The Fat Angel Sings

As the front person of celebrated indie band Cymbals Eat Guitars, guitarist and singer Joseph D’Agostino spent over a decade setting autobiographical, emotionally vivid lyrics against a backdrop of soaring and compositionally ambitious rock. After 4 critically acclaimed LPs that solidified D’Agostino’s reputation as a gifted songwriter, he chose to break from his long-term band and debut a new project: Empty Country. On 2020’s selftitled debut, D’Agostino’s storytelling lens shifted away from personal narrative and toward fiction; psychopaths, apparitions and deplorables populated a bleak and uncanny parallel version of American dystopia. Empty Country’s sprawling and sonically adventurous arrangements filled out by collaborating musicians including Rachel and Zoë Browne (Field Mouse), Kyle Gillbride (Swearin’), Zena Kay (Angel Olsen), and former CEG drummer Charlotte Anne Dole ranged from luminous jangle-pop to scorching emo-punk to narcotized Americana.

“Empty Country II”, the project’s 2nd full-length, is a thrilling expansion of that world. D’Agostino pushed himself to new places as a songwriter, crafting a collection of short stories set to music that grapple with the biggest questions now hanging over America gun violence, the addiction epidemic, and generational hopelessness among them. In 2020, he’d moved from Philadelphia to small-town New England to be closer to family, and his new locale, coupled with the dread of lockdown, inspired him to return to the haunted world from the first LP. “It’s pretty jarring to leave a city where you can safely assume you’re aligned with your neighbours on many political and social issues for somewhere more rural and conservative,” says D’Agostino, noting the Trump flags and Blue Lives Matter hood wraps that dot his new dirt road residence. Across the new album’s 9 tracks, D’Agostino introduces us to a bevy of characters: 3 generations of West Virginia clairvoyants, crushed by the weight of their secret knowledge; a group of drag queens and misfits in early ‘80s New York City; a pill mill doctor’s daughter who dabbles in necromancy; a convicted killer; a bullied kid injured and alone in the forest as night falls. Through the stories of these characters, “Empty Country II” delivers an engaging and deeply moving rumination on time, family, and the disintegration of America. Despite the stoicism of its storytelling, “Empty Country II” cuts the darkness with beauty, humour, and an earnest belief in the transcendent power of rock music.

It was recorded over 2 weeks at Fidelitorium, the renowned studio belonging to R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter. Legendary recording engineer John Agnello, whose previous collaborations with Cymbals Eat Guitars resulted in their 2014 high-water mark, “LOSE”, brought his trademark clarity and nuance to the process, helping “Empty Country II” crackle with a vital energy that imbues these stories with genuine lifeforce. Dole returned on drums for the record, her virtuosic performances lending raw power and immediacy; her twin brother Patrick joined on bass.

The group’s chemistry and deep personal history are palpable, allowing them to approach the record’s complex story with subtlety and dynamism. “FLA,” a gripping portrait of a queer tour boat pilot in the Florida Keys pining for their absent lover, was arranged from the ground so the group could incorporate Easter’s timpani. D’Agostino considers it a high point of his lengthy discography and lauds that song’s harmonica solo as “my favorite 30 seconds of music that I’ve ever been a part of.” “Empty Country II” also features some of D’Agostino’s most danceable songs like “David,” a tribute to D’Agostino’s late friend David Berman. Featuring a lyrical tapestry of Silver Jews references and surreally beautiful images, head-nodding Philly soul grooves collapse into cosmic freeform jazz-inspired sections, ornamented with inventive hand percussion, marimba flourishes, and toe-tapping piano chords.

On “Bootsie,” a runaway girl from West Virginia explores the crumbling, glorious 1980s New York City of Paris is Burning, finding community in a scene of drag queens who offer her a new way of thinking about what makes America and rock music great. Inverting the chorus of the Talking Heads’ “Heaven,” the lyrics of “Bootsie” celebrate the underdogs and misfits: “Hell is the place where everything happens / The band’s playing all the songs ever written at once / Shape the chaos, make your little story / Baby, this life’s perfect purgatory.”

Though “Empty Country II” is a record about the forces that drive Americans apart, it’s also imbued with empathic love and an understanding of what binds people to family and country in spite of the darknesses we encounter. The concept of a Great American Rock Album might scan as outdated in 2023, but with this sprawling and uncompromising epic, D’Agostino and Empty Country shatter ambivalence and confront the horrors with a community-minded sense of cautious optimism. “We may be staring into an abyss,” says D’Agostino. “But we’re all staring together.”

From the album, “Empty Country II”, released via Get Better Records/Tough Love on November 3rd 2023.

Brooklyn-based duo The Vacant Lots are dropping their new single ‘Evacuation’, the third to be lifted from their incoming ‘Interiors’ LP out October 13th on Fuzz Club Records. Arriving off the back of recent singles ‘Amnesia’ and ‘Damaged Goods’, ‘Evacuation’ sees a blistering disco-on-downers dance beat shot through with lacerating guitars and icy detached vocals.

The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud says of the track: “Evacuation2 is about internal conflicts and the duality of love and loss within a relationship. Looking inward and carving out the pain was a mantra for the whole album. You get this moment in time and space to translate complex feelings into the work. It cuts both ways. You’re creating something out of necessity that can also be shared with other people to inspire them or make them feel less alone. That’s what I’m after.”

Brian MacFadyen adds: “This track immediately resonated with both of us early on in the ‘trading demos’ phase of writing the record because of its primitive and raucous aesthetic. It taps into the original DNA of the band.”

“Sweet Sounds Of Heaven”, the second single from The Rolling Stones’ highly anticipated new studio album, “Hackney Diamonds”, is released physically on 13th October via Polydor Records. Featuring vocals by Lady Gaga, alongside Stevie Wonder on Fender Rhodes, Moog and piano. 

The Rolling Stones promised some big-name special guest participation on their new album, “Hackney Diamonds, and they definitely have made good on that tease. The Stones debuted “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” which finds Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood joined in the studio by Lady Gaga on vocals and Stevie Wonder on keys/piano.

Spanning nearly seven and a half minutes of slow-burning, gospel-influenced passion,

“Let us sing, let us scream / Let us stand proud / Let the old people still think they’re young,” sing Jagger and an exuberant Lady Gaga, pushing each other to a peak
The New York Times

“Stevie is just so wonderful to watch.. he’s kind of playing all the different things, doing a moog here, real piano there, electric piano here, unbelievable stuff”
Ronnie Wood

Limited edition 10″ single includes an etching on b-side.

Released on: 28th September 2023

Georgia-bred, Nashville-based, Grammy Award-nominated sister duo Larkin Poe have unveiled a new EP comprised of raw renditions of four of their most beloved songs titled “An Acoustic Companion”. In celebration of the release, multi-instrumentalists Rebecca and Megan Lovell decided to release the first song from the project–set to drop on October 5th via their own Tricki-Woo Records–”Bad Spell (Live Acoustic)” along with a video.

“Bad Spell” is found on Larkin Poe’s sixth studio album, “Blood Harmony”, which dropped in 2022. The fiery track stood out on the record, and the sister’s video of the acoustic performance of the song raised the curtain on the aspects of the song that made it do so.

“In our world, almost all of our songs start out ‘acoustic,’” Rebecca said, “with quiet beginnings at the kitchen table on an acoustic guitar. In recording “An Acoustic Companion“, we really enjoyed stripping a handful of our songs back down to their roots, and we hope folks will enjoy getting an earful of these songs as they originally came into being.”

“From the jump, ‘Bad Spell’ was intended to be a big, bad, swaggy rock song,” Megan added, “but we’ve found that there’s nothing more creatively freeing than challenging and burning down one’s own preconceived notions. We did just that in re-envisioning the arrangement for ‘Bad Spell’ and letting it bloom into new life.”

In the video, the Lovells sit side-by-side and seemingly effortlessly cast the song and caution out to sea with adroit guitar licks, boundless singing and tender slide guitar. Their communication is psychic and intuitive, likely resulting from playing styles that developed in harmony and evolved off itself.

“Songs contain multitudes. In recording “An Acoustic Companion“, we wanted to be able to let a handful of our songs shine in a different light than they have on previous albums,” “This introspective arrangement of ‘Bad Spell’ brings out different nuances of the song, and we love it.”

“An Acoustic Companion” will be available exclusively on limited edition 7” vinyl during Larkin Poe’s upcoming EU/UK headline tour, their biggest to date, or through pre-order via the band’s online stores. They’ll set out over the pond starting on October 6th at Trondheim, Norway’s Tapperiet Trondheim, followed by eagerly awaited shows in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, France, the U.K., the Netherlands, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, and Spain.

Welcome good people, it’s the harvest moon and time for our latest update and another new song from “i/o“. Peter’s on tour in North America, as many of you know, so this month’s update comes from the stage in Columbus, OH. Shout out to all our Ohioan readers!

This month we have the song “This Is Home“, and the first mix to be released is the Dark-Side Mix by Tchad Blake.

‘It’s a love song,’ says Peter. ‘It began with inspiration from some of the great Tamla Motown rhythm sections so we’re trying to recreate that in a modern way, complete with the tambourine and handclaps. The groove I like a lot, Tony Levin does a great bass part there.’

‘I did an unusual thing for me in that I tried doing this low voice / high voice thing, so you get this almost conversational voice at the beginning and the second part is a higher, more emotional voice. I thought that would be both intimate and emotive to put the two side by side.’

Though he doesn’t appear on the final track, some of the early brainstorming for what was to become “This Is Home” was done with the DJ and producer Skrillex; ‘I’d had a call from Skrillex, who’s a very talented musician, and I thought it would be interesting to see what he had in mind, so he came to my home studio and we sat down and talked and tried to evolve bits and pieces and it was mainly for this song. He was trying to encourage me to write a song about staying up all night in a night club and that sort of thing, but that’s not really my life so I made it more about family and home and I like it. Though we took the song in this other direction it was an interesting experience nonetheless, and I think it is good for me to be taken outside my normal comfort zone sometimes.’

“This Is Home” features contributions from a Swedish male voice choir called Orphei Drängar, as well as another orchestral arrangement from John Metcalfe; ‘I think it’s got a groove but unlike most pop songs that have a middle eight or bridge this has two and they are both quite different. The first one is atmospheric and dreamy and we have this amazing all male choir which comes in slowly into this dreamy, garden-like section. The choir, Orphei Drängar, are based in Sweden and I think they get a fantastic sound, it’s dark, stirring and emotional. The strings in the other middle section I really like, it’s quite catchy, poppy in a way. I think John picked up on what I was trying to go for there and did a beautiful job, as always.’

“This Is Home” comes with differing mix approaches from Tchad Blake (Dark-Side Mix), released here on the full moon 29th September, and also Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Bright-Side Mix) and Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos mix (In-Side Mix), to be released in mid-October.

Jimi Hendrix Experience: Hollywood Bowl August 18, 1967 was recorded at the 17,000-capacity venue as the Jimi Hendrix Experience returned to The US after their all-conquering first trip to The UK, and finds the trio playing for an audience who have gathered to see headliners The Mamas & The Papas.

The recording comes from a previously unreleased (officially or otherwise) two-track recording made on the night, which has been restored for release by Hendrix’s longstanding recording engineer Eddie Kramer. “The audience was there to see The Mamas & The Papas,” says future Paul McCartney guitarist Brian Ray, who attended the show as a 12-year-old. “They haven’t heard of Jimi Hendrix. I’d never heard of Jimi Hendrix, and he couldn’t be more opposite of The Mamas & The Papas as an act, culturally, physically, in every possible way he was the opposite. 

“Here comes this guy and there’s only three of them on stage and they have these afros and these wild, ornate, very theatrical clothes. Jimi proceeds to shred, and it’s loud but it’s musical, and then it becomes so physical. He starts playing the guitar under his leg, and now it’s behind his back, and now he’s playing it with his mouth, and now he’s on the ground on his knees and he’s like humping it, and it, to me was mind blowing. 

“It was sort of every human characteristic; it was beauty, grace, it was sexual, violent, gentle, it was just everything all at once in one band coming out of this one guy. I wouldn’t say that the audience response was quite the same as the response I was having. My sister [Jean, from folk act Jan & Dean] and I were going bananas, and the audience was like [soft clapping] and they were trying to figure it out.” 

The show would be The Mamas & The Papas last, while Hendrix would return to the Hollywood Bowl the following year as headliner. A two-track recording of that show also surfaced recently, and was included in the 50th Anniversary deluxe box set of “Electric Ladyland” in 2021.

To accompany the album, a new mini-documentary, Monterey Pop To The Hollywood Bowl, has been released. The 12-minute film tells the story of the build-up to the show, and features new interviews with Brian Ray and Mamas & The Papas vocalist Michelle Phillips. 

“We had never heard of him,” Phillips says of the legendary Monterey show. “I had absolutely no idea what to expect. And when I saw him perform I was mortified. I had never seen anything like this, I’d never seen anybody treat their instruments like this. He was pouring lighter fluid over his guitar and then setting it on fire and – I really was shocked. I had no experience with this kind of rock and roll theatre. And that was the first time I had ever seen it.”

“Jimi Hendrix Experience: Hollywood Bowl August 18, 1967” is released on November 10th

The Mountain Goats’ catalogue is thick with recurring characters—Jenny, who originally appears in the “All Hail West Texas” track bearing her name, as well as in “Straight Six” from “Jam Eater Blues” and “Transcendental Youth” side two jam “Night Light,” is one of these, someone who enters a song unexpectedly, pricking up the ears of fans who are keen on continuing the various narrative threads running through the Mountain Goats’ discography before vanishing into the mist. In these songs, Jenny is largely defined by her absence, and she is given that definition by other characters. She is running from something. These features are beguiling, both to the characters who’ve told her story so far and to the listener. They invite certain questions: Who is Jenny, really? What is she running from? Well, she’s a warrior and a thief, and, this being an album by the Mountain Goats, it’s a safe bet whatever she’s fleeing is something bad. Something catastrophically bad.

“Jenny from Thebes” is the story of Jenny, her southwestern ranch style house, the people for whom that house is a place of safety, and the west Texas town that is uncomfortable with its existence. It is a story about the individual and society, about safety and shelter and those who choose to provide care when nobody else will.

The third single and music video, “Murder at the 18th St. Garage,” off our forthcoming album ‘Jenny from Thebes’ (out Oct 27), Rather than being coy about it let me tell you that somebody gets killed in this song, which is, at best, a short-term solution to Jenny’s problems, not that I’m saying she herself did anything. It’s her word against his now and he can’t talk anymore and she’s long gone by the time the EMTs get to 18th Street. Under oath, I will testify that she was with me because I am with her. I knew when I wrote this tune that Wurster-Hughes Inc. would eat it up like a big tasty snack, and guess what, they did. Lace up your dancing workboots but wear some inserts because this one’s a sprint.

The Mountain Goats star in the new music video for “Murder at the 18th St. Garage,” the new single from “Jenny from Thebes”, out worldwide October 27th.

The first two minutes of Sun June’s third album, “Bad Dream Jaguar”, is a reverie – Laura Colwell’s voice floats above a slow-burn, sparse synth, conjuring a tipsy loneliness, a hazy recollection, a disco ball spinning at the end of the night for an empty dance floor. Sun June’s music often feels like a shared memory – the details so close to the edge of a song that you can touch them. And as an Austin-based project, their music has also always felt strangely and specifically Texan – unhurried, long drives across an impossible expanse of openness, refractions shimmering off the pavement in the heat.

But on “Bad Dream Jaguar”, Sun June is unmoored. The backdrop of Texas is replaced by longing, by distance, by transience, and a quiet fear. The only sense of certainty comes from the murky past. It’s a dispatch from aging, when you’re in the strange in-between of yourself: there’s a clear image of the person you once were and the places you inhabited, generational curses and our families, but the future feels vast, unclear – and the present can’t help but slip through your fingers.

We put out the final single off our record today. “Mixed Bag”. It’s about the comforts and frustrations of well-worn relationships with people and places. It’s about living in Texas and getting mad!!!!

There’s a mix of hi-fi and lo-fi; some songs, like “Texas,” which the band had to learn at a breakneck pace ahead of their recording session, was recorded on a first take, live in the room, while “Eager” and “Easy Violence” feature early vocal takes from Colwell, the final songs built atop the demos. The latter track details staying up all night, being a menace to society, falling into bad patterns, but is followed by “John Prine,” a drumless, piano-based ballad, a mash of pedal steel manipulated to sound closer to synths.

Sun June’s records have always been deceptively airy sounding in the face of melancholia, belying its densely textured foundation in a sense of ease. The layers on “Bad Dream Jaguar” don’t tangle but they float, sheaths of divergent and luminescent sonics hanging together as the sun goes down, darkness seeping in.

The record exists in the chasm between giving up and going all-in. And a flicker of quiet confidence powering through, a small hopeful glow at its core.

“Bad Dream Jaguar” the whole dang record comes out 20th Ocober 2023. 

Pinch Points present their first-ever vinyl pressing of their 2018 debut EP “Mechanical Injury”, celebrating the 5th anniversary of the release and featuring new bonus track ‘Pave Me’. This EP was originally released on cassette in 2018 through Roolette Records. 100 red cassettes were initially printed in ‘Australia’ alongside 100 yellow EU tapes through Six Tonnes de Chair, followed by a repress of 100 black/white cassettes in Australia.

“Mechanical Injury”, was self-recorded in the band’s Coburg house over 3 hours, just months after forming. Listening today, this EP represents the start of the evolution of Pinch Points’ songwriting.

There’s a carefree slant to these songs. Pinch Points went down the riff rabbit hole until sections seemed to reach their natural conclusions, feeling fun and comfortable.

This EP was notably featured in Bandcamp’s top 100 releases of 2018. Editorial director J. Edward Keyes famously said: “…What comes across on Injury more than anything is a pure, unfiltered sense of joy; make no mistake: the machine that’s causing the titular injuries is capitalism, and the band is far from thrilled about it. But they’ve found a way to merge protest music with party music—think “Rock Lobster,” if it were about overthrowing the government. Pinch Points put the “riot” back in “riotous.”

The digital and vinyl versions of this EP reissue feature a 7th track ‘Pave Me’ which was written alongside the other songs but never properly finalised or recorded until now. It was self-recorded in the same room in Coburg, almost 5 years later. 

released September 10th, 2023

Written, recorded & produced by Pinch Points.

Zev Powell – Drums (track 1-6)
Isabella Orsini – Drums and vox (track 7)
Adam Smith – Guitar, vox
Acacia Coates – Bass, vox
Jordan Oakley – Guitar, backup vox

“Dreamviloence” is Bambara’s full-length follow-up to their acclaimed debut EP “Dog Ear Days” (2010). After playing countless deafening shows in their hometown of Athens, touring the US in sweaty house shows and sharing bills with Iceage, Grimes, Liturgy, A Place to Bury Strangers, and Parts and Labor, Bambara decided to leave their beloved Athens and move to a basement apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn for a change. Here they practiced, slept and recorded for the majority of 2012. Following the release of a Kate Bush cover and a 10 minute improv noise EP “Rings” early in the year, Bambara began to work on “Dreamviloence”.

With a minimal recording set-up and little sunlight, the band was able to completely capture the dark, grimy, noisy sound they are known for while maintaining the lush beauty that glues it all together. Reid’s voice croons and snarls the fragmented images of the city. Blaze and William’s driving rhythm section plows and swings through the dirge of vocal noise with furious power. Bambara doesn’t want you to get comfortable in “Dreamviloence”. They prefer to send you through vortexes of haunting noise before you reach the dreamy euphoria waiting in the wreckage.

released September 22nd, 2023