TONY MOLINA – ” Kill The Lights “

Posted: July 31, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Tony Molina, Master of Short Songs, Explains Why Melody Is King

Tony Molina has mastered the axiom of leaving ’em wanting more. This West Bay Area singer/songwriter cut his teeth playing hardcore punk, recording bite-sized noise-pop blasts with the band The Ovens, before going solo with 2014’s Dissed and Dismissed, This 12-track album of pitch-perfect that lasts less than 12 minutes. Kill the Lights is almost as short: 10 tracks in under 15 minutes. The longest song is actually two in one, “Look Inside Your Mind/Losin’ Touch,” which features a woozy psych-pop melody, a delicately plucked interlude and a bluesy solo within it’s two and a half minutes. What’s interesting and impressive about Molina’s songs is that they rarely feel unfinished or even hurried. The guy usually packs a verse and a chorus, maybe a guitar solo and/or some fingerpicking, and he paces it all perfectly across 26 or 57 or 91 seconds. He is seemingly unbound by verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus conventions, and yet his mini-masterpieces always feel complete.

Molina has been following a fascinating trajectory on his recent string of releases. Early entries like the “6 Songs EP” of Weezer/Teenage Fanclub-style power-pop with Tony’s smart, touching songs, shredding guitar pyrotechnics and ironclad DIY HC roots. 2016’s “Confront The Truth” EP flipped the script in a big way, leaving the guitar crunch behind in favor of mostly acoustic arrangements that owe as much to “Horizontal”-era Bee Gees and the Fanclub’s mellower moments as they do to Georges Harrison and Martin. It’s a masterful record, packing more melodic flair and emotional truth into 11 minutes than most bands manage in an hour.

This long-awaited album “Kill The Lights.” continue in his evolution towards stripping the songs back to reveal each one’s emotional and melodic core. But where “Confront The Truth” was mostly acoustic, “Kill The Lights” adds back some full band arrangements to brilliant effect. Album opener “Nothing I Can Say” is a lovely 12-string pop tune that would sit snugly in The Byrds’ songbook – it’s that good. “Wrong Town” is gentle and subtly wrenching, recalling prime Elliott Smith in its simple truth. “Afraid To Go Outside” expands on some of the pastoral early Bee Gees/Kaleidoscope/Tomorrow flavor revealed on “Confront,” aided by some great organ lines. “Now That She’s Gone” features some gorgeous guitar finger-picking, while “Jasper’s Theme” is a rootsy mid-tempo groover that leans towards Gram-era Byrds.

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Everywhere on “Kill The Lights” we hear Tony showing his influences with great skill and intention; these classic folk and pop styles are being employed in the service of stellar songs and universal lyrical truths rather than just as aesthetic filigree. This is why beautiful, elegant songs like “When She Leaves” and “Before You Go” aren’t really so far from Molina’s past punk roots, they reflect a dedication to craft combined with an intense commitment to self-expression that transcends simplistic genre boundaries. The sonic palette may be shifting, but the tunes are all Tony and we should all be grateful for that.

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The ESSEX GREEN – ” Hardly Electronic “

Posted: July 31, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Formed in Brooklyn in 1998, The Essex Green released four albums between 1999 and 2006. They became one of the few bands from the Northeast to be associated with the groundbreaking Elephant 6 Collective. Their unique blend of harmony-infused pop music culminated in the 2006 release of Cannibal Sea.

Sasha Bell, Jeff Baron, and Christopher Ziter were last seen together in the late aughts, waving from their van as they bid farewell to Brooklyn. And then, the unthinkable: The Essex Green went silent. But why? It was a simple promise made among them to chase down their separate dreams. Over the next two years, the three continued to meet and record in undisclosed locations. The result is Hardly Electronic, a music mapping of the trio’s personal journeys over the past decade. Fans will recognize The Essex Green’s signature sound in this work of wax: stacks of harmonies, upbeat melodies telling melancholy tales, layers of keys and sparkling Telecasters.

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We’ve been without new music from The Essex Green for a dozen years. Their new album is called Hardly Electronic, and after the long hiatus, this Brooklyn band doesn’t miss a beat. The first track, “Sloane Ranger,” makes that clear, with its bouncing bass line, its sprightly keyboard melody, its male/female vocal interplay and the horn part flawlessly threaded through the arrangement. Elsewhere, The Essex Green engage in their typical exploration of other musical avenues, from a blurry, jazz-tinged folk song spiked with a noisy interlude to vaguely vintage-feeling pop ’n’ soul to harmony-heavy post-punk-pop and a big-city take on country music.

From the album Hardly Electronic, out June 29th, 2018 on Merge Records.

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JEALOUS of the BIRDS – ” The Moths of What I Want Will Eat Me in My Sleep “

Posted: July 31, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Naomi Hamilton pursues an unusual strategy on her new EP as Jealous of the Birds: Four of the five songs appeared on her 2016 album Parma Violets, in slightly different form. The changes are subtle, but the songs are excellent, so think of it as a second chance to discover the singer from Belfast, Northern Ireland, before she breaks out. Hamilton writes literary lyrics, delivering precise, evocative images with the confident air of someone who thinks a lot about words and their meanings and how they fit together. Though her songs have a vintage feel, it’s filtered through a wide-ranging sensibility with modern touches. Along with the sitar-like guitar drone on “Plastic Skeletons,” she dials in pastoral woodwinds on “Miss Misanthrope” and a shaggy combination of acoustic guitars and drums on “Trouble in Bohemia.” There are dark glimmers of electric piano on “Tonight I Feel Like Kafka” and punky, overdriven guitars on “Russian Doll.” Whatever the musical accompaniment, Hamilton sings with poise and self-assurance in a voice equally capable of whiskey-toned murmurs and full-throated melodicism. Either way, she has a magnetic presence that makes these songs mesmerizing, even the second time around.

Jealous of the Birds- The Moths of What I Want Will Eat Me In My Sleep out now:

MUTUAL BENEFIT – ” Come To Pass / Shedding Skin “

Posted: July 31, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Mutual Benefit shares new couplet of tracks, “Shedding Skin” and “Come To Pass”

Multi-instrumentalist Jordan Lee, aka Mutual Benefit, has shared another duo of tracks that follow from the first couplet “New History”, and “Storm Cellar Heart”.

Having announced his forthcoming album at the same time as the first two tracks, today Lee shares the second wave of singles, “Shedding Skin” and “Come To Pass”.

His forthcoming album Thunder Follows The Light will consist of tracks accumulated over the past two years and will hold both returning and new collaborators.

On the first of two, “Come To Pass”, Lee states, “These songs came about at the same time on a busted 5 string guitar when I shut off my phone and declared my bedroom a makeshift, artist residency for a week. I had just returned from a tour that did a lot of meandering around the Appalachian Mountain region right as the “Make America Great Again” signs started popping up more and more. “Come to Pass” is a refutation of the idea that there was ever a golden age to return back to. Both personally and politically I’m afraid of this sort of constructed nostalgia that keeps us looking backwards instead of a having a powerful enough imagination to see the hard truths of the present but work towards a better future.”

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On the second track “Shedding Skin”, Lee explains, “I kept thinking about a town where I saw hundreds of these translucent cicada bodies from where they had clung to a tree, hardened, and then burst out of their own shell. This ghostly sight made me pay more attention to how things naturally regenerate, how loss is part of the fuel of growth. It became a powerful reminder that things shouldn’t stay the same, including parts of ourselves.”
Thunder Follows The Light is due out 21st September via Transgressive on all platforms, including a special edition vinyl. Mutual Benefit has announced a UK and US tour that sees him play London’s Oslo on 30 October.

INTERPOL – ” Number 10 “

Posted: July 31, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Interpol share intense new single “Number 10”

Interpol used their last single “The Rover” to follow the meandering adventures of a guru in the making, but now, in a follow-up track entitled “Number 10,” the band tackle subject matter a little more familiar: the modern office romance. The new song,is the second single from the band’s forthcoming sixth album Marauder.

“Number 10” describes the secret office relationship between Ella and one of her employees. Blending romantic dialogue with more standard office banter, the song begins with lead singer Paul Banks assuring that “Your secret’s safe here,” before Ella encourages her employee to “Go and talk to Steve about it.” In compliance with standard office procedure, we can only assume Steve is the head of HR.

By the sound of the track’s fast-paced dueling guitars and anxious lyrics, “Number 10” is a far cry from a love song as this pair navigates the tricky ethical waters and power dynamics of interoffice romance. In a Beats 1 interview with Zane Lowe, Banks described the grungy new track as an attempt to “sound faithful to a live recording.” .

Interpol recently announced an expanded tour to support Marauder,

The PSYCH WEEKENDER Night People 15th-16th September 2018

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Astral Elevator & Night People join forces to offer an exclusive journey into Psychedelia… We promise to bring you the best in local psychedelic bands live as well as a whole host of other treats.

2 Days – 2 Stages – 41 live bands – no clashes!

Live: Holy Wave, Lumerians, Black Market Karma, The Oscillation, Mugstar, The Blank Tapes, 10000 Russos, Sunflowers, The Jabberwocky Band, Urf, Control of the Going, The Dee Vees, Muertos, Dreamweapon, One Unique Signal, Los Bitchos, Black Doldrums, You Said Strange, Throw Down Bones, Pete Bassman, Bloodjoy, Giobia, Strange Cages, Is Bliss, Chicos De Nazca, The Goa Express, The Janitors, Tajak, Melt Dunes, Freakout Honey, Bones Shake, Guts, Lavender, Weird Sex, Déjà Vega, Silver Vials, Black Cat Revue, Thee Lucifer Sams, Mayflower Madame, The Big Peach

DJs and visual information to follow..

Image  —  Posted: July 31, 2018 in FESTIVALS, MUSIC
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LUMERIANS – ” Space Curse “

Posted: July 31, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Pre-Order: Lumerians - Call Of The Void,Vinyl,Fuzz Club - Fuzz Club

Lumerians long-overdue new LP, Call Of The Void, is officially unleashed into the world this Friday. Four years in the making it see’s the Oakland band return on top form, a face-melting combination of synth-heavy dancefloor grooves, oddball prog wig-outs and exploratory psych.

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Oakland, CA outfit Lumerians are a prodigious force in the extra-terrestrial realms of modern psychedelia. Since forming in San Francisco back in 2006, Lumerians have traversed their way through multiple different genres – offering mind-bending adventures into everything from space rock, kraut and noise to zamrock, free jazz, drone and dub. Drawing from a range of influences, both familiar and esoteric, past and present, Lumerians conjure up sounds from far into the future. In their twelve years as a band they’ve toured with everyone from My Bloody Valentine to Killing Joke and Black Moth Super Rainbow, putting out a number of critically-acclaimed releases including two ‘official’ albums and two collections of improvised compositions called Transmission from Tellos III & IV. On June 22nd the band will be returning with their third album, Call of the Void, on London-label Fuzz Club after four years under the radar. The album is dedicated to the memory of Barrett Clark, Lumerians’ long-time friend, sound engineer and collaborator who passed away in the tragic Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland 2016.

It may have taken the band four long years to put their latest album together but it was definitely worth the wait, their mystical exploratory soundscapes at their finest. Eclectic and vastly multifaceted, the album is further proof – if you needed it – that Lumerians are a singular force in contemporary psychedelia. Talking about Call of the Void, vocalist Jason Miller explains: “If ‘Transmalinnia’ represented the exploration of an alien world and ‘The High Frontier’ a voyage through space, ‘Call of the Void’ is a penetrative exploration of Earth through an alien gaze gone native – the weight of gravity, the build-up of pollution and sediment, experiences of ecstatic revelry and tragedy.”

LORD HURON – ” Live KCRW Session “

Posted: July 31, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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For all the appeal of Lord Huron’s elegiac, ethereal Americana, Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver were ahead of them in a very crowded field. So after two albums of hymnal beauty with acoustic guitars – and the track, The Night We Met,  the Michigan band led by Ben Schneider have changed course.

Now on a major label, the songs no longer conjure up vast rural or mountainous landscapes but the even more widescreen spaces of the cosmos. The title means “black void”, and vast swaths of reverb and echo (sculpted by Flaming Lips’ producer Dave Fridmann) create a celestial wall of sound; many of the songs have astral themes or metaphors. Writing on bass guitar has given the music a more powerful chassis, from Killers-like throb to subtle funk. Any remaining acoustic guitars have been blasted beyond recognition.

With their first release on a major label, Los Angeles based band Lord Huron are more popular than ever. Their third album Vide Noir is beloved by critics and fans alike and we welcome them for a live set in the midst of a nationwide headlining tour.

Lord Huron has morphed from the solo project of Ben Schneider to a full-fledged band and their sound has grown with it. It’s a bountiful collection of texture and rhythm from one of our favorite american bands.

Schneider’s best songs tap into the desolate beauty of the loner, who now has a much bigger universe to get lost in

Musicians: 
Ben Schneider – lead guitar/lead vocals
Mark Barry – drums
Thomas Renaud – guitar/backup vocals
Miguel Briseno – bass
Brandon Walters – guitar/backup vocals
April Boyce – keys/backup vocals

PHOSPHORESCENT – ” New Birth In A New England “

Posted: July 31, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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After a nearly five-year hiatus, Phosphorescent, the musical project of Matthew Houck, is returning this October with a new album called C’est La Vie.

You can hear the project’s lead single,” New Birth In A New England,” below.

The album was recorded in Nashville, in a studio Houck built by hand after relocating to Music City with his family after a long stint in New York. C’est La Vie, which enters the world on October 5th via Dead Oceans, was mixed by Houck and Vance Powell (Jack White, Chris Stapleton, Arctic Monkeys).

‘New Birth in New England’ from Phosphorescent’s new album ‘C’est La Vie’, out October 5th on Dead Oceans.

PHOEBE BRIDGERS – ” Scott Street ” (Live)

Posted: July 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Phoebe Bridgers track Scott Street an exclusive live performance for Vevo DSCVR, the channel for the best in new music. It’s a real skill to wax forlorn without submitting to the depths of despair. In the last two years Phoebe Bridgers has shown us just how articulate she can be regarding the throubled side of life while still touting the small joys that mark most day to day experiences. Again and again, the singer-songwriter revels in the marvels of the emotional deets that shape who we are. After critics erupted over the eloquence of the 23-year-old’s ‘Stranger In The Alps’ (get the ‘Lebowski’ reference?), the Silver Lake-based Bridgers went through a wave of Joni-Jackson comparisons.

Elements of the masters dot her songs, but some of her more recent heroes are Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek and Elliot Smith – tender wordsmiths whose best work is both vulnerable and poised. If you know Bridgers’ “Smoke Signals” and “Motion Sickness,” you might’ve heard her “Scott Street” before, too. But not like this. Our DSCVR performance turns the tune, inspired by a sunset stroll through her Echo Park hood, into an epic lament. Swirling fiddle lines and cloudy guitar flourishes prove the singer knows exactly what she needs to bolster her designs as she closes with farewell line of “don’t be a stranger.” Masterful.

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