Historian, will be the sophomore album from Richmond, Va. native Lucy Dacus, counting down the days until its March release. Our anticipation has only intensified with the release of “Addictions,” the second single from Dacus’ impending record.
The second track on Historian, “Addictions” is an honest, horn-assisted anthem, accompanied by a video directed by the singer-songwriter herself. Dacus, a former film student, was able to put her cinematic skills to use in the making of the video, in part a love letter to her native Richmond. A nameless protagonist explores the city, viewing it through a magical, black-and-white frame while reflecting upon her past. This visual device separates the reality of the present (the world of color) from the fantasies of the past (the black-and-white world), reinforcing the central idea of “Addictions”—how we come to rely upon substances, activities, places or people, and how hard it can be to leave them in the past. “You’ve got addictions too, it’s true,” Dacus insists as the song crescendos, forcing each one of us to look inward and take stock of all we’re holding on to.
Historian is out on March 2nd via Matador Records. You can revisit the album’s initial announcement—and its superlative first single, “Night Shift”
Two important events occurred during the making of White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood. I became “Simulated Reality” paranoid and I fell in Love. Well a lot more happened during the process of writing and recording, but those are the two big ones. I also reached a healthy point of self-forgiveness for my failed marriage and became deeply educated in the lies of America the Great.
I feel like a switch was recently turned on in my brain and now I’m beginning to see through the lies that have been fed to me my whole life by the masters of media and by those who control and manipulate the narrative of our cultural identity and social order.
My paranoia began during the presidential election cycle and reached a dangerous peak shortly after the inauguration. In the meantime I watched and read countless works of art in a mad effort to be reminded of how many truly brilliant people there are living/struggling among us and to try to maintain a positive outlook. The works of Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, Chris Kraus, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the Autobiographies of Malcolm X and Mark E Smith were all great inspirations, to name a few.
Musically, I was very inspired by the extended dance mixes that people used to make for pop singles back in the ‘80s. It’s so cool how a lot of the 80’s hits had these really intricate and interesting longer versions that wouldn’t get played on the radio and could only be heard in the clubs. I used that template with these tracks, I wanted them all to feel like the extended “club edit” of album tracks.
I also decided to abandon the “live band in a room” approach that I had been using on the recent albums and work more on my own or remotely with collaborators. I used the same drum sample packs throughout because I wanted the album to have a rhythmic continuity to it. I wanted the drums to have a strong and consistent identity, similar to how Prince’s Linn Electronics LM-1 drum machine played such an important role on his classic albums. Zac Colwell also played a huge role on this album, adding saxophones and synths to most of the songs. I also got a lot of help from long time collaborators, and “of Montreal” touring members, Clayton Rychlik and JoJo Glidewell.
The two title concept came to me when I was thinking about how difficult it is to frame the message of a song with just one title, because so often the songs are about so many different subjects. ‘White Is Relic’ was inspired by James Baldwin’s writings regarding the creation and propagation of a toxic American White identity. I’ve come to learn how it’s just a tool wielded by the 1% to give poor white people a false sense of superiority in an effort to keep the masses placated and numb to how deeply we’re all getting fucked by our capitalist rulers. An ‘Irrealis Mood’ is a linguistic indicator that something isn’t yet reality but does have the potential to become so.
Austin band Hovvdy are slated to release their sophomore album, “Cranberry”, on february 9th via Double Double Whammy Records. the duo’s three preceding singles have all reflected the impending warmth and comfort this album will be capable of providing; its fourth single, “In The Sun,” accomplishes the same feat through slightly different means.
a mix of acoustic and electric guitars bleed together and coalesce around a soft back-beat, a muted palette that swaddles a tender lead vocal occasionally laid bare. the linchpin of “in the sun” paces timidly in the background, a pastoral synth line with just enough buoyancy to float to the surface when needed before receding back into the greater texture.
like the very best of recipes, “In The Sun” is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts, a beautiful collage of frank, minimal pop.
Raised on a steady diet of sarah records singles, slumberland noise pop, and creation-era shoegaze, Portland’sA Certain Smile work hard to find that balance between the sweet twee, the fuzzy gaze, and punky pop.
Just as is there a shortage of great guitar bands in the 2018, it looks like the world was destined to prove me wrong. Today A Certain Smile announce the release of their debut album, bringing the sound of Portland’s indiepop to our ears. The track rushes forward from the get-go, employing little touches of shoegaze in the guitar to go along with more traditional jagged lines stabbing through the mix. Vocals from Thomas Andrew provide that fireside warmth that pop fans crave, sending out wave after wave of melodious lines through your speakers. The debut album “Fits and Starts” will be released by the band on March 9th, and it’s sure to be a little gem.
New Leeds based metropolitan festival brought to you by the folks behind Hee Haw Sessions, celebrating 10 years of Hee Haw! Four club shows and two late night sessions because well, we all love a good lock in. Check out our line up below…..
o Thurs 1st Feb > Johnny Dowd & Melle De Boer | Leeds
With support from Joana Serrat
This won’t be a sleepy singer-songwriter night. It will be electric, chaotic, hard and ugly, soft and beautiful.
o Fri 2nd Feb > Colter Wall + Ian Noe | Leeds
“Colter Wall is bar none the best young singer/songwriter I’ve seen in 20 years” – Steve Earle
o Fri 2nd Feb > The Lock Inn ft. Steven Adams | Leeds
Exclusive solo show from Broken Family Band frontman.
o Sat 3rd Feb > The Americans & Withered Hand | Leeds
Loose Music artists & stars of American Epic, The Americans are one of our new favourite bands. Echoes of Springsteen, Guthrie, Chuck Berry, Tom Petty & Creedence.
o Sat 3rd Feb > The Lock Inn ft. MAIA | Leeds
A genre busting mix of sweet stunning vocal harmonies over funky blissed out grooves. For best results, see a live show!
Amen Dunes (aka the project of New York-based Damon McMahon) will release his fifth album, Freedom, on 30 March via Sacred Bones Records.
Amen Dunes last released an album in 2014. The album was called Love . The tune below is called “Miki Dora” . Here’s what McMahon has to say about the track.
“Miki Dora was arguably the most gifted and innovative surfer of his generation and the foremost opponent of surfing’s commercialization. He was also a lifelong criminal and retrograde: a true embodiment of the distorted male psyche. He was a living contradiction; both a symbol of free-living and inspiration, and of the false heroics American culture has always celebrated. With lyrics of regret and redemption at the end of one’s youth, the song is about Dora, and McMahon, but ultimately it is a reflection on all manifestations of mythical heroic maleness and its illusions.”
On the surface, Freedom is a reflection on growing up, childhood friends who ended up in prison or worse, male identity, McMahon’s father, and his mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of recording. The characters that populate the musical world of the album are a colourful mix of reality and fantasy. Each character portrait is a representation of McMahon, of masculinity, and of his past.The lead single “Miki Dora”, and its accompanying video, which features 17-year old Boomer Feith with McMahon appearing as both the story’s narrator and its subject.
Of the track, McMahon says, “Miki Dora was arguably the most gifted and innovative surfer of his generation and the foremost opponent of surfing’s commercialization. He was also a lifelong criminal and retrograde: a true embodiment of the distorted male psyche. He was a living contradiction; both a symbol of free-living and inspiration, and of the false heroics American culture has always celebrated. With lyrics of regret and redemption at the end of one’s youth, the song is about Dora, and McMahon, but ultimately it is a reflection on all manifestations of mythical heroic maleness and its illusions.”
On every record, Damon McMahon’s project has transformed continuously, and Freedom is its boldest leap yet. On the surface, the album is a reflection on growing up, childhood friends who ended up in prison or worse, male identity, McMahon’s father, and his mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of recording. The themes are darker than on previous Amen Dunes albums, but it’s a darkness sublimated through grooves. The music, as a response or even a solution to the darkness, is tough and joyous, rhythmic and danceable. The album comes out March 30th.
The video for the first single from Freedom, “Miki Dora,” is out now.
The first LP, D.I.A., was a gnarled underground classic, recorded and played completely by McMahon in a trailer in upstate New York over the course of a month and left as is. The fourth and most recent LP Love, a record that enlisted Godspeed! You Black Emperor as both producers and backing band (along with an additional motley crew including Elias Bender Rønnenfelt of Iceage and Colin Stetson), featured songs confidently far removed from the damaged drug pop of Amen Dunes’ trailer-park origins.
Love took two years to make. Freedom took three. The first iteration of the album was recorded in 2016 following a year of writing in Lisbon and NYC, but it was scrapped completely. Uncertain how to move forward, McMahon brought in a powerful set of collaborators and old friends, and began anew. Along with his core band members, including Parker Kindred (Antony & The Johnsons, Jeff Buckley) on drums, came Chris Coady (Beach House) as producer and Delicate Steve on guitars. This is the first Amen Dunes record that looks back to the electronic influences of McMahon’s youth with the aid of revered underground musician Panoram from Rome. McMahon discovered Panoram’s music in a shop in London and became enamored. Following this the two became friends and here Panoram finds his place as a significant, if subtle, contributor to the record.
The bulk of the songs were recorded at the famed Electric Lady Studios in NYC (home of Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC, D’Angelo), and finished at the similarly legendary Sunset Sound in L.A., where McMahon, Nick Zinner, and session bass player extraordinaire Gus Seyffert (Beck, Bedouine) fleshed out the recordings.
On the surface, Freedom is a reflection on growing up, childhood friends who ended up in prison or worse.
The characters that populate the musical world of Freedom are a colourful mix of reality and fantasy: father and mother, Amen Dunes, teenage glue addicts and Parisian drug dealers, ghosts above the plains, fallen surf heroes, vampires, thugs from Naples and thugs from Houston, the emperor of Rome, Jews, Jesus, Tashtego, Perseus, even McMahon himself. Each character portrait is a representation of McMahon, of masculinity, and of his past.
The themes are darker than on previous Amen Dunes albums, but it’s a darkness sublimated through grooves. The music, as a response or even a solution to the darkness, is tough and joyous, rhythmic and danceable. The combination of a powerhouse rhythm section, Delicate Steve’s guitar prowess filtered through.
It’s a sound never heard before on an Amen Dunes record, but one that was always asking to emerge. Eleven songs span a range of emotions, from contraction to release and back again. ‘Blue Rose’ and ‘Calling Paul the Suffering’ are pure, ecstatic dance songs. ‘Skipping School’ and ‘Miki Dora’ are incantations of a mythical heroic maleness and its illusions. ‘Freedom’ and ‘Believe’ offer a street tough’s future-gospel exhalation, and the funk-grime grit of ‘L.A.’ closes the album, projecting a musical hint of things to come.
The Spook School have released the video for new single ‘Body’.
The track is the third single taken from their excellent third album ‘Could It Be Different?‘, due for release on January 26th.
Speaking of the track and video, vocalist Nye Todd explained:“With ‘Body’ specifically, I wrote it from a kind of positive place, in that I’d been exercising lots and was proud of what I’d achieved and how much more capable I felt in my own body, but I was also aware of how much shame, dysphoria and internalised transphobia that I still felt towards myself. I got to wondering if everyone felt that to a certain extent, and that’s where the song lyrics kind of came from.”
‘Body’ is distinguishable as a Spook School single within seconds, with their unique Scottish indie punk blend taking a timely topic and turning it into a single flowing with relatable lyrics. ‘Could It Be Different?’ out January 26th on Alcopop! Records (UK) and Slumberland Records.
Anna Burch is an indie pop singer-songwriter working out of Detroit. Years ago, she was the front of a band called Failed Flowers, and she had been in other bands, but she took some time away from music to go to grad school. After that, she moved to Detroit and started a solo career. She got a big break when she was spotted by fellow Michigander Fred Thomas, who was once a member of His Name is Alive, and was also the front of the indie pop band Saturday Looks Good to Me. Thomas has also put out a few solo records and contributed to dozens of albums across many genres. As the story goes, he sent her demo to Polyvinyl Records with a note that said “This is not a drill. You need to hear this”. They liked it, and they quickly signed her. Her debut album “Quit the Curse” will be out on February 2nd
This has all happened very quickly. Thomas sent the demos in the summer of 2017. She had a bunch of songs written, and she had also caught the ear of Collin Dupuis, who has mixed records by Angel Olsen, Mynabirds, The Black Keys, Grant-Lee Phillips, and many others. He helped her fine-tune those songs, and the end result is Quit the Curse. Only six months passed from the time Thomas said “listen to this” to the time Polyvinyl said “We’re putting this record out”. They announced the signing in late October and started promoting the album in November. I’ve been getting emails about a couple of the songs, and with the release date just a couple of weeks away, it’s time.
Some say she sounds like the brilliant no-fucks-given mid-90s indie rock of Liz Phair. Some people say she’s like Courtney Barnett. I get that, but I hear other things like the precision, power and punk-lite beauty of That Dog combined with the gritty and angular but silky smoothness of Julie Doiron. Boil all of that down, add a dash of Mitski, and I get Anna Burch. I love all of her songs that I’ve heard, but I love this one the most:
“Tea-Soaked Letter” is taken from Anna Burch’s debut album Quit the Curse, out 2/2/18.
The music world’s focus doesn’t tend to drift far from the English speaking countries of the Western world, One artist who has become of note though is songwriter Nadia Schilling. Hailing from Caldas da Rainha in Western Portugal, Nadia put out her excellent, slow-burning debut album, “Above The Trees”, back in November, and it seems only now to be garnering the attention is so richly deserves.
Written on the archetypal battered old acoustic guitar; Above The Trees is a record that emerges from a difficult time in Nadia’s life, her songwriting inspired by her mother’s death. At times it feels deeply personal, Nadia exposing her own feelings, whilst simultaneously penning a beautiful tribute to loss and the act of grieving itself. Nodding equally to the raw, honesty of Cat Power or Elliot Smith, and the bruised beauty of Portishead, it is a record of breath-taking intensity that demand’s the listeners full attention to truly deliver its stunning charms. Above TheTrees is a record spreading on word of mouth, and one that is thoroughly deserving of.
Nashville based alt-popper, Molly Jewell first came to our attention last year with excellent single, I Wish You Loved Me Like You Started To. The track was a flamboyant and passionate introduction; Molly’s vocal possessing the same raw, rasping quality of Margaret Glaspy, accompanied by vivacious piano flourishes, buzzing synths and thrilling, fuzzy guitar. The track was the first taster of Molly’s debut EP, due out at the end of January.
The EP is soon to be preceded by the superb new single, I Can’t Fill You Up; Molly’s exploration into a relationship where, “you feel like someone needs you, but at the same time, you’re never enough for them”. Musically the track is a more muted affair, warm Rhodes-like piano and sombre guitar lines accompanying a downbeat, bruised vocal line as Molly sings, “I can’t do it anymore, I can’t fill you up, I have some of what it takes but I don’t have enough”. Singer-songwriters as intriguing as Molly Jewell don’t come along all that often, a musician with the pop-nous and experimental vision to make a huge splash in the year ahead.
Sink into the autumn-colored, nostalgic world of singer-songwriter, Molly Jewell, where moody arrangements cradle her lilting confessions about the complications of human relationships, heartache of many kinds, and wandering through it all.
Written & Performed by Molly Jewell. Produced & Arranged by Goffrey Moore.
Performed & Tracked at Club Roar, Nashville TN; Engineered by Colin Dupuis.
Overdub tracking (acoustic guitar, vocals, synthesizers, electric bass, Rhodes) at Goffrey Moore’s studio, Nashville TN; Engineered by Goffrey Moore.
Overdub tracking (acoustic piano & vibraphone) at Middletree Studios, Nashville TN; engineered by Joe Pisapia.
Mixed & Edited by Goffrey Moore. Mastered by Alex McCullough at True East Mastering, Nashville TN.
Vocals, Wurtlitzer, Rhodes, Piano, Synthesizers, Vibraphone & Various Musical Toys: Molly Jewell
Electric & Acoustic Guitars: Goffrey Moore
Electric Bass: Steve Mackey
Drums & Percussion: Steven Nistor
Background Vocals: Goffrey Moore & Molly Jewell
