Devinyl Splits No. 7 features Craig Finn & The Uptown Controllers on Side A and Kevin Devine on Side B. The split was released in March 2018, with digital downloads being delivered to your inbox before the release date. The splits are in hand already and will ship on time.
Craig Finn & The Uptown Controllers contribute “Galveston” a song in which the weaving, story-telling songwriting that has defined Finn’s career to date is on full display. Finn plays in the band The Hold Steady and released his most recent solo album, We All Want The Same Things, also in March 2017.
Kevin Devine contributes “Kuala Lumpur,” his first new song since the release of October 2016’s wonderful album Instigator. Devine also released an acoustic reimagining of Instigator, titled We Are Who We’ve Always Been, in October 2017.
Lumerians, those psychedelic druids of the trans-dimensional extra-terrestrial motorik realms are returning. The genre-hopping mind-benders of uninhabited deep space are known for incorporating anything and everything into their futuristic sonic gumbo pulsating krautrock, noise, free jazz, drone and dub. It will come as no surprise that after a four year hiatus they’re still experimenting sonically on their upcoming album, 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.
Their third “official” album—not counting two collections of improvised compositions called Transmission from Tellos III & IV—Call of the Void, will be released on June 22nd on the London-based indie label Fuzz Club Records. The album is dedicated to the memory of Barrett Clark, Lumerians’ long-time friend, sound engineer and collaborator who passed away in 2016 during the tragic Ghost Ship warehouse fire. Recorded mostly at their own New Telos Sound studio built in the site of a former church in Oakland, California and at Hyde Street Studios—formerly known as Wally Heider Studios.
To announce the album the band have shared the lead single “Silver Trash” a song about both “a very memorable camping trip us and some friends took in Big Sur or an encounter with inter-dimensional beings in the Redwoods of the Pacific Northwest.”
The core founding members of Lumerians are Chris Musgrave (drums/percussion), Jason Miller (vocals, synth, organ, guitar), Marc Melzer (vocals, bass, synth) and Tyler Green (guitar, synth). The intensely interlocked rhythm section of Musgrave and bassist Melzer undergirds what the rest of them do, putting me in mind of Can, Hawkwind, Neu! and Soft Machine at once, but I still can’t help thinking of them as The Ventures of this era.
White Room have a knack for crafting songs which carefully tips their hat to their influences whilst illustrating their own future is making them a force to be reckoned with each and every release. With Paul Weller amongst their fans, the quintet have built up a steady fan base from trawling up and down the country playing numerous gigs and festivals. And after nailing support slots with The Rifles and the aforementioned Modfather.
Filmed at The Loft in their native Brighton, the striking visuals experiment with a plethora of camera angles in a presumed attempt to make the viewer feel like they are immersed in the cable built dreamland setting alluded to in the track’s title. Signed to the fabulous Deltasonic Records who keep on going from strength to strength are just days away from another appearance at The Great Escape Festival, again in their coastal hometown, where last year they obliterated The Hope and Ruin with their fuzzy and frenetic sonic delivery – and the threat of the floor falling through the ceiling.
Psychedelic would be the obvious genre to immediately try and pigeonhole the five-piece to, cut the band in half like a stick of rock and it’s arguable the standout component that runs through their veins, but scratch a little deeper below the surface and strands of rock, indie and even inflects of pop start to echo their way to the forefront as they compete to become your new favourite band.
Live Version of ‘Cable Built Dreamland’ filmed and recorded at Loft Studios, Brighton ‘Cable Built Dreamland’ is Out Now via Deltasonic Records.
There is one big thing going for Squirrel flower, the Iowa-based project of Ellä Williams, Allow yourself some time to sit with this new track, however, and you’ll find that there’s more than enough going on here to warrant its own distinct place and time; a subtly intriguing undercurrent of vexations and dispellings that quietly bury themselves within your surroundings.
Lifted from her new, and second, EP, which was released in mid-December via the brilliant It Takes Time label, “Not Your Prey” is steel-eyed determination personified, a resolutely personal unraveling that melds tempestuous, fiery vocals with a hardened backdrop of electric guitar and a somewhat stifling atmosphere. “Don’t fuck with me…I’m not your prey, I’m not your kill…” Williams sings as the song reaches its restrained climax, the weight of sentiment both eminently palpable and powerful. Check it out below, on the abum “Contact Sports“, via It Takes Time,
The new remasters collection Bruce Springsteen: The Album Collection Vol. 2, 1987-1996 makes a strong case for the artistic value of Springsteen’s E Street-less, mid-period output. Starting with 1987’s Tunnel Of Love, it was no longer really Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band. Despite the occasional presence of various bandmates on the album and subsequent tour, the signs were already there for his creative restlessness and decision to separate from the group to pursue different avenues of making music. (He made the split official in 1989.) And to hear tell of it in various biographies and assessments of his career through the years, Springsteen spent most of the next decade wandering the artistically frustrated desert, on albums and tours that lacked the passion and vision of his earlier work. The limited-edition release Bruce Springsteen: The Album Collection Vol. 2, 1987-1996 probably isn’t going to convince anyone that the Boss was better off without his once and future band than with it, but what it does do is make a cohesive and convincing argument for the merit of his work during this creatively searching era—yes, even the stuff with the really crappy production values.
When Springsteen published his memoir Born To Runin 2016, it was clear he didn’t want to talk much more than he already had in interviews about the hiatus of the E Street Band or the interpersonal and creative tensions that led to his decision. He barely spends two pages on it, admitting his own role in the issues, but seems to summarize it with, “I felt I’d become not just a friend and employer for some, but also banker and daddy.” The recording of the simultaneously released Human Touch and Lucky Town is omitted entirely, and aside from discussions about his personal life, much of these years is dismissed by him as his “mid-’90s drift.” It’s too bad he glosses over it, because as is made clear by the engrossing 60-page book of photos, press clippings, and interviews accompanying this new collection, there’s a lot to be said about what he was trying to achieve with each of these albums.
Tunnel Of Love is perhaps the most contentious of these records. Hailed as a masterwork of a newly mature artist upon its initial release, it was subsequently criticized for its production and lack of consistent E Street input, with Springsteen playing many of the instruments himself. (The only thing he never attempted was drums, with MaxWeinberg providing the sporadic percussion.) But while the cheesy keyboards and digitally fussy drums do indeed make some of the songs harder to listen to with fresh ears, one of the best elements of the newly remastered edition of this long-out-of-print vinyl is the very deliberate minimization of the hokier instrumentation, and teasing out the guitars wherever possible. Even “Brilliant Disguise,” an excellent song that became a hit for a reason, sounds a little crisper and less late-’80s smooth. But to take the time to study Tunnel Of Love closely is to again marvel at some of the finest lyrics of Springsteen’s career. From the solo vocal performance that kicks off “Ain’t Got You” to the muted angst of “Valentine’s Day,” the subtlety and depth of these songs about complicated adult love shine. It’s a strange beast for a record from the Boss, but it’s a hell of a successful one-off experiment.
From there, things admittedly get a little muddled. Human Touch and Lucky Town are the twin pillars of his respective artistic tactics: the former an agonized and fussed-over result of several years of obsessive workaday grind, the latter a three-week burst of raw and loose inspiration. Lucky Town is undeniably the superior of the two simultaneous releases, suggesting Springsteen was indeed at loose ends over the direction his music should take, finding more success in the fuck-it attitude of just unleashing some rock and hoping it worked. It’s the sound of him trying to genuinely create the feeling of rock ’n’ roll as a revivalist celebration, chasing that near-religious fervor his concerts are often credited with having. Hence the three backing female singers, shouting out refrains like they were gospel—he wanted it to sound like the gospel of rock. At the time it mustn’t have been clear he was pushing this angle too hard, chasing it too blatantly, as opposed to the vibe arriving organically from the music. The bluesy American roots rock that pops up is solid, but too often harnessed to his church-hymnal instincts. (“Souls Of The Departed” is just a hair’s breadth away from being an all-time killer rock song.) It’s a good album that should’ve been great.
Human Touch, by contrast, does many of the same things as Lucky Town, only milder and with less success. While some of it can be chalked up to his insistence on playing so many of the parts himself, thereby denying himself superior musicianship on the instruments, his session players did him no real favors either, especially Randy Jackson’s uninspired bass. Similarly, the songs often sound like the result of a guy in an echo chamber, demoing to a 4/4 beat on a drum machine and then not being pushed to vary those beats in the rhythm section. Great songs intermittently appear—“Gloria’s Eyes” cooks, and “I Wish I Were Blind” overcomes its generic-ballad orchestration to deliver a moving elegy—but it’s not enough to overcome dreck like “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On).”Human Touch, as he discusses in the lengthy Rolling Stoneinterview functioning as the accompanying book’s centerpiece, was who he was in the wake of his post-Tunnel divorce; Lucky Town was the direction he was moving. It was clearly the better direction to go.
But even with the albums being this uneven, the accompanying live record and EP demonstrate Springsteen’s power remained largely undimmed. 1993’s In Concert: MTV Plugged is an hour straight of killer live music, showing how even weaker studio tracks like “Man’s Job” get a rush of energy and power from the Boss in full onstage swagger. Plus, it provides previously unreleased tracks “Red Headed Woman” and the spectacular “Light Of Day,” long a set-closer during the era. But it also showcases what people don’t like about this era of Springsteen: He basically cedes lead instrument duties to keyboardist Roy Bittan, the keys taking pride of place in mixing and songwriting, never more apparent than in the full-band version of “Atlantic City.” It’s a hell of a show, but it does minimize Springsteen’s ax work far too much. The EP Chimes Of Freedom (from the Amnesty International charity tour in ’88) features four killer performances, one of them a cover of Bob Dylan’s title tune.
The Ghost Of Tom Joad stubbornly resists alteration in remastering. The record is an odd admixture of spare Nebraska-style minimalism (even more so, really, with the acoustic guitar barely audible at times) and the swooning high-gloss production that has always been his weakness. It’s a two-pronged strategy that would find better synthesis—if uneven results—on Devils & Dust, but that nonetheless contains some moments as good as anything he’s done. Songs like “Highway 29” and the title track find a fusion of wordy poetry and sparse melodism that elevate the material, but it’s occasionally too flat musically to really land, stripped-down folktales easier to admire than enjoy. Still, it stands as a coda to this era of Bruce’s wandering muse, finding meaning in the stories of the Mexican-American borderlands that feel more relevant than ever.
Blood Brothers(his much-vaunted E Street reunion to provide new tracks for the Greatest Hits release) is a superb five-song blitz, even if it now looks like little more than a tease for the reunited greatness to come. Still, taken as a whole, these records function as a kind of musical travelogue that saw the guy who made the world-conquering Born In The U.S.A. spend a creatively frustrating decade reinventing himself into the again-master songwriter and bandleader that would see the 2000s deliver on the promise of his former excellence. The path to get there was rocky, but filled with enough magic to make it worthy of appreciation in its own right.
The Album Collection Vol 2. This release spans the period of 1987-1996, picking up where Volume 1 – released back in November 2014 – left off. It’s due on May 18th from Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings on vinyl only. Unlike the previous box set, no CD release has been announced.
Volume 2 contains four studio albums, one live album, and two EPs on 10 vinyl LPs – all remastered by BobLudwig and Toby Scott from the original analogue masters. The set chronicles Springsteen’s adventurous, experimental period during and following the dissolution of The E Street Band. While the band’s members are all present in guest spots on 1987’s Tunnel of Love(and the band would tour the album) it was a mostly solo, introspective affair highlighted by such standout tracks as “Brilliant Disguise,” “Tougher than the Rest,” “One StepUp,” and the title track. Tunnel Of Love is followed by the pair of albums released by Springsteen on the same day, March 31, 1992: Human Touch and Lucky Town. Though Roy Bittan was on board as a musician and co-producer, the only other E Streeters to make an appearance on Human Touch were Patti Scialfa and former member David Sancious.
The album instead welcomed studio veterans like Jeff Porcaro and Randy Jackson as well as background vocals from Sam Moore of Sam and Dave and Bobby Hatfield of The Righteous Brothers. Human Touch scored hits with its title song and “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On).” Lucky Town employed a sparer sound and seemingly a more personal approach than Human Touch. Bittan and Scialfa were on hand, along with drummer Gary Mallaber, Randy Jackson, The Faces’ Ian McLagan, and future E Street touring member Soozie Tyrell. The album yielded favorites such as “Better Days” and “If I Should Fall Behind.”
The box continues with 1993’s live album In Concert/MTV Plugged (featuring Bittan, Scialfa, and Bruce’s touring band) and then with 1995’s The Ghost of Tom Joad, a dark, stripped-down spiritual sequel to Nebraska that was hailed by many as his best album in years, and certainly his most adventurous. Garry Tallent, Danny Federici, Scialfa, and Tyrell all contributed to the album. Two EPs round out the box’s contents. 1988’s Chimes of Freedom was released in support of Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now! tour. Anchored by a cover of Bob Dylan’s title song, it also featured live versions of “Tougher than the Rest,” “Born to Run,” and the rare B-side “Be True.”Blood Brothers, the second EP, was originally released in 1996 to coincide with a film of the same name chronicling The E Street Band’s temporary reunion to record additional tracks for Springsteen’s Greatest HitsLP (which isn’t included in this box set but will be released on vinyl for Record Store Day on April 21). Blood Brothers has five tracks from the reunited band – four from the studio sessions and one (“Murder Incorporated”) live, as heard in the song’s music video.
In Concert/MTV Plugged makes its U.S. vinyl debut in this box set, while Blood Brothers is a worldwide vinyl premiere. A 60-page book featuring memorabilia, photos, and period press clippings is included with the set.
Look forThe Album Collection Vol. 2, 1987-1996 from Columbia/Legacy on May 18th.
Bruce Springsteen, The Album Collection Vol. 2, 1987-1996 (Columbia/Legacy, 2018) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Links TBD)
LPs 1-2: Tunnel of Love (Columbia OC 40999, 1987) LPs 3-4: Human Touch (Columbia C 53000, 1992) LP 5: Lucky Town (Columbia C 53001, 1992) LPs 6-7: In Concert/MTV Plugged (Columbia CK 68730, 1993) ** LP 8: The Ghost of Tom Joad (Columbia C 67484, 1995) LP 9: Chimes of Freedom (Columbia 4C 44445, 1988) LP 10: Blood Brothers (Columbia CSK 8879, 1996) *
The Struts have been getting some of their biggest exposure to date in the U.S. serving as the opening act on the Foo Fighters’ North American tour.
While supporting a major arena rock band historically comes with, at best, indifferent reactions from the audience, the quartet has been winning over audiences with its glam-inspired sound and image. For frontman Luke Spiller, it’s all because of their approach to their shows.
“I want to make sure everyone leaves with a big smile, everyone has their money’s worth,” he said “Most importantly, just fun. Forgetting about what’s happening and escaping for an hour and a half, or maybe more.”
That desire to please has led to a pre-gig routine that begins 12 hours before Spiller takes the stage. It includes, having girlfriend Linda Cartier begin applying his makeup at least three hours in advance so that it’s ready for the meet-and-greets. But he does find time to loosen up with an AC/DC playlist and a whiskey and Diet Coke.
Formed in 2009 in Derby, England, the Struts have since relocated to Los Angeles, and released their debut full-length, Everybody Wants, in 2014 to acclaim, with “Could Have Been Me” becoming a rock radio hit. Musically, they’ve drawn comparisons to Queen, particularly with regard to Spiller’s over-the-top vocals and stage presence.
It’s one that Spiller, who looks quite a bit like the moustache-free Freddie Mercury, welcomes, and last year he penned a Top 10 Queen song list for Louder Music where he eschewed their hits in favor of deeper cuts. “They brought me into a musical world that I felt a real connection to,” he wrote. “Everyone else was listening to indie rock like the Killers and Razorlight and the Libertines. I was, like, ‘No, this is my world.’”
Spiller has even sought out Zandra Rhodes, who designed costumes for Mercury and Brian May, on his mother’s advice. Rhodes created a pair of tops for Spiller, including, he noted, a “shimmering, cobalt blue frock with hand-painted gold accents.”
The Queen fixation has come in handy on the Foos tour, where Spiller regularly joined the band onstage for a cover of “Under Pressure,” with drummer Taylor Hawkins taking the David Bowie part while Dave Grohl gets behind the drums. One night’s performance was so intense that it led to Spiller having a sort of wardrobe malfunction.
“I remember I gave Taylor a quick hug, and as we were saying thank you to the crowd and I walked off — I hugged Dave Grohl, and he sort of said in my ear, ‘That was so great, man,’ and I was about to walk away. And he grabbed me again, and he was like, ‘You know what happened yesterday, after I got back to my microphone after ‘Under Pressure,’ there were sequins all over my pedal board.’
Last week it was announced that they will return as the Foos‘ opening act when the tour resumes in July. But between now and then, you can also catch them on the road, playing clubs and festival stages through June 3.
The Struts have also finished recording their second album, although it’s in the process of being mixed. “I think everyone’s really going to enjoy it,” he said. “We were very much aware that even though the band has lived with the first album and the songs that come with it for quite a while, for everyone else, it’s relatively fresh. So I felt like it was really important to make this second album somewhat depart from the first one. Not a departure musically, I didn’t want to go completely left. I think it’s important to give people more of what they fall in love with.”
Hilang Child is a name that could well be familiar to you. A songwriter and producer of remarkable depth, his work has progressed and evolved, a gradual transition that has been beautiful to watch.
Working with Bella Union Records, Hilang Child – real name Ed Riman – is now ready to tackle his first full length project. ‘Years’ will be released on August 17th, with the songwriter able to share bewitching, engrossing, wholly fascinating new song ‘I Wrote A Letter Home’.
It’s a song that gradually washes over you, and it emerged at a key point in the album process. “I was playing this live as a solo piano thing for a while, but realised I wanted a bit more from the song,” he said. “I demoed it with my friend Sam Delves (who plays Microkorg on it) in his flat, we added some drums and it came alive into something completely new.”
“So I took it away to rethink the final version and eventually built it into something bigger and more energetic than most of what I’d written previously. In terms of sound, I think what it eventually became then dictated what I decided wanted to do with the rest of the album.”
He continues: “Lyrically ‘I Wrote A Letter Home’ is written from the perspective of someone feeling totally lost and overwhelmed at the prospect of navigating the big wide world alone. It’s a reflective letter, accepting that on the road to this point he didn’t appreciate what he had and so is yearning to be back home with those he held dear.”
A beautiful new song, Hilang Child seems to approach ‘I Wrote A Letter Home’ with remarkable openness, combined with a beautiful sense of assurance.
Atlanta garage punks The Coathangers are releasing their first-ever live album, simply titled LIVE, on June 1st via Suicide SqueezeRecords. It was recorded across two nights at Alex’s Bar in Long Beach last November, which were free shows “replete with magicians, tarot card readings, burlesque dancers, palm readers, and a giant paper mache rabbit for photo-ops.” It’s a career-spanning collection of songs, from their 2007 self-titled debut through 2017’s Parasite EP. “It’s like our anthology… our entire career in 38 minutes,” said guitarist/vocalist Julia Kugel. The show was recorded by Dylan Ely and front-of-house engineer Eric Huff, and Kugel’s husband Scott Montoya mixed it in their new home studio.
Along with the album’s release, The Coathangers are also putting out some live videos from those Alex’s Bar shows, and we’re premiering the one for “Hurricane” from 2011’s Larceny & Old Lace. “This song is based on a friend of ours from New Orleans who was similar to a lot of our friends, and us, at the time. Just full of crazy energy and strong, and sometimes dangerous in ways. Yet still empowering! It’s one of my favorite songs because it’s so creepy and sort of evil, yet still really fun to sing,” said drummer/vocalist Stephanie Luke.
The Coathangers recently wrapped up a run supporting their labelmates Minus the Bear’s Planet of Ice 10th anniversary,
Me Like Bees is an Indie Rock band hailing from the heart of Joplin, Missouri. Formed in 2009 the band has traveled thousands of miles and played hundreds of shows across the nation. By 2013, they released their first full length record “The Ides” (LoveWay Records) produced by Jeff Smith (Never Shout Never, Trust Company, Carter Hulsey).In June of 2013, Me Like Bees won a spot to compete in the Ernie Ball Music Man Battle of the Bands (17th Consecutive Year). After surpassing many opponents and outlasting over 20,000 other bands they advanced to the final round. Me Like Bees won the final showcase at the House Of Blues in Hollywood California in January of 2014.
In 2015 after completing a leg on the Van’s Warped Tour, Me Like Bees finished their new EP “There Will Be Time” with award-winning producer John Feldmann (Five Seconds of Summer, The Used, Panic! at the Disco, Goldfinger, Good Charlotte, Plain White T’s). There Will Be Time was positively received by many outlets, and Alternative Press gave it 4 stars. Upon the release of There Will Be Time, they embarked on a nation wide tour with Never Shout Never (Warner Bros); spanning from the world famous Troubadour in Hollywood, California to Brighton Music Hall in Boston, Massachusetts.
They are currently teamed up with Image Comics’ The REALM and releasing songs coinciding with each issue in the first story arc. The River Divides, the single from the upcoming EP, is out now and the full EP is released in March 2018.
Songs From The Realm out now: Me Like Bees performing “The River Divides” off of their new EP,
When Jess Williamson fell in love, the heavens parted. Cosmic Wink, is the Austin-based singer-songwriter’s third record, looks to the skies, but also turns inward. The album details a series of personal changes in Williamson’s life, including a new relationship, a move to Los Angeles, and the death of her beloved dog, Frankie. Produced by her boyfriend and collaborator Shane Renfro of the band RF Shannon, Cosmic Wink is a stellar rumination on time; the present, the future, and what happens when it finally runs out.
Williamson recently brought the lush, other-wordly sounds of Cosmic Wink for a studio session, playing three songs: “White Bird,” “I See The White,” and “Love on the Piano.” The album’s first single, “I See the White,” is a hazy and captivating reflection on Frankie’s passing. “I see the white all around her eyes,” Williamson sings, referencing the graying of Frankie’s fur.
“Seeing [Frankie] grow older was sort of this physical manifestation of the passing of time,” Williamson explained. “[I was] thinking about love and time and death and life, and everything in between.”
Cosmic Wink was created in close collaboration with Renfro, and it makes perfect sense that the couple would complement each other as writing partners. “I always thought that Shane was the best and most talented musician I knew,” Williamson gushed. “I just felt really lucky that he wanted to have such a heavy hand in making this album. It felt really natural.”
It’s no surprise that themes of sex and love permeate Cosmic Wink, but Williamson clarified that the record’s closing track, “Love on the Piano,” is not, in fact, meant to be literal. “My mom thought that this song was about having sex in various locations,” she laughed. “It’s not about that.”
1. White Bird 2. I See the White 3. Love on the Piano Watch Jess Williamson live @ Paste Studio NYC
