Zola Jesus signed to Sacred Bones in 2008. In the seven years that followed, we released eight albums together (three LPs, two EPs, two 7”s, a CD-R, and even a DVD). We discovered her via Myspace, which was the common A&R vehicle of the early- to mid-Aughts. Nika is the sole member of Zola Jesus.
On the heels of her Conatus world tour, Nika Roza Danilova was offered an opportunity to perform at one of the most prestigious modern art museums in the world, NY’s Guggenheim. Rather than doing her standard Zola Jesus electronic set she decided she wanted to work with a classical composer who could arrange her songs for a quartet. She recruited legendary industrial pioneer JG Thirlwell (Foetus) to do the arrangements. If there is a common thread to Thirlwell’s varied musical styles, it is dramatic intensity and evocative, cinematic quality.
Before the critically acclaimed Catalonia band MOURN—Carla Peréz Vas, Jazz Rodríguez Bueno, Leia Rodríguez, and Antonio Postius—were signed to Captured Tracks, they were mired in a legal dispute with their Spanish label. Frustrated by their inability to tour behind their sophomore LP, Ha, Ha, He!, the band channeled that rage to create Sorpresa Familia, a snarling LP full of post-punk fervor. Sorpresa Familia spans the rock expanse, touching on emo, math rock, and straight-ahead punk, channeling these different iterations into something fiery and wholly unique. It’s an enthralling listen, and reflects the passion and excitement the group brought to this conversation of music discovery.
When talking about these teenage Barcelona punks, PJ Harvey’s name is always going to be the first one that comes up. That owes to frontwoman Jazz Rodriguez Bueno’s strident, gut-ripping howl, one of the few voices on the indie rock landscape that could merit such a comparison. But while Mourn may challenge Ms. Harvey’s elemental ferocity, they also play with a sloppily simple basement-hardcore urgency that’s just overwhelmingly endearing. That voice, combined with the band’s juvenile bash-it-out force, makes for a potent combination.
Orange Crate Art is the first collaborative studio album by American musicians Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, released in 1995 on Warner Bros. Records. The album consists mostly of songs written and arranged by Parks, with Wilson featured as lead and backing vocalist. Its title refers to the sun-drenched, idealized paintings that grace wooden fruit crates, and its theme is a nostalgic view of the history of California.
Brian Wilson and wunderkind lyricist Van Dyke Parks worked together in the mid-1960s to compose The Beach Boys’ famously shelved SMILE album; the pair re-teamed 30 years later for Orange Crate Art. “It was to extol the propagandist art that brought California a sense of realty,” notes Parks of the title song, and the entire Warner Bros. collection paints the Golden State with a nostalgic glow. That’s Wilson’s sweet spot, even if songs like “My Hobo Heart,” “Hold Back Time” and “Lullaby” recall an era that predates surf music. As on their first collaboration, the wordplay is intricate, the arrangements dense and varied, and no expense has been spared to bring in top-flight instrumentalists. This is Brian Wilson’s birthday, and while others may mark it with his ’60s hits, we’ll take a deeper dive to celebrate the late-career resurgence heard on Orange Crate Art.
The song “Sail Away” from Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks’ 1995 album “Orange Crate Art”.
Audiotree is a Chicago-based music discovery platform: In-studio sessions
Arc Iris is an indie art rock trio who write psychedelia infused, kaleidoscopic tunes. Their theatrical stage production includes glittery lycra body suits, sparkling bird wings and pig masks to add visual depth to their philosophical lyrical content. Our full live session with Audiotree is up! Check it out if you enjoy keytar infused dance moves, scary pig masks, doomsday monologues and strobelights.
Arc Iris broke musical ground with the release of their acclaimed self-titled debut in 2014. The Providence, Rhode Island-based band quickly won over audiences in the US and Europe, supporting artists such as St. Vincent, Jeff Tweedy, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The group performed at the London Palladium and festivals including Bonnaroo, End of the Road . Released on Bella Union in Europe and ANTI Records in the US and, Arc Iris drew admiration for its innovative style and distinctive sound. The Guardian talked of “a shape-shifting treat” while new music site The Line of Best Fit proclaimed, “Arc Iris is traditional music thrillingly positioned at the nexus of the old and new.”
Band Members
Zach Tenorio-Miller – Keyboards and Vocals
Jocie Adams – Vocals, Keys and Guitar
Ray Belli – Drums
Fat White Family are getting ready for a return. Fat White Family are on the return they play a couple of warm up shows before the festival run to announce, The band will be dropping a few tunes from the new LP. Theyre only small venues so be swift be safe..
To mark the occasion, the band hit the stage of Hebden Bridge Trades Club to prepare with a warm-up show. With a new LP on the way, a new tour which has been entitled ‘Tour Of Discipline’ Fat Whites played a couple of new tracks and rolled out some of the fan favourites.
With Saul Adamczewski seemingly back in the band after previous in-band issues, Fat Whites look healthier and happier and well and truly in the mood to make a mess of countless venues across the country.
While we all need to wait patiently for new material, here’s some live footage of their recent show in Hebden Bridge:
“Touch The Leather” – Live at Hebden Bridge Trades Club
Sharing a title with one of Paul’s own paintings, Egypt Station is the first full album of all-new McCartney music since 2013’s international chart-topping NEW. Preceded by two of its tracks just released as double A-sides – plaintive ballad ‘I Don’t Know‘ and raucous stomper ‘Come On To Me‘ – Egypt Station was recorded between Los Angeles, London and Sussex, and produced (with the exception of one Ryan Tedder track) by Greg Kurstin (Adele, Beck, Foo Fighters).
Of the forthcoming album’s enigmatic title, Paul says, “I liked the words ‘Egypt Station.’ It reminded me of the ‘album’ albums we used to make… ‘Egypt Station’ starts off at the station on the first song and then each song is like a different station. So it gave us some idea to base all the songs around that. I think of it as a dream location that the music emanates from.”
True to the inspiration behind its title, Egypt Station ’s 14 songs combine to convey a unique travelogue vibe. Between the opening and closing instrumentals ‘Station I’ and ‘Station II’, each song finds Paul capturing a place or moment before transporting the listener seamlessly to the next destination. Stops along the way include an acoustic meditation on present day contentedness (‘Happy With You’), a timeless anthem that would fit on virtually any album of any McCartney era (‘People Want Peace’), and an epic multi-movement closer clocking in at seven minutes with a song suite structure harkening back to the days of Paul’s previous combos (‘Despite Repeated Warnings‘). The result is a kaleidoscopic journey through myriad musical locales and eras, yet firmly rooted in the here and now – with Paul’s singular unmistakeable melodic and lyrical sensibility serving as a guide.
Philadelphian band Restorations, are now 10 years running, named for more than just architectural stability. It’s emotional renewal for the members themselves and for anyone listening. The band’s self-reflective, true colors are just as loud and bold as the layers of guitars galloping through each song. But after touring hard on the soul-rattling 2014 album LP3, the Philadelphia rock band needed some restoration itself.
Four years later, Restorations returns with LP5000 via Tiny Engines, the label that released its debut album. Restorations have always been a band keenly aware of their surroundings and LP5000 is just that: Seven songs written and recorded during a time of transition. It’s a record about displacement. It’s about feeling complacent and coming to the sudden realization that maybe things aren’t as solid as they’d seemed—in politics, in personal relationships, and in the different corners of their hometown of Philadelphia.
Underlined by looping keyboard chitter-chatter a la “Baba O’Riley,” the lead single “The Red Door” explodes the band’s larger-than-life rock and roll hoarsely yawped from the streets, but instead of looking inward, lead singer (and one of three guitarists) Jon Loudon looks just next door.
“Philadelphia (and perhaps your town, too?) is rapidly changing,” Loudon tells us “I wonder about where people go when they can’t afford to live in these new neighborhoods anymore. The red doors on all the new buildings feels like some kind of warning sign.”
Ola’s Kool Kitchen is a show on KCLA 99.3 FM in Los Angeles, 107.5 andhow.FM, Rock Velvet Radio, Maximum Threshold Radio, Rock Radio UK, Sword Radio UK, Jammerstream One, Kor Radio, Firebrand Radio , Bombshell Radio and Hank’s Alternative Radio and you can hear more shows here https://hearthis.at/olaskoolkitchen/
Show 362
1. The Apples in Stereo-Signal in The Sky
2. Say Sue Me-Old Town
3. Cuesta Loeb – Out Of
4. Hollow Hand-Blackberry Wine
5. Carter Vail – Melatonin
6. The Lords of Altamont- I Said Hey
7. Cruel Summer -Skyless- Typical Girls Volume Four LP-Emotional Response
8. The Beat Escape-Moon In Aquarius-Life Is Short, The Answer’s Long-Bella Union
9. Mama Kokomo – Primavera Feel-single-self release
10. The Chocolate Watchband-Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-In)-Single-Tower
11. Blue Magoos-Tobacco Road- Psychedelic Lollipop-Mercury Records
12. Connie Clark-My Sugar Baby-single-Joker Records
13. Ben Howard-There’s Your Man-Noonday Dream-Island
World’s Strongest Man is the magnificent third solo album by Gaz Coombes. Inspired variously by Grayson Perry’s the Descent of Man, Frank Ocean’s Blonde, Californian weed, British woodlands, unchecked masculinity, Neu! and hip hop (and a whole lot more besides), it’s a truly remarkable collection of eleven deeply personal songs each set to expansive, addictive melody. The book resonated on a personal level, making him contemplate his conduct as a man in the context of being a partner, a father to two daughters, a son, and a songwriter, but also as a male who feels compelled more generally to be an active participant in deconstructing and rebuilding masculinity in order to create a better, fairer, more equal society.
His way of doing this is to embrace the facets he thinks constitute a strong man. Which is to say, this is an album that presents vulnerability, the admission of flaws and emotional openness as routes to strength. There might be pokes at the negative repercussions of prevalent toxic masculinity (‘Wounded Egos’), but it’s mostly about his mind.
“I’m a little mashed up,” he sings on the opening line on the album’s title track, sounding torn: “I want to be by myself / Don’t leave me by myself.” That theme – that there’s benefit in sharing mental fragility – boomerangs around the LP, most directly on ‘The Oaks’, where he strolls to the woods near his countryside home to talk to the trees (“Came upon the oaks / told them about the episode”) and the ‘Vanishing Act’ where his voice cracks as he yells: “I’ve got to get my fucking head straight / I’ve got to put on my happy face”.
Coombes’ vocal, of course, gives the whole thing a nostalgic familiarity, but musically it’s an album that, for him, explores some fresh ground. Frank Ocean’s ‘Blonde’ and ‘Channel Orange’ were both influences, not just in their production but in their approach – their pride, in not just prioritising a big pop chorus, but in the smaller sonic details. Therefore, a lot of ‘World’s Strongest Man’ is about feel, a repetitive groove or a slow build (‘Slow Motion Life’). There’s the deft influence of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club on ‘Deep Pockets’, Daft Punk on ‘Shit (I’ve Done It Again)’, Beck on ‘Walk The Walk’ and, a likeness to fellow Oxfordites Radiohead on ‘World’s Strongest Man’ and ‘In Waves’.
If all this sounds like a long way from the goofy 18-year-old with the huge sideburns that wrote ‘Caught By The Fuzz’ – it is. So it should be: almost 25 years have gone by. Coombes, unlike some of his ‘90s peers, has shown an ability and, more importantly, a desire to challenge himself and move forward.
So here’s an album by a male songwriter who feels deeply affected by the conversations happening around men and masculinity right now in light of #MeToo, Time’s Up and gender inequality in all its forms. Gaz Coombes isn’t congratulating himself on having these thoughts, he’s just trying to be more like the man he wants himself and other men to be. There’s room for a lot more of those.
Ex Supergrass’ Gaz Coombes makes his Later… solo debut performing Deep Pockets
Later… with Jools Holland on BBC Two (12th June 2018)
Ryan Adams has raised the hopes of the vast majority of his fan base, by teasing the release of a number of past projects, including his famously unreleased album, Blackhole.
Just a week after Ryan Adams tried his hand at reporting the weather thanks to a US television station, the musician took to Twitter today to test the waters in regards to the release of some of his long-awaited projects.
“I wrote this album. I have 17 new songs,” Adams wrote on Twitter, alongside an image of his debut solo album, Heartbreaker. “I have 4 records on a shelf. Does anyone want to hear Prisoner 2 & 3, Black Hole? Live at Capitol Theater w The Infamous Stringdusters, Exile on Main Street cover live & rehearsals ?”
He continued: “I’m just asking to see if maybe I’m crazy & no one does.” The two live albums he mentioned in the message referred to a show recorded in Port Chester, New York in July 2016 with The Infamous Stringdusters, and his Rolling Stones tribute from New Orleans Jazz Fest last month respectively.
“I’m just asking to see if maybe I’m crazy & no one does.”
This is a lot of unreleased material, but let’s start taking a look at what’s on offer.
As it stands, Ryan Adams’ last album, Prisoner, was released in 2017, becoming his most successful record to date, . While a new album would already be brilliant, a sequel (or two) to the record would definitely be well received by his fans. However, it’s not quite clear whether his “17 new songs” constitute what he calls to be Prisoner 2 & 3 or if is a totally different project altogether.
One of the live projects mentioned by Adams is his performance at The Capitol Theater with The Infamous Stringdusters back in 2016. This performance is rather famous among his fans for the hugely collaborative nature of the performance, in addition to featuring covers of Slayer’s ‘South Of Heaven’ and Black Sabbath’s ‘The Wizard’.
Likewise, the most recent of these live records is that of Adams’ recent Exile On Main Street concert, which saw him cover The Rolling Stones’ legendary album (almost) in full just last month.
In March, Adams said he had 11 new tracks recorded from sessions in his Pax-Am Studios. “Records are funny creatures sometimes,” he tweeted. “They wake you up like they can’t wait to just get born.”
Featuring the likes of Todd Wisenbaker on guitar, Cyril Neville of the Neville Brothers on percussion, Medeski Martin & Wood’s John Medeski on piano, and Don Was on bass duties, a professionally recorded version of this gig (and its rehearsal) would indeed be a massive addition to any record collection.
However, the most important of these potentially-forthcoming albums has to be that of Blackhole, an album supposedly recorded sometime last decade during the final stages of Adams’ severe drug addiction.
“There’s two versions of that record,” Adams explained in 2014 while considering releasing the album for Record Store Day. “There’s one where the vocals and the performances are really fucked-up.”
“Then there’s a second version, which was the last thing I did when I was still messed up. Bits and pieces of that had to be stitched together to make the final product like a patchwork quilt, because some of its vocal takes are too fucked-up to release. But it’s really cool and the end result made me very happy.”
While the record was never released for Record Store Day 2015, Adams stated that he was still unsure as to how he should release the record, and which version should see the light of day. We might not know what sort of plans he up his sleeve for this legendary unheard record, but we’d be keen to receive in any way he wishes to give it to us.
At this stage, it seems fans are pretty keen to hear all these unreleased projects, so hold tight, because you might have a lot of Ryan Adams coming your way soon!
