The Fat Angel Sings

Live recording from The Myrrors’ appearance at one of the first Fuzz Club Festivals held in London, 2015. This show was one of the final dates of a two-month tour traversing almost the entire European continent, and although there is perhaps some weariness to be heard in these grooves, it is also one of the best-recorded samples of this era of the band. Most of the material comes from the then-just-released “Arena Negra” album, though fan-favourite “Warpainting” gets a radical reworking behind several otherwise-unrecorded instrumentals and improvisations. This was without a doubt the most guitar-heavy lineup of the band, and one can hear shades of everything from Trad Gras och Stenar to White Heaven in the twisted interplay of Nik Rayne and Connor Gallaher’s strings (as a side note this combination is also on good display in their sporadic side-project, Curved Entrances).

Following this tour the band underwent a sonic shakeup and begin to push their sound even further towards the cracked, cyclical jazz and minimalist textures of 2016’s (arguably transitional) Entranced Earth and 2017’s entirely guitarless Hasta La Victoria.

From Picadilly Records:

“Back in 2015 Arizona-based desert drone outfit The Myrrors were invited to perform at the Fuzz Club Festival London festival hosted by Fuzz Club Records and local promoters Bad Vibrations. Taking their otherworldly ‘Sonoran trance music’ to the stage of London Fields Brewhouse, The Myrrors unleashed a breathtakingly transcendental and all-consuming performance that across its three ‘parts’ – rarely deviating from the solitary note held throughout the set – spectacularly joined the dots between everything from classical minimalism and drone music, through to psychedelic rock, desert blues, Eastern folk and free jazz; perhaps the sort of music La Monte Young might have made if he tuned his mystical drone meditations towards rockier territory and swapped the artsy NYC avant-garde scene for the Sonoran desert that The Myrrors call home. Some four years on from that now-mythologised show and Fuzz Club, having sat impatiently on the live audio for years, will finally be releasing the performance on vinyl and digital for all to immerse themselves in.” 

released August 14th, 2021

Captured live in London, UK on November 14th, 2015.

Nik Rayne: lead vocals, electric guitar, flute, bells, percussion, loops
Grant Beyschau: drums, percussion, transverse flute
Miguel Urbina: amplified viola, loops, percussion
Connor Gallaher: electric guitar, backing vocals, bells, percussion, loops
Kellen Fortier: electric bass, loops

Joe Pernice has been writing for a long time—most of his life, in fact—and has crafted a remarkable catalogue that boldly reinterprets and recasts classic American pop. “Who Will You Believe” may be his most moving and nuanced album yet; it’s certainly his timeliest. “These songs were all written during the same time period,” he says, “and they all seemed to tap into a mood I was in at the time. I go through spells where I’m a certain way for three or four months. I might be more reticent than usual, or more outgoing. With all of my records—and especially with this one—the songs all feel like they belong together, probably because they all arrived during the same stretch of time.”

In a single six-month stretch he was left reeling from the deaths of three close friends, including David Berman, poet and songwriter for Silver Jews and Purple Mountains, and Gary Stewart, the Rhino Records co-founder and tireless Pernice Brothers supporter since their first album in 1998. “That was such a bad patch when David and Gary both took their own lives. And my cousin Joe Harvard, who started Fort Apache Studios in Boston and was like a brother to me—he died, too. It was such a tough year. I was thinking about them a lot and watching how divided America had become. I was doing my best to try and take nothing for granted.”

Pernice has been releasing albums for over 25 years. And with age comes a greater patience and an immense appreciation for the act of creation. “Who Will You Believe” showcases a beautiful balance between such sadness and moments of solemnity with warm humor and camaraderie. 

released April 5, 2024

Los Angeles-based emo and pop punk-inspired outfit Spanish Love Songs present their fourth studio album. Their first record since the pandemic struck and produced by the band themselves alongside engineer Collin Pastore, the twelve songs that make up ‘No Joy’ have a certain defiance in them, a determination to find happiness in the moment. RIYL: Joyce Manor, Titus Andronicus, The Hotelier, and Origami Angel.

Album release date is August 25th 2023

Cardiff’s Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard returns with Skinwalker – a garage- rock romp and follow-up to their Welsh Music Prize nominated debut album Backhand Deals. Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard use the Duran Duran or Talk Talk guide to band names but apply it to buzzards and add an extra ‘buzzard’ free of charge.

Taking raw rock ‘n’ roll cues from tracks frontman Thomas Rees produced for emerging talent – such as Panic Shack, Do Nothing and The Bug Club – and teased by recently released singles “Chew” and “Therapy”, the record marks the band’s move towards a heavier and disquieting sound, inspired by Rees‘ revitalised devotion to acts such as Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees and Black Sabbath.

Sometimes you have to move backwards to move forwards. Just ask punk cultural commentators Bodega, whose new album sees them carve a new future from fuzz-soaked, consumerism-skewering shards of their past. “Our Brand Could Be YR Life” is Bodega’s first album release through Chrysalis Records. “It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for years,” guitarist and vocalist Ben Hozie explains of Our Brand Could Be Yr Life – a collection of catchy indie-rock ruminations on the slow-creep of corporate-think into youth culture, first written eight years ago. 

Making the leap to Chrysalis after three independently released albums on “What’s Your Rupture?“, NYC punks Bodega present their fourth LP. “Our Brand Could Be Yr Life” touches on a wide variety of indie and alternative rock sub-genres and explores the creeping corporatisation of underground culture in the internet age, executed with the quintet’s typically spiky panache.

“Our Brand Could Be YR Life’s” 15 tracks explore indie-rock subgenres, self-critique and everything in between. “I think it’s our best- sounding record to date,” says Hozie, “It’s got dance-punk. There’s some shoegaze on there.

There’s slacker rock on there. There’s psychedelic rock on there. R.E.M, too. We wanted to be another band in a long stream of missionaries, proselytising a certain type of rock subculture.”

With time, we come to understand the way the joy of connection is mirrored by the void of loss, how the constancy of love is matched only by the impermanence of life, the simple idea that we could not create light if we did not risk the dark – we’d never need to.

So it is with Metz, a band once known for blowing out eardrums with songs of joyous rage who have, over their past few records, begun exploring ways to turn abrasiveness into atmospherics, the evolution of their sound not only a reflection of the maturing of the band themselves but also of a changed world that demands nuance and compassion to comprehend and to survive.

It was a journey already underway on 2020’s “Atlas Vending“, but one that reaches new heights on “Up On Gravity Hill”, where the Canadian trio creates a kaleidoscopic sonic world as tender as it is dark, aided once again by engineer Seth Manchester (Mdou Moctar, Lingua Ignota, Battles, The Body). Deep, detailed, and unyieldingly personal, it is not only Metz’s most powerful record to date but also their most beautiful.

Still three punks from Ontario at heart, guitarist and vocalist Alex Edkins, drummer Hayden Menzies, and bassist Chris Slorach waste no time as opener “No Reservation/Love Comes Crashing” sweeps in like a wave, sonically and thematically setting the scene for the record to come. A dynamic song about feeling suspended in stasis, layers of dissonance melt into a restlessly heady outro marked by escalating crescendos of shimmering noise that reach for the stars—and is that a violin quivering brightly beneath those elegant swells of guitar, those charging drum fills, those intricate bass lines? It is indeed, courtesy of composer Owen Pallett; his presence an immediate indicator that Metz are thinking more cinematically than ever before.

The change is partially inspired by Edkins’ work as a scorer for film and television and his pop-leaning solo project, Weird Nightmare, where, he says, he learned to write more intuitively, letting his emotions lead the way. But make no mistake: “Up On Gravity Hill” is a total band effort, the work of three musicians who have been playing together for over a decade, with all the trust that entails.

For those who believe in the power of the rock band to exemplify the highest resonance of human connection, there is much on “Up On Gravity Hill” to lift the spirit, a puzzle worth repeated listening to unlock or just to get lost in again and again. Rather than the music being flattened into a single plane, the band explores “the space above the cymbals,” resulting in some of the most spacious, sympathetic, and accessible songs—could we call them pop?—of their career. If this seems contradictory, well, Metz has always been something of a contradiction. “We’ve never been heavy enough for metal or hardcore purists, but we’re way too heavy for indie rock. We just don’t have a lane—and that’s okay. We exist outside the lines of delineation. I think this record is even more like that,” says Edkins.

Thrilling debut album “This Could Be Texas” from Leeds indie frontrunners English Teacher. Singles of ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’, ‘Nearly Daffodils’ and ‘Mastermind Specialism’, which were all A-listed on the BBC 6 Music playlist, English Teacher’s remarkable ascent continues to reach new levels, having completed sold-out debut UK and US headline runs last autumn, following their thrilling debut appearance on Later With…Jools Holland.

Lead singer Lily Fontaine explains, “I want this album to feel like you’ve gone to space, and it turns out its almost identical to Doncaster. It’s about in-betweens, it’s about home, and it’s about Desire Paths.” In several songs, Fontaine reflects on growing up as a mixed-race individual in a place, she says, “where many didn’t have any tolerance towards people who are different” in a post-Brexit landscape. 

The debut album from the Leeds indie ascendants, English Teacher, goes way beyond their post-punk tags to showcase an incredible versatility, depth & range to their sound – from joyous pop to inventive instrumentation to melancholic comedowns – all with cracking guitar riffs & melodies.

‘Bursting Out’, will be reissued on 3CD/3DVD boxset with an array of extras, remixed by the legendary Steven Wilson, out 21st June 2024. Jethro Tull’s first live album, recorded at various locations during the European “Heavy Horses” tour in May and June 1978.

• CD 1: Jethro Tull live: Bursting Out (Part 1) – A Steven Wilson stereo remix, Soundcheck recordings – A Steven Wilson stereo remix. Tracks 7, 10, 11 (full version) & 12-16 previously unreleased

• CD 2: Jethro Tull live: Bursting Out (Part 2) – A Steven Wilson stereo remix, Soundcheck recordings – A Steven Wilson stereo remix. Tracks 11-13 previously unreleased

• CD 3: contains an edited version of the 1978 Madison Square Garden Show which was issued in 2009 but now mixed by Steven Wilson

• DVDs 1 & 2 have the remixed tracks in 96/24 stereo and 5.1 surround plus the flat transfers of the original album at 96/24 stereo

• DVD 3 has the full 93-minute MSG show including 50+ minutes of video which was part of a transatlantic broadcast with the BBC and Radio 1. The audio is 48/24 stereo and 5.1 surround

• Hardbacked 96-page book

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson said: “A live extravaganza from the 70s Jethro Tull, this was recorded over several nights in different venues on a portable 8-track tape recorder and transferred to 2” multitrack when I got home after the tours. I had to listen all through to many shows and pick the best live versions. But much of it was, at least, from the concert in Bern, Switzerland where dear Claude Nobs came to introduce the band in his inimitable style. Also featuring on this box set collection is the live concert from Madison Square Gardens recorded a few months later and shown live on BBC TV in the UK. A scary experience for the band as it was, we were told, the first time a live rock concert had been the subject of a live satellite broadcast. The new edition also includes a 96-page booklet with photos, an interview with Ian Anderson, about the making of “Bursting Out“, tour info and excerpts from crew members Kenny Wylie and David Morris.

The band line-up at this time was a fine-tuned machine and, although missing the unwell John Glascock for the MSG show, it serves as a fine testimony for the many wonderful shows we did in the 70s, before general touring fatigue and burn-out began a year or so later. Enjoy vintage Tull at its 70s best!”

Jethro Tull are the cover stars of the new issue of Prog Magazine, on sale tomorrow, and today the band announce a new reissue of their classic 1978 live album “Bursting Out” as the next release in the band’s ongoing box set reissues campaign. “Bursting Out: The Inflated Edition” will be released through Rhino Records in June 21st.

UK duo The KVB call their new album “dystopian pop” which honestly I think would apply to everything they’ve ever released. “Tremors” is straight-up darkwave post-punk that borrows from the best: basslines from The Cure, synths and vocals from New Order/Joy Division, and the sweep (but not the bombast) of Sisters of Mercy. Nicholas Wood and Kat Day know how to construct satisfying, hooky songs and really understand genre sonics.

“Tremors” sees Manchester-based cold wave duo The KVB return to the darker sound that embodied their earliest releases whilst retaining the infectious energy of their previous album “Unity” which MOJO described as having a “sense of wonderment throughout”. The band have dubbed their sound on “Tremors” as ‘dystopian pop’, and wrote it with the live show in mind; full of energy, hooks and dynamic moments.

Writing the album between Manchester and Bristol, the band have drawn on their own back catalogue and the music that inspired them at the very beginning of their artistic journey. The end result is the most complete album from The KVB to date, full of emotive impact and hooks presented in a uniquely shadowy atmosphere with an idiosyncratic detachment that adds to the cinematic quality of their sound.

On that note, “Tremors” is their biggest, best sounding record yet with a few curveballs in the mix, like the widescreen pop sheen on “In The Silence” and the sexy noir atmosphere and extremely satisfying chorus on “Overload.” There are no shortage of groups who sound like this, but few do it as well as The KVB.

The Pernice Brothers will release their new album “Who Will You Believe?” on April 6th, and they’ve just shared “I Don’t Need That Anymore,” which is a gorgeous he-said-she-said duet with Neko Case.

“‘I Don’t Need That Anymore’ is one of the rare songs of mine that started with a lyric hook instead of a melody,” says Joe Pernice. “My wife and my mother were looking at the latter’s sixty-six-year-old wedding album. My wife said to my mother, ‘Wow! You Had some figure.’ Not skipping a beat, my mother said, ‘I had it when I needed it.’ I immediately sent myself a text that read ‘I’m glad I had it when I needed it. But baby, I don’t need that anymore.’ I was excited that Neko was into singing with me. No one needs me to tell of her singular voice. And being in the live room while she recorded her part legit gave me goosebumps. And she’s a really great person, which is always a plus.”

from the new album ‘Who Will You Believe’ out April 5th