Low’s 12th album is awash in noise – static, electrical hum, broken down electronics. Over 11 songs, these forces work to obscure Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s voices, wrapped together as always in close harmony. Recorded at Justin Vernon’s April Base with producer BJ Burton, the album implodes the Low template and builds something terrifying and confusing in its place. Many songwriters have attempted to document the pressing anxiety of our overloaded information age; with Double Negative, Low processes the ugliness of our age without abandoning their signature haunting beauty.
Slowcore pioneers Low first introduced electronics to their moody, minimal instrumental palette cautiously, on 2015’s Ones and Sixes; the change, partially brought about by working with producer BJ Burton, helped revitalize both their sound and creativity. On Double Negative(also recorded with Burton), those electronics become a key component, truly directing the album—warping vocals (opener “Quorum” feels like a constantly-interrupted transmission), incorporating rhythmic noise (“Dancing and Blood”), adding a glacial effect to guitars (“PoorSucker”). It took the group nearly two years of trial and error to craft. This is all true, but it doesn’t capture what a terrifying, majestic, heavy gut-punch of an album Double Negative is, how emotionally affecting it is, how it feels like an ice cave one crawls into to find solace from worse weather and to escape potential predators. A stunning album, one that reveals new depths with every play.
Australian singer-songwriter Hatchie released her debut EP, Sugar & Spice, in May, and she’s been kicking up quite the shimmery storm ever since. In September, she played two festivals back-to-back, and she also recently played a sold-out string of tour dates with Alvvays and Snail Mail (what you might call an indie fan’s dream lineup). Hatchie’s irresistible dream-pop is sugar to the ear, but it’s not always lyrically sweet. On her EP’s title track, Hatchie is regretful, singing, “Sugar and spice / I should’ve taken your advice.” She’s not only thoughtful, but also clever in her compositions: Hatchie strikes the perfect combination between acoustic and synth, her pop occasionally moonlighting as something folksier. “Sure,” the first song on Sugar & Spice, uses looping drum machines and consistent synth, but it’s softened by soft acoustic guitar as Hatchie fires off question after question. “Why did you do it? / You couldn’t just laugh and walk away?”
On her debut EP Sugar & Spice, the young Australian songwriter Hatchie has established herself as one of the smartest and most eloquent voices in indiepop. Written in the glow of her first romantic relationship, these five songs deliver grandiose melodies in the vein of Carly Rae Jepsen (“Sleep,” “Try,” “Sugar & Spice”) and glimmering arrangements that recall the sparkly jangle of Real Estate. By exploring the space, implicit in the project’s title, where the saccharine euphoria of budding romance ends and its grittier complexities begin, Hatchie has found a recipe for success.
“Rock The Machine” from Lisa’s album “Heard A Long Gone Song” out October 19th on River Lea, an imprint of Rough Trade Records. Pre-order available at Amazon & Rough Trade shops,
Between the 1960s and 1980s thousands of men lost their jobs as dockers in Dublin’s docklands. Advanced machinery moved in and put an end to the need for manual labour. In Irish mythology, the Cormorant bird might appear to you in your dark hour with the purpose of taking your troubles away. I’ve spotted hundreds of Cormorants along the River Liffey. The recording was for an album called ‘Starboard Home’ in collaboration with Ireland’s National Concert Hall. A special thanks to the dockers who appeared in this video: Declan Byrne, Alan Martin, Christy McDonnell, John ‘Miley’ Walsh, Paddy Daly, Mick Foran, Pat Behan and Paddy Nevins.
Lisa O’Neill’s album went even further. Her resolutely unpretty, belly-deep Irish drawl hymned the decline of industry, depression, and the deaths of young children. Let it submerge you and a modern folk masterpiece emerges.
Introducing the new LP from Bill Lloyd featuring songs co-written by Bill and friends, including Freedy Johnston, Tom Petersson, Graham Gouldman, Buddy Mondlock and more.
Bill Lloyd’s first two solo records—1987’s Feeling the Elephant and 1994’s Set to Pop—are rightfully seen as classic of the power pop/melodic rock genre. Combining ringing guitars with a keen sense of melody in songs such as “Lisa Anne,” “Nothing Comes Close,” “Trampoline,” “Niagara Falls” and several others, Lloyd created a template that was difficult to top. Several releases for several different labels would follow, with each one being very good or better; still, to this writer, Lloyd hadn’t quite been able to return to the elusive heights he achieved on his first few efforts.
Working the Long Game, Lloyd’s latest full-length for Texas-based SpyderPop Records, is not only his finest solo collection in nearly 25 years, . A dozen tracks, each one carefully crafted and melodically stimulating, and a sterling showcase for what can still be done with a solid base of guitars, bass and drums. Of course, there are some other complementary touches—the strings on the devastatingly beautiful and delicate “Wake Up Call,” Lloyd’s mandolin on the ever-so-slightly middle-eastern sounding Graham Gouldman co-write “What Time Won’t Heal”—but on the whole, these are uncluttered, six-string powered gems that are instantly likeable and retain their substantial charms long after the disc stops spinning.
Several of the songs on Long Game stand up with Lloyd’s best ever: the aforementioned “Wake Up Call” deftly balances musical sweetness and lyrical sadness, with an acoustic guitar figure that recalls Big Star’s “Thirteen,” while the joyously catchy “Go-To-Girl” sounds like it could have topped the charts in 1965. Then there’s “Yesterday,” a wonderfully loud, loose-limbed rocker that features bass by Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson (who also shares writing credit with Lloyd), followed by the similarly muscular “Interrupted” and “Merch Table,” both of which will deposit themselves directly into your memory bank.
“Interrupted” was co-written with Nashville-based singer/songwriter Scott Sax (formerly of the late, great combo Wanderlust), and extols the frustration of attempting to collaborate on music via the internet. It features just a whiff of a “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” vibe in the verses and adds a positively incendiary guitar solo as a bonus. “Merch Table” is driven by a slew of cascading guitars and slam-bangin’ drums (Lloyd is credited with “many guitars and vocals” on this one in the notes) and lyrically serves as something of a statement of purpose for the struggling independent musician. (“You’re asking me, ‘Why do you still do this? I thought by now you would have had your fill’/There’s a thing that happens in the moment when it’s real” and “It’s been a decade since you bought new music/Got rid of all your old CDs/You don’t want to clutter up the house with new songs like these” are both totally relatable couplets.)
On the albums final two tracks, “Miracle Mile” and “Shining,” Lloyd one-man bands it in quite fetching fashion: his controlled-yet-powerful drumming on the former tune is a revelation (who knew?), while on the latter he closes things out in a mellower manner that’s somewhat reminiscent of Paul McCartney circa 1973. Beautiful vocal arrangement on this one, too.
Everything else on Working the Long Game is more than worthy as well, especially the jaunty title track which welds a perky little melody around a guitar riff inspired by the Beatles’ “Getting Better” and adds a cheeky set of lyrics. Oh, and let’s not forget “’Til the Day That I Break Down,” a classic Lloyd pop-rocker penned with frequent collaborator David Surface and another all-by-himself recording that sounds like anything but. It all adds up to a revelatory release by Bill Lloyd, proving yet again that there is still plenty of life in the tried and true guitars/bass/drums formula as long as you have the songs. And boy oh boy, has Bill Lloyd ever got ‘em this time around.
1989: It’s nine years since John Lennon died, and five years since The Television Personalities have had an album released. Fire Records sign the latest incarnation of the TVPs and let them loose in a proper studio. Dan Treacy’s muse is overcome by the versatility of Swatch watches and Back To The Future II, he doesn’t allow the songs on ‘Privilege’ to bend to temptation. The world is still wrong; it’s still unreal; as evidenced by the guest list at ‘Salvador Dali’s Garden Party’. Elsewhere there’s a hint of ‘60s soap operas, from Cathy Come Home to The Wicker Man.
This is Steeleye Span’s first record. This is what Ashley Hutchings got involved in after he left Fairport Convention, and I just think it’s a terrific record. I love the songs on this record, and I love the fact that there are two female singers, Maddy Prior and Gay Woods. A really interesting collection of songs beautifully performed.
The band didn’t actually have a drummer but there are some drums on the record, so it’s a real folk-rock record. I love the sound of it, I love the harmonies, the musicianly skill involved.”
Last summer just a few weeks after Dacus’s highly anticipated LP Historian was released on Matador Records, the Richmond, Va.-based singer/guitarist and her band descended on SXSW for an incredible 17 sets. It was a remarkable feat, especially considering the emotional power packed into Dacus’s music. Here is a major leap forward in just a few short years. Dacus is one of the brightest young songwriters in music right now. Live performances of songs like “Night Shift” and “Pillar of Truth” carried the same impact as they do on Historian, even without the horns and string sections that appear on that remarkable record.
At just 23, Lucy Dacus is well beyond her years. One listen to her sophomore record Historian and you’ll know. The album is a deep meditation on loss and redemption, filled with stories from Dacus’ past and surrounded by crunchy guitars and distortion, a la PJ Harvey and the Pixies. “A lot of the songs revert back to very specific moments, but I didn’t write [them] in the moment,” she says. “They just came out over time the way that they did. There wasn’t this immediate translation from life to song.” Dacus grew up in Richmond, Va., surrounding herself with music her whole life. She started singing early on as a child, graduating to church choir soon after. In middle school, she bought a guitar and started learning chords and, in high school, she finally took the plunge and started writing her own music. After high school, she got the courage to start playing live in front of people. Her first album, 2016’s No Burden, was recorded super lo-fi—no recording budget, no expectations, no fans to consider. She issued it via Richmond upstart label EggHunt Records and it gained the attention of Matador Records, who re-released it, propping her up onto an international stage just like that. When it came time to write Historian, a newfound pressure existed, and she says that an ever-present feeling loomed throughout the recording process. “There’s a responsibility now,” she says. “I don’t take it lightly. It’s not necessarily stressful, but it is a weight.” Dacus’ extreme confessions on songs like “Night Shift,” “Body to Flame” and “Pillar of Truth” are Historian album highlights, but it’s clear that the whole thing has an emotional heft to it that you don’t hear often with early twenty-somethings. “It’s really normal to be anxious,” she says. “There are these immediate pressures— politically, culturally, and within my family or friend groups—[and] there seems to be a lot of confusion in my life. That comes through on the album as me trying to maintain hope throughout those things. I would feel like a failure if that didn’t come through.”
Lucy Dacus is done thinking small. Two years after her 2016 debut, No Burden, won her unanimous acclaim as one of rock’s most promising new voices, Dacus returned with Historian, a remarkably assured 10-track statement of intent. It finds her unafraid to take on the big questions — the life-or-death reckonings, and the ones that just feel that way. It’s a record full of bracing realizations, tearful declarations and moments of hard-won peace, expressed in lyrics that feel destined for countless yearbook quotes and first tattoos.
“This is the album I needed to make,” says Dacus, who views Historian as her definitive statement as a songwriter and musician. “Everything after this is a bonus.”
Arriving in the early months of 2017, Bonny Doon’s self-titled debut was a warm introduction to the Detroit quartet for many. Hazy and bright, the album’s woozy melodies and swirling webs of summery guitar textures were easily ingested as low-key slacker pop, blissfully awash in lo-fi sensibilities and dreamy ambiance. But the nonchalant breeziness belied a serious attention to songcraft that beckoned careful listening, and hinted at depths yet unexplored. Lo and behold, before the ink was even dry on the first record, work had already begun on its follow-up Longwave, a conscious about-face from the sonic experimentation of the first album, and a journey inward.
Opting for spontaneity and simplicity over the exploration of layers and textures that defined the first record, the band architected an incredibly intimate sound for these new songs. The album was tracked with minimal overdubs or production flourishes, constructing a frame that is spare and understated. The songs on Longwave amble through moonlit fields of melancholy guitar leads and self-reflection, the collection unfolding almost as one uninterrupted conversation with self. The session aimed to capture the band at their essence. With the superfluous stripped away, a gentle but steadfast spiritual core is revealed as the backbone of Bonny Doon’s cosmic American music.
Bobby Colombo of Bonny Doon said, “When you – if you – listen to our music, there’s a lot of self-critique and doubt, and questioning. That could be construed as negativity – I don’t think we do, though.” That kind of self-awareness is self-evident, and is the theme behind Longwave‘s ten tracks. But for an album full of wistfully declarative, introspective sentences, Bonny Doon left ample room for their take on spaced-out, captivating, catchy music. This one-two punch – confidence in self-doubt, and a strolling groove – helped Longwave arrive as one of the most fully-formed debuts this side of the millennium, and demanded repeated listens, both this year and beyond.
This is Courtney Marie Andrews‘ fourth record, “No One’s Slate is Clean.”
released December 6th, 2010, It’s near Impossible to pick a favorite track. This albums is stellar from start to finish. Do yourself a favor and listen to this album. Each song flows into the next in a logical, touching way, and there’s a large-scale building to (what I feel is) a climax. a perfect snapshot of an age full of imperfections. Incredibly beautiful melodies, pro arrangements, and raw honesty – the marriage of simple things that birth complex emotions.
All songs written and performed by Courtney Marie Andrews.
Courtney Marie Andrews: acoustic guitars, electric guitars, vocals, vocal harmonies, synth, string arrangements for, “Canals of Amsterdam” and “Songs for Tourists.”
Ethan McCracken: electric guitars, synth, vocal harmonies on, “Bumper in the Hail,” and string arrangements for “Canals of Amsterdam” and “Songs for Tourists.”
Tim Mechling: piano, rhodes, organ, and string arrangements for “Unbalanced Suns.”
Alex Stoops Sabel: bass
Luke Knezevich: drums, percussion
Additional Musicians:
Chris Testa: percussion
Patrick Austin: violin
Jared MacFarlane: violin
Clifton P. Antoine: viola
Brad Hawkins: cello
Sara Beth Tomberlin’s debut album, At Weddings, is an ode to the uncertainty and overall dishevelment of your late teens and early twenties: bogged down by self-doubt, seeking validation from others, rebelling against unsolicited religious beliefs that were pressed upon you as a child (the 23-year-old singer/songwriter was born to strict Baptist parents) and longing for someone even though you know they’re a bad influence. Featuring only an acoustic guitar and various keyboards and effects, the record centers on Tomberlin’s Joni Mitchell-esque pipes, loud in their softness and tenderness and unsuspectedly moving you to your absolute core. The naked instrumentation mirrors the transparency of her lyrics and while the songs consist of just a few elements, her overflowing emotions make the tracks feel full and warm. At Weddings is filled with such a powerful, saintly aura that even the most ugly subject matters can spur flawless, beautiful results.
Tomberlin – Any Other Way Directed by Laura-Lynn Petrick From the album At Weddings.
