Hailing from the South East of England, indie-rock quartet Laulia recently released their new double-A single through Rose Coloured Records. The track is the latest sample of what’s to come from the band, following on from their well-received debut single, “Burning Out/Machines”, and a starring sport on the excellent ‘Girls Against’ Compilation, featuring alongside the likes of Dream Wife and Hinds. This week the band have shared the video to one-half of the single, 13/7.
Written just days before Laulia were meant to go in and record a completely different track, 13/7 is an impassioned indie-epic, combining soaring guitar lines with howling vocals and pounding drum hits, coming across like Sleater Kinney covering The Twilight Sad. Discussing the inspiration behind the track, vocalist Lauren Holmes has suggested it’s about, “the choice of loving yourself or loving someone else” and how in the end, “we must accept that we can’t help those who don’t want to be helped”. Bruising and beautiful in equal measures, Laulia just penciled themselves in for an awful lot of, “Bands to Watch in 2020” lists.
Band Members
Lauren (Vocal & Guitar)
Ollie (Lead Guitar)
Kurt (Drums)
Harry (Bass)
13/7 / Outcast Kids is out now via Rose Coloured Records.
Back in 2016, Patrick Doyle, was best known as a member of Veronica Falls, he moved to Los Angeles to work on the follow-up to the debut album from his well-received new project, Boys Forever. The result was a new album, Keeping Up Appearance, under a new band name, Basic Plumbing. Tragically, shortly after sharing the record’s first single, As You Disappear, Patrick passed away. Keen to realise Patrick’s plans for the records, both his family and bass-playing collaborator, Helen Skinner, have worked together to bring the record into the world, with all profits going to charities chosen by Patrick’s family – LA’s LGBT Centre and CALM.
The record will arrive in January next year, and ahead of its release this week a new Basic Plumbing single, “ConstantAttention”, has been shared. The track is a fine reminder of Patrick’s ability to write a charming lo-fi pop track, as easy half-spoken vocals, in the mold of The Goon Sax, chime atop propulsive guitar riffs and the primal charms of the rhythm section. Patrick’s aim on this record was to capture the punchiness of the band’s live performance, which Patrick was apparently delighted to have compared to, “a gay indie Nirvana”, on the evidence of Constant Attention it’s captured that spirit perfectly; a fitting farewell to a one of a kind songwriter.
White Lies today return to share a new track, ‘Falling Out With Me’.
It follows last month’s ‘Hurt My Heart’, both recorded with US producer Andrew Wells (5 Seconds Of Summer, Fall Out Boy) in Los Angeles, and are also an addition on the digital re-release of ‘Five’, out today whilst also available as a limited pressing double AA-sided 7” single on white vinyl – 500 via the band’s website and 500 on the band’s forthcoming live shows.
“’Falling Out Without Me’ follows on the heels of ‘Tokyo’ and having witnessed how our immersion into pure pop connected with our fanbase, come the summer and a gap in the touring schedule we decided to write and record two new songs. It’s a fairly abstract song about the feeling you’re losing yourself and becoming unhinged,” says lyricist and bassist Charles Cave. “We wanted to write something with a lot of groove and a real ear-worm hook. It’s infectious, this one.”
The trio are currently on a European live run celebrating the tenth anniversary of their debut album ‘To Lose My Life’,
We haven’t heard any new music from Hazel English since way back in 2017, when Hazel emerged with her frankly stunning pair of EP’s Just Give In and Never Going Home. With the promise of more to come in the none-too-distant future, Hazel has this week shared a brand new single, Shaking, alongside it’s suitably hazy video.
It gives me great pleasure to let you know that Shaking is now out in the world! Shaking is a song about power, seduction and the promise of spiritual awakening. It’s the dream that precedes wake, where you wake up in the dream and think you’re living in reality but you’re actually still asleep.
While Hazel’s previous material tended towards the glistening chill of dream-pop, on Shaking everything seems to have taken a good spell out in the sunshine. With layered percussion, slinky guitar-lines and warm, multi-tracked vocals, this is the sound of California in the 1960’s, delivered in glorious technicolor. Lyrically, as the lyrics themselves state,“this is an awakening”, as Hazel explains, “I feel like I’m on this continual journey of figuring out what I truly believe and separating it from the false and toxic ideas I was taught about myself and the world throughout my life”. A voyage of self-discovery for Hazel, and one we can’t wait to take with her, leave everything you know at the door and follow the music wherever it takes you.
Starting life as the bedroom solo project of Lili Trifilio back in 2015, Beach Bunny have gradually made a name of themselves through a string of self-releases EPs, culminating in their 2018 break out single, “Prom Queen”. Now teaming up with the Mom+Pop label, the band are set to release their hotly anticipated debut album Honeymoon in February, and have this week shared the latest track from it, Dream Boy.
While the title might not scream cynicism, Dream Boy isn’t actually quite the loved up anthem you might imagine. Instead the track finds Lili grappling with the difficulty of moving on, “it’s a song about being jaded to the idea of falling for someone again after being heartbroken in the past”. Throughout the track, Lili seems to struggle with accepting this new romantic future, still scarred by previous trysts, “I tend to keep my heart locked water-tight All you gotta do is meet me after midnight.” With a video that is distinctly John Hughes in feel, the music too seems to go back to an almost nostalgic teen fantasy, blending grungy lead vocals with swooning harmonies and the sort of jaunty guitar lines Sacred Paws would be proud of. Fitting neatly into Honeymoon’s key theme of fighting for optimism and love over self-doubt and fear, Dream Boy is ultimately a celebrating of thrusting your heart out into the world and believing that one way or another, everything will work out for the best.
The two great men in tandem, Dan Willson of Withered Hand lore is the best writer of melodies currently alive (believe me, I’ve looked). He hasn’t written a song I don’t adore. The streak continues here. I’m also happy to report that the songs from a Singer of Songs are also quite lovely, especially the last.
I spent a few days on a small organic farm in Barcelona at the end of last year. Although I did do some garlic planting, I was invited there by my Belgian friend Lieven, with the intention of us both writing songs from scratch. I had no great expectations. I tried to relax into the pace of life at the farm, and the couple who lived and worked there left a great impression on me. I managed three songs, Lieven managed three and a half. We recorded the six songs on the farm before I left, using the little studio there and with help from Frank, the engineer/drummer. We played on each other’s songs where it seemed right. This will hopefully continue to be possible with new artists taking our place.
The project is called Among Horses and the ltd edition EP is out on CD with a little Spanish label called Son Canciones.
The recordings are the result of recordings on the final days of this retreat. Some represent unfinished business maybe but this is the fruit of our time together. A brief harvest. New songs dreamed up on the farm, recorded on the farm. It is all in here somehow, from the dark nights to the dogs on the dusty road and the saints of the holy mountain. We remain, at your service, ghosts of two friends laughing in the yard with an old guitar while dogs sleep at our feet.
An organic farm in the middle of nowhere. Dry wind through dry leaves. Dogs sleeping a siesta in the sun. Rain that never comes. And horses. Always horses. This is the scenery in which Withered Hand and a Singer of Songs wrote and recorded the EP “Among Horses I”. They did it all in one week, and even had time left to plant some garlic. “After The Rain” is the first single of the EP. Buy “Among Horses I”
This was never going to happen. Bauhaus was never going to be on stage again, not together, not after 13 years of acrimony, not after repeated doubts from members that they would ever work together again, not after having gone through the reunion dance twice.
But there they were Sunday night less than three months after vocalist Peter Murphy suffered a heart attack before a solo show in New York, enthralling a black-dressed crowd of 5,000 at the Hollywood Palladium, playing with a fire that seemed to burn a lot of pent-up fuel. Those who expected to see an iconic band were not disappointed.
Whether the show resulted from Murphy’s brush with mortality or merely from a desire to light a fire under their catalog (not that their post-Bauhaus projects haven’t), the crowd cared not a for a moment.
And there was a palpable rush when Murphy, Haskins, Daniel Ash and David J took the the stage and blasted forth a crunching, feedback-drenched version of John Cale’s “Rosegarden Funeral of Sores.” Following that with the blistering one-two punch of “Double Dare” and “In a Flat Field,” it was clear that Bauhaus were back with a vengeance.
Like the best bands of their generation, Bauhaus made magic despite their technical shortcomings. Haskins’ static and angular drumming, Ash’s broken-glass version of glam-rock guitar, David J’s use of dub, pulse and throb, and Murphy’s rich, deep baritone made for a unique combination in 1978, the year of the band’s inception. As a musical genre, “goth” had yet to be coined, and the bleakness of Northampton, England, proved a perfect canvas for the young foursome’s monochromatic tunes of doom and gloom. The band lasted a mere five years and four releases before they parted ways in 1983, with all the members enjoying greater degrees of commercial success outside the group. Murphy had a major hit with “Cuts You Up,” and the Love and Rockets trio of Ash, Haskins and David J scored big with “So Alive.”
Despite being credited as the “Godfathers of Goth,” the band rejected that label, and upon further reflection, one can understand their argument. The magic of Bauhaus comes from the perfect merger of completely disparate elements. Shades of Bowie, Brel, baritone and Berliner camp form Murphy’s shadow. Ash brings forth the pre-glam metal slash and burn of Mick Ronson and the style of T. Rex. David J is steeped in the cheeba haze of dub master Lee “Scratch” Perry and traditional soul like James Brown. Haskins took the mechanical beats of Neu and Can and applied the Martin Hannett technique of making them sound organic and human. So the band credited as architects of “Goth” are not actually goth. Go ahead, ask them. Bauhaus is soul music, moving, emotive, soothing, provocative and sententious, which is why 15,000 people will pack a ballroom across three nights (they play the Palladium again tonight and on December. 1st) to see a band that nary had so much as a sniff of a charting single.
But that’s not to say there aren’t any hits. “Bela Lugosi is Dead” is the “Stairway to Heaven” of post-punk. The song that launched a thousand bands in its wake has lost none of its chilly luster. Played midway through Sunday’s 90-minute set, it is still epic, still icy, still grating — the climax for many of the newbies who had not yet gone full undead. To the faithful, the highlights were a trio of songs that haven’t tickled ears since the early ’80s. It was 1982 when anyone last heard “The Three Shadows, Part II” and “The Man With the X-Ray Eyes,” and it was 1983 when Bauhaus last played “Spy in the Cab.” That along with the Iggy Pop cover of “Sister Midnight” made the evening much more than a rehash of “The Best of Bauhaus.” Yes, it was all killer and no filler, as other set highlights included “A Kick in the Eye,” “She’s in Parties” and a furious version of “Stigmata Martyr.”
Murphy certainly doesn’t look the part of a man who just had two stents stuck in him less than three months ago. He was singing with exceptional projection, pulling his mic away a good 18 inches and yet still filling the hall with his bellow. One wishes that he’d even take it down a notch.
There is still no word on whether this reformation will lead to a broader tour — after tonight’s second sold-out night,
Setlist: Rosegarden Funeral of Sores (John Cale cover) , Double Dare, In The Flat Field, A God in an Alcove, In Fear of Fear, Spy in the Cab, Terror Couple Kill Colonel, Swing the Heartache, She’s In Parties, Bela Lugosi’s Dead, Kick In The Eye, The Man With the X-Ray Eyes, Stigmata Martyr, Silent Hedges, Dark Entries. Encore: The Three Shadows, Part II, Sister Midnight (Iggy Pop cover), Telegram Sam (T. Rex cover) , Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie cover).
what a wet week we have had, there’s a good deal of lovely records this week to soothe the aches and (possibly?) time to dry the socks..
The Nick Cave album Ghosteen that everyone has been asking about is OUT! today, It sees Nick and band in fine form, but there’s no mistaking there is a measure of catharsis in both the words and overall tone, understandably. It’s a wonderful piece of work though, despite the sombre atmosphere and flows with Cave’s singular ability to craft a narrative. I am very excited for the deluxe CD reissue of Gene Clark’s opus ‘No Other’ with a lovely booklet inside and an extra CD of rarities and alternate versions, and I was particularly psyched for the wonderful new LP from fave Ryley Walker and superb jazz drummer Charles Rumback. If you liked Grails (or Holy Sons for that matter), then this is a great one for you. Psych folk guitar with hints of Americana and a languid acid jazz backline,
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds – Ghosteen
Ghosteen is the new two part album from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Ghosteen is the seventeenth studio album from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, following 2016’s Skeleton Tree. The album was recorded in 2018 and early 2019 at Woodshed in Malibu, Nightbird in Los Angeles, Retreat in Brighton and Candybomber in Berlin. It was mixed by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Lance Powell and Andrew Dominik at Conway in Los Angeles.
Ghosteen sees Cave restrained and introspective, half singing, half speaking over a mix of piano and slow drifting electronics. He sounds vulnerable but not beaten. There are a lot of mentions of love in the lyrics, soft supportive backing vocals and an attractive warmth to the way Galleon Ship’s high synth sounds open the song wide, or the surprise falsetto he acquires late on in Sun Forest.
It’s a double LP with one album of conventional length songs then on the second – one short song and two of 12 and 14 minutes. They are more complex and grand. There’s a lot to take in but it’s totally absorbing.
Lucy Dacus – 2019
Recorded in here-and-there studio spurts over the last two years, 2019 is made up of originals and cover songs tied to specific holidays, each of which has dropped / will drop around their respective date: Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day (and Taurus season!), Independence Day, Springsteen’s Birthday (not an official holiday, though we’re told Chris Christie often took that day off), Halloween, Christmas, and New Year.
Dacus uses her gift as a songwriter to help understand and cope with the world around her, including making sense of national holidays, often more geared towards social media boasts and manufactured consumerism than authentic celebration. “What is going on,” she asks herself on these days, retreating from the heightened expectations of holidays to figure out what to make of them and to find her own meaning. “I’ve collected some songs from trying to answer that question,” she says, and “this EP seems like the right place to put them next to each other. These songs are self-contained, not indicative of a new direction, just a willingness to do something different and sometimes even out of character.”
Pond – Sessions Live
There are very few of this live album from one of our favourite current bands Sessions is the first ever live album from Australian adventurers Pond. Featuring recent singles Paint Me Silver, Sweep Me Off My Feet and Daisy from both their last two albums, Tasmania and The Weather, as well live versions spanning their whole career, including fan favourite Don’t Look At The Sun (Otherwise You Will Go Blind) from their hard-to-find debut album Psychedelic Mango. This release has been two years in-the-making and underlines their reputation as one of the most exciting live acts around.
“We wanted to capture how the band has been playing live lately and commit that to tape while we were in the middle of a long tour,” reveals Pond’s Jay Watson. “As you play the same song for years, or even as a single tour rolls on, the way you play the songs mutates. Little inflections and fills become part of the song, and the structures and even the overall feeling and intent of the songs change. I always loved listening to my favourite bands’ Peel Sessions and wanted something of our own in that vein.”
Josienne Clarke – In All Weather
In All Weather is a new collection of songs, in which Josienne Clarke goes it alone; musically, as this is her first solo record, and in her own life, laid bare and played out in the leave-it-all-behind-and-start-anew nature of the lyrics. The songs were written in on the Isle of Bute in 2018, where Josienne relocated for a year, overlooked by a snowy Ben Nevis.
Josienne accompanies herself on pared-back acoustic and electric guitar throughout. She’s joined on the record by experimental piano prodigy Elliott Galvin, innovative jazz drummer Dave Hamblett, celebrated Scottish harpist Mary Ann Kennedy and guitarist / bassist Sonny Johns who co-produced the record with Josienne.
White Denim – Last Day Of Summer
White Denim, dubbed the “last great rock n’ roll band” by The Guardian, has launched Radio Milk Records with a remastered reissue of their 2010 fan-favourite Last Day of Summer. Once impossible to find on vinyl due to a limited pressing of 500 copies, the album has been remastered by Joe La Porta at Sterling Sound, and pressed to heavy translucent green vinyl. This will be the first time the album is available in record shops! Recorded in a 1940s-era Spartan trailer in Driftwood, Texas, the self-produced album is full of “experiments, detours, and well- taken chances” [-Pitchfork]. The cuts on Last Day of Summer range from jazz instrumentals to folk to psychedelia, and showcase the band’s range better than any album in their catalog. Future Radio Milk Records releases will include live recordings from White Denim and other local and international bands.
Giant Sand – Glum – 25th Anniversary Edition
1994s Glum was to be Giant Sand’s largest record and in order to make it so, Howe Gelb invited everyone along to the party. This carnival help create Giant Sand’s best record to date andGlum is now proudly re-issued by Fire Records.
A conceptual masterpiece, complete with a second disc capturing a classic KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic session just prior to the original album’s release in 1994. An epic windswept desert dry encounter with one of America’s greatest bands that traverses genres and styles to create a complete masterpiece.
John Fogerty – 50-Year Trip: Live at Red Rocks
This concert was recorded on June 20, 2019 as part of John Fogerty’s 50 year celebration of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Woodstock performance. The 19-song concert features such Woodstock highlights as “Born on the Bayou,” “Green River,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Proud Mary,” “Keep On Chooglin’,” and “Suzie Q,” alongside later hits like “Centerfield” and “The Old Man Down the Road.”
The Nazz – Open Our Eyes: The Anthology
Purple Pyramid/Cleopatra reissue the 2002 double-disc, 35-song anthology from Todd Rundgren’s early band The Nazz, right down to the original foldout artwork.
For nearly a decade, Marlana Sheetz has been a core member of L.A. indie-pop band Milo Greene. Today she unveiled the first single from her mononymous solo project Marlana.
“So Bad” is a moody torch song that on the surface is a typical Los Angeles girl-meets-boy story but, the songwriter says, “more accurately represents my relationship with the music business as a whole. It’s unclear whether it’s loved or loathed.” It’s sensual and haunting and notable most for Marlana’s vocals: They’re wraparound.
Director Nicolas Harvard’s video for the song adds a whole new dimension to “So Bad” — Marlana has a certain fixation, which she finally acts on one night in Chinatown. We won’t spoil the ending.
Today I did something that terrifies me. I released a song by myself. As my Milo Greene family, you have changed my life over the years. Thank you for showing up to the shows and listening to the records. Because of you, it gave me the courage to do something like this.
Not every song I write makes a Milo Greene album, but I still have a strong desire to share whats going on inside my head creatively. Here is a song that didn’t make the cut, but now has a life of its own. I hope you enjoy ‘So Bad’, a song about my relationship with the music industry. This video is an ode to Los Angeles and my fascination with death. It took a million favors to pull this off, but I think it was worth it. I hope you guys join me on this adventure. More to come. Thank you for the support! – Marlana
What Would the Odd Do? was born from bandleader Kassie Carlson’s opiate-related near death experience. This is the band’s second release since Carlson’s recovery, but the first to address the situation head-on. The EP’s second single “Future Doesn’t Know” is a triumphant look forward with a more rock-oriented edge than its predecessor. Recalling the chiptune power pop of their peers Crying as much as the godfatherly wonk of Deerhoof, “Future” could only be found in the middle of a Guerilla Toss album.
On their new EP What Would The Odd Do?, the art-rock experimentalists Guerilla Toss are addressing a crisis from a deeply personal angle. Upon the release of lead single “Plants,” Kassie Carlson opened up about the addiction that resulted in open-heart surgery to remove a blood clot. “Statistically, women are more likely to hide addiction and keep feelings inside, making it potentially much more festering and toxic,” she wrote. “Drugs affect people of all backgrounds, regardless of race, class or gender. Addiction hits us all, and it hits hard.”
The band shares the EP’s second single, “Future Doesn’t Know.” It’s one of the poppiest songs Guerilla Toss have ever released, yet still fried and off-kilter, Carlson calls it “a song about the personification of the future, and finding your own truth.” She continues, “So often we look to others for the meaning of life or what to do next, but really the only answer is within.”
