It’s been 12 years, but Elephant 6 legends The Essex Green are back this 2018 with “Don’t Leave It in Our Hands.” Written about our generation’s increasing reliance on phones and technology, it’s a song that’s charged with equal amounts anxiety and pep, with the New York City trio’s power pop prowess shining through in the track’s brilliantly melodic chorus.
From the album Hardly Electronic, out June 29th, 2018 on Merge Records.
This is Gothic piece of Americana with many echoes of Nick Cave’s early work – seedy characters; tragic, violent tales; pulsating, writhing guitars. this is the type of rock album that comes along only once in a very long time.
As with all previous Bambara releases, the musical center of Shadow on Everything is its impossibly tight rhythm section. Blaze’s frenzied yet metronomic drumming and William’s prominent bass lines have plenty of personality on their own, but they also provide a perfect canvas for Reid’s wild guitar squalls and howled vocals. While Reid’s lyrics have always been a critical part of Bambara’s songs, his voice is pushed to the front of the mix on Shadow, placing his damaged characters and seedy locales at center stage. A stridently experimental record, Shadow features everything from violin to saxophone arrangements, and is meticulously interspersed with outré ambient noise loops distilled down from hours of manipulated vocal collages that the band sifts through to find the perfect textures.
The production by Andy Chugg (Pop. 1280, Pill) is crisp and clear, giving life to the band’s decision to foreground the vocals, but it splashes enough darkness on the songs to help them retain their pitch-black atmosphere. By far Bambara’s most ambitious album, Shadow On Everything shows a band operating at absolute peak creativity and execution.
Though this is the first proper full-length by Harlan since 2010’s Sucker, the last eight years have in no way framed a musical hiatus of any sort. Bobo contributed to The Memphis Symphony Orchestra’s conductor-less “Opus One” project for the 2010 and 2011 seasons, in which his original songs were classically arranged by participating MSO players and performed as chamber pieces for non-traditional audiences at rock clubs. Also in 2011, Harlan, and fellow Memphis music notables Jack Oblivian and Shawn Cripps (Limes) successfully Kickstarter-funded a 40-show “Memphis Revue” style tour through Europe. Already splitting his time between Europe and the States as this decade opened, Bobo continued to perform solo and tour Europe as such while also forming a Memphis super-group of sorts known as The Fuzz in 2013, which included former members of 90’s scuzz-punks Action Family and Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments. Playing 2013’s Goner-Fest 10 and subsequently releasing a self-titled album of garage-ragers on Italy’s Munster Records later that year, The Fuzz (not to be confused with Ty Segall’s band of the same name) expanded Harlan T. Bobo’s musical frame of reference nicely.
Bobo established his base of operations as Perpignan, France, in 2014, the hometown of his then-wife and where Harlan has also been busy raising their son. 2014 also saw the re-release of Bobo’s much-heralded 2006 album, Too Much Love, via both Goner Records stateside and France’s Beast Records.
By 2014, Harlan T. Bobo had amassed two album’s worth of solo material for the planned follow-up to Sucker. However, as they say, life has a way of intervening in dramatic and not entirely positive ways. If the new album’s candid gloom is any indication, the last few years in Europe raising a son and trying (unsuccessfully) to keep a marriage together has been difficult, to say the least.
A History of Violence still highlights Bobo’s whiskey-and-cigarette-informed vocal style, and on the more intimate tracks, it’s a distorted ear candy that warbles into increasingly sunken, uncomfortable places, like that of the songwriter with which comparisons have followed Bobo throughout his career: there is a richer canvas on which to work this time out, not to mention a decidedly heavier and darker one. The album was recorded in Memphis with Doug Easley, who has previously worked with Cat Power, Pavement, Wilco, Sonic Youth, Jon Spencer, and Jeff Buckley. Bobo also brought in Steve Selvidge (The Hold Steady, Bash & Pop) on bass and Jeff “Bunny” Dutton (Action Family) on guitar, along with regular contributors Jeff Bouck (Polyphonic Spree) and Brendan Spangler (Viva l’American Death Ray). The result is a naturally dynamic album that seems equally at home with howling guitars and heavy bass lines as it does with haunting piano and humble pleas. A History of Violence is Bobo’s most complex — and complete — album to date.
Released June 22nd, 2018
Recording in Memphis, TN by Doug Easley
Harlan T. Bobo – vocals, guitar
Steve Selvidge – bass
Jeff “Bunny” Dutton – guitar
Another hit of post-punk credulity from Phobophobes to go with your morning coffee. With a string of singles hanging lowly from their belt already it was only right the band announced their debut LP Miniature Worlds
To add to that little nuggets of loveliness the band have also shared the title track from the album, it’s an absolute barnstormer. Powerful, poignant and completely Phobophobes, this latest release speaks highly of the album.
The band has this to say “Miniature World was spawned from long jam over a monotonous old drum machine, we hacked away at it to form a purposefully relentless, repetitive and simple structure that oscillates between the absurd and the familiar.
“We self-referenced the content of the song which questions the productive and reductive nature of modern communication, it acts as an ‘interruption’ within the setting of the album. The way the final chorus climaxes and diminishes into the bands layered vocals rhetorically wailing “miniature world?”, I wanted the chorus’ to advertise the rest of the song, and the song to ironically advertise the rest of the album which is also titled “Miniature world”.”
“Child Star” by Phobophobes is taken from their debut album ‘Miniature World’ released via Ra-Ra Rok Records.
Paris-via-Bristol songwriter Kate Stables is revisiting her acclaimed fourth album as This Is The Kit, last year’s wonderful “Moonshine Freeze”, in the form of a new remix EP. “I spent way more time than usual working on it, trying to do it some justice,” Andy Dragazis (aka Blue States) says of the remix. “I love the vocals, so the aim was to keep true to those and add my own bells and whistles around them.” The result is a mesmerizing rework that stands apart from “Bullet Proof” while remaining true to the wistful beauty of the original composition
The new remix EP, out today, July 19th, on Rough Trade Records. Moonshine Freeze Remixes comes in the form of its opening track, “Bullet Proof (Blue States Remix),” You can hear the gorgeous vocals of Kate’s rework. We share Dragazis’ admiration for Stables’ “uniquely bone-chilling voice,” deemed the LP ”[her] best album to date.”
“Such an honor to be remixed by Blue States. He’s done a very lush job,” Stables says. “I love getting to hear glimpses of my twin sister’s voice on the track. And he’s managed to bring out some of the details in the original recording and build them into a whole new space. It’s given the song a totally new lease of life.”
Album opener “Bullet Proof” is one of three Moonshine Freeze tracks to get the remix treatment on Stables’ new EP, which also includes reworks by Drones Club (“Moonshine Freeze”), Clas Tuuth (“Two Pence Piece”) and LONA (also “Moonshine Freeze”). The original song’s delicate, chamber-folk sound doesn’t exactly scream “ripe for a remix,” but Blue States makes synth-pop magic with it, expanding on the stripped-down track’s subtle electronic accents and building out its minimalist percussion. The result is a mesmerizing rework that stands apart from “Bullet Proof” while remaining true to the wistful beauty of the original composition.
Listen to Blue States’ “Bullet Proof” remix below, and find the Moonshine Freeze Remixes tracklist.
Moonshine Freeze Remixes Tracklist:
01. Bullet Proof (Blue States Remix)
02. Moonshine Freeze (Drones Club Remix)
03. Two Pence Piece (Clas Tuuth Remix)
04. Moonshine Freeze (LONA Remix)
Rhino will issue a four-disc 40th anniversary deluxe edition of the Ramones fourth studio album Road To Ruin.
The 1978 album was the first to feature drummer Marky Ramone and includes the classic track I Wanna Be Sedated.
The deluxe set comprises three CDs and a vinyl LP. The first CD features a newly remastered version of the original stereo mix and a new 2018 stereo remix, called the ‘Road Revisited Mix’. The latter has been created by producer/engineer Ed Stasium and in the words of the record label “strips off the original record’s commercial gloss and restores the album to its punk rock core.”
The second CD offers up over twenty unreleased recordings, including rough mixes for every album track, different alternate takes of two songs, and two unreleased outtakes: I Walk Out and S.L.U.G. Another notable inclusion on this disc is the Ramones-on-45-Mega-Mix! from 1988 (issued as part of the campaign for the Ramones Mania compilation).
The final CD has a previously unreleased recording of the band’s entire 1979 New Year’s Eve concert, which was mixed live by Stasium, and broadcast on WNEW-FM. This was recorded in New York City at The Palladium, and the audio has been sourced from Tommy Ramone’s original cassette of the console recording!
The 180g vinyl record features the new Road Revisited Mix and not the original version of Road To Ruin.
For David Bowie, the 1980s were years of tremendous ch-ch-changes, in which the stylistic chameleon went mainstream to great success, experienced some artistic disappointments, and solidified his place in the pantheon as a legend of rock. Now, this era is being looked back upon in the fourth annual volume of Parlophone’s ongoing series of box sets dedicated to the late superstar. Loving the Alien (1983-1988) will arrive on October 12th in 11CD and 15LP vinyl configurations.
This lavish set is filled with more exclusive material than any of its predecessors, as only three studio albums are included, all in newly remastered editions: Let’s Dance (1983), Tonight (1984), and Never Let Me Down (1987). Loving the Alien also premieres a new version of the latter album, for which Bowie’s friend and producer Mario McNulty has completely re-recorded the instrumentation with the artist’s collaborators Reeves Gabrels (guitar), David Torn (guitar), Sterling Campbell (drums), Tim Lefebvre (bass), and a string quartet with arrangements by Nico Mulhy plus an appearance by Laurie Anderson on “Shining Star (Makin’ My Love).” This new version of Never Let Me Down is rooted in McNulty’s 2008 re-production of “Time Will Crawl” which featured new drums and strings. Its success prompted Bowie to comment, “Oh, to redo the rest of that album.” McNulty has now made good on Bowie’s wish. (Note that “Too Dizzy,” which Bowie requested be removed from Never Let Me Down following the original LP pressing, remains missing in action.
Additionally, the box includes the remastered live set Glass Spider: Live Montreal ’87, the previously unreleased Serious Moonlight live album recorded in Vancouver in 1983, a new collection of period remixes entitled Dance, and the fourth volume of odds-and-ends series RE:CALL. Dance (titled after an abortive remix album once slated for release in November 1985) collects a dozen original remixes of songs from the era. The new installment of RE:CALL has a whopping 30 tracks: original single versions, the non-LP side “Julie,” film songs from The Falcon and the Snowman, Absolute Beginners, and Labyrinth, plus duets with Tina Turner (“Tonight” and “Let’s Dance”) and Mick Jagger (what else, “Dancing in the Street”) and more. The extended edit of B-side “Girls” is on this disc, though not the shorter version or the Japanese re-recording.
The generous book will run to 128 pages in the CD version and 84 in the LP box, with copious illustrations, original press clippings, and historical notes from producers and engineers Nile Rodgers, Hugh Padgham, Mario McNulty, and Justin Shirley-Smith. The CDs will be packaged in the expected deluxe mini-LP replica sleeves, but in a special touch, they will be pressed in gold rather than standard silver. The vinyl release will be pressed on 180-gram vinyl.
Loving the Alien looks to be a great opportunity to revisit one of David Bowie’s most overlooked – yet most mainstream – periods. Look for this set on CD and vinyl on October 12th
“Who’s that Coming?” — from Irish Tour ’74. Can anyone resist tapping their foot to this?
Irish Tour ’74 is such a good record, it’s the sound of a real live record, there’s nothing processed here. It’s a great example of the electric guitar player as band leader. All the band members are glued around him, the music isn’t being driven by the drums. His band are really really good, his bassist, Gerry McAvoy, is perfect. This is the sound of a band playing together every night, it’s powerful without being really loud and really distorted. He was a fan of The Byrds and Love and you can hear a couple of poppy hooks in there. He wasn’t musically blinkered. He saw merit in everything. It was liberating.”
Given the winter the East Coast has just survived, it’s appropriate to emerge from the bleakness with a record that eases out of its own icy shell. ManDancing’s “Everyone Else” emerged in winter 2016, prior to political shifts at home and abroad, but carries no less weight than it did when quietly released online. In fact, this record from five New Jersey residents seems more potent than ever with its 2018 reissue. It’s at once intimate and ferocious, a windswept combination of hushed pronouncements and gasped confessions.
On their upcoming EP Hands On 3, ManDancing’s emotional compass magnetizes to vocalist and rhythm guitarist Stephen G Kelly, whose voice wavers between confidence and catharsis. The spectral nature of his delivery is a genre in itself. It waxes elegiac on the alt-country sway as percussion spikes and splinters behind it, before breaking free into a desperate wail. It’s this upward curve that carries the arrangements forward, a force that could explode any moment into something unpredictable, warped, yet altogether fitting of such visceral songwriting.
Above all, ManDancing promises a narrative that finds its characters trying to define their own independence. Is it more isolating than liberating? Amidst the haze of young adulthood, the beer cans, and the skipped house shows, ManDancing navigates what it’s like to feel positively undone and unlimited at the same time. It’s hard and it’s an impossible thing, but it’s always part of growing older.
Hands On 3 is out July 13th via Take This To Heart Records.
The five songs on the debut EP from Brisbane musician Hatchie radiate sunshine. That’s not as easy a feat as it sounds: tip too far in the direction of sunny pop music and the results end up saccharine and cloying; if you try to overcorrect, you end up with the kind of half-hearted songs that feint toward hookiness without ever truly connecting. But Hatchie walks the tightrope, and every minute of Sugar & Spice is fully engaging and almost impossibly heartwarming. The big, sun-bleeding-over-the-horizon guitar chords that open “Sure” give way to a vocal melody that bobs as lazily and gracefully as a beach ball on the surface of a swimming pool. The title track leavens its rush of Fun Dip synths with a heartsick chorus that somersaults up and down the octave. Throughout the EP, Hatchie demonstrates masterful control of her voice, gliding into a cotton-candy-cloud falsetto and then back down into a warm caramel alto, giving the songs a kind of weightlessness and buoyancy—the running start she takes into the bridge of “Sugar & Spice” gives the finale a multicolor, firework-style rush. There are precedents here if you want to spot them—The Cranberries, Cocteau Twins—but Sugar & Spice wriggles off those simple touchstones the more you listen to it to become something entirely its own. Even the regret that powers the tumbling closer “Bad Guy,” in Hatchie’s hands, sounds like optimism.
With more than a hint of early Depeche Mode and The Cocteau Twins) – shoegazy guitars alongside Bunnymen riffs, as Harriette Pilbeam effortlessly layers knock-out hooks alongside dreamy vocals and radio-friendly tunes.
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