The Second Princess Chelsea single – after ‘I Love My Boyfriend’ – This singer songwriter from Auckland, NZ’sChelsea Nikkel’s upcoming album ‘The Loneliest Girl’, due out September 7th via Lil’ Chief Records. The alt-pop number melds hazy retro synths, a snare drum, off-kilter keys, trombone, and a choir for good measure. Second single from The Loneliest Girl out September 7th!
The Loneliest Girl is the third studio album by New Zealand musician Chelsea Nikkel, better known as Princess Chelsea. It was recorded by Chelsea between 2016 and 2017 in her home studio in West Auckland, New Zealand.
The Loneliest Girl examines the loneliness and ultimately the artistic satisfaction a strong work ethic can bring, the result of which is this eclectic collection of pop songs. As a studio based artist Chelsea was conscious of not wanting to fall too deep into a production hole for her third album and wanted to more than ever before capture moments of inspiration, madness and spontaneity on record.
Recently released via Kobalt Recordings, Yorkshire two-piece Seafret make their return after two years away with new single ‘Can’t Look Away’.
The rousing alt-folk-rock track – taken from their new EP ‘Monsters’ to be released in the autumn – was produced and co-written with Ross Hamilton – sees Jack Sedman and Harry Draper on top form, and comes as the first new material since their ‘Tell Me It’s Real’ debut album.
“After touring flat out following the release of our debut album, it feels incredible to release some fresh new music,” they say. “It’s been a while coming so we are doubly fired up to release ‘Can’t Look Away’ as the first glimpse of the EP. In contrast to our debut album that was recorded in London, we’ve recorded all the new music up in Scotland. By once again removing ourselves from our comfort zone we feel it’s had a great effect on the music and kept it exciting for us. We’ll always only put out music that feels honest to us, but by changing our surroundings we feel it’s made us produce music that sounds fresh and new. We hope the fans enjoy it as much as we do.”
Indiana’s Kevin Krauter releases his debut solo LP, Toss Up via Bayonet Records, Kevin is a member of the band Hoops. Useful Solitude is the phrase Kevin Krauter uses to describe Toss Up, his full-length debut, both the conditions in which it was created and the prevailing theme of these nine iridescent indie-pop songs. In between tours the Indiana musician spent long hours in his basement, guitars and vintage keyboards his only company, and tested out ideas, explored new sonic avenues, savored new sounds, and taught himself how to play a few instruments. Toss Up builds on the sonic worlds of Krauters’ first releases, conveying a similar mood with a greater array of instruments and influences. An insightful songwriter with a lyrical style that is both economical and evocative, Krauter crafts unique soundscapes that scramble a range of influences—‘60s flower pop, ‘70s easy listening, ‘80s New Wave, ‘90s alt-radio, ’00s indie rock. The secret tension on Toss Up, the engine that drives these songs: melody propelled by rhythm, melancholy fended off by the exuberance of simply creating art
The prodigiously talented Jeff Buckley only made one studio album, 1994’s Grace, before his accidental drowning in the Mississippi River in 1997, but his estate has continued to release a wealth of posthumous material. These range from top notch material like the drafts for his second album, released as Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, as well as great songs like ‘Forget Her’, a Grace outtake, but his clearing of the decks has also felt like it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel with releases like Grace Around the World.
But despite all the archival activity, one fascinating song by Buckley remains in the archive – collaborator Elizabeth Fraser has dismissed the song as “unfinished, you see. I don’t want it to be heard.” Fraser, the lead singer of the Cocteau Twins, previously recorded a version of Tim Buckley’s ‘Song to the Siren’ in the mid 1980s. She was in a relationship with Jeff Buckley in the mid 1990s, and they sang together on ‘All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun’. Even if it’s unvarnished, with Fraser and Buckley only accompanied by an acoustic guitar, it’s still enthralling – two unique, spectacular voices in an unlikely pairing.
Fraser struck up an intense relationship with Jeff Buckley after they became infatuated with each other’s voices. Again, emotion produced music. This sublime duet they recorded called All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun is around the internet, to her irritation.
“Why do people have to hear everything?” she complains. I tell her it’s wonderful. “But it’s unfinished, you see. I don’t want it to be heard.” There’s a pause. “Maybe I won’t always think that.”
Buckley died in 1997, by which time they had lost touch – Fraser had grown frustrated with his constant touring, a reaction that weighs heavily on her. “I just wish I’d been more of a friend,” she says, softly. “His career was everything to him, and I wish I had been more understanding – happy with a different kind of relationship. I missed out on something there, and it was my fault.”
The news that Buckley had disappeared – he drowned, swimming in the Wolf river in Memphis – came while Fraser was recording Teardrop with Massive Attack. “That was so weird,” she says. “I’d got letters out and I was thinking about him. That song’s kind of about him – that’s how it feels to me anyway.” It seems she is haunted by guilt: for not being there for Buckley, for everything. As she puts it: “I need to forgive myself.”
Unreleased (unfinished) acoustic track by Jeff Buckley and Elizabeth Fraser. Recorded sometime around 1995-1996.
The history of music in Portugal would not be the same without the Paredes de Coura Festival. Throughout its 25 years of existence, the oldest and most charismatic Portuguese festival has made history in discovering new musical promises and presenting the most renowned names in music worldwide. With a careful and coherent schedule, always faithful to the alternative spirit that characterizes it, the Festival Paredes de Coura, which happens next to the fluvial beach of Taboão was already considered one of the 5 best music festivals in Europe by Rolling Stone magazine. The Arcade Fire, Pixies, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Coldplay and Morrisey are just a few of the names that have stepped onto the stage of this festival. After the 25th anniversary celebration, Vodafone Paredes de Coura will return to Taboão Fluvial Beach on 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th August 2018.
When her debut album At Weddings made a fleeting appearance on bandcamp late last year, we fell in love with Tomberlin‘s devastating “Self-Help“, an exquisite, achingly intimate inner devotional that was intensely moving and quietly powerful in a way that recalled Seven Swans-era Sufjan. At Weddings will see a proper release this week via Saddle Creek Records, and Tomberlin shares the gauzy Laura-Lynn Petrick-directed visuals for another beautiful, poignant gem from the record, “Any Other Way“. At Weddings is out this Friday.
Tomberlin – “I’m Not Scared” From the album At Weddings – Out 10th August.
Saddle Creek Records are to release that very debut. It’s called At Weddingsand is due out 10th August. We’ve already gotten two great reasons why it should be on your radar, and now here’s yet another one.
Tomberlin’s new single “I’m Not Scared” is still very much of a piece with the previous ones we’ve heard. It’s a fairly somber track, but once again the voice of Sarah Beth Tomberlin is so striking in its emotive delicacy it’s hard not to get totally wrapped up in it. This song uses mostly piano to create a gorgeous thick layer of atmosphere with its hanging notes that lend to its even pace.
Of the song, Sarah Beth Tomberlin says “It is abrasive, heavy, but packaged delicately. I feel like many people view women as such — shrill and emotionally burdensome but responsible for consistently presenting themselves pleasantly. Gentle and affable – their warmth a tool to heal often with no regard for the state of the body and mind that warmth permeates from. Women, and especially queer, trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming people, have such a capacity for pain. Physical, mental, emotional, psychological pain. This is a hymn-like song in the way that it moves melodically. A reflection on that suffering. I didn’t realize the full meaning when I wrote it. The weight of the song didn’t hit me until I was listening to the final recording. It is kind of like leaving a person or situation that is really abusive and not realizing how much it affects your psyche until you’ve removed yourself completely. You look back and you realize you are strong, even though that is the last word you would use to describe how you feel.”
Credits: Music + lyrics by Sarah Beth Tomberlin Sarah Beth Tomberlin – guitar, Wurlitzer, vocals Owen Pallett – guitar, Prophet 6, and background vocals
Produced, recorded, and mixed by Owen Pallett at M’s House + Owen’s House
Untitled 2 recorded on my phone
Album cover art by Sarah Beth Tomberlin
The first time Chicago’s Campdogzz graced my ears, I couldn’t help but feel similarly to when I first heard Hop Along. The Jess Price led quintet has a knack for writing driving, powerful music, evocative of sonorous midwest roads and stopovers. They notched a moderate hit with 2015’s “The Well,” off a promising debut record that sees Price delivering with Frances Quinlan-like fervor. In Rounds will be the first new release on Cursive’s recently established 15 Passenger label and Price’s commanding vocals are already on full display atop the dizzying riffs and consonance of “Souvenir.” Campdogzz capture the bleak yet spirited heart of the industrial midwest in a five-piece band propelled by driving rhythms, insistent dual guitars set in intriguing arrangements, and the haunting, evocative songs and voice of Tulsa native Jess Price. In a moment, Jess turnsa beguiling melody to a darkening storm, rich in portent and meaning.
Campdogzz have earned a devoted following in Chicago and the midwest, with a lineup that has solidified into a potent live band featuring Jess Price (lead vocals, guitar and keyboard); Mike Russell (guitar and backup vocals); Nick Enderle (guitar); Mahmoud Haygood (bass); and Matt Evert (drums). In addition to their own headlining shows and tours (until recently conveyed by a school bus rigged for self-sufficient touring and camping; if you don’t know where to get the best falafel in every American city, you are definitely not a Campdog), the band has opened for Big Thief, Sam Evian, Ohmme, Tim Kasher and others. They were recently seen in the first season of the Netflix series, “Easy,” recorded a popular Audiotree live video session, and self-released “Riders in the Hills of Dying Heaven” in 2015. That early recording has been streamed nearly 2 million times. Now, Campdogzz are poised to come aggravate your blues, bang your head, and remind you where you are on the long road away from home.
Bandmembers
Mike Russell,
Jess Price,
Nicholas Enderle,
Andrew Rolfsen,
Matt Evert,
Our first introduction to the character of young Max Fischer in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore comes by way of his lengthy extracurricular resume—Stamp & Coin Club, Fencing Team, Trap & Skeet Club, Rushmore Beekeepers, etc etc etc. But just as memorable as Fischer’s list of exploits is the music that scores it: the fuzzed-out 1966 single “Making Time” by the UK group The Creation.
The song, which kicks against the mundanity of working in a clock factory, is cut from the same cloth as equally ecstatic mid ‘60s anthems like The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and The Who’s “My Generation,” and with good reason: all three were produced by Shel Talmy, a Chicago native who spent the meat of the 1960s living in London. In The Creation, Talmy saw a band willing to push the boundaries of rock ‘n’ roll, and to explore the use of noise and overdrive in the context of melodically-driven tunes. Where the feedback Talmy added to The Who’s “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere” was rejected by Decca Records (they thought there was something wrong with the test pressing), The Creation, led by singer Kenny Pickett and guitarist Eddie Phillips, were more than willing to crank things up to 11. Phillips even ramped up the noise factor by using a violin bow on his electric guitar, a technique that would be hijacked by Jimmy Page a year later when he made his debut as the new member of The Yardbirds and then, more famously, in Led Zeppelin.
Eddie Phillips was looking for was something that would give me a long sustain, and the fuzzbox wasn’t even invented yet back then. So to get that long sustain, I thought maybe what I could do was to get a thing that would make the bottom E play while I can hammer on notes on the top E. First thing that I tried to do was take a hacksaw and put a bottom E guitar string in it, so the windings on the one string would go one way and the strings on my guitar would go the other way and these windings would sort of rub on each other to make the sound I was looking for, which it did. But unfortunately, the hacksaw cut some scars on the guitar neck, and those scars were still there when Dave from XTC took it.
Biff! A violin bow scrapes across the strings of a guitar
Bang! The hiss of a an aerosol can releases paint on to canvas
Pow! As the violin bow pierces the canvas.
Sadly, the band never scored a hit single during their initial run, but a decade after they split up, Boney M.’s Eurodisco version of “Painter Man” finally put The Creation in the UK Top 10. As it turned out, this was only the beginning of a wave of appreciation for the group: The cover art for their single “Biff Bang Pow” can be seen on the inside of The Jam’s classic third LP All Mod Cons, and, in the ‘80s, Alan McGee decided to call his new record label “Creation,” in direct tribute to the group. The label’s earliest signings—the Jesus & Mary Chain, Ride, Swervedriver—all shared The Creation’s signature fondness for noise and distortion.
The scant yet sacred discography The Creation produced during their initial two-year run has been compiled and released a number of times over the course of the last 50 years, but the Numero Group’s new collection Action Painting is by far the most exhaustive anthology to date. A beautifully-packaged, two-disc hardcover box set, Action Painting gathers up all the original singles recorded by the group’s original lineup and pairs them with songs by their first iteration as The Mark Four, as well as newly mixed versions of the group’s most well-known tunes. Like the originals, the remixes were produced by Talmy who, at 79 and legally blind, is still a genuine master of amplified fidelity.
Creation guitarist Eddie Phillips comments aboutAction Painting, as well as the history of one of the most electrifying, influential, and underrated acts to emerge from the British Invasion.
We were on [‘60s music TV show] Ready Steady Go the same week Little Richard was on it. After the show, we did a two-week tour of the UK with him, which was a real gas. He didn’t really come very often to the UK. But when you talk about an awesome performer—he really was that. It was just fantastic.
He signed my cherry red Gibson 335 , ‘To Eddie, Good Luck Always, Little Richard.’ After I left The Creation, I still stayed friends with Kenny Pickett, and I lent him the guitar in the early ‘70s for a short period of time. While he had it, the neck got broken. He called me afterwards and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I sort of had an accident with your guitar. Can I buy it off of you?’ So I sold it to him for 100 quid. Then, it ended up in the hands of Dave Gregory from XTC. Dave said he needed to bring it in for repairs—because I half-wrecked the guitar to begin, with using the bow on it—and, unfortunately, Little Richard’s autograph got rubbed off. How mad is that?
John Lydon used to say that The Creation was one of The Sex Pistols’ favorite bands, and they actually covered “Through My Eyes.” They featured [that cover] in that movie that came out about them around 20 years ago, The Filth and The Fury.Our songs crop up in strange places. They made a movie about Jimi Hendrix a couple of years ago, and they used “Through My Eyes” in the movie.
When I first heard Oasis, I just thought they were a ripoff of The Creation. Well, not a ripoff , but you knew they looked at our videos and listened to our songs. Plus, the way Liam Gallagher was onstage, that persona—it looked to me as though he got that from Kenny Pickett, because Kenny had this arrogance about him when he was on the stage. Oasis used to remind me of The Creation quite a lot. We actually did a night at the Royal Albert Hall, and it was a Creation Records birthday bash. When we were on there we played a few songs as The Creation with the original lineup.
We loved the 1960s Batman; I personally don’t enjoy the new Batman movies. I quite prefer the lighter, campier Batman with Adam West and Burt Ward. We got the title for “Biff Bang Pow” from those captions in the show when somebody gets knocked on the chin. We would actually open our live sets with the Batman theme, and we’d really rock that thing.
If kaleidoscopic psych that blends florid Tropicália with hypnotic drones, churning motorik and gritty garage gives you any kind of thrill, you owe it to your neurotransmitters to roll up for The Psychics. Their last EP 4×3 will work your frontal lobes, too, as its catchy and delightfully disorienting tunes offer insightful looks at everything from drug experiences to the role of art in society. It’s also the first release from the slimmed-down version of the band that relocated to Music City from Bloomington, Ind., last year, trimming down their name in the process — though they are no longer “Jerome and the Psychics,” the enigmatic Jerome X remains the frontman.
The band Foxing have always been ambitious. From its ornate music videos to the post-rock sprawl of 2015’s album Dealer, the band has never taken the direct route to anything. This was evident even before Nearer My God was released, as the band put out five different versions of the title track, each one seeing vocalist Conor Murphy tackle the song in a different language. It was impressive, not only because it showcased how strong Murphy’s singing has become since the release of Foxing’s debut album, The Albatross,in 2013, but also because it hinted at the full scope of the group’s latest.
While Foxing was once pegged as an emo band, it always wanted to achieve more, and Nearer My Godis proof of it. Opener “Grand Paradise” is more Prince than The Promise Ring, with thunderous electronic claps serving as the backbeat to Murphy’s effects-drenched voice. Even when Foxing plays the part of a rock band, the songs buck easy definition. “Slapstick,” “Nearer My God,” and “Crown Candy” are all expansive works that pull from post-rock, indie, soul, and electronic without feeling like some ham-fisted combination. It’s as impressive as it is expansive, .
No one song easily encapsulates the record, but listen to “Slapstick” and watch the accompanying video to get a sense of the sheer scope of this thing.
