London-based five-piece HMLTD are gearing up to an early New Year drop with the announcement of their long-awaited debut album, ‘West of Eden’, set to arrive on February 7th 2020 via independent label Lucky Number.
The expansive, labyrinthine debut has been several years in the making; a daring collection of songs created to incite conversation about proposed new visions of masculinity, the decadence of western capitalism and the violence of insecurity and repression. Across its 15 tracks, the band’s artistic vision is realised in full technicolour, with all shades of their sonic palette used to create an album that is equal parts lush and abrasive.
HMLTD also have shared the video for new single and album opener, ‘The West Is Dead’. Shot by Niall Trask, it continues the band’s run of thought provoking yet beautiful visual outings.
“This is not dystopia, but a mirror up to late capitalism; where we are and where we’re headed,” says singer Henry Spychalski of the track. “Sick dolphins lap at the tide, the insects have all dropped from the skies and the global economy enters free fall. Ecological catastrophe guaranteed. The West is dead. Atomised, alienated and apathetic”
Our debut album, West of Eden, will be released on 7th February 2020. It is a chronicle of struggle, born of struggle. Bringing it into the world has been the single greatest pain and privilege of our lives. Dust we are, and to dust we will return.
With all our love,
Coldplay gave viewers a debut performance of ‘Everyday Life’, the title track from their new album, on Saturday Night Live last night (November 2nd). The band also performed their other new single ‘Orphans’
Last month, the band confirmed that they’ll release the double album on November 22nd – split into two halves called ‘Sunrise’ and ‘Sunset’ respectively. The first two tracks to arrive from the album were ‘Orphans’ and ‘Arabesque’.
“Orphans” featured a crowd of dancers getting in on the action and the band performing throughout the studio as the song comes together and they make it on stage.
Unlike previous appearances on Saturday Night Live, the band did not take part in any skits last night, although Chris Martin and co. have already demonstrated their comedy prowess this week. On Friday (November 1) the band released a parody press conference video to mark the announcement that they will launch new album ‘Everyday Life’ .
Last night, the album’s title track, “Everyday Life”, made its debut on Saturday Night Live.
Jenny Lewis may have released her fourth solo studio album “On the Line” way back in March this year, but it seems as if the album cycle is still in full swing. Coming off a memorable appearance on The Tonight Show, and in the midst of selling out shows across the globe, Lewis has somehow managed to find enough time to film a video for her pop-rock single “Rabbit Hole.”
Filmed in the familiarly bizarre style of Abso Lutely Productions (Tim & Eric, Nathan for You, Comedy Bang! Bang!), the clip sees Lewis performing the track with a backing live band comprised of bodysuit silhouettes, occasionally choreographing dance moves before revealing themselves to be unexpected familiar faces in the video’s final seconds.
The song comes from Jenny Lewis‘ latest album ‘On The Line’ – available now!
The video is a part of last March’s wordy Jenny Lewis: On the Line Online is a Three-Hour Live Listening Party, Variety Show & Charity Fundraiser, which raised donations for the Los Angeles Women’s Center
Music guest Jenny Lewis performs “Rabbit Hole” for the Tonight Show audience.
POND are announcing Sessions, an album of live studio performances composed of songs from across their discography. The long player was recorded while on tour in the EU this Spring. The digital and vinyl release is officially out Novermber 8th, 2019 on Spinning Top/Interscope, however, those who have purchased tickets to attend the band’s upcoming North American tour will be able to pick up the vinyl at the shows. With this announcement comes the exhilarating album cut “Don’t Look At The Sun (Or You’ll Go Blind),” a live, fan-favorite, taken from their debut LP Psychedelic Mango released in 2009.
The band’s Jay Watson had the following to say on the genesis of “Sessions”: “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. 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 favorite bands’ ‘Peel Sessions’ and wanted something of our own in that vein. We hope you dig it!“
Taken from the live studio album ‘Sessions’ out November 8th on Spinning Top, Marathon Artists & Interscope.
The Rolling Stones’ groundbreaking multi-platinum selling album “Let It Bleed” was released in late 1969, charting at No#1 in the UK and No#3 in the US. The Rolling Stones, at this point already a critically and commercially dominant force, composed and recorded their eighth long player (tenth for the U.S.) amidst both geopolitical and personal turmoil. The second of four Rolling Stones albums made with producer Jimmy Miller (Traffic, Blind Faith), “Let It Bleed” perfectly captures the ominous spirit of the times with “Gimme Shelter,” the opening track. The 2019 remaster has been engineered by eleven-time Grammy®-winning mastering engineer Bob Ludwig.
A landmark moment of the 1960s, that still resonates profoundly today. Originally released in 1969, Let It Bleed is regarded by critics and music fans as one of the best and most important rock albums of all time.
“Let It Bleed” features three of the band’s greatest songs – “Gimmie Shelter,” “Midnight Rambler” & the anthemic “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” Brian Jones performs on only two tracks: playing the autoharp on You Got the Silver, and percussion on Midnight Rambler – he was replaced by Mick Taylor during the recording, who plays guitar on two tracks – “Country Honk” and “Live with Me”, as well as on “Honky Tonk Women” (recorded during the Let It Bleed sessions).
Let It Bleed (50th Anniversary Limited Deluxe Edition) includes the remastered album in Stereo and Mono on both vinyl and Hybrid SACD, and a reproduction of the 1969 7” mono single of “Honky Tonk Women”/ ”You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” in a picture sleeve. The box set also comes with three 12” x 12” hand-numbered replica-signed lithographs printed on embossed archival paper, a full-color 23” x 23” poster with restored art from the original 1969 Decca Records package, and an 80 page hardcover book with never-before-seen photos by the band’s tour photographer Ethan Russell and an essay by journalist David Fricke.
The album includes the classic dark song about a serial murderer, ‘Midnight Rambler’ was written while The Rolling Stones were on holiday in a beautiful town in Italy. The beautiful Italian town of Positano was a place of inspiration for author John Steinbeck, who wrote: “Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.” That Amalfi Coast town also played a part in the history of the Rolling Stones, when Keith and Mick Jagger went on holiday there in 1968. Somehow, being in picturesque, sunny Positano gave them the creative spark to write a dark song about a serial murderer, the “midnight rambler… pouncing like a proud black panther.”
“‘Midnight Rambler’ is a song Keith and I really wrote together,” Jagger recalled in 1995. “We were on a holiday in Italy. In this very beautiful hill town, Positano, for a few nights. Why we should write such a dark song in this beautiful, sunny place, I really don’t know. We wrote everything there – the tempo changes, everything. And I’m playing the harmonica in these little cafes, and there’s Keith with his guitar.”
The song, which finally appeared on the 1969 album “Let It Bleed” was loosely based on the life of the real Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, who murdered 13 women in that American city from 1962 to 1964. “Midnight Rambler” was a headline that the papers used to describe the killer at the time, and in the song Jagger takes on the persona of a manipulative murderer. Richards called the seven-minute song “a blues opera” and insisted that his unique collaboration with Jagger was such that “nobody else could have written that song.”
James Miller’s production helps “Midnight Rambler” blend the sinister overtones of “Sympathy For The Devil” with the Chicago blues style of some of the band’s songs from earlier in the 60s. Jagger plays some powerful harmonica licks and Richards’ guitar work is supported by some excellent drumming from Charlie Watts. Bill Wyman played bass on a song that neatly shifts tempos.
“Midnight Rambler” is also the last song that Brian Jones recorded with the Stones, contributing congas to the track. Jones, who had helped start the band in the early 60s, had been suffering from drug addiction problems at the time of the song’s recording. He announced he was leaving the band in June 1969 and was found dead a month later, at the age of 27.
“Midnight Rambler” was originally recorded as part of the prolific sessions for “Beggars Banquet” in the spring of 1968, but was held over for “Let It Bleed“, which was released by Decca Records on December 5th, 1969. The cover for Let It Bleed was created by the graphic designer Robert Brownjohn. It features a cake that was made for the photo shoot by a young cookery writer called Delia Smith, who had been told the Stones wanted a “really gaudy” cake. Jagger sent her a framed, signed copy of the album as a thank you.
“Midnight Rambler” became a favourite at Rolling Stones gigs, where Richards would let loose with thrashing guitar solos. “I dig to play it,” he said. “It’s when the audience decides to join, that’s when it really knocks you out.”
The 50th-anniversary deluxe edition of “Let It Bleed” is out now.
Like Beggars Banquet the year before, the dominant influence was American roots music – drawing heavily from gospel (apparent in Gimmie Shelter and You Can’t Always Get What You Want), country music of Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers (Country Honk), Chicago blues (Midnight Rambler) and country rock on the title track. Recording for “Let It Bleed” began in earnest in February 1969, recorded mainly at Olympic Studios in London and was originally scheduled for release in July 1969. Although “Honky Tonk Women” was released as a single that month, the album itself suffered numerous delays and was eventually released in December 1969, after the band’s US tour. The lyricism found on Let It Bleed is often noted for its violent and cynical undercurrents. Jann S. Wenner, in a 1995 Rolling Stone interview with Jagger, described the album’s songs as “disturbing” the scenery as “ugly” and asked Jagger if the Vietnam War played a role in the album’s worldview. Jagger said: “I think so. Even though I was living in America only part time, I was influenced. All those images were on television. Plus, the spill out onto campuses”.
Margaux is a singer-songwriter living between Seattle and Brooklyn, NY. Brooklynite, Margaux Bouchegnies, Aka simply Margaux to the record buying public, is set to release her lengthily titled debut EP, “More Brilliant Is The Hand that Throws the Coin”, next week. Ahead of that release, this week Margaux has shared her latest offering, “Cave In”.
Cave In a fascinating game of two halves, starting life all airy and intricate, like those lo-fi early Angel Olsen recordings, before suddenly exploding into life at the fifty second mark when a rumble of claustrophobic bass slams into view. From there the track, starts to gently distort and warp, reinventing itself as a slice of emotive 90’s rock nodding to Julia Jacklin or Snail Mail. Lyrically, the track seems to deal with a futile attempt to reinvent yourself in the eyes of another, one second, “climbing out of somebody’s memory”, the next, “haunted by the same old, same thing, everything”. A track that’s got more intriguing ideas going on than many people’s whole albums, Margaux is arriving in style and doesn’t look like going anywhere.
Warmduscher return. Heavy metals. Disco Peanuts. CCTV in the break room.
A little something to get you through the week. There’s enough to go around. Revenge is a dish best served bold. Melt in the mouth disco basslines on a fragrant bed of feedback. Try it with the boom bap tapenade. Here for a good time, not a long time.
If you made your way out of Whale City with your faculties intact, this one’s for you. Clams Baker, Lightnin’ JackEverett, Mr Salt Fingers Lovecraft and The Witherer have been joined by Quicksand on cutting board and cheese wire and commis chef Cheeks on vibes. They’ve been cooking. Michelin stars. The finest ingredients money can buy: Kool Keith and Iggy Pop. Funk, punk, hip-hop and lounge rock. Love is real.
Band biographer and revered botanist Dr Alan Goldfarb describes the album as “a sample hole through which to taste another universe. A dramatic warning. A gilded aroma. It is a tale of wanton desire and limitless treachery. A tale of disillusionment – the refusal of exploitation.”
Superb 1995 broadcast recording from PAGE & PLANT Initial plans for a reunion of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were made in 1993, with discussions between the two of collaborating emerging from casual small talk and then an invitation to perform on MTV Unplugged. Music producer Bill Curbishley, who had been managing Plant since the 1980s and who assumed management of Page in 1994, was integral in the reuniting of the pair. Despite failed attempts by others to reunite Jimmy and Robert, Curbishley was able to persuade the previously reluctant Plant into working with Page again.
On 1st May 1995, Page and Plant performed at the Bradley Centre in Milwaukee for a show that was recorded for live FM Broadcast around the greater Wisconsin area, and which proved to be one of the finest on the tour. Featuring a sterling selection of Zeppelin classics, the odd solo-cut and even a cover of The Cure s Lullaby , the show was a roaring success which is available finally for fans to hear via this delightful 2 cd set, available now for the first time.
The gig itself contains many classics and some deep cuts and i’d love to know how Jimmy Page got Plant to agree to perform the Coverdale/Page track ‘Shake My Tree’.overall the sound quality as is with most of these releases average and you wont listen to it over and over again but it does highlight a missed opportunity from Page/Plant they should have had an official live album issued.
Jimmy Page & Robert Plant Live at the Bradley Arena, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA May 1st, 1995
Set: The Wanton Song Bring It On Home Ramble On Thank You Shake My Tree Lullaby No Quarter Gallows Pole Hurdy Gurdy Solo When The Levee Breaks Hey, Hey What Can I Do The Song Remains The Same Since I’ve Been Loving You Friends Calling To You (Break On Through/Dazed And Confused) Four Sticks In The Evening
Dutch five-piece Iguana Death Cult have returned with even more hopped-up absurdity than before. Their new album Nude Casino, which follows their 2017 self-released debut album The First Stirrings of Hideous Insect Life, is a quest to wriggle out of life’s bitter clutches with the maximum possible levels of fun and debauchery. While their debut mixed speedy garage punk with steady psych and adroit post-punk, Nude Casino sees them embrace their funkier side—they even dip their toes into New Wave and disco. “Carnal Beat Machine” is a disco punk number for the ages, and “Half Frysian” is a krautrock meets Talking Heads ripper—musically saucy and lyrically anxious. While the album masquerades as a dancefloor filler and moshpit starter, their lyrics are bursting at the seams.
Frontman Jeroen Reek presents himself as a neurotic mess, and Nude Casino is his wide array of responses to such neuroses—total breakdown, wild nights out, wacky dreams, seclusion and even imagining himself in liquid form. Nude Casino may be full of surreal imagery, but the album’s mercurial happenings couldn’t be more realistic.
Dutch rockers Iguana Death Cult have unveiled their new album Nude Casino via Innovative Leisure. Nude Casino follows their 2017 self-released debut album The First Stirrings of Hideous Insect Life. “Liquify” is an ode to morphing states of matter in pursuit of transcendence, appreciation of life and rejection of demoralizing monotony. With a carousel of outlandish and frisky guitar tones, Iguana Death Cult curate something absurd and sportive, yet illuminating.”To liquify is what you need to do whenever you feel stuck and tired of your own shape,” the band says. “Take some time to observe and just enjoy being. Get rid of your solid state and let the spirit take over.
“Close It Quietly” is a continual reframing of the known. It’s like giving yourself a haircut or rearranging your room. You know your hair. You know your room. Here’s the same hair, the same room, seen again as something new. Close It Quietly takes the trademark Frankie Cosmos micro-universe and upends it, spilling outwards into a swirl of referentiality that’s a marked departure from earlier releases, imagining and reimagining motifs and sounds throughout the album. Frankie Cosmos fourth studio release is a manifestation of the band’s collaborative spirit: Greta Kline and longtime bandmates Lauren Martin (synth), Luke Pyenson (drums), and Alex Bailey (bass) luxuriated in studio time with Gabe Wax, who engineered and co-produced the record with the band.
Recording close to home— at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Studios— grounded the band, and their process was enriched by working closely with Wax, whose intuition and attention to detail made the familiar unfamiliar and allowed the band to reshape their own contexts. On opener “Moonsea,” an unaccompanied Greta begins, “The world is crumbling and I don’t have much to say.” Take that as a wink and a metonym for the whole album, as her signature vocals are joined by Alex’s ascending bassline and Lauren’s eddying synths, invoking a loungey take on Broadcast or Stereolab’s space-disco experimental pop. There’s much more than “not much” to say here, and it’s augmented and expanded by experimentation with synth patches, textures, and other recording nuances courtesy of Wax.
As the lineup has solidified into the most permanent expression of full-band Frankie Cosmos, the bandmates have felt more comfortable deviating from their default instruments and contributing bigger-picture ideas to continue pushing the sound forward. The synergy of its creation is clear upon listening: the multiple hands dipping and re-dipping into each song form a multifaceted whole. The band’s closeness and aesthetic consistency freed its members to take more musically-formal risks, notes Luke: “Everything will sound like Frankie Cosmos because Greta has such a distinct voice (literally and figuratively). We have so much latitude to experiment with the instrumental music, and this time around we really took advantage of that.”
The album forms its own vortex of reinvention that’s embodied through both the tracks themselves and the recording and arranging processes. “A Joke” curls in on itself, in word and in deed, a series of undercuts defining negative space: “It’s just a joke I wasn’t trying to tell;” “It wasn’t really a game;” “I do not know what I am for/I wasn’t really keeping score.” Inverting technology’s human mimicry, Luke impersonates a drum machine until the song’s end. “A Joke’s” tricks scratch at something bigger, a small song embodying the laughability of attempting to neatly organize or adhere to any particular role.
“Rings of a Tree” frees itself from its original context: released earlier this year on Greta’s solo piano album Haunted Items, she didn’t initially anticipate a major deviation; then, Luke says, “Lauren and I had the same arrangement idea without talking about it. Like, ‘let’s make this song funky. Let’s channel Orange Juice.’ We texted Greta and Alex before practice and Alex came in with a new guitar part that perfectly captured what Lauren and I heard in our heads.”
“I’m just fucking glad for my bubble/despite how often it is penetrated by evil” Greta sings on “Last Season’s Textures,” taking to task the accusation that young people cloister themselves in complacency: she’s quick to point to, thank, and feel suspicious of that sphere all at once. The song explores the feeling of safety in her realm; reasonable despair re: reality (“the news is excruciating”); and a quick admission that darkness isn’t something a liberal-minded social network can block out. Kline notes how the song is “partly about misogyny and internalized misogyny–moments where I’ve felt betrayed by what is meant to be a safe space.”
Without losing any intimacy of prior albums, Close it Quietly is different, is outer. The album functions as a benign doppelganger, a shadow self of past releases; where other Frankie Cosmos records shine brightest looking inward, Close it Quietly refracts the self into the world, and vice versa, miraculously echoing Thoreau’s assertion that “when I reflect, I find that there is other than me.”
Reflection–and refraction–isn’t tidy. “Flowers don’t grow/in an organized way/why should I?” Greta sings on “A Joke.” Growth isn’t linear. Change happens in circles. While recording the album, Alex says, “I closed my eyes a lot.” Stand in the sun, listen to Close it Quietly, and do the same.
Close it Quietly (Release day: September 6th, 2019)
