Legendary Australian punk band Little Ugly Girls formed in Hobart, Tasmania in the very early 90s, but have never released a record until now. This new self-titled set is officially their debut album, and features recordings spanning more than 20 years, including new sessions to finish off songs first tracked in the late 90s, which were left stranded on a damaged hard drive for two decades.
The band formed around fiery vocalist Linda Johnston, whose high-kicking stage antics make her one of Australia’s most electrifying frontpeople, alongside her guitar demon brother Dannie “Bean” Johnston and drummer Brent “Sloth” Punshon. After moving to Melbourne in the mid 90s, the band settled on their classic lineup with the addition of rock-solid bassist Mindy Mapp (previously of another cult 90s band, Brisbane’s much-loved Fur). Little Ugly Girls played with the likes of Bikini Kill (after Sloth organised for them to make a detour to Hobart on their first Australian tour), Fugazi, and once memorably headlined over the White Stripes in Melbourne. But their only recordings released to date include a handful of 90s cassettes (some of them now archived at the Bandcamp page of Hobart label Goulburn Street Records) and one three track CD-R.
Now nearly 30 years since they formed, the debut album by Little Ugly Girls shows them at their towering best – fierce and inspiring, with Linda’s scarifying lyrics and impassioned delivery set to a huge wall of taut punk noise. It has been a long time coming, but it’s as good as you could have dreamed. Chapter honchos Ben & Guy were always massive fans, front and centre at every Melbourne show. They have gently applied the screws for the last 20 years to extract a LUGs album from the notoriously spotlight-shy band, so to have finally succeeded is a momentous occasion.
Since first breaking up in the early ‘00s, Little Ugly Girls have made semi-regular live reappearances, always just as powerful and invigorating as ever. Linda and Bean have also gone on to create their own subsequent cult as the dual force behind Melbourne bands The Dacios and The Bulls, often with Mindy on bass. Little Ugly Girls is a one-off vinyl pressing of 500 copies
Nearly three decades after they formed, thanks to some hard-drive wizardry and new sessions, they have a debut full-length that doubles as a reminder of how metal-edged punk could get. Johnston’s uncompromising wail is ferocious even when it’s in restrained mode; her brother Dannie’s grimy guitars, Mindy Mapp’s thudding bass, and Brent “Sloth” Punshon’s galloping drums amp up up the intensity, resulting in time-machine trips like the high-speed “Jimmeh” and the grinding “Dead C” that recall the chaotic assault of Nineties comp stalwarts like Kreviss and Karp.
Katie Bennett’s voice rarely rises above a whisper on her lo-fi indie-pop band’s new album, on which thinly strummed guitars and gingerly tapped drums sound like they’re being played by a band of lounging cats struggling to wake up after a very successful Sunday nap. But her sturdily crafted songs still echo around in your head, full of vivid personal detail, melodic charm and the thrill that comes with witnessing a wide-open heart and mind discovering the world — even when the people in it don’t always reflect her generosity back. The guitars of “Around You” swirl and chime as Bennett sings about finding someone new to hang out with; the slowly drifting “Be Home Soon” wrings every instant of joy from a work-week-ending subway ride home; “Tom Or Mike Or Pat Or” is a gentle spree of sensual imagery (a mouth full of sunflower seeds, a fast car, bare legs, red lips, a bug bite on her ass) over glistening jangle. Though they are slight, the snow globe sound worlds Free Cake For Every Creature create have a summery verdancy, and Bennett displays a sneaky way with one-liners all over the place (“our bodies were like spaghetti, tangled and sauce-less,” she observes on “Whole World Girl”). Pretty impressive for a band that doesn’t play loud enough to disturb a lounging cat.
all songs by Katie Bennett
all songs recorded by Katie Bennett, Francis Lyons & Heeyoon Won at home in West Philly
mixed & mastered by Mike Ditrio
Katie Bennett– main vocals & guitar, keys Heeyoon Won– bass & vocals Francis Lyons– drums, keys, guitar, vocals on “Be Home Soon”
Meghan Center- vocals on “In Your Car” & “Shake it Out”
Meg McCauley- vocals on “Around You”
Pete Gill- pedal steel on “Sideline/ Skyline,” “Sunday Afternoon,” “In Your Car,” “Hometown Hero” & “Be Home Soon”
Felix Walworth- banjo on “In Your Car”
Evan Marré- guitar on “Riding into the Sunset in a Busted Car” & “Tom or Mike or Pat or”
The latest album from this Minneapolis trio adds pop polish to its folk-tinged sound. “[Lead singer] Kerry[Alexander] and I were kind of thinking, ‘Yeah, we’ll pretty much just do the same thing again,” multi-instrumentalist Chris Hoge said. “But [producer] Brett Bullion really pushed us to make something different.”
Pop sensibilities mingle with garage rock on Lightning Round, the newest release from the Minnesota-based band Bad Bad Hats. Listen to “Nothing Gets Me High,” where front-woman Kerry Alexander somehow turns empty love into something you want to dance and thrash to. Or listen to “Girl,” where Alexander tells an all-too-familiar story. “You smell like smoke and look like satin,” she sings. In fact, a theme of doubt permeates the collection as much as catchy hooks do, as the group smartly melds lost emotion into upbeat tracks.
Lightning Round is the second studio album by Bad Bad Hats. It will be released August 3rd, 2018 on Afternoon Records.
When Kerry Alexander wants to write a song, she turns on the radio. That’s because Alexander, the lead singer and songwriter of the Minneapolis band Bad Bad Hats, is interested in pop tropes – how to play around with them, why they work the way they do.
Take “Nothing Gets Me High,” the power-pop centerpiece of her band’s new album, Lightning Round. Alexander wrote it after listening to Tove Lo’s 2014 hit “Habits (Stay High)” and figuring how to invert the song’s premise. “I was thinking about how there are so many songs about love and drugs as a metaphor,” she says, before spelling out her uniquely personal premise for the song: “And I was like, ‘I want to write a song like that, but I have never actually been high. I have never done drugs.”
Another new song, “1-800,” came from listening to Drake’s “Hotline Bling” and wondering why more songs didn’t play around with toll-free numbers. “I like that phrase, using 1-800 as a metaphor for how you get nothing but junk in your life,” she says, “Or that you feel like people look at you like a 1-800 call, like, ‘No one picks me up. They all let me go.’”
On Lightning Round, the Minnesota quartet refine and polish the blend of indie-pop, folk, and rock that they introduced on their 2015 debut, Psychic Reader, an album that won positive reviews and high-profile opening gigs for Third Eye Blind and Margaret Glaspy.
Bad Bad Hats is:
Kerry Alexander,
Connor Davison,
Chris Hoge
“It’s all rock & roll – no golf!” is how singer/songwriter/violinist Amanda Shires describes her electrifying album, To The Sunset. She’s borrowed a lyric from the track “Break Out the Champagne,” one of ten deftly crafted songs that comprise her powerful new recording.
The seventh full-length from this fiddle-playing singer-songwriter is also her first as a mother, “if anyone expected sentimentality, her writing’s just gotten bolder, with arrangements that stretch the definition of ‘Americana’ to the point of meaninglessness. ‘Parking Lot Pirouette’ opens the set like an aerial shot, zooming in on a romantic moment outside a bar, framing it in cosmic terms against a 3/4 waltz pulse, with shivering organ clouds and trippy electric guitar from [husband Jason] Isbell. It’s more Pink Floyd than Floyd Tillman.”
It’s been a jam-packed since the release of Shires’ critically hailed My Piece of Land: constant touring with her band and as a member of husband Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit; winning the Americana Association’s 2017 Emerging Artist award. Armed with stacks of journals, she wrote a batch of new songs in a flurry of focus and solitude – in a closet at the Shires/Isbell abode. “With a two-year-old running around, there’s nowhere to hide,” Shires explains. While Isbell watched their daughter, she wrote all night: “I just started writing and tearing apart my journals and taping the parts I liked to the wall, and shredding the rest and putting it into my compost, which I then feed to my garden.”
One of the few bands that were a nust see at the Great Escape in Brighton they’re still quite new, but you know when you see a band and you can just tell they’re going to do well? Well, this is one of them. They’ve got a great vibe live which is half baritone Bad Seeds crooning and half slinky Cramps, it’s a little aloof like you’re in the presence of actual vampires.
Heirloom’s sound opens with shared vocals – baritone and bittersweet alto. They interweave into the eternal, reminiscent of Nancy and Lee through the cult movie romance of a Tarantino lens. Layers of graceful reverb, delay and fuzz, amidst colourfully dark organ, surround Heirloom’s jangly guitars.
A friend of mine said she enjoyed them because it felt like they really committed to “their thing” and that pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Band Members
Sam Rivers
Jade Taaffe
Christopher Hallen
Ben Dawson
Nick McGregor
Later this month, Depeche Mode will launch a series of box sets collecting the band’s 12-inch singles. On August 31st, the first two boxes, “Speak & Spell” and “A Broken Frame”, will be released. All audio in this series has been newly remastered from the original tapes and cut at Abbey Road Studios.
The first box, “Speak & Spell: The 12″ Singles”, collects all of the singles around the era of the British electronic band’s 1981 debut “Speak & Spell”. It kicks off with a replica of the rare flexidisc containing “Sometimes I Wish I Was Dead” b/w Mute Records labelmate Fad Gadget’s “King of the Flies,” and continues with three 12-inch singles headlined by “Dreaming of Me,” “New Life,” and “Just Can’t Get Enough.” The original single versions of both “New Life” and “Just Can’t Get Enough” reached impressive peaks in the U.K. at No. 11 and No. 8, respectively. Despite their success, however, Speak & Spell proved to be Depeche Mode’s only album with founding member Vince Clarke.
The second box set, A Broken Frame: The 12″ Singles, addressed the period of the band’s 1981 sophomore album, their first to feature Martin Gore. This box has three 12-inch singles, with the A-sides “See You (Extended Version),” “The Meaning of Love (Fairly Odd Mix),” and “Leave in Silence (Longer).” All three songs placed in the U.K. top 20, with “See You” reaching the top ten.
Depeche Mode commented in the press release, “Our 12-inch singles have always been incredibly important to the band. It’s great to be able to re-share these songs with old and new fans in the way they were originally intended to be experienced. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.” The cover of each box set features street art iconography inspired by the original albums, while the sleeves of the actual 12-inch singles are replicas of the originals. This limited edition box set contains the singles from Depeche Mode’s second studio album A Broken Frame on audiophile-quality 12-inch vinyl, with audio remastered from the original tapes and cut at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. The artwork for the exterior of the box sets draws on street art iconography inspired by the original releases, while the vinyl sleeves themselves feature the original vinyl single artwork.
Speak & Spell: The 12″ Singles (Mute/Rhino, 2018)
Flexidisc (released as Flexipop 011, 1981)
Sometimes I Wish I Was Dead – Depeche Mode
King of the Flies – Fad Gadget
Dreaming of Me 12″ (released on 7″ as Mute Records 7 MUTE 013, 1981)
Dreaming of Me
Ice Machine
New Life 12″ (released as Mute Records 12 MUTE 014, 1981)
New Life (Remix)
Shout! (Rio Remix)
Just Can’t Get Enough 12″ (released as Mute Records 12 MUTE 016, 1981)
Just Can’t Get Enough (Schizo Mix)
Any Second Now (Altered)
A Broken Frame: The 12″ Singles (Mute/Rhino, 2018)
See You 12″ (released as Mute Records 12 MUTE 018, 1982)
See You (Extended Version)
Now This Is Fun (Extended Version)
The Meaning Of Love 12″ (released as Mute Records 12 MUTE 022, 1982)
The Meaning Of Love (Fairly Odd Mix)
Oberkorn (It’s a Small Town) (Development Mix)
Leave In Silence 12″ (released as Mute Records 12 BONG 1, 1982)
Leave In Silence (Longer)
Further Excerpts From: My Secret Garden
Leave In Silence (Quieter)
Some Great Reward The 12″ Singles
This limited edition box set contains the singles from Depeche Mode’s fourth studio album “Some Great Reward” on audiophile-quality 12-inch vinyl, with audio remastered from the original tapes and cut at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. The artwork for the exterior of the box sets draws on street art iconography inspired by the original releases, while the vinyl sleeves themselves feature the original vinyl single artwork.
This deluxe collector’s set includes six 12-inch vinyl discs.
Track Listing:
Disc 1
People Are People (Different Mix)
In Your Memory (Slik Mix)
Disc 2
People Are People (On-Usound Mix)
People Are People
In Your Memory
Disc 3
Master and Servant (Slavery Whip Mix)
(Set Me Free) Remotivate Me (Release Mix)
Master and Servant (Voxless)
Disc 4
Master and Servant (An ON-USound Science Fiction Dance Hall Classic)
Are People People?
(Set Me Free) Remotivate Me
Disc 5
Blasphemous Rumours
Somebody (Live in Liverpool 2006)
Two Minute Warning (Live in Liverpool)
Ice Machine (Live in Liverpool)
Everything Counts (Live in Liverpool)
Disc 6
Somebody (Remix)
Everything Counts (Live in Liverpool)
Blasphemous Rumours
Told You So (Live in Liverpool)
Construction Time Again
Next box set in the series. Deluxe limited-edition numbered box set containing six 12″ vinyl discs -mastered from the original tapes – including alternate mixes, 7″ versions, live shows and more. Construction Time Again marked the first time that Depeche Mode released limited edition versions of an album’s 12″ singles, each containing the original mix of each track. Depeche Mode’s commitment to the 12″ single format as a distinct art form became even more evident. The Construction Time Again – The 12″ Singles box includes three reproductions of limited singles which each feature four bonus live performances recorded at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on October 25th, 1982.
Songs Of Faith And Devotion The Singles
Vinyl Box Set-SONGS OF FAITH AND DEVOTION THE 12” SINGLES deluxe limited-edition numbered box set will contain 8 x 12″ vinyl singles-Showcasing the singles– I Feel You, Walking In My Shoes, Condemnation and In Your Room–and key B-sides, mixes and live recordings contemporaneous to Depeche Mode’s Songs of Faith and Devotion album.-Songs of Faith and Devotion introduced fans to signature songs in the DM canon including “I Feel You” (the band’s highest-charting single worldwide), “Walking In My Shoes,” “Condemnation” and “In Your Room.”-Like each box set in the series, this release contains the singles from each Depeche Mode album on audiophile-quality 12″ vinyl, with audio remastered from the original tapes.-The artwork for the exterior of each of the new box sets draws on street art iconography inspired by the original releases, while the vinyl sleeves themselves feature the original vinyl single artwork.-Includes Single Poster Reproduction & Download Card
Ultra – The Singles 12″ Single, Box Set,
Ultra The 12″ Singles, a collector’s edition deluxe box set, contains eight 12″ vinyl discs presenting four singles–Barrel of a Gun, It’s No Good, Home, and Useless--with key B-sides, mixes and live recordings contemporaneous to Depeche Mode’s ninth studio album, “Ultra”, originally released 14th April 1997.
Three of the 12″ vinyl discs* in Ultra “The 12″ Singles” are comprised of tracks first released on CD singles throughout 1997. Each of these new 12″ discs features artwork reflecting the original CD single releases, now expanded to 12″ vinyl for the first time.
This box set contains the singles from Depeche Mode’s “Ultra” album on audiophile-quality 12″ vinyl, with audio mastered from the original tapes. The artwork for the exterior of the box sets draws on iconography inspired by the original release, while the vinyl sleeves themselves feature the original single artwork.
Ron Gallo is delightfully hard to figure out. He takes the free-spirited, anti-capitalist ethos of 60s rock and mixes it with what the Black Keys think they sound like ,His lyrics are incessantly entertaining, making it almost OK that he named his debut LP HEAVY META. On album opener “Young Lady, You’re Scaring Me,” Gallo sings, “Let’s get a house, you and me and your 12 cats.” His delivery is sneeringly reminiscent of Dylan, singing such lines with a sincerity and confidence, as if the listener is crazy for smirking at this shack with a dozen cats. He should scan as annoying, but there’s something deliriously charming about this fractured soul spelling out the ills of humanity one song at a time.
The Philly born, now Nashville-based songwriter first emerged with the modern Americana/folk band, Toy Soldiers, before leaving Pennsylvania for the warm grasp of country music’s capitol, introducing the city to a defiantly unsatisfied debutante, eager to take you out to lunch and then spit in your face because your politics are wack. Gallo has this innate ability—a tremendously tricky skill to hone to dose his songs with humour, all the while lacing them with scathing social commentaries and a level of depth most garage rock acts never reach, let alone aim for. On Heavy Meta, Gallo proved that he’s just a wiser and sharper songwriter than most people doing it. That trend continues on “It’s All Gonna Be OK,” the first single from Gallo’s forthcoming LP, Stardust BirthdayParty, out October 5th via New West.
“It’s All Gonna Be OK,” is nervous and twitchy, hallucinatory and repetitive with its scratchy and fidgeting guitar parts, until Gallo, sensing the growing unease, sings, “It’s all gonna be OK.” Good to know. Gallo rattles off all of the shit tearing us apart before easing us with his oddly placating aphorism. Gallo’s philosophy comes as a sort of self-medication, as he tries to convince himself that this broken world can get better, Gallo works his way through insecurities and finds this blind faith to be comforting. He tells us:
it’s all gonna be OK, no matter what it is, because all feeling, thought and experience is temporary. could be in one second or 20 years but, to trust that it’s all going exactly as it should, is true and liberating. i like to remind myself of this often and figured might as well share this thought with others via a mostly one chord song featuring my trumpet debut heard in the outro of the song. it’s all gonna be OK is the main message, and “stardust birthday party” is me explaining WHY? from my own experience looking inside.
“I’m just an ordinary 20-year-old girl,” Jade Bird says with a shrug. “There’s nothing you can’t connect with about that.”
A quickly-growing audience seems to agree. The English singer-songwriter’s debut EP, Something American, arrived last July on Glassnote Records, the indie label that launched Mumford & Sons, Phoenix and Chvrches in the U.S. Her previous single “Lottery,” a heartfelt romantic plea (“You used to tell me that love is a lottery…Are you still betting on me?”), It hit Number 1 on Billboard‘s Alternative Songs chart in April, and its video has earned half a million views on YouTube. This summer, Jade Bird is in the midst of a long festival run, which will lead her into a headlining tour in the States.
Her story-driven songs, which veer between Americana, punk and soulful indie pop. Country fans have begun to gravitate to Bird thanks to her evocatively imagined narratives about broken relationships, fledgling love and marriages that end before they can begin. She says she’s happy to be simply alternative or maybe whatever Alanis Morissette was called.”
Jade Bird, who now spends her time in south London when not on tour, was born in Hexham, a small town in the far north of England, and jumped around the U.K. throughout her early childhood as an army brat. Her parents’ divorce sent the singer to live with her mom and grandma in South Wales as a teen. She’d taken piano lessons earlier on from a Russian teacher (“She taught me discipline,” Bird quips), but it wasn’t until she taught herself to play guitar at age 13 plucking her grandma’s old acoustic until she found the right sounds, inspired by Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – that she found the right outlet for her feelings. “Songwriting really kicked in with the guitar,” she says. “I was going through a lot as a kid. There had been a lot of transitions in my family. So it just became a total therapy, like most artists. I think that’s why I did so much. I used to write so many songs.”
Bird remains a prolific songwriter, constantly jotting ideas down on her phone and in a Moleskine notebook. Every few months, she heads into a London studio with an engineer to lay down demos of everything she’s got ready. Most sessions yield 13 to 15 new tracks, all in a visceral, imperfect form. “I kinda just bang through ’em,” she says. “I’m not really precious about it. It’s just me and my guitar. How much perfection do you really need?”
Bird recorded Something American with producer Simone Felice, formerly of the Felice Brothers, in upstate New York. The five-song EP is full of heartbreak songs – see elsewhere “Cathedral,” an acoustic ballad about broken vows – and echoes of her hero, Patti Smith (particularly on the raw, piano-led number “What Am I Here For”). Her newer songs, including “Lottery,” “Furious” and “Uh Huh,” unfurl in notably varied ways, with tones that range from languid crooning to snarling punk.
As Bird finishes up her full-length debut, expected out in 2019, she wants to explore all facets of her personality. “No artist is one-dimensional,” she says. “I get the sense that if I push myself now and if I create a million different-sounding songs – I just feel that’s going to be such a set-up for my ability in the future.”
Instead of looking to professional session musicians or label executives for guidance, Bird tests her new music on her fans, either at live performances or in snippets on Instagram (which is how “Furious” came to be). “I’m hoping to write the album 100 percent by myself,” she says. “Which, nowadays, is quite a rare thing. The artists I love, like Elliott Smith, they wrote their own songs, and the imperfections make a perfect album in the end. But you only get imperfections by people who don’t point out your imperfections and go, ‘Maybe we should rewrite that.’”
Adds Bird, “I feel pretty perfect. I feel pretty in it, pretty ready to stay in it and keep working like bloody hell and releasing new music.” She grins. “Yeah, I feel good right now. And that’s not to be taken for granted.”
Last year, after more than a decade, the Too Pure Singles Club came to an end. After more than 120 releases, including early recordings by the likes of Pulled Apart By Horses, Bear Hands and Drahla.
So after 10 years Too Pure Singles Club came to a natural end as a subscription based label in December 2017 and the label closed its doors. It was a sad day for many reasons none more so than there was now one less label championing underground UK music and generally bringing the mother flipping ruckus… Fear not Dipped in Gold is here to fill that void! We begin this momentous journey with the first release… by Leeds Art-Rockers Mush. Like Alt Facts before it Gig Economy combines a wry social commentary with spasmodic and Idiosyncratic hooks and general guitar wonderment. Mush have been causing quite the stir on the DIY scene supporting the likes of Rolling Blackouts, Omni, Ulrika Spacek, Drahla and Parquet Courts
The launch of Dipped In Gold Recordings. It’s not a monthly subscription club by Too Pure, instead sharing the most exciting new sounds they come across.
So this fresh chapter begins with a release from Mush. This Leeds four-piece share ‘Gig Economy’ – four minutes of addictive, scratchy, lo-fi art-rock. It comes out on 14th September.
