Legendary British shoegazers Ride have shared a new cut from their imminent new album, This Is Not A Safe Place, Like other tracks in Ride’s discography, “Repetition” is poppier than other shoegaze songs. Swirling guitars intertwine with jubilant synths, crafting a sunny single that sounds like if Kraftwerk were stripped of technological anxieties and linked up with Devo.
Frontman Andy Bell smiles throughout the track, encouraging listeners to embrace patterns amid substantial life changes. “Repetition is a form of change / So don’t be fazed if the backdrops change,” he chants encouragingly during the chorus. Per the track’s YouTube description, Bell writes that the track “succeeds in bringing me back to all of the things we were into and talked about when we were 18, but also being of the moment, in 2019.”
Ride reformed in 2014 to do some touring and finally released their first new album in 21 years, Weather Diaries, in 2017 via Wichita. That was followed by the 2018 EP, Tomorrow’s Shore. As with those two releases, Erol Alkan produced This Is Not a Safe Place. Alan Moulder mixed the album, the fourth Ride album he has mixed. The band came together at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019. A previous press release said the band were influenced by “the Jean Michel Basquiat exhibition at London’s Barbican Centre and the post-punk sound of The Fall and Sonic Youth, for an album rich in their trademark shoegaze atmosphere, whilst simultaneously sounding rejuvenated and creatively ambitious.”
Band Members
Andy Bell,
Laurence Colbert,
Mark Gardener,
Steve Queralt
This Is Not A Safe Place is out on August. 16th via Wichita Recordings.
Jay Som (aka Melina Duterte) is releasing a new album, “Anak Ko”, on August 23rd via Polyvinyl Records. Previously she shared its first single, “Superbike,” via a lyric video for the track. This week she shared another song from the album, the dreamy “Tenderness,” . Weird Life produced and directed the video.
In a press release Duterte says “Tenderness” is “a feel-good, funky, kind of sexy song” that is in part about “the curse of social media” and how it affects relationships. “That’s definitely about scrolling on your phone and seeing a person and it just haunts you, you can’t escape it,” Duterte adds. “I have a weird relationship to social media and how people perceive me-as this person that has a platform, as a solo artist, and this marginalized person. That was really getting to me. I wanted to express those emotions, but I felt stifled. I feel like a lot of the themes of the songs stemmed from bottled up emotions, frustration with yourself, and acceptance.”
Anak Ko is the follow-up to 2017’s acclaimed Everybody Works, also on Polyvinyl (among most bloggers Top 100 Albums of 2017). Duterte was based in the Bay Area, but relocated to Los Angeles prior to recording the new album. She recorded Anak Ko at home as the sole producer, engineer, and mixer. A previous press release pointed out that “in some songs, you can hear the washer/dryer near her bedroom.” Although it wasn’t a completely solitary affair, the album also features plenty of guests, including Vagabon’s Laetitia Tamko, Chastity Belt’s Annie Truscott, Justus Proffit, and Boy Scouts’ Taylor Vick, as well as her touring bandmates Zachary Elasser, Oliver Pinnell, and Dylan Allard.
The album’s title is pronounced “Ah-nuh Koh,” which means “my child” in Filipino. It was inspired by a text message from Duterte’s mother, who often addresses her as “anak ko.” “It’s an endearing thing to say, it feels comfortable,” Duterte said in the previous press release.
In the press release Duterte said the album is about the importance of patience and kindness and that those concepts have helped her growth as an artist. “In order to change, you’ve got to make so many mistakes,” she said. “What’s helped me is forcing myself to be even more peaceful and kind with myself and others. You can get so caught up in attention, and the monetary value of being a musician, that you can forget to be humble. You can learn more from humility than the flashy stuff. I want kindness in my life. Kindness is the most important thing for this job, and empathy.”
For “Superbike,” Duterte’s aim was to merge Cocteau Twins and Alanis Morissette for a song that she said lets “loose over swirling shoegaze. I came up with the vocal melody while chopping onions during a rare snowstorm in Joshua Tree, definitely one of my favorite memories from making the album.”
The album is due out in North America on Polyvinyl, in Australia/New Zealand/Asia via Pod/Inertia Music, and in the rest of the world via Lucky Number.
Back in February Jay Som also shared a brand new song, “Simple,” that was released as part of the Adult Swim Singles series. That song is not featured on the new album. Last year Jay Som teamed up with Justus Proffit for a collaborative EP, Nothing’s Changed.
Jay Som’s new album, Anak Ko, out August 23rd, 2019.
The Band Lower Dens (which is led by singer/songwriter Jana Hunter) are set to be releasing a new album, The Competition, on September 6th via Ribbon Music. Previously they shared a video for its first single, “Young Republicans” This week they shared another song from the album, “I Drive,” also via a video for the track.
Jason Nocito directed the black & white video, which features choreography by Veleda Roehl and dancers Stephannie Henriquez and Steven Jeltsch. The song finds Hunter lamenting, “Why can’t we be with the ones we were made to love?”
Hunter had this to say about the song in a press release: “Like a lot of queer and trans people, I’ve learned that real family is made, and it isn’t necessarily blood. Even my blood relatives, we work for that familial connection and trust. This song is about leaving behind obligations to people who don’t love or care about you, being with and about people who do. It’s a feeling so strong it’s driving me. That’s the driving I’m doing.”
Hunter had this to say about the album in the previous press release: “The issues that have shaped my life, for better or for worse, have to do with coming from a family and a culture that totally bought into this competitive mindset. I was wild and in a lot of pain as a kid; home life was very bleak, and pop songs were a guaranteed escape to a mental space where beauty, wonder, and love were possible. I wanted to write songs that might have the potential to do that.”
The Competition is the follow-up to 2015’s Escape From Evil. A previous press release said The Competition “might be Hunter’s most vulnerable, hook-filled album yet, a leftfield, resistance pop record that could only be released in 2019.”
Band Members
Jana Hunter, Nate Nelson
Lower Dens’ forthcoming album ‘The Competition’, out September 6th on Ribbon Music.
In June 2017, New Order returned to the stage at Manchester’s Old Granada Studios where Joy Division made their television debut on Tony Wilson’s So It Goes programme in 1978. For the celebrated show ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes .., New Order deconstructed, rethought and rebuilt a wealth of material from throughout their career: familiar and obscure, old and new. Featuring tracks such as Disorder, from Joy Divisions Unknown Pleasures and not played live for 30 years, up to 2015’s Plastic from New Order’s critically acclaimed Top 5 album Music Complete– this is the perfect document of those magical 5 nights. The album was recorded live on 13th July 2017 and includes the full show and encore plus 3 additional tracks recorded over the residency to give listeners a full representation of the breadth of material performed.
If you’re looking for a New Order live album chock full of their greatest hits, go pick up Live at the London Troxy or Live at Bestival 2012. If you’re looking for a New Order live album with a more unconventional setlist, a broader artistic vision and a 12-piece synthesizer orchestra, check out this new one, the arty-mathy, horrendously titled ?(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes.
Their MIF performance featured a bold stage setup and dramatic light show, which “reacted” to the music and was designed by English conceptual artist Liam Gillick. Its aesthetic devotion to sharp lines and spiraling motifs can be found throughout. Above all, this is an album full of intention. The way it toggles between the dreamy, the rave-y, the interstellar and the mathematical is what makes it uniquely transcendent. It’s so easy to get locked into the pulsing grooves and club beats on “this weird New Order live album” (which is likely how you’ll refer to it) that you won’t even realize songs like “Age of Consent” or “Blue Monday” are missing.
New Order Ltd. Under exclusive licence to Mute Artists Ltd. Released on: 2019-07-12
3LP – Limited Edition Triple album pressed on transparent coloured vinyl. Packaged in individual sleeves and into a hardback slipcase, all with spot gloss finish.24 page 12″ sized booklet with silk finish containing exclusive imagery and text relating to the legendary event. Includes hi definition digital download of all 18 tracks.
A pair of Gregg Allman reissues are due next month. The late rocker’s 1973 solo debut, Two years after his death, Gregg Allman’s 1973 solo debut Laid Back, and his 1974 live album, The Gregg Allman Tour, will be released on vinyl on August 30th. To be reissued on August 30th via Mercury/UMe.
Recorded at the same time as the Allman Brothers’ iconic Brothers and Sisters, Laid Back is a densely soulful record, The album “Laid Back”, which includes Allman’s cover his own “Midnight Rider” in a more mournful, dirge-like manner, and Jackson Browne’s “These Days” gets its most touching and tragic-sounding rendition as well. Although Chuck Leavell and Jaimoe are here, there’s very little that sounds like the Allman Brothers Band — prominent guitars, apart from a few licks by Tommy Talton (Cowboy), are overlooked in favor of gospel-tinged organ and choruses behind Allman’s soulful singing.
The set arrives as part of a two-CD Deluxe Edition that fills out the first disc with early mixes of all eight songs. A second disc contains Allman’s demos, outtakes, rough mixes and a solo live version of the Allman Brothers Band’s “Melissa” recorded at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, N.Y., on April 13th, 1974.
While promoting Laid Back, Allman performed two nights at New York’s Carnegie Hall and a third at the Capitol Theatre with a 24-piece orchestra and the band Cowboy. Highlights from those dates were released on The Gregg Allman Tour, which has been out of print on vinyl since 1987.
In addition to songs from Laid Back and Allman Brothers classics like “Dreams” and “Stand Back,” Allman covered “Turn on Your Love Light” and “I Feel So Bad” on the album. Cowboy, which featured Allman BrothersBand keyboardist Chuck Leavell, also perform two songs, “Time Will Take Us” and “Where Can You Go?”.
Allman’s live album The Gregg Allman Tour is also being reissued, pressed for the first time since 1987. Featuring live tracks from Carnegie Hall and the Capitol Theater, the tracklist includes “Oncoming Traffic” and a cover of Elvis Presley’s “I Feel So Bad.” The vinyl edition will be pressed in grey and white marble, modeling the original so that side one and four will be on the first LP, while sides two and three will be on the other.
These Days (Solo Guitar, Piano & Vocal Demo) · Gregg Allman
The Gregg Allman Tour and Laid back , will be released on vinyl on August 30th. To be reissued on August 30th via Mercury/UMe.
its almost 1am here in LA and i’m thinking about this song “midnight choir” that i am so happy to share with you today, what it meant to me. every time i write a song, it changes the way i see the world a little bit. this song taught me a lot that i am grateful for. i am learning that we don’t have to choose one – joy or sorrow – or even esteem one as superior to the other — that these worlds are maybe not so far apart. the same song can contain both and still be true… maybe truer because it refuses to be one thing ?
i had the chance to make this song with producer rob schnapf who is a bit of a legend here. he has worked with some of my favorite artists — beck, elliot smith, cat power — and the process was super cool, a bit magical. i found some new spaces in this song that i haven’t been before. i think that amazing producers help you find that — the thing thats in you that you block yourself from unleashing.
well, i hope you enjoy this cosmic hug from me to you. i hope you are happy, or on the way there.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have announced their 15th studio album (!) in the past 7 years. Infest The Rats’ Nest will be released on Flightless Records on August 16th, 2019 with pre-order for the album going live on June 25th, Infest The Rats’ Nest features the band’s two recent singles Self-Immolate and Planet B, both of which were accompanied by dark, violent John Angus Stewart-directed videos.
The new tracks are evidence that Infest the Rat’s Nest will take a distinctly different track to the band’s recently released album, Fishing For Fishies, which came out on Flightless in late April 2019. That album ended up at #1 on ARIA vinyl charts.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released a whopping five new albums last year. The Melbourne psych-rock outfit shared their latest LP, Fishing For Fishies, back in April, and now they’ve announced their second album of 2019. Infest The Rats’ Nest will be King Gizzard’s 15th album in the past seven years.
Infest The Rats’ Nest sees the band embracing thrash metal. The press release says it’s their “hardest and heaviest album to date. How metal is it? Very Metal. Maybe even more.” The album was recorded with three of the seven band members. Frontman Stu Mackenzie and guitarist Joey Walker share guitar and bass duty while Michael Cavanagh handles the drums.
“The A-side of the album is set in the near future and is about real shit going on right now – especially ecological disaster,” Mackenzie explains in a statement. “We’ve got a lot of things to fear. The B-side tells the story of a group of rebels who are forced to leave Planet Earth and try to settle on Venus. I spend a lot of time thinking about the future of humanity and the future of Planet Earth. Naturally these thoughts seep into the lyrics.”
Infest The Rats’ Nest is out 8/16 via Flightless/ATO.
King Gizz will embark on a massive world tour . These shows are not to be missed.
Heaven is Humming has been a long time coming. Three years coming, to be exact: singer/guitarist/songwriter Kenny Becker, singer/guitarist Drew Eccleston, bassist Caleb Wicker, and drummer Christian Koons started work on the album in the summer of 2016, right around the time Goon’s debut EP Dusk of Punk came ripping in from the Los Angeles sky, spilling from the brim with monster riffs and deep hooks.
Heaven is Humming is fearlessly weird, but it’s also comforting and familiar at the same time, taking the sounds of foundational groups like Pixies and Boards of Canada and contextualising them through a modern lens, placing Goon alongside contemporaries like Forth Wanderers, METZ, Young Jesus, and Partisan label-mates Dilly Dally. Becker croons like Michael Stipe one minute and snarls like Frank Black the next, but you never lose the sense of who these four guys are making a beautiful racket right in the here and now.
FUTURE YARD ANNA CALVI , BILL RYDER-JONES, NILUFER YANYA STELLA DONNELLY PIXX, SZUN WAVES AUDIOBOOKS ,QUEEN ZEE ,SQUID + MUCH MORE
Birkenhead plays host to the inaugural FUTURE YARD FESTIVAL this August bank holiday: a two-day celebration of the best national, international and local contemporary new music set across some of Birkenhead’s iconic spaces. Catch headliners ANNA CALVI and BILL RYDER-JONES across the multi-venue festival, plus loads more.
