Today we’re happy to announce Four Desires, a 4 track EP of our individual versions of “Desire”. 3 remixes and a cover. We had some time apart before touring started up this year, so each of us worked on a track at home.
You can get them today on special cassette thru Merge Records
Released August 21st, 2018
Hop Along’s new video for “Somewhere A Judge” is a compilation of all the fuzzy little moments that make up life on the road, from late-night noodle binges to hokey museum detours, to impromptu solo dance parties.
The song, off their most recent album Bark Your Head Off, Dog, was released in April via Saddle Creek Records, The song’s bouncy, buoyant guitar lines are anchored by singer Frances Quinlan’s poetic, often inscrutable lyrics. “Afternoon vanilla sun / crawls away across the lawn / through the phone I pull you / and drag your voice around,” she sings in the song’s chorus, capturing the alternating comfort/chaos dynamic of the touring lifestyle the video documents.
The video features grainy, home-video-esque footage of the band’s escapades in various bars, studios, venues and green rooms during their national headlining tour in support of Bark Your Head Off, Dog. It’s intercut with footage of the new Hop Along mural on the Studebaker building in the band’s hometown of Philadelphia, done by the artist Nosego. The video gives new context to the song’s final refrain. “I don’t know why I’m so mean each time I come to visit,” Quinlan sings as we see clips of the band performing for packed venues, intercut with Nosego finishing up the mural in their hometown. It sounds like an apology of sorts, for how the emotional highs and lows of touring can leave them all feeling drained by the time they finally come back home.
Hop Along – Somewhere a Judge From the album Bark Your Head Off, Dog – Out Now!
J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. fame graced our ears with his new single, “See You At The Movies.” Check out this vibrantly raw new track down below. The song is the first to be released from his forthcoming album Elastic Days, his third full-length solo album for Sub Pop Records. The album will be Mascis’s first solo release since 2014’s Tied to a Star.
Like his earlier solo work, Elastic Days was recorded at J’Mascis’ s own studio with all his own flair. Showing off his artistry, Mascis does almost all the music-making, with Ken (who also appeared on Tied to a Star) on the keyboard and a few guest vocalists, including Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession), Mark Mulcahy (Miracle Legion) and Zoë Randell (Luluc), among others.
“The biggest difference with this record might have to do with the drums,” explains J Mascis, when asked what fans can expect to be divergent from his previous solo albums. “I’d just got a new drum set I was really excited about. I don’t have too many drum outlets at the moment, so I played a lot more drums than I’d originally planned. I just kept playing.” But Elastic Days promises to have more than a good rhythm: We’re looking forward to unexpected hooks and guitar slides that straddle a broad range of genres.
We’ll have to wait until November. 9th for the releases of the album, but before its release, To hype up his audiences, J Mascis will embark on a North American tour with Sub Pop labelmates Luluc as support.
The KVB release their 6th album to date entitled ‘Only Now Forever’.
This is the ltd edition mail order exclusive variant, pressed on 2 x transparent natural vinyl with heavy black splatter. This is limited to 300 copies only!, The records come housed in a spined sleeve with beautiful artwork, and digital download card included.
After intense touring their 2016 release ‘Of Desire’, The KVB returned to their home to further immerse themselves in sonic experimentation. The resulting Only Now Forever heralds the next chapter in the adopted-Berliners dark, electronic pop development.
“On our new album we wanted to take everything we had learned in the studio recording our last album and apply it to self-producing this album,” explains the band. Recorded entirely in their Berlin apartment throughout 2017 the band decided they wanted to take a freer approach to writing and recording. “In the past, we had always tried to restrict ourselves productions wise, to what was possible to play live as a duo, but this time we wanted to expand our compositions and instrumentation, and let the atmosphere dictate the layers of sound.”
Whilst holding evident inspiration from previous times, the sound this London-founded duo present is progressive and distinctly new in every sense. Idyllic at times; gritty in others, each bar is as enchanting as the last, leaving you in a melancholic trance. Offering poignant lyricism that explores modern anxieties that plague many, the duo manage to imbue feelings of empowerment, fighting such struggles with a deceivingly sanguine sound. This seamless juxtaposition is perhaps their best trait.
Full EP released on Invada Records 19/05/2017
More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album is a 1999 tribute album completed shortly before and released shortly after the death of the original Moby Grape founding member Skip Spence. The album contains cover versions by various artists of Spence’s music from his only release the Oar album, released in 1969, presented in the same order as on the original album. The album also contains a hidden bonus track of Spence’s last known recording, “Land of the Sun”, which was originally commissioned for the X-Files soundtrack, Songs in the Key of X, but not used.
The album was planned and produced by Bill Bentley, a music industry executive then associated with Warner Bros. Records, who had previously produced Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson.
More Oar has been described as a “heartfelt, eclectic homage” that “pays tribute to one of psychedelia’s brightest lights, In relation to the inclusion of Spence’s “Land of the Sun” as a hidden bonus track, critic Raoul Hernandez commented as follows:
Critic Rob Brunner views the more successful covers as being those by artists with a particular appreciation of Spence’s spirit:
Remembering Alexander Lee “Skip” Spence, born on April 18th, 1946, born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada — he died on April 16yj, 1999.
He was co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. The first Moby Grape album is probably in the Top 10 Psychedelica rock albums of all time! Skip released only one solo album, 1969’s Oar, and then largely withdrew from the music industry. He had started his career as a guitarist in an early line-up of Quicksilver Messenger Service, and was the drummer on Jefferson Airplane’s debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off.
He has been described on the Allmusic website as “one of Psychedelia’s brightest lights”; however, his career was plagued by drug addictions coupled with mental health problems, and he has been described by a biographer as a man who “neither died young nor had a chance to find his way out.”
Described as “one of the most harrowing documents of pain and confusion ever made”,the album was recorded after Spence had spent six months in Bellevue Hospital. Spence had been committed to Bellevue following a delusion-driven attempt to attack his ex Moby Grape bandmates Don Stevenson and Jerry Miller with a axe.
In November 1968, Alexander ‘Skip’ Spence stepped outside Bellevue Hospital for the first time in five months. While he had dozens of new songs and sketches in his head, he was no longer a member of Moby Grape. He needed another outlet. Meeting with producer David Rubinson at a hotel in Manhattan, Spence hatched a plan to record his new material in Tennessee.
Receiving some advance money from Columbia, he bought a motorcycle, and… well, either he returned to his family in California, or he drove down to Nashville. The timeline and course of events is uncertain. What is certain, however, is that in early December, Spence entered Columbia’s Nashville studio on 16th Ave. Though his future was unclear, he was ready to embark on a solo project. It turned out to be a recording process – and record – like no other.
The 12 original songs on Oar communicate a whole range of emotions. Often, it’s as though Spence is whispering to us, stuck somewhere between accusation and confession. At times, he croons in a baritone, telling tales of travel and betrayal. Other times, he cracks himself up with his own wordplay. There are moments when his music veers towards the dreamy, others when the sense of intimacy is arresting.
After its original release in May 1969, Oar went out of print. Yet over the years it has returned to us again and again. When first released, Oar was not promoted by Columbia Records, despite pleadings fromproducer Rubinson. It was at the time the lowest-selling album in Columbia Records history. Subsequent reissues have added ten more songs, in different stages of completion, to the original dozen. The original release ended with a fade out of “Grey / Afro”. The 1999 Sony/Sundazed reissue appends “This Time He Has Come” to a fade-less “Grey / Afro”, which reflects how the two songs appeared on the master tapes.
Brighton, U.K. trio Our Girl’s debut album Stranger Today is the perfect gift for the listener that loves a good musical dichotomy. Fronted by The Big Moon’s Soph Nathan, the band exudes the sweet and tender meets heavy and formidable sound of groups like the Pixies and My Bloody Valentine with their cathartic, thoughtful pop/rock and distorted shoegaze and grunge. As much as the term “grunge” has been thrown around to describe the band, it doesn’t fully account for the beauty and richness of Nathan’s songs and guitar playing.
order the debut album ‘Stranger Today’
After the stunning “Birthday”, Gia Margaret looks deeply into the space that remains after a loved one leaves your life. “Birthday” is a gentle, mid-tempo rock song that couches the weight of its lyrics in lush electric guitar chords, gleaming synthesizer patches, and big, expressive drums, hitting the sweet spot between Imogen Heap and Broken Social Scene. In a voice that barely rises above a whisper, the Chicago-based singer/songwriter details a sudden, devastating breakup. “I can’t pretend I didn’t know it/But then the night came and you were gone,” she sings, her voice multi-tracked and produced in a way that makes the edges of her consonants pop. After the shock of the initial split, Margaret starts to preemptively mourn all the rituals she won’t get to share again with her ex-partner. “Wouldn’t it be so strange/Not to be with you on your birthday?” she asks on the chorus. Her vocal melody skews oddly optimistic, vaulting up toward the top of her range as if she’s trying to put a positive spin on her loss. “Birthday” may be an emotionally moving breakup song, but it’s the kind that lets you self-soothe in the midst of grief.
Gia Margaret releases the second single from her first record, There’s Always Glimmer. If that first track was about the moment things fall away, “Smoke” is a gorgeous evocation of the moment they come together.
Margaret’s writing taps into the fragility of happiness – the immensely overwhelming feeling of something you’ve wished for so vividly becoming real, the moment you surrender yourself to it. From the gentle cascading piano line that acts as the spine of the song’s crescendo, to the double-tracked near-whisper of the vocal melody, the soft-focus comfort of the song’s feeling of stillness layers itself like a Sunday den.
Even as washes of cello, reversed vocals and an electronic beat flicker into life towards the end of the track, reminiscent of Daughter, it remains true to the sparse feel of its title. Picturing the simple pleasure of making a home with someone through immensely intimate moments – crying in the bathroom, nestling into new sheets – its sensual feel unravels the transportive potential of emotional memory. Ethereal, effortless and all-enveloping, it’s a misty and atmospheric watercolour.
“Smoke is one of the older songs on the album,” Margaret tells us. “It’s just something sparse I wrote to reflect on how beautiful the surrender of building a home with someone can be. It’s about sense memory and vulnerability. More specifically all the complicated feelings and memories that something as unremarkable as the scent of smoke can bring. Moving into an apartment with another for the first time and going from childhood home to “adulthood” was a transition. I wanted to capture how much I loved that apartment and the peaceful and still feeling that person and place enveloped me in. I hope the music speaks louder than my plain words. That was sort of my intent with this one.”
“Doug Saltzman engineered, mixed and co-produced Smoke,” she adds, on the production of the track. “We worked on it over the course of four months, and the song wouldn’t have been the same without his efforts, his vibrations, and especially his electronic drum production. He really is a wizard! I played all the keys, and Molly Rife added the cello. Doug and I self-released a early version of Smoke two years ago, but it was basically just one of my home demos, with drums overdubbed by Doug. It was the first time I had collaborated with someone who made beats, and I was really into what they added. Doug is super collaborative and easy to bounce ideas off of. I’m so glad I got to revisit the song with him and take it to a new place.”
There’s Always Glimmeris out on July 27th via Orindal Recordings..
Owen Ashworth’s albums have always been about the human condition, and his latest is no exception. That may sound strange, given that it’s called “Animal Companionship“, but it’s as human as anything he’s done before.
After hearing problems forced the end of his electronic pop project Casiotone for the Painfully Alone in 2010, Ashworth started making quieter music as Advance Base, releasing A Shut-In’s Prayer in 2012, Nephew In The Wild in 2015 and a slew of tapes and 7” EPs in between. After releasing a 2016 live album, In Bloomington, the prodigious songwriter shifted his focus to his label, Orindal Records, and put his efforts into helping other artists release their music.
This break from songwriting gave him time to explore not just how he makes music, but why he’s driven to do so. “I spent a lot of time thinking about why I write songs and what I get out of writing songs,” he said. “It took a while to get back to writing for myself, unselfconsciously.
“The reason I’ve always made music is because it’s therapeutic for me,” he said. “It’s a way of processing my feelings and understanding my subconscious. I love the ritual of writing a song and performing it over and over again until its meaning reveals itself. It’s the closest I get to meditation.”
The meditative nature of Ashworth’s new songwriting process can be heard in Animal Companionship’s spacious arrangements. Blissful drones and lush synthesizer textures envelop soft electric piano arpeggiations and spare drum programming, creating an almost hypnotic backdrop for Ashworth’s lyrical narratives. And the lyrics themselves have found a new focus: dogs.
“There was a while last year when a bunch of different friends of mine were having problems with their dogs,” said Ashworth, “and even though I don’t have a dog, suddenly I was giving all of this dog advice. I was just thinking and worrying about these friends and their dogs all of the time, and dogs just started showing up in my songs.
“When you explain the relationship you have with a pet, it can sound crazy. We all tend to anthropomorphize the animals we love, talking about them as if they’re children, siblings, even spouses,” said Ashworth. “I wrote these songs to help myself understand what pets mean to their owners, how those animal relationships affect our human relationships, and vice versa.”
Unlike the previous Advance Base albums, which were made at home on Ashworth’s trusty 4-track tape machine, Animal Companionship was mostly recorded at Palmetto Studios in Los Angeles with Ashworth’s old friend and former Casiotone for the Painfully Alone collaborator Jason Quever. Animal Companionship still sounds like Ashworth, but Quever’s production adds more depth and clarity than you’ve ever heard from an Advance Base or Casiotone album. The album opener, “True Love Death Dream,” is full of warm synthesizer textures and lush drum machine tones, the kind that sink deep into your soul and take root there. It shows how much time and consideration Ashworth put into Animal Companionship, and how Quever knew exactly how to capture it.
From the pedal steel atmospherics of “Dolores & Kimberly” to the densely layered oscillations of “Rabbits,” every movement beautifully frames each song’s narrative. Animal Companionship’s production is expansive but always deliberate, allowing Ashworth to speak volumes through subtle, emotional gestures.
Taken as a whole, Animal Companionship is not just a step forward for Advance Base—it’s the culmination of everything Ashworth has been building for the past two decades. It’s a record that’s gentle in approach and endearing in practice, the kind of thing that only Ashworth could create.
“Dolores & Kimberly” by Advance Base off the album Animal Companionship out September 21st, 2018 on Run For Cover Records
This is the recording project of Aaron Powell from Newfoundland, Canada. this band display a unique sound and songwriting that makes this a pleasure to me. Aaron Powell (Born 1993) is better known by his lo-fi singer songwriter moniker Fog Lake where he creates music that’s been best described as “a complex collage of nebulous angst and heartfelt nostalgia” .
Born and raised on the island province of Newfoundland, he’s lived his life in relative isolation writing and recording a total of six releases in four years including his two most current LP’s Virgo Indigo (2014) & Victoria Park (2015) both being released by Brooklyn based tape label Orchid Tapes (Foxes In Fiction, Alex G, Teen Suicide).
Aaron’s relentless and prolific approach has garnered worldwide critical acclaim receiving coverage on The FADER, DIY Magazine, Noisey, Tiny Mixtapes, The 405, BBC, CBC, Earmilk, Chart Attack, Exclaim! and many others. His unrelenting approach to releasing music has lead to an ever-increasing cult following, seeing Fog Lake featured by the likes of renowned YouTube channel, Majestic Casual for the second time where it has racking up over 400,000 plays. In addition, tastemaker blog Gorilla Vs Bear has named his single ‘Rattlesnake’ one of the Top-25 Tracks of 2016.
Released July 5th, 2018
written and produced by aaron powell
vox by j. king on ‘acrylic’
keys by kenney purchase on ‘dinosaur’
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