RICHARD THOMPSON – ” Live At Rock City ” Nottingham November 1986

Posted: May 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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In November 1986; the month that this Double Live album was recorded Erasure, Duran Duran, Kim Wilde and Swing Out Sister were topping the UK Pop Charts; yet Richard Thompson’s music has aged much better than any of them. It’s not that his music; in particular his songwriting hasn’t evolved in the intervening 34 years; but if he turned up at your local concert hall with the same band of musicians in tow and played this set note for note; you would still be thrilled and satisfied at an evening and money well spent.
Arguably recorded at the height of Thompson’s ‘Commercial success’ this album was originally a radio show so the production is far clearer than a bootleg or two that I own from the same era; and the intricacy of his sublime and inventive guitar playing shines through every song. Starting with a huge roar that greets Thompson, the first song Man in Need (from Shoot Out The Lights) gets the evening off to a fantastic start; combining as it does, Thompson’s trademarked Folk sensibilities with his Electric guitar ……. showing that Folk Rock really could and still can R.O.C.K!

Although promoting the “Daring Adventures album at the time Thompson also dips daringly into his back catalogue; breathing new life into the likes of “Calvary Cross, Two Left Feet” and a personal favourite of mine; “Tear Stained Letter” …… which are still regular parts of his current concerts.

As you’d expect from a Richard Thompson concert there are surprises around every corner; and just when you’re not expecting it he drops in the Whitefriar’s Hornpipe/Shreds and Patches medley; featuring the dexterous accordion playing of John Kirkpatrick; and while not my first musical love proves to be a real toe-tapper.
There’s plenty here for part-time fans most especially You Don’t Say with Richard and Clive Gregson trading verses and harmonising like Folk’s answer to the Everly Brothers; plus I’d totally forgot that Thompson supplied the theme tune to Life and Loves of a She-Devil; and Christine Collister’s vocals and Thompson’s spooky tune.

It’s a long time since I played the album; but I don’t remember Shoot Out The Lights or Al Bowly’s in Heaven sounding this dark and dangerous, here both sound almost Gothic in tone.
For a Favourite Track I’m not sure whether to go for the tried and trusted in Wall of Death  or something brand new to me; in this case The Angels Took My Racehorse Away (from 1972’s Henry The Human Fly) which blew me away the first time I heard it but I’m going to compromise with the fabulous Nearly In Love; a song I loved way back when, from the Daring Adventures because Thompson proves what a skilled craftsman he was with storytelling and song construction; plus his guitar playing throughout shows why so many people rate him as one of the most innovative guitars players of all time. Apart from Richard Thompson’s voice being a tad smoother and more excitable than it is today; these songs and the man himself don’t appear to have aged a single day in the intervening years on this marvellous live set from my hometown Nottingham.

Recorded Live At Rock City, Nottingham, November – 1986

Named by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the Top 20 Guitarists of All Time, Richard Thompson is also one of the world’s most critically acclaimed and prolific songwriters. He has received Lifetime Achievement Awards for Songwriting on both sides of the Atlantic – from the Americana Music Association in Nashville to Britain’s BBC Awards and the prestigious Ivor Novello.

In 2011, Thompson was the recipient of the OBE (Order of the British Empire) personally bestowed upon him by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. Most recently, the Americana Music Honors & Awards nominated him for ”Artist of the Year”.

Tracklist:
1. Man In Need (Live) ( 3:56)
2. When The Spell Is Broken (Live) ( 7:31)
3. Two Left Feet (Live) ( 3:53)
4. Jennie (Live) ( 5:28)
5. A Bone Through Her Nose (Live) ( 6:33)
6. Calvary Cross (Live) (10:23)
7. Al Bowlly’s In Heaven (Live) ( 6:33)
8. Whitefriar’s Hornpipe Shreds And Patches (Live) ( 4:53)
9. You Don’t Say (Live) ( 5:02)
10. Wall Of Death (Live) ( 3:53)
11. Fire In The Engine Room (Live) ( 3:54)
12. The Life And Loves Of A She Devil Theme Tune (Live) ( 7:46)
13. The Angels Took My Racehorse Away (Live) ( 4:41)
14. Shoot Out The Lights (Live) ( 6:46)
15. Nearly In Love (Live) ( 4:38)
16. Tear Stained Letter (Live) ( 7:56)

The JAYHAWKS – ” Forgotten Town “

Posted: May 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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the jayhawks

The Jayhawks have a new song out Tuesday with “This Forgotten Town,” the second track off the band’s forthcoming album XOXO. They previously dropped the Elliott Smith-esque tune “Living in a Bubble.”

The mid-tempo jangly roots-pop gem opens the band’s first album of new material since 2016’s Paging Mr. Proust. The song features vocals from lead singer Gary Louris and drummer Tim O’Reagan. “Introducing different voices throughout the song added a new dimension to telling the story,” says the band’s bassist Marc Perlman, who co-wrote the song with Louris. “We approached it much like we did the whole record — more collaboration in the writing and more sharing of lead vocals than in the past.”

“Marc brought the chord progression for this song, and then I started singing a melody on top of it,” Louris adds. “We wrote the lyrics together.”

The band’s 11th studio album marks the first time the group has fully distributed its songwriting duties, with all four band members (Louris, Perlman, O’Reagan and Karen Grotberg) writing their own songs and singing lead vocals. The album follows the group’s latest release Back Roads and Abandoned Motels, a collection of previously released material that Louris wrote for other artists like the Dixie Chicks and Jakob Dylan

The opening song on the upcoming new album, XOXO, which is being released July 10th via Sham/Thirty Tigers. “This Forgotten Town” finds Gary Louris trading off lead vocals with Tim O’Reagan as Karen Grotberg joins in on harmonies, setting the stage for the band’s most collaborative album to date.

“Marc brought the chord progression for this song, and then I started singing a melody on top of it. We wrote the lyrics together,” explains Louris. “A lot of the time when I’m working on lyrics, I’m thinking as much about the sound of the words as the meaning. I like to leave space between the lines for interpretation.” Perlman adds, “Introducing different voices throughout the song added a new dimension to telling the story. We approached it much like we did the whole record – more collaboration in the writing and more sharing of lead vocals than in the past.”

XOXO is The Jayhawks’ most diverse and wide-ranging collection of songs, marking a new era for the beloved band. For the first time, the album includes lead vocal and songwriting contributions from all four members bringing a new energy and confidence to The Jayhawks’ signature harmonies and infectious melodies. The group’s camaraderie is at the heart and soul of this release, showcasing an unrelenting ability to evolve while staying true to their authentic sound. XOXO is the product of a group more inspired and more itself than ever before, and reminds us why The Jayhawks have remained such an influential and respected band for over 30 years.

The Jayhawks have continued their success since returning to the core members from the late-90’s lineup, releasing Paging Mr. Proust in 2016 and Back Roads and Abandoned Motels in 2018 to widespread critical acclaim. The culmination of five years spent growing even more together, XOXO is a sonically and emotionally cohesive album that stands as a testament to The Jayhawks’ consistent forward motion.

Alt-country vets The Jayhawks have shared this warm, breezy song which opens their upcoming album XOXO, due July 10th via Sham/Thirty Tigers

BONNY LIGHT HORSEMEN – ” Bonny Light Horseman “

Posted: May 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Trad-folk rabble rousers from a bevvy of renowned musicians with a keen understanding on the heritage of the genre and an enviable imagination for how to take it bounding into the future.

The astral folk outfit—comprised of Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman— mixes the ancient, mystical medium of transatlantic traditional folk music with a contemporary, collective brush. the resulting album, bonny light horseman, is an elusive kind of sonic event: a bottled blend of lightning and synergy that will excite fans of multiple genres, eras, and ages. This is colourful, textured work: a lush and loving ode to the past with one eye fixed on the present. “There’s a palpable through line: a sense that the spirit of these ancient songs can be secured in the face of radical transformation”

What seemed at first like a fun side project has turned into one of the year’s most re-playable albums. Bonny Light Horseman are a new supergroup of Anais Mitchell, Eric D Johnson (Fruit Bats), and The National/Craig Finn/Hiss Golden Messenger/Josh Ritter collaborator (and now member of Paul Banks’ new band Muzz) Josh Kaufman — is steeped in centuries-old tradition, but they sound like a breath of fresh air. Their debut album is a mix of traditional folk songs (including the one they’re named after) and originals, and Bonny Light Horseman often drastically rework the traditionals and make them entirely their own. It’s an album that could appeal to fans of classic folk rock like Fairport Convention as much as to more recent indie folk acts like Fleet Foxes or Bon Iver (whose Justin Vernon appears on the album and released it on 37d03d, the label he runs with The National’s Aaron Dessner, who also played on the album), and it’s one of the most refreshing albums in this style to be released in recent memory.

The new song from Bonny Light Horseman, “Deep In Love,” began as a Fruit Bats sketch, until Josh Kaufman recognized its uncanny (and unplanned) similarity to a traditional tune by that name. available on 37d03d Records.

FLYTE – ” Easy Tiger “

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“Easy Tiger” is the group’s first new release since last year’s White Roses EP, and arrives with a video directed by BAFTA-winning director Mark Jenkin.

Vocalist Will Taylor says of the song, “When I wrote “Easy Tiger” I was exorcising shame, heartbreak, jealously; almost impossible emotions to process, I almost regretted writing it. There’s a darkness and an emotional brashness to Mark’s work that suited the song perfectly. It would have been hard to trust anyone else with it.”

Jenkin says of the accompanying visual, “The challenge was to make something that felt amorphous – to create something that has a tactile feel to it, is a single artefact, something that feels like a found film and something that is timeless, abstract and unidentifiable in some ways. For me, what’s exciting is those limitations – this is where my strength is, the great unknown.

Flyte’s “Easy Tiger” single is out now on Island Records.

Band Members: Will Taylor, Nick Hill, Jon Supran, Sam Berridge

WHITE DENIM – ” I Don’t Understand Rock And Roll “

Posted: May 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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White Denim are prolific at the best of times. Put the band – which is driven by frontman James Petralli – in isolation and you’re bound to get results. ‘I Don’t Understand Rock And Roll’ is more of that driving, guitar-heavy, psych rock with delightful pop hooks that the band do so well.  Written and recorded in 30 days under quarantine from March 18th – April 17th, 2020.

World As A Waiting Room’ vinyl update! Thank you for your patience as our manufacturer works through some unavoidable delays with their printing vendor. The current timeline is for records to be assembled the last week of May.

Their isolation album, which they wrote and recorded in just 30 days, is called World As A Waiting Room and it’s available now.

Band Members:
James Petralli,
Steve Terebecki,
Michael Hunter,
Greg Clifford,

BECCA MANCARI – ” The Greatest Part “

Posted: May 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Divine, dreamy indie-pop with from New York-born, Nashville-based artist Becca Mancari. She’s got that ultra-honest approach to her lyrics. She doesn’t shroud her tales in metaphor, preferring to flat-out tells us about how it felt to come out, how her super religious family reacted and how it’s affected her. Honest and beautiful songwriting. Becca Mancari is a traveler. She’s lived everywhere — Staten Island, Florida, Zimbabwe, Virginia, India, Pennsylvania — and she’s collected plenty of tales along the way, spinning the sounds and stories of the modern world into songs. Expanding beyond the homespun rootsiness of her critically acclaimed debut to incorporate a grittier, more experimental palette, Becca Mancari’s captivating new collection, ‘The Greatest Part,’ lives in a liminal space between grief and joy, pain and forgiveness, sorrow and liberation. The record, produced by Paramore drummer Zac Farro, marks a significant sonic and emotional evolution, balancing unflinching self-examination with intoxicating grooves and infectious instrumental hooks fueled by explosive percussion and fuzzed out guitars.

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A lot of people were introduced to Becca Mancari as a member of Bermuda Triangle alongside Brittany Howard, but Becca had also released her debut solo album Good Woman right around the same time Bermuda Triangle put out their first single, and Good Woman proved Becca was a worthwhile artist in her own right. It’s one of the past few years’ true gems; an alt-country record with an indie rock edge and truly timeless songwriting.

For its follow-up The Greatest Part, Becca signed to Captured Tracks — an indie pop label who at this point are probably best known for signing Mac DeMarco — and she produced it with Paramore drummer Zac Farro, who also makes Tame Impala-esque psych-pop as Halfnoise. (Plus, there’s backing vocals on “First Time” and “I’m Sorry” by Julien Baker.) The Greatest Part is probably the first album to ever make “Captured Tracks,” “country,” and “Paramore” one degree of separation from each other, and you can hear the center point of that unique venn diagram in the sound of these songs as much as you can see it on paper. Zac’s influence is felt in the psych-pop guitar work that pops up from time to time, and much more so than Good Woman, this album has an indie/dream pop side that sounds right at home on Captured Tracks. Becca hasn’t abandoned her folk/country roots, though, and the fusion of all of these sounds makes for an album that breaks down even more musical boundaries than Good Woman did. The sounds that Becca experiments with on this album are new, but what hasn’t changed is how impactful her song writing and delivery is. She still has a knack for wrapping powerful storytelling in warm melodies, and delivering each word in a way that captures your attention and doesn’t let it go.

Her new album The Greatest Part will be out at the end of June.

WILD FLAG – ” Romance ” Classic Track

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Although their existence was short lived, the arrival of Wild Flag in 2011 was a majorly exciting moment for Sleater-Kinney fans.

By then, the blazingly great Portland trio had been on hiatus for five years, leaving a crater-sized hole in indie rock behind. Wild Flag arrived as a super powered blast of fresh female energy from four women with a long friendship and a fiery chemistry.

Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss were joined by Mary Timony of Helium (and currently Ex-Hex) and Rebecca Cole of The Minders. They’re all players with impeccable pedigrees in underground rock, but their sum was much more than their parts. Together they created an exuberant album filled with charged, bouncy rock’n’roll missiles, equal parts punk and pop and classic rock.

With Timony and Brownstein sharing vocal duties, and Rebecca Cole’s new wavey keyboards, there was plenty of fresh ingredients in Wild Flag’s sound to both excite Sleater-Kinney devotees, while establishing Wild Flag as a force to be reckoned with on their own terms.

Official video for “Romance” by Wild Flag, taken from their self-titled debut, out on Merge Records.

Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney), Mary Timony (Helium), Rebecca Cole (The Minders), Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks)

DIRTY PROJECTORS – ” Lose Your Love “

Posted: May 14, 2020 in MUSIC
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This summer, Dirty Projectors will release “Flight Tower”, the next in a sequence of five EPs to come ou in 2020. Each EP will feature a different band member on lead vocals — Maia, Felicia, Kristin & Dave — with everyone trading verses on the fifth and final installment. ‘Lose Your Love’ has plenty of the sonic trademarks that have made Dirty Projectors such a wild project. Heavily experimental pop that is both immediately alluring and completely disorientating.

On Flight Tower, Felicia is in the captain’s chair. Each track is built around her mellifluous alto and empathetic eye, and Felicia and Dave wrote the lyrics together. Longstreth tills the other side of the screen, letting the sonic seeds planted on 2017’s Dirty Projectors and 2018’s Lamp Lit Prose blossom into something weird and new.

Dirty Projectors are releasing five EPs this year. Five. Why? Who knows. “Lose Your Love” we’re putting out five EPs this year, and the boxset of all five EPs

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Felicia Douglass lead vocals and completely shines out the front. She sings all the songs on the Flight Tower EP from which this comes. It’s out next month.

releases June 26th, 2020, Domino Recording Co Ltd

KATIE VON SCHLEICHER – ” Consummation “

Posted: May 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Katie Von Schleicher was named the Best of What’s Next way back in 2017 on the tail of her album Shitty Hits’ release. It’s a sturdy indie effort, full of bouncy melodies and Von Schleicher’s emotions laid bare. “Paranoia,” a ghostly glance inside the swirling unease of an anxious mind, is the stand-out track. Since 2017, Von Schleicher has stayed busy playing in labelmate Lady Lamb’s touring band. On her next solo album effort, “Consummation”, however, she seems to have settled into her own groove even more.

These songs, while tricky to grasp at times, are much more assured. Lead single “Caged Sleep” is a blast sonically, while it taps into that same eerie underworld that “Paranoia” did back in 2017, diving deep into the vivid and frequently spooky land of dreams. “Wheel” is a lot spunkier, the kind of steady indie-rock jam you might sway along to at a festival (remember those?). The album itself has many different moods, but Von Schleicher masters them all with her keen rock sensibilities. While we had our eye on her back in 2017, Consummation could be Katie Von Schleicher’s biggest jumping-off point yet.

The album was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s classic obsession thriller, Vertigo, as well as Rebecca Solnit’s searing critique on the film. The first single is the spiraliing, consuming “Brutality”.

Katie Von Schleicher will release her new album “Consummation” on May 22nd via Ba Da Bing, and first single “Caged Sleep” finds her more in driving indie rock mode compared to her usual, more ballad-driven sound. She’s good at this kinda thing too.

Katie Von Schleicher’s follow up to 2017’s Shitty Hits. “Consummation” is out on Full Time Hobby in May 22nd‬
‪Exclusive clear vinyl, bonus 7” with two tracks, tote bag, hand numbered edition of 300 only‬.

CRACK CLOUD – ” Pain Olympics “

Posted: May 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Like Psychic TV before them, Crack Cloud have a philosophy and one that they are not afraid to wear on their sleeves – while their anarchic, phantasmagorical visuals, heavy use of symbology, and seemingly never-ending cast of colourful collaborators have often invited cult comparisons, this really does the collective no justice. There is no apocalyptic death drive here; no cult of personality; no hierarchy of power. While frontman and lyricist Zach Choy is in many ways the face of the group, the collective is one founded on equality and in his cryptic lyrical blending of poetics, polemics and personal experience, Choy is truly the mouthpiece of something far larger than himself.

Nowhere else is this more apparent than on the album’s first single, ‘The Next Fix.’ What begins as a caustic, claustrophobic account of addiction swells into a sprawling, euphoric hymn as Choy is joined by a choir of seemingly endless celestial voices. Less a cult then; more a church. Listening to this song or watching its accompanying self-directed video is a truly spiritual experience, and in its building, jubilant movement it offers a glimpse of Crack Cloud’s most vital message: using community to turn adversity into hope.

This isn’t just bravado; its a story born of deep, personal experience. Crack Cloud operate on the frontline of Canada’s out-of-control opiate crisis, mobilising and organizing in Vancouver’s harm reduction programmes. The group themselves have had their fair share of trauma and the collective offers its members a vital vehicle for rehabilitation and recovery. As the tagline on the album’s back cover makes clear then, this is absolutely “based on true sh*t”.

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