that leave you transformed forever.”
Not to be stifled by tour cancellations in wake of the current global pandemic, Otzi have been undaunted in promotion of their new record, unleashed a series of song premieres for the tracks such “Moths”, “Ballad of Oiwa”, and “Eight Cups” that have aptly taken the worldwide dark post-punk scene by storm.
One of these premieres was for a music video for the album track “Hold Still”, which features footage of the band right before lockdown having fun at the boardwalk—an activity steeped in childlike joy spun in a wonderful reverie of cotton candy, Ferris wheels, and merry-go-rounds.
Knaresborough-raised troubadour Bill Callahan returns with “Gold Record” – an album made whilst he was preparing to tour his previous album Shepherd In A Sheep’s Vest. A lot of the album is culled from tracks he’d written over the years for other artists to sing – all recorded on the hoof in an intuitive and creative burst with some good friends helping flesh the sounds around that rich, warm baritone vocal. Called Gold Record and it’s out September 4th via Drag City Records. The 10-song album features a new version of “Let’s Move to the Country,” from Smog’s 1999 album Knock Knock, and a track named after Ry Cooder.
It’s the Gold Record we always knew Bill Callahan had in him! Last summer, he returned from a silence of years – now, he’s raring to go with another new one already. The abiding humanity of latter-day Callahan is highlighted by dark plumes of caustic wit upending standards of our everyday life and the songs that celebrate it: the job, the wife, the TV, the neighbors. Bill slips easily into his characters, whether they’re easy people or not – and the cross-hatch of their light and shadow is unpredictably entertaining in the manner that belongs only one singer in this whole wide world: we’re still talking about Bill Callahan.
His first record in….uh, well, just over a year, Bill Callahan gives us a Gold Record. They might not all be gold, and fortunately, they’re not all six years apart either. You could probably ALSO call it “Gold Records”: the songs all have a stand-alone feel, the way singles do, for you to have a deep encounter with ’em all of a sudden, a whole relationship, from the start of the song to the finish. And what do you got when you have a record full of singles – and let’s face it, hit singles, at that?.
For Bill, preparing to tour for Shepherd In a Sheepskin Vest meant considering being away from home for long stretches of time – months, seasons, maybe as much as a year, who knew? Feeling his oats, Bill pulled out a few sketches from the notebooks and finished them up some. Before he knew it, he was recording them, and in the shuffle, new songs started popping up too.
It happened fast. Basics were recorded live, with Matt Kinsey playing guitars, guitars, guitars and Jaime Zurverza holding it down (then letting it go) on bass. Drums and horns were brought in for a couple songs. Spirits were high! Six out of the ten tunes were done first take; overdubs, when needed, came equally quickly. Listening, one hears the intuitive cohesion coming together richly, back of Bill’s titanic voice spread across the stereo spectrum: the gentle-yet-spirited conversation of Bill and Matt’s guitars, the subtle percussing of bass and drums and oddments of trumpet, woodwind and synth, striking notes decorous and discordant, sounding for all the world like the naturally occurring sound meant to accompany and express lives lived everywhere.
We know how you feel right about now, over midway through this tumultuous year: another week, another…. oh hold up, wait – it’s another Bill Callahan song! With 2020 chock-full of unprecedented, fundamental shifts, it’s only fitting that modern day Bill C would tackle the Gold Record reveal with a similarly conceptual yet seriously positive approach!. Bill’s latest offering, “Protest Song” details a singer-songwriter aghast at the unreality of the musical guest’s cartoonish protest POV on late night TV, leading to a protest song of its own kind. An apex of faux-noir, brooding in bluesy atmosphere up to his armpits, Bill flies in a touch of Bowery Boys-style comedic elevation to let everyone in on the joke, through song.
Releases September 4th, 2020 , Drag City Inc
Gold Record is the follow-up to last year’s Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, which marked Callahan’s first album in six years. He recorded Gold Record with guitarist Matt Kinsey and bassist Jamie Zurverza.
Bill Callahan will share a new song every week leading up to the full album’s release. The tracks arrive on Mondays, starting on June 29th.
The latest album from the veteran singer-songwriter and style icon is an eclectic mix of electronica, psychedelia, pop, balladry and orchestral music. On the album, Paul Weller is aided by his regular cohorts Ben Gordelier, Andy Croft’s and Steve Cradock as well as his old Style Council partner, Mick Talbot, who contributes his Hammond organ mastery to three songs. Singer songwriter Hannah Peel did the string arrangements for the album, and The Paraorchestra perform on four tracks. In addition, other guests perform on individual songs. The album opens with the experimental “Mirror Ball,” a track recorded during the sessions for True Meanings, Weller’s previous studio album. It sounds like bits of different songs pieced together but is quite effective. It is followed by “Baptiste,” a smooth and soulful tune with a strong vocal by Weller. The strings and organ add a great deal to it.
Some of the tracks on the album have Weller looking back on the past with the wisdom and insight of his six decades. “Old Father Tyme” is one of those songs. It’s quite delightful, and Weller sounds like he’s having a blast singing it. The title track is another of the songs that takes a glance to the past. Weller was inspired to write the song when visiting his son in Los Angeles and spending some time on Sunset Boulevard, where he had stayed when he first came to the City of Angels in 1977 on The Jam’s first American tour. It’s an easy going song that flows quite nicely. “More” is something of an off -kilter track that features a verse sung by the French singer Julie Gros of the band Le Superhomard as well as guitar work from Josh McClorey from Irish rockers The Strypes. The strings, flute and horns add lushness to it.
The jaunty “Equanimity” sounds like it could be a Madness song. It includes a measured vocal by Weller and violin by Jim Lea, formerly of Slade. The album’s lead single, “Earth Beat,” looks forward and not to the past. The American singer Coltrane, who Weller met through his daughter, is a guest vocalist on the track. On Sunset is a solid and fascinating piece of work, particularly for an artist 43 years into his recording career. Weller has delivered an interesting and enjoyable album with quite a few standout tracks.
Paul Weller shows few signs of slowing down, fewer still of resorting to lazy repetition. A staggering 43 years since The Jam‘s In The City heralded the beginning of a career that now spans 15 widely diverse solo albums, he retains a restlessness that has seen recent outings make forays into acoustic folk, krautrock, exploratory electronica and music concrete.
Yet a new unlikely theme is beginning to cement itself in Weller’s work, one of mindful domestic contentment. On Sunset witnesses a man who has over the past decade given up the booze and drugs casting a misty eye over one of the most illustrious and varied careers in the British music history. Reflections on his past aren’t new to the 62-year-old, of course. There was much of that on the sonically varied pairing of Saturns Pattern and A Kind Revolution and 2018’s acoustic folk collection True Meanings. What is new is how irrepressibly upbeat, at peace and downright happy the famously spiky one-time king of mod sounds here.
“A lot of the lyrics are about looking back, from the point of view of a 60-something man, not with regret or sadness, but with huge optimism,” Weller explains.
Opening track Mirror Ball has a hopelessly romantic sentiment. It’s Weller’s ode to the timeless joy of the dancefloor, from 1920s ballrooms through Wigan Casino and the Twisted Wheel to present-day techno clubs. It also underlines emphatically Weller’s commitment to experimentation across nearly eight minutes, with a full minute of ambient instrumental sound-scaping housed in its mid-section.
Originally destined to be a B-side for True Meanings, Weller included the song here after friends advised him it was too strong to be thrown away. His weathered voice resembles, not for the last time on this record, David Bowie’s as pulsing synths and a snatch of Spanish guitar open out into a shimmering disco groove, with a devilish octaved guitar riff making ostentatious interjections.
There are more familiar moments to be found, with “soulful” the predominant mood. Several of the songs on Weller’s 15th solo album were written with a diverse set of singers in mind – notably Bobby Womack and Pharrell Williams.
On Baptiste, a song Weller calls “a celebration of soul music’s universality” the inspiration is Bobby Bland. The New Orleans-style stomp positively glows with analogue warmth, Weller and Steve Cradock’s rootsy playing backed up by parping horns as the singer emotes “from the mountains high to the valleys low”.
Across On Sunset‘s 10 tracks, the palette is fuller and more colourful than on True Meanings – Games Of Thrones composer Hannah Peel’s orchestrations melding with Weller’s regular sidemen Cradock, bassist Andy Crofts, Tom Van Heel on keys and drummer and additional guitarist Steve Pilgrim. Indie-folk trio The Staves also contribute backing vocals.
On Old Father Tyme, the air is thick with nostalgia and fond reflection. “Time will become you, you will become time,” Weller acknowledges, piano chords, horns and acoustic guitar fusing with electronic percussion and gurgling synth textures, Weller at once glancing in his rear-view mirror and striding into the future.
Style Council mate Mick Talbot adds Hammond organ to the wistful Village, co-written with producer Jan ‘Stan’ Kybert. With an ample dose of wah in the mix, Weller brims with contentment, “heaven in my sights”, recognising that utopia can be the people and places closest to home. He sighs blithely, “Not a thing I’d change if I could/ I’m happy here in my neighbourhood.” It is ever so slightly cloying.
The silky tones of French singer Julie Gros from space-pop touring partners Le Superhomard are a pleasing counterpart to Weller’s oaky timbre on the lovely, cinematic More, the sweeping strings adding drama to an arrangement that sparkles with flute, sax and Weller and Cradock’s darting guitar runs. Lyrically, it’s a rare deviation from the convivial mood, Weller critiquing avaricious consumer culture before cutting loose on a wanton solo in the final moments.
The jaunty music hall of Equanimity is the most eye-opening moment. In Weller’s words, it’s “a bit Berlin cabaret, a bit Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band” if that’s something you can imagine, Slade’s Jim Lea contributing a sweet violin solo. Town Called Malice it ain’t.
Just as far out of Weller’s existing wheelhouse is the future-gazing funk of Earth Beat. His admirable appetite to remain current sees emerging British R&B artist Col3trane adding his hushed vocals to an upbeat electro-pop romp co-written with Jim Jupp, founder of Ghost Box Records.
On Sunset‘s high point, though, is the closing Rockets, a Bowie-esque acoustic ballad with strings and sax rising tastefully into the picture, and a stately Weller reminding us he maintains some punk fury as he rails against social injustice, poverty and corrupt power structures. “All our lives, the system all decides/ The institutions old but still in control,” he rages. It’s really rather beautiful, an affecting end that shows Weller wearing his 62 years well.
Yet it’s notable that amid all the reflective serenity and happiness this impressively multifarious album is bathed in, it’s when Paul Weller gets angry again that On Sunset is most incisive.
The bonus tracks for the deluxe CD edition of Paul Weller‘s new album On Sunset have been confirmed. The deluxe CD (which comes in hardcover book packaging rather than jewel case) will actually have FIVE bonus tracks, not three as originally thought. That takes the track count from 10 to 15. The songs are as follows: 4th Dimension, Ploughman, I’ll think of Something, On Sunset (Orchestral mix), Baptiste (instrumental version)
The Japanese version of the deluxe CD is a 16-track edition. It features the five tracks above, plus a Japan-only bonus track called ‘Failed’.
Pete International Airport is the brain child of Peter G. Holmström. It’s name is borrowed from a song title by his other band, The Dandy Warhols. Pete International Airport’s new album, “Safer With The Wolves” is a meticulously crafted psyche rock journey into the dark heart of electronica. The album’s 11 tracks feature guest singers from like-minded allies including The Black Angels, Daydream Machine, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Dark Horses and Hopewell.
A mind-bending album of pulsating neo-psychedelia featuring members of The Dandy Warhols, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Black Angels, Hopewell and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. A psychedelic masterpiece. Hooked from the first note. The live band consists of long-time collaborator Daniel Sparks, plus Chuck Davis and Jason Russo of Guiding Light.
Eggs in Aspic is dedicated to cataloguing the sounds of the global psychedelic underground via beautifully packaged, limited run cassettes. Our ethos is simple: if it needs to be heard, we’ll put it out.
Welcome to the debut album from Melbourne, Australian psych quintet The Black Heart Death Cult.
A side: droney sitar sling (Setting Sun), space rocked mellotron flutes through fuzz pedals (She’s a Believer), walls of verb (Black Rainbow), psych folk wanderings (The Magic Lamp) & guitar-o-rama (Aloha from Hell) show these future sailors know their way around the high psych seas.
Droney & dark but always with some light shining through, expect pretty much the same thing from the B side, an intergalactic fret board freak out!!.
Recorded over a sprawling 2 years (Sing Sing & Newmarket Studios) from early 2015 & produced by Ricky Maymi from The Brian Jonestown Massace, their self titled debut LP was released Jan 2019 through Oak Island Records (Kozmik Artifactz).
Debut single “She’s a Believer” & the “Black Rainbow” EP
>This is Sparkly magic mountain-drops fall from the outer cosmic reaches in the re-imagined mind-forest of The Flower Captain Gloom/doom singer/songwriter Sasha L Smith envisions a brave new dark age of droney bliss in the sonic bazaar. Domenic Evans fret wizard, Deon Slaviero bass dealer, Andy Nunns time machine & Gabbie Potocnik Italian keys are on the magic bus we call “The Black Heart Death Cult”. Awesome Psychedelic Flower Doom that is reminiscent of Turtle Skull; but with a bit more 60ies flare. The LP has 3 tracks from the EP which is both a good & bad thing. Good in that they are the cream of the EP, & the EP is very creamy. Bad in that if you already have the EP, you have a third of the LP. Having said that, I have the EP but after hearing the LP I just had to have it. The new tracks build on the brilliance of the EP & the structure of the LP ensures each song complements the next.
Christine & The Queens has debuted ‘Eyes of a Child’, a new track created for the second season of the Amazon Prime Video series “Hanna”. Accompanied by a bare-bones instrumental featuring spare keys and haunting backing vocals, frontperson Héloïse Letissier sings: “She will come whenever I call her/ But she’ll leave as soon as I sigh/ She’s got the eyes of a child/ And she’ll love without any sorrow/ For she just aims for the heart.”
The latest effort from Héloïse Letissier is one of her most affecting efforts to date – with the singer’s vocals backed by haunting instrumentals throughout the track. It’s the first new track from the singer since ‘I Disappear In Your Arms’ debuted in April, which was a bonus cut from her recently released surprise EP ‘La vita nuova’.
She’s also been sharing a series of theatrical live-streamed performances while in lockdown, most recently debuting a rendition of ‘La Vita Nuova’ for the ‘Global Goal: Unite For Our Future’ digital benefit concert. Other efforts include a performance of People, I’ve Been Sad, which she performed via livestream from her Parisian home for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Christine and the Queens has shared a handful of quarantine live performances, including an appearance of ‘I Disappear in Your Arms’ at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Christine and the Queens – “Eyes of a Child”, taken from the original soundtrack of “Hanna”
PJ Harvey’s “From The Basement” session, filmed in 2008,
Here lies the website of From the Basement – A sort of music show / labour of love produced by a small group of dedicated individuals and with the sound produced by me.
The whole emphasis of the show is about being artist friendly and making our bands as comfortable as possible so that they can give great performances without the usual agony of TV promo which everyone has to do but no one seems to enjoy. TV world is a pretty hostile environment for your average musician to have to walk into and bare his soul on cue.. It also doesn’t hurt that a lot of the people we’ve filmed are friends or people we’ve worked with before so they trust us and know that we understand what recording music is about as well as making good TV.
All in all I think it all adds up to something unique and special which I don’t feel happening anywhere else in either the music side of mainstream TV or online.
My own personal goal is that in the future some of these performances might be seen as the truest representation of the state of their artists work, captured in a way that lets their talents speak without the interference of presenters, or audiences. That is what I feel when I watch Talking Heads or Bill Withers on the Old Grey Whistle Test, that they are most definitely playing for me, not someone else in the room. If we can even touch on that kind of directness and quality then I think the whole project will have been a success.
From The Basement features exclusive live music performances with some of the finest A list and emerging talent. Including The White Stripes, Radiohead, Albert Hammond Jr., Beck, Jarvis Cocker, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey, Mark E Smith, Red Hot Chill Peppers, Feist, Thundercat, José González, Gnarls Barkley, Iggy Pop and The Stooges, Fleet Foxes, The Raconteurs, Band of Horses, Queens of the Stone Age, and many many more.
Enjoy PJ Harvey’s full From The Basement set! Track listing:
Still with us (though via several different line-ups), The Saints go down in history as actually the first Punk band outside the U.S. to release a debut single – “I’m Stranded”, released in September 1976 predates The Sex Pistols and The Clash and I am pretty sure pre-dates New Rose by The Damned by few weeks.
The Saints originated in Brisbane, Australia in 1973. The band was founded by Chris Bailey (singer-songwriter, later guitarist), Ivor Hay (drummer), and Ed Kuepper (guitarist-songwriter). Contemporaneously with American punk rock band the Ramones, the Saints were employing fast tempos, raucous vocals and “buzz saw” guitar that characterized early punk rock. With their debut single, “(I’m) Stranded”, in September 1976, they became the first “punk” band outside the US to release a record, ahead of better-known acts including the Sex Pistols and the Clash. They are one of the first and most influential groups of the genre.
Alongside mainstay Bailey, the group has also had numerous line-ups – in early 1979, Ivor Hay and Ed Kuepper left, while Bailey continued the band, with a changing line-up. All Fools Day peaked in the Top 30 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart in April 1986. Bailey also has a solo career and had relocated to Sweden by 1994. The band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2001.
In June 1976, the Saints recorded two tracks, “(I’m) Stranded” and “No Time” with Mark Moffatt producing. Unable to find any interested label, they formed Fatal Records and independently released their debut single in September. Their self-owned Eternal Promotions sent discs to radio stations and magazines both in Australia – with little local interest – and United Kingdom. In the UK, a small label, Power Exchange, issued the single. Sounds magazine’s reviewer, John Ingham, declared it, “Single of this and every week”. EMI head office in London contacted their Sydney branch and directed that they be signed to a three-album contract. Over two days in December, the group recorded their first LP, (I’m) Stranded (February 1977), with Rod Coe producing. It included a cover version of the Missing Links’ track “Wild About You”. They supported AC/DC in late December 1976 and, early in 1977, relocated to Sydney. EMI re-issued the single, “(I’m) Stranded” in February and it reached the Kent Music Report Top 100 Singles Chart.
In late 1982, the group toured Australia with Bailey, Hall and Shedden joined by Chris Burnham on guitar (ex-Supernaut) and Laurie Cuffe on guitar. In 1983, Bailey released his first solo album, Casablanca, on New Rose. In 1984, Bailey was based in Sydney, and the Saints’ album, A Little Madness to Be Free, was released in July on RCA with production credited to Lurax Debris (Bailey’s pseudonym). It contains the popular track “Ghost Ships”, which was issued as a single in May. A Little Madness to Be Free was “more rock-oriented, with extensive use of acoustic guitar, brass and strings set among tightly focused arrangements”. In mid-1984, the band toured as Bailey, Burnham, Shedden and Tracy Pew on bass guitar, (ex-Birthday Party), who was briefly replaced by Kuepper in July. By 1985, the Saints were Bailey, Richard Burgman on guitar (ex-Sunnyboys) and Arturo ‘Archie’ Larizza on bass guitar (the Innocents), while Louise Elliot on saxophone and Jeffrey Wegener on drums (both ex-Laughing Clowns) completed the line-up. A live album, Live in a Mud Hut … Somewhere in Europe, recorded in 1984 with production credited to Mugumbo, was released by New Rose in 1985.
The group then recorded All Fools Day in Wales with Hugh Jones producing. It was issued by Mushroom Records in Australia and Polydor in United States, in April 1986. The album reached the Top 30 in Australia and included a Top 30 single, “Just Like Fire Would” (March).
Father John Misty is releasing a new EP tomorrow (July 3rd) called “Anthem +3″. The four-track release opens with a new cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” (from 1992’s The Future). Rounding out the EP are three songs that Misty has previously covered: Link Wray’s “Fallin’ Rain,” Yusuf / Cat Stevens’ “Trouble,” and Leonard Cohen’s “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong.”
Check out the Anthem +3 artwork below.
Anthem +3 will be available on Father John Misty’s Bandcamp page, in conjunction with the site’s fee-free sales day for artists. Proceeds from the EP will benefit CARE Action and Ground Game LA. The EP will then be released across DSPs on July 14th (via Sub Pop/Bella Union). Recorded only a few weeks ago at producer Jonathan Wilson’s Fivestar Studios in Topanga, California, the EP includes covers of Cohen’s “Anthem” and “One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong,” Wray’s “Fallin’ Rain” and CatStevens’ “Trouble.”
David Gilmour has officially released a new song, “Yes, I Have Ghosts”, which marks the Pink Floyd guitarist’s first solo release since his 2015 album, Rattle that Lock, which rose to No1 on the U.K. Album Albums Chart.
While it’s billed as a “solo” song, “Yes, I Have Ghosts” is a Gilmour family affair, with lyrics by David’s wife, Polly Samson, and harp/vocal accompaniment by his daughter, 18-year-old Romany Gilmour. In celebration of the release of the dreamy, acoustic track, the Gilmour family hosted a special edition of their running Von Trapped quarantine live stream during which they showed the music video on a projector screen behind them.
YES, I HAVE GHOSTS is the first new song from David Gilmour in 5 years and features the voice and harp playing of his daughter Romany.
