The Fat Angel Sings

For their 26th album, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard swap the widescreen concepts of their recent albums for the intimacy of six good friends collaborating on the most bonhomie-laden set they’ve yet committed to wax. For “Flight b741”, bandleader Stu Mackenzie says King Gizzard “wanted to make something that was primal, instinctual, more ‘from the gut’ – just people in a room, doing what feels right. We wanted to make something fun.”

Tapping into the country-fried 70s American rock on which they were all raised – along with the ornery garage-rock roots from which their mighty discography sprang – “Flight b741” is lightning caught inside a bottle. Across its 10 ragged, glorious barnburners, King Gizzard flesh out rough skeletons of songs with their inspired improvisations, inimitable grooves and a unique pass-the-mic approach to vocals that saw every member of the band raise their voice and sing.

“We’re having a lot of fun, but we’re often singing about some pretty heavy shit,” Mackenzie adds, “and probably hitting on some deeper, more universal themes than usual. It’s not a sci-fi record, it’s about life and stuff. But the record is like a really fun weekend with your mates, you know? Like, proper fun.”

King Gizz are back in their funk bag with “Hog Calling Contest,” the second single off their forthcoming 26th studio album “Flight b741”. The track chronicles exactly what’s shown on the album cover: pigs flying. This absolute pork puller of a tune sees Stu Mackenzie and co. stretching their technical abilities to the absolute limit with complex vocal harmonies and a bassline that refuses to quit. Complete with ad-libbed pig squeals, “Hog Calling Contest” sets up what will surely be a standout record from the ever-prolific King Gizzard discography.

Amby: Harmonica, Sax, Vocals Cavs: Drums, Percussion, Vocals Cookie: Organ, Vocals Joey: Guitar, Vocals Lukey: Vocals Stu: Bass, Guitar, Vocals

“A huge thing for this record was to make it feel as close to our live show as possible,” says Tom Sharkett of W.H. Lung’s latest album. “We didn’t want it to sound live but we wanted to capture the excitement of the live performances.”

This is something that has become paramount to the group in recent years as they have undeniably blossomed into one of the most joyous and arresting live bands in the country. “The reason I’m in a band is to play live music,” says singer Joe Evans. “For me, music is live music. That’s what it’s for, to be played with people.”

The five-piece band, also featuring Chris Mulligan, Hannah Peace, and Alex Mercer-Main, decided to try something new on their third album after two incredibly successful collaborations with previous producer Matt Peel. In order to capture the energy, spirit and dynamism of their live shows, they relocated to Sheffield to work with Ross Orton (MIA, Arctic Monkeys, Working Men’s Club) who was able to harness this side of the band to remarkable effect. “Ross is the Sheffield Steve Albini,” says Evans. “He’s the king of not overthinking it and trusting the process of the art of recording songs. He was always there to stop us fucking around with cerebral stuff and get it down.” Sharkett echoes this too: “He was the exact producer we needed without us even realising. His productions and mixes are bombastic, lively and in your face and that’s exactly what we wanted.”

However, while this album is rooted in a sense of capturing a moment and a sparky liveness, that’s not to say it’s a raw or ragged record. It is still a meticulously composed, delicately layered and pristinely produced piece of work that, in true W.H. Lung style, runs the gauntlet from dance to pop to indie while still capturing that distinctly unique quality that is unquestionably their own. “It was a really big thing for me to realise what made us sound like us on this record,” says Sharkett. “I think the album sounds a lot more confident and self assured because of it. Some songs sound just so much like Lung and I’m really proud of that. I’m not sure we’ve done that as consistently across the other records.”

While the band have drilled deeper into finding their own singular identity, it’s not a record resting on its laurels. It’s a significant leap forward, expanding on their solid foundations while also breaking new ground. “The big difference with this record is its directness in every sense,” says Sharkett. “The song writing is more upfront. Previously we’d focused a lot on vibe and production as opposed to just writing songs. The overall mission here was to revert to a classic song writing structure and for the production to come afterwards.” And so what you have on this record are deeply considered and well-crafted songs, then recorded with blistering intensity in the moment, and then given a touch of experimentation afterwards. Then throw in Orton’s contributions to the band and it’s proven to be a real winning formula. “He brought a real dose of magic to the songs we’d written,” says Sharkett. “And brought an extra bit of wonk and quirkiness each time.”

The band’s ability to write more traditional and conventional songs is clearly a skill they’ve taken to with ease, at times there’s an almost Springsteen-like quality – but if he’d ever had an ecstasy period – to tracks such as ‘Thinner Wine’ and ‘Bloom and Fade’. While ‘How to Walk’ was constructed with one thing only in mind: that it would absolutely slay on stage. “I can’t wait to play this live,” says Evans. “We wanted a song to represent our live set, a new big one, and this is it.” Once again it leans towards the anthemic, with its driving, propulsive charge complete with incandescent synths and vocal melodies so irresistible you can already hear them being sung in unison by a crowd.

It’s an incredibly difficult feat to pull off a record that is more rooted in traditional songcraft while also capturing the power of a live performance, as well as pushing sonics into experimental new directions while working with a brand new collaborator. But here the band has managed to do just that.  And the album’s closing song ‘I Will Set Fire To The House’ is a perfect example of such a thing. It’s a song that feels immaculately constructed but also very much alive and of the moment as its radiating synths engulf from the off, and Evans’ vocal is silky but powerful and in perfect symbiosis with Peace’s. It’s a song that captures the endless joys of music playing long into the night. “It may be a bit of a bloody bombastic way to end an album saying ‘and we’ll dance into the sunrise’,” says Evans. “But fuck it.”

“One of the greatest and most influential rock bands of all time is back with 13 tracks of pioneering and rip-roaring rock ‘n’ roll. Deep Purple continue their charge of recent years, releasing hit albums and filling arenas around the world. They are fronted by Ian Gillan, accompanied by the masterful bassist Roger Glover, the powerhouse drummer Ian Paice, and the maestro on keyboards Don Airey. This is the band’s first  album with sensational guitarist Simon McBride, who seamlessly slotted in when long time member Steve Morse left in 2022.

But Deep Purple is more than just their members and “=1 “ embodies the essence and attitude of their 1970s incarnation possibly more than any other album in recent memory. With the legendary Bob Ezrin once again producing, the record evokes the pioneering band’s classic sound, without relying on nostalgia. The enigmatic title ‘=1’ symbolises the idea that in a world growing ever more complex, everything eventually simplifies down to a single, unified essence. Everything equals one.”

 With three consecutive No.1 albums in their back pocket and a new energy powering them forward, =1 represents Deep Purple at their pinnacle.

Produced by the legendary Bob Ezrin, this record captures the band’s pioneering classic sound without relying on nostalgia, embodying the essence and attitude of their 1970s incarnation possibly more than any other recent album.

“Edwyn Collins’s tart cocktail of self-deprecation and self-assurance.” Pete Paphides’ beautiful, magnificent book Broken Greek is a love letter to the music that moves him, regardless of whether it does so for anyone else, or even if others in vast numbers appreciate it. His musical awakening took place in the late ’70s or early ’80s, so we get some wonderful prose about Orange Juice, the band that Edwyn Collins led before his solo career. Orange Juice’s small output, and fewer hits, nevertheless had a disproportionate influence on music in Scotland and beyond. A recent history and museum exhibit of Scottish pop was named “Rip It Up” after the band’s best-known single.

After Orange Juice split, Collins continued to be a vital cog in the machine of the Scottish music scene. He produced creditable collaborations with, for instance, Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins and Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera. All recognized his talent, not least himself, but it did not always translate itself to hits.

That changed in 1995 with the release of “A Girl Like You.” The worldwide hit encompasses a remarkable range of Collins’ skills and influences.

Collins uses a B&M Fuzzbox to achieve the distinctive riff, but enhances the refrain with a clean-sounding vibraphone. Sex Pistol Paul Cook played the drums that are not part of the four-on-the-floor sample. It is a sophisticated musical confection, And then there are the lyrics, which add a layer of universality. Who has not started a romance with the belief that their partner is unique? With an unparalleled set of lovely traits, never combined in a single, heavenly creation. That moves everyone.

In 2005 Collins suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, and was near death, and the after-effects of that illness have affected him ever since. However, with the love and support of his family, he returned to music making, including live performances, where his talent and self-belief continue to shine through.

A song characterized by a fuzzy, accomplished guitar, and driven by an insistent drum beat. Collins might have written it for Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney. On this Jimmy Fallon segment, they take their new lover to their garage band rehearsal room, not bothering to appreciate or note the clean notes from the original percussion, but adding guitar virtuosity.

The expanded reissue – which includes the original album remastered as well as live tracks and session rarities from the era – will be released on September 13th. Following the release of 1973’s “Over-nite Sensation“, which was also credited to the Mothers, Zappa began assembling “Apostrophe” from new recordings and some archival tracks dating back a few years.

The album was a hit for Zappa, reaching the Top 10 in 1974 – the only record of his to do so. It includes his first charting single, “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow,” It also features the fan favourite “Cosmik Debris.”

The five-CD and one Blu-ray Super Deluxe Edition of “Apostrophe (‘)” 50th Anniversary Edition includes 75 tracks, including a 2024 remaster, alternate takes, new mixes and two 1974 concert recordings from Colorado Springs and Dayton. Seven tracks of these live tracks were first issued on the out-of-print album “The Crux of the Biscuit” in 2016.

In addition to the Super Deluxe Edition set, the new “Apostrophe (‘)” will be released as a two-LP and 7-inch single edition, including white vinyl in a yellow-snow-splatter version; the single is a reproduction of “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” in a new “cosmic glow in the dark with yellow-snow splatter vinyl.”

A previously unreleased take of “Uncle Remus (Piano and Vocal Mix 2024)”. This newly mixed version is culled from the original 16-track master, featuring isolated piano and tack piano tracks by George Duke along with a spotlighting of FZ and The Ikettes’ vocal master tracks. It’s but one of the multiple versions of this classic Zappa/Duke joint composition that appears in the Super Deluxe Edition box set.

A Blu-ray in the box contains the core  album newly remixed in Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround sound by Karma Auger and Erich Gobel at Studio1LA, the same team behind the acclaimed mixes of 2022’s “Waka/Wazoo” and 2023’s “Over-Nite Sensation” release. Plus it includes Zappa’s original four-channel Quadraphonic mix (available again for the first time since 1974) as well as the hi-res stereo 2024 remaster. The lavish Super Deluxe Edition box comes complete with a 52-page booklet and unseen photos from the archives of Sam Emerson, the man who shot the now-iconic closeup cover image of Zappa, in addition to liner notes and new essays by noted British journalist Simon Prentis and, as always, Vaultmeister Travers.

In addition to the Super Deluxe Edition, there will be two separate vinyl releases: A two-LP + 7” single edition with both 180-gram audiophile LPs appearing on white vinyl with yellow-snow splatter, as cut from the original analog tape by Grundman. The 7” of “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow” is a reproduction of the original 1974 single — but this time, it comes on glow-in-the-dark-with-yellow-splatter vinyl. The single-LP edition features the original  album’s nine tracks on 180-gram audiophile gold vinyl. Additionally, the Super Deluxe Edition will be available digitally, as will a Dolby Atmos mix of the core 
 album’s nine tracks.

“Gum / Ambrose Kenny-Smith — consisting of Jay Watson (Gum, Pond, Tame Impala) and Kenny-Smith (King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Murlocs) — are about to release a new collaborative  album, “Ill Times”, an  album born out of the friendship between that began over a decade ago. Watson and Kenny-Smith first met at the bar in the hazy hours after Tame Impala played in Kenny-Smith’s hometown of Geelong in 2009. But it wasn’t until Kenny-Smith’s bands came to prominence a couple of years later that the bond between these groups was formed. 

Co-founder of Pond and touring member of Tame Impala, Jay Watson, also makes music as Gum. “Gum is my brain, unfiltered,” Watson says. A labour of love and an exercise in joy, written and recorded with Ambrose Kenny-Smith,

“Ill Times” is an album that takes swings at losers with god complexes, that builds the Impressions’ slow-burning ballad “Fool For You” into something so massive and brawny it’d give Jack White the willies, and closes with Watson and Kenny-Smith delivering righteous rough justice to an unabashed villain, and then riding off into the sunset like the heroes they are. The  album is easily as much fun as the duo had making it, and that was a truly ridiculous amount of fun.”

‘Ill Times’ album out July 19th, 2024

At 9:30 p.m., the Rolling Stones hit the stage with a somewhat de rigueur “Start Me Up.” The overwhelming size of their stage was immediately apparent: 180 feet wide by 65 feet deep, flanked by 46-foot-tall digital screens that showed the band and their eight auxiliary musicians from multiple angles.

The Rolling Stones dug out another rarity for their second of two shows in Inglewood, CA, last night (July 13th). Mick Jagger and company delivered “Fool to Cry” from 1976 album “Black and Blue” for the third-from-final show of their Hackney Diamonds tour. The ballad, recorded soon after Mick Taylor had quit the band, reached No. 10 when released as the album’s lead single, and featured session guitarist Wayne Perkins.

Favourably compared with another ballad, “Angie,” . While they performed “Fool to Cry” 42 times on tour during the year of its release, last night was only the 14th time they’d done so since 1977.

The audience enthusiastically responded to a sing-along, gospel-inspired “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Other highlights included “Gimme Shelter,” featuring an incendiary showcase from backing singer Chanel Haynes; and the extended “Midnight Rambler” that showed off Jagger’s harmonica skills and a bluesy guitar interplay by Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood.

“Whenever we have played live shows, ‘Norwegian Wood’ is the song that we talk about when we all come offstage; we are always like, ‘Wow, that one was really special.’” Risi jumps in: “Playing live is a massive part of who we are. We’ve gigged so much, and embraced the reception to [‘Norwegian Wood’] so many times now that it felt like the obvious choice.

Beyond the release of their debut single, they are gearing up for festival appearances across the UK, “If there’s a ‘buzz’ around us as a band, then we’ll keep it going,” Parlour says firmly. We’ve worked really hard for this – and this is just the beginning.”

Courtney Love even shared a live recording of Picture Parlour to her Instagram story earlier this year, praising the quartet’s “songs and swagger”. Risi giddily holds up a screenshot of the post as she talks: “It gives me a lump in my throat when I think about the fact that a legend knows who we are.”

Parlour and Risi met while studying philosophy and music respectively in Manchester, having previously been part of other various bands and projects. Yet Risi was the only woman in her class of guitar players – and was often made subject to patronising comments from her peers. In an industry that continues to sneer at emerging female-identifying acts – Panic Shack and The Last Dinner Party have both been subject to unsolicited critique online in recent months .

In 1979, two school-kids all hopped-up on punk-rock started their own group in their hometown of Hawthorne, Los Angeles (birthplace of the Beach Boys) and soon found themselves opening shows for notorious scene pioneers Black Flag. Jeff McDonald was fifteen, his brother Steven McDonald only eleven. But that didn’t stop their group from becoming one of the most remarkable, enduring and unique outfits punk-rock ever brought together.

2024, then, marks Redd Kross’s forty-fifth birthday – an important anniversary for any group whose heart pulses at 45RPM – and the brothers celebrate the event with a veritable multimedia extravaganza. There’s a memoir, Now “You’re One Of Us”, author Dan Epstein telling the group’s story in the McDonalds’ unmistakable (and occasionally contrary) voices. A brilliant rockumentary, “Born Innocent”, directed by Andrew Reich, will premiere later in the year.

Most exciting of all, this new album – an eponymous double-album, no less, packed with eighteen of their sharpest, most addictive songs yet. These years of joyful service to rock’n’roll have seen Redd Kross evolve into a killer pop-rock concern, dealing in dayglo power-chords, choruses as tall as skyscrapers and a lyric sheet thick with acid couplets and arch pop cultural references their loyal following will gobble up like quaaludes.

“Redd Kross” is part of a 45th-anniversary celebration campaign that includes Reich’s documentary and an upcoming memoir (Now You’re One of Us), and it’s a self-reflexive exercise in every way, from the cover art (a ruby-tinged makeover of the Beatles’ White Album, the first record Jeff bought as a kid) to the uncharacteristically wistful, introspective songwriting. But seeing as Redd Kross are the rare band who can celebrate 45 years in showbiz while one founding member is still in their 50s, the eternally youthful McDonalds are still committed to chasing new glories.