Cut Copy have announced that they will return with their new album “Freeze, Melt” on August 21st via Cutters Records/The Orchard.
The announcement comes with the release of their brand new single “Cold Water.” It’s an atmospheric electronic journey, the sort of stuff you do somewhat expect from these guys at this point but in a more contemplative and reflective manner that was found on their debut album and earlier work.
The track follows the release of single “Love Is All We Share” from earlier in the year – which actually isn’t including on the album.
Find a bit about “Cold Water” from singer Dan Whitford below:
“After extensive touring on our last album, “Cold Water” was one of the first new songs to appear. I’d moved to Copenhagen and had been listening to a lot more ambient and instrumental electronic music and as a result “Cold Water” felt quite different to songs we’d made in the past. It was less dance, but more atmospheric. Also the subject matter explores love in today’s context, where the climate and fate of the planet are becoming increasingly uncertain. Once we’d finished it, it felt like we’d placed a marker in the ground, guiding us in a new musical direction.”
Enjoy the music video for “Cold Water” ‘Freeze, Melt’ now via Cutters Records
‘Interludes: The Complete Set-Break Recordings’ presents the nearly five hours of music recorded for the intermission at Levi’s Stadium and Soldier Field in 2015. These sessions represent the birth of Circles Around the Sun and would ultimately become the band’s debut album, ‘Interludes for the Dead.’ The collection includes never before released tracks, previously unheard music, alternate and extended mixes and studio banter. Available now on Bandcamp, the collection includes never before released tracks,
The Flaming Lips have announced a new album called “American Head”. The King’s Mouth follow-up arrives September 11th via Warner Bros Records. With (A double colored vinyl follows on October 2nd, along with limited edition art prints.) It’s produced by long time collaborator Dave Fridmann and features the Kacey Musgraves collaboration “Flowers of Neptune 6.”
In a story Wayne Coyne wrote, excerpted in the press release, he said, “The music and songs that make up the American Head album are based in a feeling. A feeling that, I think, can only be expressed through music and songs. We were, while creating it, trying to NOT hear it as sounds… but to feel it. Mother’s sacrifice, Father’s intensity, Brother’s insanity, Sister’s rebellion…. I can’t quite put it into words.”
Earlier this year, the Flaming Lips released a collaborative LP with Deap Valley, as Deap Lips. Coyne and co. recently stopped by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, where they performed “Race for the Prize” with an actual audience, from the socially distanced confines of giant bubbles.
The Flaming Lips Announce New Album American Head Share the first song off the new album.
‘My Religion Is You’ from the upcoming album ‘American Head’ Out 9/11.
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This incarnation of Fairport Convention comprising lead vocalist Sandy Denny and newcomers Dave Swarbrick and Dave Mattacks, together with founder members Richard Thompson on lead guitar and some vocals, Simon Nicol on rhythm guitar and Ashley Hutchings on electric bass, rehearsed and put together the album “Liege & Lief” over the summer of 1969 at a house in Farley Chamberlayne, near Braishfield, Winchester, launching its material with a sold-out concert in London’s Royal Festival Hall on 24th September that year. Liege & Lief was the fourth album by the English folk rock band . It is often credited, though the claim is sometimes disputed, as the first major “British folk rock” album, It is the third album the group released in the UK during 1969, all of which prominently featured Sandy Denny as lead female vocalist (Denny did not appear on the group’s 1968 debut album).
Gone were the covers of songs by Bob Dylan and others, replaced by electrified versions of traditional English folksongs (“Reynardine”, “Matty Groves”, “The Deserter”, “Tam Lin”), new compositions by band members but with a “traditional” feel (“Come All Ye”, “Farewell, Farewell”, “Crazy Man Michael”), and the first of a long line of instrumental medleys of folk dance tunes driven by Dave Swarbrick’s violin playing. The virtuoso fiddle and mandolin player Swarbrick, was a little older than the rest of the band, had already been in a successful duo with guitarist Martin Carthy. After his appearance on Unhalfbricking, he joined Fairport full-time. Much of the traditional material had been found by Hutchings in Cecil Sharp’s collection, maintained by the English Folk Dance and Song Society, although Swarbrick has elsewhere claimed credit as the source of the traditional material used.
Also rehearsed and/or recorded, but omitted from the final album, were versions of The Byrds’ “Ballad of Easy Rider”, the traditional ballad “Sir Patrick Spens” with Sandy Denny on lead vocals, and “The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood”, a Richard Fariña lyric he had set to a traditional Irish melody, the last two of which were to appear in different arrangements on later albums by Fairport Convention and Sandy Denny, respectively.
Liege & Lief is composed of two Middle English words: liege meaning loyal and lief meaning ready. The cover, a gatefold in grey and purple, featured cameo images of the band along with track listing and credits. On the inside of the original gatefold cover, a set of illustrated vignettes told the story of ten different aspects of English traditional music and folklore, including notes on customs such as pace-eggers and the Padstow hobby-horse, as well as collectors such as Francis James Child (of “Child Ballads” fame) and Cecil Sharp.
The band toured the UK for several months, also visiting Denmark, performing the Liege & Lief material before recording it in the studio (also including a performance recorded for BBC radio’s Top Gear). However, in November 1969, even before the album was released on 2nd December, both Hutchings and Denny quit the band: Hutchings to further pursue traditional music in a new band Steeleye Span, and Denny to form her new venture Fotheringay, with more emphasis on her own original compositions.
“Liege and Lief” won the award for Most influential Folk Album of all time.
In 2007 a double album “Liege and Lief Deluxe Edition” was released; the second album consisted mainly of BBC radio live performances and two stylistically uncharacteristic outtakes, the great American songbooks standards “The Lady Is a Tramp” and “Fly Me to the Moon”.
The Band:
Sandy Denny – vocals
Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, viola
Richard Thompson – electric & acoustic guitars, backing vocals
Simon Nicol – electric, 6-string & 12-string acoustic guitars, backing vocals
Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar, backing vocals
Dave Mattacks – drums, percussion
I often found Bob Dylan songs that no-one else had, like “Percy’s Song”, which is a fabulous song. Fairport Convention got a reputation for doing unreleased Dylan songs, but we never knew if Dylan heard about us. The years rolled by – and then, unbeknownst to me, a friend who does some work over here for Bob’s management sent me a quote he’d got for my website from Bob: “Ashley Hutchings is the single most important figure in English folk-rock. Before that, his group Fairport Convention recorded some of the best versions of my unreleased songs.” What I now discover is, he’s known about us right from the beginning! He loved “Liege & Lief”, he thought Sandy Denny was the best singer he’d heard. He turns out to be lovely, very considerate, very funny and very, very knowledgeable about all kinds of things» – Ashley Hutchings, 2022
Influenced by primal garage-rock and the hypnotic grooves of African and South American music, Melbourne’sBananagun have evolved from the home-made ideas of guitarist, vocalist and flautist Nick van Bakel to a full five-piece set-up. Their new debut album, “The True Story of Bananagun”, was born from extended jam sessions and presents a grand vision for their self-professed ‘global tropicalia’.
There’s an enticing lost world exoticism to the music of Bananagun. It’s the sort of stuff that could’ve come from a dusty record crate of hidden gems; yet as the punchy, colourfully vibrant pair of singles Do Yeah and Out of Reach have proven over the past 12 months, the band are no revivalists. On debut album The True Story of Bananagun, they make a giant leap forward with their outward-looking blend of global tropicalia.
The True Story of Bananagun marks Bananagun’s first full foray into writing and recording as a complete band, having originally germinated in the bedroom ideas and demos of guitarist, vocalist and flautist Nick van Bakel. The multi-instrumentalist grew up on skate videos, absorbing the hip-hop beats that sound-tracked them – taking on touchstones like Self Core label founder Mr. Dibbs and other early 90’s turntablists.
That love of the groove underpins Bananagun – even if the rhythms now traverse far beyond those fledgling influences. “We didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing,” the band’s founder says. “We wanted it to be vibrant, colourful and have depth like the jungle. Like an ode to nature.”
Van Bakel was joined first by cousin Jimi Gregg on drums – the pair’s shared love of the Jungle Book apparently made him a natural fit – and the rest of the group are friends first and foremost, put together as a band because of a shared emphasis on keeping things fun. Jack Crook (guitar/vocals), Charlotte Tobin (djembe/percussion) and Josh Dans (bass) complete the five-piece and between them there’s a freshness and playful spontaneity to The True Story of Bananagun, borne out of late night practice jams and hangs at producer John Lee’s Phaedra Studios.
“We were playing a lot leading up to recording so we’re all over it live”, van Bakel fondly recalls of the sessions that became more like a communal hang out, with Zoe Fox and Miles Bedford there too to add extra vocals and saxophone. “It was a good time, meeting there every night, using proper gear [rather than my bedroom setups.] It felt like everyone had a bit of a buzz going on.”
Tracks like The Master and People Talk Too Much bounce around atop hybrid percussion that fuses West African high life with Brazilian tropicalia; the likes of She Now hark to a more westernised early rhythm ‘n’ blues beat, remoulded and refreshed in the group’s own inimitable summery style. Freak Machine is perhaps the closest to those early 90’s beats, but even then the group add layers and layers of bright guitars, harmonic flower-pop vocals and other sounds to transmute the source material to an entirely new plain. Elsewhere there’s a 90 second track called Bird Up! that cut and pastes kookaburra and parrot calls as an homage to the wildlife surrounding van Bakel’s home 80 kilometres from Melbourne.
Oh, and there are hooks galore too – try and stop yourself from humming along to Out of Reach’s swooping vocal melody.
Bananagun are first and foremost a band enthused with the joy of living and The True Story of Bananagun is a ebullient listen; van Bakel – as the main songwriter – is keen not to let any lyrical themes overpower that. There’s more to this record than blissed out grooves and tripped out fuzz though: The Master is about learning to be your own master and resisting the urge to compare yourself to others; She Now addresses gender identity and extolls the importance of people being able to identify how they feel. Then there’s closing track Taking The Present For Granted, which perhaps sums up the band’s ethos on life, trying to take in the world around you and appreciating the here and now.
A keen meditator, van Bakel says of the track: “so often people are having a shit time stuck in their own existential crisis, but if you get outside you head and participate in life and appreciate how beautiful it all is you can have a better time.”
Even the band’s seemingly innocuous name has an underlying message of connectivity that matches the universality of the music. “It’s like non-violent combat! Or the guy who does a stick up, but it’s just a banana, not a gun, and he tells the authorities not to take themselves too seriously.”
The True Story of Bananagun then is perhaps a tale of finding beauty in even these most turbulent of times.
The Band:
Nick Van Bakel – guitar, voice, flute, trumpet, harpsichord, percussion
Jack Crook – guitar, voice
Charlotte Tobin – percussion
Josh Dans – bass guitar
Jimi Gregg – drums
Pierce Morton – alto saxophone
Miles Bedford – tenor saxophone
Zoe Fox – voice
Songs written by Nick Van Bakel.
Time for another journey through the past with David Conway. In June 1970 I bought the new Fleetwood Mac 45 . Both sides of it! featured some wonderous guitar We didn’t know it at the time but this would be the last Peter Green recording with the band . It was Top Ten in the UK a total of four weeks.
The song was written during Green’s final months with the band, at a time when he was struggling with LSD and had withdrawn from other members of the band. While there are several theories about the meaning of the title “Green Manalishi”, Green has always maintained that the song is about money, as represented by the devil. Green was reportedly angered by the other band members’ refusal to share their financial gains.
Green has explained that he wrote the song after experiencing a drug-induced dream in which he was visited by a green dog which barked at him. He understood that the dog represented money. “It scared me because I knew the dog had been dead a long time. It was a stray and I was looking after it. But I was dead and had to fight to get back into my body, which I eventually did. When I woke up, the room was really black and I found myself writing the song.”
Producer Martin Birch recalled that Green was initially frustrated that he could not get the sound he wanted, but Danny Kirwan reassured him that they would stay in the studio all night until the band got it right. Peter Green said later that although the session left him exhausted, “Green Manalishi” was still one of his best music memories.. “Lots of drums, bass guitars … Danny Kirwan and me playing those shrieking guitars together …A 13-minute live version of “The Green Manalishi” was recorded in February 1970, prior to the single’s release in May, but it remained unreleased until 1985 when it was unofficially released on a number of records, such as Shanghai Records’ Cerulean and Rattlesnake Shake. In 1998 it was issued with along with the entire set of recordings on the Live in Boston: Remastered three-CD boxed set.
The song was played live by subsequent versions of Fleetwood Mac on tour with Bob Welch and then Lindsey Buckingham singing the vocal and taking on the song’s guitar parts.
The B-side of the single was an instrumental written by Green and Danny Kirwan, titled “World In Harmony”. The two tracks were recorded at the same session in Warner/Reprise Studios, in Hollywood, California. The only track bearing a Kirwan/Green writing credit, the two had plans to collaborate further on a guitar-driven album, but the project never materialised.
There is a different 13 minutes live version of the song part of the Fleetwood Mac: live in Boston album . This song has been versioned by famous bands like Corrosion of Conformity, Arthur Brown, The Melvins and The Need, being the most famous of them the Judas Priest’s version at the point it’s been mistaken as a Judas Priest original song.
The Lemon Twigs have been kicking around for a few years now and have made themselves one of the best knowingly retro bands to watch. Their sound is immediately recognisable yet hard to pinpoint, likely because it draws from a smorgasbord of 70s influences. The touchstone is power pop, but the Twigs throw large dollops of glam and art rock into the mix, as well as a sense of Broadway-style bombast. Their songs often play like mini-symphonies, throwing in various musical styles and sections within the confines of a pop-length number.
With latest singles The One and now Moon released, the Twigs look to be stripping down their sound and focusing on one genre at once. Thankfully they’ve always had a great ear for a tune, so this is no complaint.
Moonis a brilliant rock and roll number driven by harmonica and piano, sounding like the bastard offspring of David Bowie and Billy Joel. With its raucous, singalong chorus and harmonised vocals, this is a bombastic pop rock number that isn’t afraid to wear its cheesy heart on its sleeve.
This is a must if you’re a fan of any and all 70s rock. If this is anything to go by, their latest album Songs for the General Public(Due out August 21st) should be a cult hit.
GUM is the moniker for Jay Watson, a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and member of both Tame Impala and Pond. As part of the wider Impala/Spinning Top record label family, GUM’s music has the same swirling psychedelic feel of Tame Impala but often with a tighter feel and even more overt focus on groove and electronics. Latest single “Airwalkin” illustrates this handily, one of GUM’s hardest-hitting tunes to date.
With such well-realised production, this song succeeds from the opening seconds. The beat meshes a phased, caterwauling string section against blasts of distorted synth and hard percussion. The lyrics hardly matter but they give the song some mean r’n’b-laced attitude. Prince, anyone?
With electro synths and vocoder coming in later in the piece, it would all sound silly if it wasn’t so damn convincing. If Tame Impala’s latest album was a bit softer than you would’ve liked, indulge in this for a funkier and harder-edged take on that patented Freo psych sound.
Official video for new single “Airwalkin’ by GUM. Listen to the new album “Out In The World”
