Distance as a measure of time and place informs Kelly Finnigan’s, “A Lover Was Born” with a grit and grace that turns passion into virtue. The latest solo release from The Monophonics frontman roots itself in the best traditions of midwest soul labels like King, Curtom, Dakar, and the Bodie Recording Company. “A Lover Was Born” is a testimony that these deep cut grooves are not resigned to nostalgia, instead, they are at the burning heart of longing and hope.
The journey Finnigan takes listeners on over “Lover’s” eleven tracks echo the state of motion and growth since his solo debut, “The Tales People Tell” (2019). These two records bookend a prolific period of output, including a pair of Monophonics albums, a Christmas album, a mixtape, and a full slate of producing other artists (The Ironsides, Alanna Royale, the Sextones). “There’s nothing like making records,” says Finnigan. “It feels like that’s my purpose — the reason I was put on this earth.”
Written in California, Ohio, and Staten Island, Kelly Finnigan collaborated with old friends in and outside the studio. “I enjoy working alone but it’s not how you want to make a record…almost everybody I brought in for this album I’ve worked with, toured with or spent a great deal of time with.” Max and Joe Ramey (The Ironsides), Jimmy James (Parlor Greens), Sergio Rios (Orgone), Joey Crispiano (Dap Kings) and Jay Mumford (aka J-Zone) all contribute to the overall sound of “A Lover Was Born”.
Dramatic influences like Isaac Hayes (check out the piano on “Be Your Own Shelter”) and Jerry Ragovoy are chopped and folded into Northern Soul uptempo numbers to create stompers like “Get a Hold of Yourself” or “Chosen Few”. Finnigan’s take on Deep Soul is captured brilliantly on “Walk Away from Me” and “Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)”, while Boom Bap pervades on hard hitters “His Love Ain’t Real” & “Cold World”. Slower songs such as “Let Me Count the Reasons”, the emotional “All That’s Left”, and the soul-stirring album closer “Count Me Out” show the honest and tender side that has become Finnigan’s calling card. All the while, the voice is raw and earthy — in the best tradition of R&B shouters like Otis Redding, Lee Moses, and David Ruffin.
The songs on “A Lover Was Born” reconfigure the spliced and sampled DNA of hip hop (extracted by crate diggers like Dilla and RZA) to create something new, underscoring both the spectrum and depth of soul while making a case to the timelessness of Finnigan’s sound.
After three decades of being bent and beaten with divine art rock hammers, Kim Deal’s delightfully fragile songwriting deserved some pampering. Long-gestating and coloured lyrically darker by the deaths of her parents during its making, Deal’s first proper solo album finds her wrapped in ballroom strings, slick brass and soft-focus textures. “Let me go where there’s no memory of you, where everything is new,” Deal sings over lustrous blue bayou guitars on “Are You Mine?”, one of music’s most poignant depictions of Alzheimer’s. This is no flapping palm frond of a record, however.
Plenty of room is found for the former Pixie and Breeder’s trademark grunge pop, alongside forays into electro rock, slowcore, crank ambience and, on “Big Ben Beat”, the invention of shoe metal. The collection of 11 songs is the Dayton, Ohio resident’s first full-length album under her own name.
“Nobody Loves You More” is Kim Deal’s album although it’s not the first time she has gone solo – she self-released a five-part, ten-song seven-inch vinyl series in 2013. In keeping with Deal’s meticulous approach to her art, the album was refined over several years. Its oldest songs, ‘Are You Mine?’ and ‘Wish I Was’, were written and originally recorded in 2011 shortly after Deal came off the Pixies’ “Lost Cities Tour” and relocated to Los Angeles (early versions of those songs were included in said vinyl series); the last recording for “Nobody Loves You More” took place in November 2022 with legendary engineer and close friend Steve Albini, who helmed final track ‘A Good Time Pushed’ at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago.
Along the way she has brought in a variety of collaborators from Breeders past and present (Mando Lopez, twin sister Kelley Deal, Jim Macpherson, Britt Walford), to Raymond McGinley (Teenage Fanclub), Jack Lawrence (Raconteurs) and Savages’ Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan. “Nobody Loves You More” was mixed by Marta Salogni and mastered by Heba Kadry.
Every song has a story behind it, from the winter vacations with her parents in Florida Keys (‘Summerland’), wedding band covers of ‘Margaritaville’ (‘Coast’) to her mother’s dementia (‘Are You Mine?’). All in all, the record is a celebration of Deal’s unmatched artistry, nodding not only to her career highlights with celebrated bands across the alternative landscape (Pixies, The Amps, The Breeders), but also to her immovable cultural weight influencing musicians like Kurt Cobain and Olivia Rodrigo through the generations.
We’ve been obsessed with the title track for a long time and were overjoyed when the album came out. It dances the line between being playful, bubbly and laugh out loud funny without venturing in to being cringey or silly. Perfect feet tapping music without being afraid of a sudden left turn in to being different and weird.
Out now on Radicalis, Anna Erhard’s new album, her third, marks another massive creative step in the career of a singular artist. On “Botanical Garden”Anna is celebrating this super smart release with an extensive European tour.
Anna has come a long way since leaving the chamber-folk-pop trio Serafyn in the late 2010s. Always a fan of the British sense of humour embodied by Fawlty Towers, as well as the laconic lyrics of the Roches or Jonathan Richman, she has now clearly found her voice. “Botanical Garden” is a lot less scattershot than what’s gone before focusing with scalpel-sharp precision on the satirical dissection of modern-day hipster mores, accompanied by subversively subtle indie guitars. Her devilish analysis of her conflict of emotions about an opportunistic pal joining the Blue Man Group is very enjoyable. “Botanical Garden” was produced by Pola Roy and recorded with a bunch of musicians from Anna’s circle of Berlin friends.
“Botanical Garden” from Anna Erhard · Pola Roy · released under exclusive license to Radicalis Music GmbH Released on: 2024-03-29
In a world of their own, Radiohead offshoot The Smile further honed their fantastical musical whims on their second album,“Wall Of Eyes”. The trio, comprised of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and drummer Tom Skinner, once again let their krautrock and jazz influences shimmer as they did on their debut “A Light For Attracting Attention“, but this time around the end result is even more of a fever dream as the sonic focus on sounds over songs dictates the group’s journey.
The Smile is a music project formed by Tom Skinner, Jonny Greenwood, and Thom Yorke. With their combined talent and creativity, they have created a unique sound that captivates audiences worldwide.
Tom Skinner brings his expertise as a drummer to the group, infusing their music with infectious rhythms and grooves. Jonny Greenwood’s mastery of various instruments adds depth and complexity to their compositions. And of course, Thom Yorke’s distinctive vocals and songwriting prowess are at the heart of The Smile’s captivating sound.
Together, these three talented musicians have crafted an impressive body of work that defies genre boundaries. Their music seamlessly blends elements of rock, electronic, and experimental sounds to create something truly original. Whether you’re a long-time fan or new to their music, The Smile is sure to leave you wanting more.
The Smile members might be some of the hardest workers in music. Their first album of the year “Cutouts” also has made the listing of best albums of the year on many blog sites but we thought two releases is greedy, it has that typical Smile sound but with added weight from the help of orchestral arrangements and lots of overdubbing and layers – it shows this is far more than just a Radiohead side-project and can proudly stand on its own
The free-floating “Teleharmonic” and “Bending Hectic” are both so texturally delicate that they often feel close to disappearing completely, whereas the proto-glamness of “Read The Room” and “Friend of a Friend” emerged scarred with paranoia and suspense equal to that of Hitchcock at his cinematic best. A high point of musical adventurousness,
“Wall Of Eyes” is ultimately as much a record for your ears as it is for your subconscious.
Chuck Prophet & His Cumbia Shoes with a new KEXP session just out, this is amazing but live in front of a big audience takes it all to another level. Always a treat to chill with Kevin Cole in the KEXP studios. Punchy mix courtesy of Kevin Suggs (legend). It’s been a while. First time in their new studios. And man, do we like what they’ve done with the place. The first time we did a KEXP taping, we pulled in to the parking lot with KEXP dialled on the radio. Dick Dale was killing it. Within a couple minutes, a door flew open and Dick Dale and his guys were rolling their amps out of there. And we rolled our stuff in.
Everything flows. This session was a whirlwind. Kevin Suggs doing the hand-to-hand combat! Amazing.
During lockdown I spent a lot of time watching bands on KEXP. And fantasizing about what it might be like to play again. Much of the inspiration for “Wake The Dead” came from those sessions, especially the ones they taped in Mexico City with @sonidogallonegro among others. We taped this on the first day of our tour. That took us to the Pacific Northwest and over to the continent for five weeks worth of shows. We were fresh. Mystery train of a journey. Make sure you don’t miss the UK run this next February.
Songs: Same Old Crime 00:48 Wake The Dead 03:32 Betty’s Song 07:36 Sugar Into Water 11:58 In The Shadows (For Elon) 15:42 First Came The Thunder 19:08
The Band: Chuck Prophet – Vocals, Electric & Acoustic Guitar James DePrato – Vocals, Electric Guitar Vicente Rodriguez – Vocals, Drums Joaquin Zamudio Garcia – Bass, Guitar Mario Cortez – Vocals, Percussion Alejandro Gomez – Vocals, Keyboard, Acoustic Guitar
Chuck Prophet performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded October 22nd, 2024.
Royel Otis are cool with enjoying life one wave at a time. The Australian guitar-pop duo made up of 20-somethings Royel Maddell and Otis Pavlovic have been on a meteoric rise in the past year with a few EP jams (‘Motels’, ‘Kool Aid’), a midsummer setup single (‘Oysters In My Pocket’) spiralling into blissed-out versions of The Cranberries’‘Linger’ and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s ‘Murder On The Dancefloor’, and close to half a billion streams of their entire catalogue.
Their debut album, ‘Pratts & Pain’ (out now via Ourness), is merely a vignette of their pop-inspired heartache but it’s one that magnifies imperfections with tones you’d expect to find in the aisles of Amoeba Music. If you say you haven’t heard Royel Otis’ cover of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder On The Dancefloor”, you’re lying. The Live A Versionperformance went global, amassing millions of views and garnering the duo a fresh batch of fans. Top that off with eight ARIA nominations and the success of their second album, “Pratts & Pain”,and you’ll start to understand why 2024 was such a stellar year for Royel Otis.
‘Pratts & Pain’ recorded alongside producer Dan Carey (Wet Leg, Foals, Fontaines D.C.), isn’t a concept project. In fact, the sophomore album touches on a number of themes, according to the duo themselves: love, fights, being young and a bit stupid. Despite switching the salty air and sunshine of Bondi for the cold of London, the feel of summer is present all the way throughout the indie record – most notably in “Sofa King”,a cheeky play on words. A sense of fun reigns supreme in ‘Pratts & Pain’ even in “Big Ciggie”, where death is the main topic of conversation, the upbeat track takes an almost jester-like approach.
There’s a reason Royel Otis won Best Group and Best Rock Album at this year’s ARIAs. They deserved it. “It will be easy to remember exactly where you were when you first heard this project. Think skin mottled with sweat and the aftertaste of an alcohol-inspired kiss on your breath; a beautifully warm sunset as the sun tucks itself away under the dashboard of your first car; a little bit of heartbreak – but Royel Otis promise to help you get through it.”
It’s difficult to think of another album that’s left such a mark on music in 2024 than “Ramona“. After hitting play, the feelings are instant: awe at Grace Cummings’ powerful, dramatic voice, storytelling, vocal abilities, songs, and talent. This is an artist who keeps growing and crafts music that feels like it is not from this world. “Ramona” is timeless, classic, poignant, and moving. “Ramona“ is a work of raw truth rendered in its most beautiful form. In a departure from the self-produced approach of her 2019 debut “ Refuge Cove” and its 2022 follow-up“Storm Queen” – the artist worked with producer Jonathan Wilson (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty, Margo Price) and dreamed up a lavishly orchestrated sound that fully accommodates the depth and scope of her vocal prowess. With its visceral reflection on grief and self-destruction and emotional violence, “Ramona“ brings a stunning new grandeur to Cummings’ music while refusing to soften or temper its humanity.
On “Ramona”, this MelbourneAustralia-based singer songwriter artist embraces lush, striking orchestral arrangements, raw, bluesy songs of heartbreak and reflection, and moments of delicacy. A deeply personal record for Cummings, perhaps what’s so surprising about it is the universality within the songs. It’s a masterwork.
Who knew what to expect from Powderfinger Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey (of Something For Kate fame) when they announced they’d joined forces for a new project called Fanning Dempsey National Park?
What could have been “My Happiness” meets “Monsters” and made a lot of people happy wasn’t what the pair presented on their debut album, “The Deluge“. This is an album that wouldn’t sound out of place besides the likes of bands like Split Enz, Kraftwerk, and even David Bowie.
There are keyboards and bright, chirpy synthesizers, sunny guitars, and lyrics and soaring melodies to match their optimistic vibes. It’s simultaneously a throwback, with calls to modern production techniques and instruments and a daring look to the future.
It’s an exciting, ambitious release that proves two of the country’s strongest songwriters still have plenty of room for growth, curiosity, and pumping out thrilling new tunes.
Co-produced by Guy Massey (Spiritualised, The Divine Comedy, Kylie) and Sophie Jamieson, I still want to share is an album exploring the push and pull, merry-go-round nature of anxious attachment and how it weaves, cuts and steals through familial and romantic relationships. Throughout the record is a perpetual longing to belong, a yearning to learn how to love and let go, and a continual missing of the mark.
Each song clings tightly to the possibility of home, but never arrives there. The album was recorded in North London between Guy’s studio and Konk Studios, with string arrangements from Josephine Stephenson (Daughter, Ex:Re, Lisa Hannigan) and drums from Ed Riman (Hilang Child).
Formed in Austin, Texas, Sun June released their first full-length album in 2018 titled “Years” released via Keeled Scales. In October 2020, the group announced their second full-length album. The group released that album, “Somewhere”, in 2021 again through Keeled Scales and Run for Cover. In 2023 they released their third album, “Bad Dream Jaguar”, The third album was created while Colwell and Salisbury lived 1,300 miles apart, sending demos back and forth.
Sun June’s music often feels like a shared memory – the details so close to the edge of a song that you can touch them. And as an Austin-based project, their music has also always felt strangely and specifically Texan – unhurried, long drives across an impossible expanse of openness, refractions shimmering off the pavement in the heat. Originallybased in Austin, TX-based five-piece make unhurried, expansive indie-rock songs that are delicately, almost psychedelically stretched out; time, for them, is less a constraint as much as it is a new instrument to play with, a form to bend and subvert.”
Colwell has an ear for restraint, for editing it down and embracing emptiness; Sun June’s records have always been deceptively airy sounding in the face of melancholia, belying its densely textured foundation in a sense of ease.
Years
Initially formed by Laura Colwell and Stephen Salisbury, Austin’s five-piece band successfully released their debut album “Years” in 2018. The 10-track record is about to get a second pressing on Keeled Scales
Colwell and the band’s other primary songwriter and lyricist, Stephen Salisbury, met while working on the production of Terrence Malick’s 2017 film, Song to Song. “Stephen was an editor and I was a production assistant,” Colwell explains. “Ryan Gosling was in the movie and was bringing his guitar around when they were editing some songs. So Stephen and I usually worked late and started writing joke songs using the guitar,” “and thought ‘Let’s just keep doing this, it’s fun.’”
Younger EP
Sun June unveiled “Younger”, a 4-track digital only EP including two new songs.
Co-produced by Evan Kaspar, the first single was “Monster Moon” is already available. Warmful and mid-tempo, the regret pop song showcases a dreamy self-reflection on a failed relationship.
Somewhere
Though the group trades on the “regret pop” tagline, Colwell explains that her and Salisbury’s songwriting has turned to their own current relationship as romantic partners and their future. “You can’t really regret the present or the future,” she says. “We are trying to live more in the moment. I deal with grief and Stephen deals with sobriety. And then there’s our relationship in the middle of that.”
One of “Somewhere’s” central songs, “Karen O,” seems to deal in the past of a night spent wandering around New York City. Catching a Karen O live set, ambling across the Brooklyn Bridge to the city, missing phone calls from a parent, and climbing the stairs to an ex-lover’s apartment are palpable in their detail. Aside from admitting that Cat Power’s “Manhattan” was a blueprint for the album, Colwell says the remainder of “Karen O” is purely fictional. “I’m sorry. It’s a dream,” she admits. “The song is about heartache and having a hard time letting go. And I’ve done that in New York, but we never saw Karen O. A friend of mine has and heard the song and said, ‘Were we at the same show?’”
The album’s opener, “Bad With Time,” also has cinematic images, borrowing Neil Young’s line from “Unknown Legend” about a woman set free on her Harley Davidson out on the desert highway. Colwell admits that her and Salisbury’s time spent in film has impacted their writing. “I was realizing the other day that all of our songs are a little montage-y,” she says. The way they put the listener into the set of the song makes this particularly evident.
Bad Dream Jaguar
There’s a constant push-and-pull in Sun June’s songwriting. Vocalist and band leader Colwell and guitarist Stephen Salisbury have always shared song writing duties since the band’s inception, but “BadDream Jaguar” is the first time that they collaborated from afar. Salisbury left Texas for North Carolina in 2020, shifting the way the band recorded, and beginning a long-distance relationship between him and Colwell. It gave more room to Sun June’s other members – lead guitarist Michael Bain (whose lithe guitar parts Colwell credits as imparting that “dust ol’ Texas sound”), bassist Justin Harris, and drummer Sarah Schultz – to explore other projects. And for Colwell, it made it easier to explore song writing as an individual, living and writing songs alone.
It also meant there was a newfound privacy to these songs, as Colwell and Salisbury wrote songs for and about one another some 1300 miles apart. The distance strained their relationship, and they poured those struggles into songs. When Salisbury sent the first iteration of “Washington Square” to Colwell, it felt like a gut punch – a, “Damn, he’s really going through it” moment. It felt heavier to be collaborating and songwriting in this way, not inhabiting the same room but instead the same lonely sadness. But it also allowed for a new type of intimacy. And it was a comfort in some ways, to be allowed into someone else’s psyche and pain.
Colwell left Texas in 2022 for North Carolina. The record was recorded in spurts, the first Sun June LP that wasn’t just born out of five musicians in a room. It took five or six sessions across a number of studios, with the bulk of it coming together at producer Duszynski’s Dandy Sounds. They also invited in more collaborators to flesh out their cinematic, spacious sound. Here, the existing line-up of Colwell, Salisbury, Bain, Harris, and Schultz, alongside guitars/vocals from new touring member Santiago Dietche, is built out with woodwinds from Alexis Marsh, Justin Morris’ pedal steel, and Duszynski’s guitars and synths. It required trust in new collaborators, and in each other, in a new process.
The bulk of the record was written after the release of 2021’s “Somewhere”. “Bad Dream Jaguar” is the most disparate yet, a collage of soundscapes, of fever dreams. It toes the line between country and pop, like putting on a cowboy hat and sitting in your bedroom alone, or getting all dressed up in glitter and just staying home.
Colwell has an ear for restraint, for editing it down and embracing emptiness; Sun June’s records have always been deceptively airy sounding in the face of melancholia, belying its densely textured foundation in a sense of ease. The layers on “Bad Dream Jaguar” don’t tangle they float, sheaths of divergent and luminescent sonics hanging together as the sun goes down, darkness seeping in.
“Bad Dream Jaguar” exists in the chasm between giving up and going all-in. And a flicker of quiet confidence powering through, a small hopeful glow at its core.
The Fat Angel Sings 