SHEER MAG – ” A Distant Call “

Posted: August 20, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Sheer Mag return with their sophomore album, “A Distant Call”. They’re still writing about surviving our current hellscape, but this time around, the politics get extra-personal. The album verges on being a concept piece, and the protagonist resembles frontwoman, Tina Halladay herself. The songs document a particularly alienating time in her life when she was laid off from a job. Broke and newly single, her father passed away, leaving her with more wounds than felt possible to heal. It’s heavy power-pop so sleek it gleams.

“We’ve been waiting to write these songs since we started the band and we were able to take these experiences and build a story out of them,” Halladay says. A Distant Call makes an argument for socialism on an anecdotal level. We’re talking about how late capitalism alienates and commodifies whatever is in its path without using the term ‘late capitalism.’” Palmer and Halladay’s new approach to lyricism extended to the recording process, too. Once the Seely brothers had laid down the tracks, Halladay recorded vocals with producer Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Code Orange).

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Releases August 23rd, 2019

The Band:

Christina Halladay- Vocals
Kyle Seely- Lead Guitar/Drums
Hart Seely- Bass
Matt Palmer- Rhythm Guitar

METZ – ” M​.​E. “

Posted: August 20, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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On July 12th, Sub Pop Records released “Automat”, a collection of METZ non-album singles, B-sides, and rarities dating back to 2009, available on LP for the first time, and including the band’s long out-of-print early (pre-Sub Pop) recordings. It’s a chronological trip through the lesser-known material of Metz, the widely-adored and delightfully noisy 3-piece punk band from Toronto, ON.

The vinyl LP format of Automat included an exclusive bonus 7” single of Metz interpretations of three diverse cover songs, a glimpse of their wide-ranging and excellent taste. And, on August. 20th these three bonus tracks will be available in digital services everywhere. Rejoice! And then also go listen to: a cover of Sparklehorse’s “Pig,” from a very limited 2012 Record Store Day split single originally released by Toronto’s Sonic Boom record shop; “I’m a Bug,” a cover of the Urinals’ art-punk classic, originally released on YouTube (not an actual record label) in 2014; and Metz’s previously unreleased rendition of Gary Numan’s “M.E.”

released August 20th, 2019,
2019 Sub Pop Records

FRANCIS LUNG – ” A Dream Is U “

Posted: August 19, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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When Francis Lung describes his new album as sounding “like a short Mancunian boy single-handedly trying to incite Beatlemania” he’s really not too far wide of the mark. Lung’s much-anticipated debut album “A Dream Is U” is both bold and enthusiastic, a kaleidoscopic journey informed by the greats but also one that is wonderfully enigmatic, the sound of a multi-instrumentalist tying together all manner of influences into one beautifully cohesive album.

Following on from the home-recorded Volumes 1 and 2 EPs, which contained titbits written during his time in Wu Lyf, A Dream Is U is the first fully-realised Francis Lung record, a studio undertaking brought to life with producer Brendan Williams (Dutch Uncles, GoGo Penguin), a colourful patchwork of vision and ingenuity. “Before we started recording I knew exactly what the arrangements were in my head” Francis says, reflecting on the time spent devising his new work. “It was kind of my mission to capture everything as it was in my imagination”.

Touching upon the universal themes of addiction, faith, and love in all of its confusion, A Dream Is U is a collection of characters and stories that plays out something like a Harvey Pekar comic strip; an obsessive chronicle of daily lives twisted into new shapes by the unique mind and manners of their narrator. With flashes of striking colour and an ever-present wry smile, Francis Lung has created a debut album that drifts between simple acceptance and exuberant yearning for more. “My favourite part is when it talks about escaping to another universe,” Francis says of one song in particular, Unnecessary Love. “Although it’s a doomed and impossible dream, it’s amusing to me that if we survive long enough it could be a real possibility.”

At times boisterous and radiant, elsewhere contemplative and brooding, A Dream Is U feels like being awake in dreams, like stepping outside of the daily rotation; like shadows leaving their dancing bodies to waltz away to their own tune. For fans of The Beach Boys, Belle and Sebastian and Elephant 6 Records.

NATIVE HARROW – ” Happier Now “

Posted: August 19, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Devin Tuel may consider herself to be an artist meant for a different time, but she now finds herself inhabiting her own true place. The singer-songwriter is at home in Newburgh, NY reflecting on her third album, “Happier Now”, released under her nom de plume, Native Harrow, as well as the difficult sojourn the former ballerina and classically trained singer has had to traverse to become the writer and performer she was meant to be.

Happier Now, is a set of nine songs recorded and mixed by Alex Hall (JD McPherson, The Cactus Blossoms, Pokey LaFarge) at Chicago’s Reliable Recorders. The album was co-produced by Hall, Tuel, and her bandmate, multi-instrumentalist Stephen Harms.

Native Harrow cuts out clear and vibrant narratives on fear, love, the open road, ill-fated relationships, and coping with the state of the world. Happier Now oscillates between feeling the sting of uncertainty (Can’t Go on Like This), the beauty of California (Blue Canyon) and the ache for lavish stability (Way to Light). You could say Tuel wears her heart proudly on her sleeve, but that’d be underplaying the exact gravity of her stories. Each starlit image is framed within her warm, enveloping vocals and the careful, profound considerations of Harms’ musicianship. Start to finish, the new record pours forth from her very bones, and you get the overwhelming sense she has never been more daring and honest than right now.

FUZZY SUN – ” Want Love “

Posted: August 19, 2019 in MUSIC
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Borrowing their mantra from Snarky Puppy, Fuzzy Sun “make music for both brain and booty”. Having played together for just over a year, the Stockport-based five-piece already boast an impressive résumé: Two support tours with hometown friends, Blossoms; two EPs; their own headline tour; the City Life award for Best Breakthrough act and their new single, produced by acclaimed producer, Cam Blackwood. Comprised of frontman Kyle Ross, bassist Lewis Jobson, drummer Mitch Bancroft, Daisy Valentine on keyboards and backing vocals and Raffaele Pani rounding out the line-up on guitar, expect seductive harmonies, soul-infused rhythms and melodies reminiscent of California sun.

Band Members
Kyle Ross – Vocals/Guitar
Daisy Valentine – Keys/Synth/Vocals
Lewis Jobson – Bass
Raffaele Pani – Guitar
Mitch Bancroft – Drums/BV’s

CHELSEA WOLFE – ” Be All Things “

Posted: August 19, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Genre-bending singer/songwriter Chelsea Wolfe has been giving audiences an alternate vantage point since her career got off the ground at the start of this decade. Wolfe has always had a way of dignifying moods that we might otherwise refer to (with a touch of condescension) as “brooding.” But with her sixth album “Birth of Violence”, she makes her most convincing statement to date, reminding us once again that angst is not the exclusive province of young adults. Where so much of the so-called darkness in music falls into the realm of stylized affectation, Wolfe’s presentation doesn’t allow for one-dimensional readings and doesn’t fall prey to self-parody. She has always shown keen awareness in her portrayals of emotional states like apprehension and grief. On Birth of Violence, though, woundedness becomes a launching pad for regeneration just as Wolfe’s musical vocabulary seems to be gelling more than ever before. Because of Wolfe’s newfound ability to communicate so much more with less, you could call Birth of Violence a tour de force—only Wolfe has mastered the art of eschewing force altogether.

From the upcoming album “Birth of Violence”, available September 13th on Sargent House Records

The CHATS – ” Identity Theft “

Posted: August 19, 2019 in MUSIC
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The Chats are having a wild year, that’s safe to say. From their humble ‘Smoko’ beginnings and the ‘Pub Feed’ effect, to attracting some serious star power at recent sold out American shows, the Sunshine Coast three-piece are setting their sights on further Aussie domination, with a huge run of shows announced to back a new single in ‘Identity Theft’.

Formed in their mate’s bong shed in Coolum, Queensland 2016 when all three members were seventeen, The Chats represent everything that’s good about Australia and nothing that’s bad: a rebel spirit, gallows humour and the endless hedonistic pursuit of A Bloody Good Time. Cold stubbies within close reach, 24-7.

The trio met in music class while at St Theresa’s Catholic College in Noosaville, a suburb of Noosa, Queensland, two hours north of Brisbane, and began practicing in the shed in nearby Verrierdale (pop: 775) during their final year of education (the school’s website notes “Whilst their music may not be everyone’s cup of tea, they have certainly made an impact, and they continue to Dare the Dream.”). Their name meanwhile comes from the nearby suburb of Chatswood.

Drawing influence from the same fertile Australian pub rock scene that spawned everyone from AC/DC and The Saints to Cosmic Psychos and The Hard Ons, and sharing a similar singular self-contained approach to their art as such latter-day Aussie rock heroes as King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, The Chats describe themselves as “dropkick drongos from the Sunshine Coast of Australia”.

The band’s new single remains in the same rollicking ballpark as previous releases; The Chats keeping their own strain of humour very much intact, especially with the retro-styled video.

Band Members
Josh Price, Eamon Sandwith, Matt Boggis

The Chats – On tour – Europe Aug/Nov/Dec 2019 – AU/NZ Sept/Oct 2019

PEARL LOVE – ” Moon Song “

Posted: August 19, 2019 in MUSIC
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Born in Bristol to musical parents Pearl Love grew up surrounded by sound and immersed in a creative lifestyle, attending her first gig at the tender age of 13 days old, strapped to her mum as she played the trumpet. Pearl’s music is a key and undivided part of her identity. Through her honest song writing and delicate vocals Pearl embraces the beauty found in vulnerability and invites her listeners to experience the world as she sees it.

Inspired by artists such as Lucy Rose and Regina Spektor, Pearl presents her audiences with an emotive and authentic performance every time.

JOAN SHELLEY – ” Like the River Loves the Sea ” Album Of the Month

Posted: August 14, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Living in the river town Louisville, Kentucky, where the Ohio River is at its widest, must be impactful for Joan Shelley, as both this album and her last, 2018 EP Rivers and Vessels, include the word “river.” This time the river led her to Iceland, where she recorded yet another exquisite collection of songs that pairs the purest voice since Joan Baez with an exploration of uncertain currents. Over the past few years, and seven albums, Shelley, along with longtime guitarist Nathan Salsburg, has quietly created a genre unto herself.

In her album announcement she said that her songs invoke a “conversation with the divine that has seen all of it. … They are also a longing cry born of all the dividing; a call across the slowly spreading ocean. Primarily, [the album] is a haven for overstimulated heads in uncertain times.” To say that she and Salsburg put you in a trance is an oversimplification, but you do get lost and want to linger in a world so slip-shaped that only heaven seems to know. Thus, I cannot pick any single song to highlight, but if you are taken with “Cycle,” a Nick Drake-Sandy Denny-like floater, you’ll be as smitten as I am.

“LIKE THE RIVER LOVES THE SEA”, the new record, is coming out in just over 2 weeks.  I can’t wait to rip off the seal and let you all into it. Two songs are out now, as singles for the record:
Click to listen to Coming Down for You featuring Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Nathan Salsburg, and James Elkington-and Cycle featuring Nathan and James as well as the Icelandic sisters, string dream-team Sigrún Kristbjörg Jónsdóttir and Þórdís Gerður Jónsdóttir. Music video animated by Douglas Miller.

From “Like The River Loves The Sea” out August 30th, 2019

IGGY POP – ” Free “

Posted: August 14, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Iggy Pop is releasing a new album, “Free”, on September 6th via Loma Vista. he shared its first single, short title track “Free.” This week he shared the album’s second single, “James Bond,” which seems to be about a woman who wants to be a superspy. The song features additional vocals from Faith Vern of the British band PINS and a notable trumpet solo played by Leron Thomas.

Iggy Pop had this to say about the song in a press release: “I don’t know what she’s up to exactly, but the tables seem to be turning, and she’s taking over. Well, why not? I’ll try anything once.”

Pop adds: “I’ve never had more fun singing a lyric. Faith’s reading is so loaded, and Leron’s production and trumpet along with the band swings like crazy.”

Freeis the follow-up to 2016’s Post Pop Depression, which was produced by Josh Homme of Eagles of Death Metal and Queens of the Stone Age, who also co-wrote the album with Pop and played on it. In 2018 Pop also teamed up with the iconic British dance duo Underworld (Karl Hyde and Rick Smith) for the collaborative four-song EP, Teatime Dub Encounters. Free was made with help of Leron Thomas and Noveller. A previous press release called the album a “uniquely somber and contemplative entry in the Iggy Pop canon.”

Pop had this to say about the album in the previous press release: “This is an album in which other artists speak for me, but I lend my voice… “By the end of the tours following Post Pop Depression, I felt sure that I had rid myself of the problem of chronic insecurity that had dogged my life and career for too long.

“But I also felt drained. And I felt like I wanted to put on shades, turn my back, and walk away. I wanted to be free. I know that’s an illusion, and that freedom is only something you feel, but I have lived my life thus far in the belief that that feeling is all that is worth pursuing; all that you need – not happiness or love necessarily, but the feeling of being free.

“So this album just kind of happened to me, and I let it happen.”

This is first new Iggy Pop album since 2016’s Post Pop Depression, will be released September 6th on Caroline International/Loma Vista.

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