One of Canada’s most accomplished singer-songwriter, Ron Sexsmith has returned with new music. The single ‘You Don’t Wanna Hear It’ is the first single from his forthcoming album ‘Hermitage’, Ron’s first album since his move from his longtime home of Toronto to a more bucolic life in Stratford, Ontario. Ron partnered with producer Don Kerr to create ‘Hermitage’; the two set up in Ron’s living room to record the album, with Ron playing all the instruments except the drums. This album marks Ron’s 25th year as a recording artist.
Describing the new single Ron says, “It’s a song about someone who has their nose all out of joint about something and are not in the mood to hear the truth.”
Ron Sexsmith is one of Canada’s greatest singer songwriters. He has collaborated with the likes of Daniel Lanois, Mitchell Froom, Ane Brun, Tchad Blake, and Bob Rock. His songwriting appears on albums from Rod Stewart, Michael Bublé, k.d. lang, Emmylou Harris and Feist. He has been awarded 3 Juno Awards, having been nominated 15 times including 8 nods for Songwriter of the Year.
“You Don’t Wanna Hear It” from Ron Sexsmith’s upcoming April 17th album “Hermitage”.
Seven years after her Top 5 debut album, Ren Harvieu has announced news of her long-awaited new album ‘Revel In The Drama’, due for release 3rd April via Bella Union Records Includes the singles ‘Teenage Mascara’ and ‘Yes Please.’
Having earlier signalled her return via the track “Teenage Mascara”, which was both Lauren Laverne’s Track of the Day and Jo Whiley’s Single Of The Week, Ren Harvieu has today announced news of her long-awaited new album “Revel In The Drama”, due for release 3rd April via Bella Union . The album is a brilliant and bolder take on her timeless pop classicism, a compelling diary of a struggle with self-belief and a celebration of liberation and survival, seven years after her Top 5 debut album and having overcome a life-threatening injury. Think of Revel In The Drama as Harvieu’s second debut album; a new beginning. To celebrate the news Harvieu has shared a new track titled “Yes Please” which she describes as “A slow sensual dance of desire. I wanted to write about the art of seduction and the teasing power of being an unapologetic sexual being.”
Song written by Ren Harvieu and Romeo Stodart Taken from the album ‘Revel In The Drama’ by Ren Harvieu.
“GHUM gloss over dark pop with ghostly grunge” – The Line of Best Fit
“Immediately astonish with their electrifying brand of post-punk, but with a bitter and biting edge. The best goth pop that never was but could still be. Band of the night for me” – The Vapour Trail
“Morphing atmospheric pop through a smokey veil of haunting new wave guitar” – Hard of Hearing Music
“Playing Indietracks this summer, the band’s poised, intense set caught the imagination of everyone on site…A taut, wiry performance, ‘I’m The Storm’ matches their post-punk squall to a gothic sheen” – Clash Magazine
“Ghum’s sweeping dark-pop proves they’re a band who deserve to be heard” – Get in her Ears
“This super slice of moody noise pop encapsulates all of the phases of love from obsession and infatuation to giddiness to a fevered masochism”- God is in the TV
Wolf Parade the Montreal band’s 2005 debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, became a ubiquitous indie radio staple. The band Wolf Parade – Dan Boeckner, Spencer Krug and Arlen Thompson – release ‘Thin Mind’, the group’s fifth album for Sub Pop. their heart, panache, and synthesizers on display through their next few albums, 2008’s excellent At Mount Zoomer and 2010’s Expo 86, and after a lengthy hiatus, they showed more growth on 2017′s Cry Cry Cry.
Their new album “Thin Mind” still comes as an unexpected new peak for the band this album scratches a very specific and satisfying itch for indie guitar music in 2020. Now a trio, the group has only deepened its talents and personal musical aesthetic, while their lyrical themes have taken on both a newfound maturity and optimism.
Wolf Parade seem more comfortable commenting on the world around them on Thin Mind, but they sound just as interested in having a good time making music. The songs bounce and zip with the sort of kinetic energy that’s hard to find in blogosphere success stories still making music in 2020. As can be heard on standout tracks such as “Julia Take Your Man Home” and “Forest Green,” everything sounds sharper and more direct, without being aggressive or in-your-face, as any art-pop sprawl has been replaced with glammy arena rock tendencies. The panoply of synthesizers on display across the entire project, especially on “Wandering Son” and “Against the Day,” are also a fine addition. This full turn away from being Wire disciples to New Order and Duran Duran acolytes provides a resplendent edge. for Wolf Parade to kick off 2020 with a ten-song album bursting with mature perspectives and emotional heft, it makes even jaded assholes like me sit up and take notice.
Thin Mind is packed with straight-up fun music that overflows with a danceable sensibility, infectious melodies, and overall good vibes. The songs here find Wolf Parade openly encouraging their listeners to make a difference in the world, to work to make things better. As they put it, during the chorus of album highlight “The Static Age,” “I don’t want to live in the static age staying in a place where nothing changes. We can begin again.”
Fickle tastes and trends aside, the Peter Wolf-produced Peace in Our Time (“King of Emotion”) was a slick, topical tour de force to mark the end of the ‘80s, and No Place Like Home (“We’re Not in Kansas”) and Buffalo Skinners (“Alone”) were all a series of terrific, hard-rocking album releases to greet the ‘90s.
But Big Country had lost its foothold on the pop charts: No Place and Skinners weren’t even released stateside, which raised the stakes for “Long Face” and tested the group’s mettle with minders, marketers, and bean-counters at Transatlantic, Castle, and Pure Records.
Formed in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1981 by the band’s guitarists and founder members Stuart Adamson and Bruce Watson, Big Country quickly broke worldwide with their initial album “The Crossing”, selling over 2 million copies and receiving 3 Grammy nominations in the US. Success continued, and the band went on to put out another 5 highly regarded albums before the release of “Why The Long Face” in 1995.
With original singer Stuart Adamson at the helm, Big Country scored 17 top 30 singles in the UK, and achieved 5 gold and platinum albums during the period.
This release includes not only the full length album “Why The Long Face”, but also their live 1996 album “Eclectic”, plus a huge array of bonus tracks and band demos, including alternative and acoustic versions of classic tracks such as ‘In A Big Country’ and ‘You Dreamer’, plus a whole load of rarities including Big Country’s cover versions of Alice Cooper’s ‘Teenage Lament’, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Down On The Corner’ and Neil Young’s ‘Hey Hey My My’.
All material contained within has been freshly remastered especially for this release. It Comes packaged in a clam shell box set, with booklet containing full sleeve-notes documenting the band’s activities throughout the release of the album.
Suffice to say, ...Long Face didn’t broaden Big Country’s audience as intended. Following a similar fate as The Seer seven years prior, the disc—packed with muscular, melodic guitars and bold, book-smart verses—sated core fans but didn’t yield any radio hits or MTV mainstays like “In a Big Country” and “Fields of Fire.”
The album’s under-performance on the charts never really warranted it being overlooked by listeners (who by now had latched on to Nirvana, Dave Matthews, and Pearl Jam) or its dismissal in the annals of rock history.
That injustice is precisely what makes Cherry Red’s reassessment so crucial.
Handsomely packed in a sturdy yellow case (instead of original powder blue) with another photogenic Doberman on front, the 4CD set “Why the Long Face” 2018 includes not only the remastered ’95 album, but three extra CD’s worth of bonus Big Country tracks, demos, covers, and in-concert cuts from that era (1994-1996).
Disc One contains the album proper—fourteen tracks of sparkling guitar (clean and crunchily distorted), robust rhythms, and intelligent lyrics (about love, regret, and hope), all anointed by another serving of the same hardy, anthem-like refrains that made Big Country famous.
Opener “You Dreamer” rides high on a bagpipe-esque guitar riff and rugged, dirty power chords (courtesy Adamson and Bruce Watson) before introducing Stuart’s vignette of forgotten souls in pizza shops (where “prescription junkies” “watch the window fill with flies”). It’s an electrifying ode to shattered dreams that ponders a plethora of what-ifs and what-might-have-been…yet—in true Big Country form—keeps positive rather than give up the ghost to adversity.
“Is this the way that you believed your life was gonna turn out?” muses Adamson (quite possibly about himself). “Is this the better world that you were making all those plans for?”
Then there’s the typical (but effective) valentines to both imagined paramours (“One in a Million,” “Send You”) and humanity at large (“Message of Love”), reflections on personal triumphs and private travails (“I’m Not Ashamed,”“Wildlandin My Heart”), and sundry entries (“Sail Into Nothing,” “”God’s Great Mistake,” “Post Nuclear Talking Blues”) that couple the Dunfermline four-piece’s penchant for outdoor themes (nature, freedom, adventure) and affinity for its signature Scottish sound into upbeat, zeitgeist-sensitive zingers.
Disc Two is jam-packed with bonus tracks including single edits of “Dreamer” and “Ashamed,” early / alternate takes of “One in a Million,” and acoustic versions of old standbys “In a Big Country” and “All Go Together.” There’s also a bunch of extra songs that didn’t make the album (but might’ve popped up on the band’s Rarities series later), like “Crazy Times,” “Ice Cream Smile,” and “Bianca.” This is also where fans will find working versions recorded by Adamson, Butler, and company at House in the Woods studio in Surrey (“Hardly a Mountain,” “Can You Feel the Winter”).
Disc Three is a digitally-retouched edition of the in-concert Eclectic album released by Castle Communications in the year following …Long Face. Recorded live at Dingwalls in London in late March of ’96 (and long since out-of-print), the album shines with a mix of old and then-new Big Country classics (“River of Hope,” “Where the Rose is Sown”), all rendered before an elated audience. Also on the menu here is an assortment of choice cover songs that speak to the band’s early influences (The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire,” Neil Young’s “Hey Hey My My,” CCR’s “Down on the Corner.” The smoldering set (with bassist Tony Butler and drummer Mark Brzezicki underpinning the guitar hysteria with glorious grooves) also features guest spots by British vocalist/actor Bobby Valentino, rocker Steve Harley (of Cockney Rebel), and American soul singer Kym Mazelle.
The …Long Face prototype is represented by Disc Four: This is where collectors and curators will discover working versions of the tunes that would be polished up later for the final version of the album. Workshopped at various locations in Scotland and England (Audiocraft, Riverside, Chapel, HITW), this missing-link record presents some of Adamson’s best ideas in a stripped-down format. But most the program is dominated by near-finished “jam” versions of “Dreamer,” “Message,” “Ashamed” and other stand-outs that sound—unlike most demos or garage versions—almost as concise (in performance) and as crystalline (in production) as the finished …Long Face LP.
So if you know Stuart Adamson and Big Country only by their earliest “essential” hits, now’s as good a time as any to revisit the well and get acclimated with the group’s strong, inspirational, and sorely-overlooked middle catalog. And there’s never been a better opportunity to take those first steps than with this respectfully-rendered …Long Face deluxe box.
With 2017’s Out In The Storm, Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield topped herself yet again with a roaring collection of songs worthy of one of the best projects to come out of the last decade. She revisited some older songs for 2018’s lovely Great Thunder EP, and in March, Waxahatchee will release her fifth full-length album.
It’s called Saint Cloud, and Crutchfield wrote the songs after committing to getting sober. Naturally, Saint Cloud is a potent examination of the behavior that springs from addiction and what it can feel like to be truly in tune with yourself. Crutchfield recorded Saint Cloud at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, TX, and Long Pond in Stuyvesant, NY, and it was produced by Brad Cook .
Its lead single, “Fire,” is about straddling between borders — physically, the border between Tennessee and Arkansas (as Crutchfield explains below) but also emotionally. It’s groovy and intricately layered and warm, unlike anything Crutchfield has put out with this project before. “If I could love you unconditionally, I– / Could iron out the edges of the darkest sky,” she sings. “For some of us, it ain’t enough.”
Crutchfield returns to that physical border in the video for “Fire.” Here’s her statement about the song:
The idea and melody for ‘Fire’ was dreamt up while driving over the Mississippi River from Memphis into West Memphis, AR, sun reflecting off the water which literally made West Memphis glow. The song’s written by me, to myself. It’s about the internal dialogue of shame surrounding mistakes you’ve made in the past and how we spiral and beat ourselves up when we slip. It’s meant to be a bit of a personal pep talk. If I can love myself unconditionally, then I can move through the world a little easier. If I can accept that I only have a partial view of the universe, and that I can’t know everything or control much of anything, then I can breathe a little easier, take better care of myself, and be closer to my own truth.
Finally after two years of sweat and tears, we are happy to announce that our third album “Truth or Consequences” will be out on the 13th of march 2020, courtesy of our new friends at Inertia Music and Polyvinyl Record Co.
They’ve shared the latest single from the record, “Cool For A Second,” which follows the previously shared “Right Track / Wrong Man.” It has that now-signature nostalgic and above the clouds feeling that Yumi Zouma’s best offerings give you. With both of the songs that we’ve heard so far, the album is shaping up to be another winner from the New Zealand outfit.
We think it’s our most special record yet, and we hope you do too. To celebrate, today we have released a new video for one of our favourite songs on the record, “Cool For A Second”, shot by Nick McKinlay (Julia Jacklin, Stella Donnelly, Merpire).
Wye Oak (Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack) have shared a brand new song, “Fear of Heights.” It follows “Fortune,” a new song they shared back in November . “Fear of Heights” is a bit more subdued than “Fortune” but soars on the strength of Wasner’s always sublime vocals.
Wasner had this to say about “Fear of Heights” in a press release: “This song’s central metaphor likens the deepening of a relationship to the feeling of ascending to the top of a very tall place. There’s something to be seen (or learned, or experienced) once you arrive, but for some there is also a fear that increases with every step upwards. You say it’s worth it for the view, but it’s impossible to know if that’s true until you get there to see it with your own eyes.”
For the first time since 2012, Wasner and Stack are now both living in the same city together, Durham, NC (home to their label Merge Records), which has allowed for renewed creativity and led to the band recording last summer. There’s no word yet on a new album.
Wye Oak released their last album, The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs, back in April 2018 via Merge. Since their last album, Stack launched his solo project, Joyero, releasing his debut album as Joyero, Release the Dogs, in August 2019 via Merge. Wasner, meanwhile, has been touring as part of Bon Iver’s band. A previous press release promised that the JOIN tour dates will feature an expanded live band and will find them not just performing Wye Oak songs, but also ones by Joyero and Wasner’s Flock of Dimes solo project.
The single, “Fear of Heights,” is out now on Merge Records.
Dana Gavanski today announces her debut album Yesterday Is Gone, out 27th March. To mark the announce, and following on from her BBC 6Music A-listed single ‘Catch’, Dana is sharing her new single ‘Good Instead of Bad’.
Speaking about the meaning of the song, Dana explains “it’s about reflecting on the end of a relationship and how quickly things change. The desire to make up for everything that wasn’t done or wasn’t done right. The muddiness of breaking up, and not knowing if it’s the right decision. Not saying the right things, not being able to express the complexity of what we’re feeling. Things change and that’s that – not being able to turn back and undo a bad move. It’s an attempt to see from the other’s perspective and understand how hard it is for them as well. Reflecting on the intractability of certain decisions.”
Yesterday Is Gone is a co-production between Dana, Toronto-based musician Sam Gleason, and Mike Lindsay of Tunng and LUMP. On the title track, Dana Gavanski sings ‘I’m learning how to say goodbye / to let you go and face the tide / to wrap my feelings in a song’. To wrap her feelings in a song: this is the task Dana has dedicated herself to with this record. By turns break-up album, project of curiosity, and, as Dana puts it, “a reckoning with myself”, Yesterday Is Gone is her attempt to “learn to say what I feel and feel what I say” – an album of longing and devotion to longing, and of the uncertainty that arises from learning about oneself, of pushing boundaries, falling hard, and getting back up.
“Often we have to go a little far in one direction to learn something about ourselves,” Dana says. The months of solitary writing and self-doubt testify to this, but they’ve led to Yesterday Is Gone: an optimistic, steely-eyed gaze into the future.
