Nearly 10 years in the making, “The Task Has Overwhelmed Us” is the long-awaited fourth volume in The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project series. Conceived in 2006 by the late Gun Club titan’s guitarist Cypress Grove, theProject has always aimed to highlight Pierce as one of America’s most fascinatingly influential singer-songwriters of the last century while propelling his outpourings into modern times by placing it in the hands of former collaborators, friends and fans. Following 2009’s“WeAre Only Riders”, 2012’s “The Journey Is Long” and 2014’s “Axels and Sockets”, “The Task Has Overwhelmed Us” presents stellar interpretations of tracks from Pierce’sGun Club and solo canons along with fresh works constructed from rehearsal skeletons, previously unheard lyrics, songs only performed live. Taking song ideas without lyrics and words looking for musical settings gave rise to what Cypress Grove calls “Frankenstein songs.”
The stellar roll-call of contributors features the recurring core of Nick Cave, Debbie Harry, Mark Lanegan, Lydia Lunch, Youth, Jim Jones, Warren Ellis, Mark Stewart, Hugo Race, Cypress plus Mick Harvey and J.P. Shilo and even Jeffrey himself from original tapes.
These are joined by new bloods including Dave Gahan, Suzie Stapleton, Duke Garwood, Pam Hogg, The Coathangers, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Peter Hayes and Leah Shapiro, Humanist, The Walkabouts’ Chris Eckman, Jozef van Wissem, Jim Jarmusch, Chantal Acda and Welsh space-rockers Sendelica with vocalists Wonder and Dynamax Roberts.”
The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project “The Task Has Overwhelmed Us” out September 29th, 2023 on Glitterhouse Records.
Wilco have shared a new song called “Cousin.” It’s the title track from their forthcoming Cat Le Bon–produced LP, due out later this month via dBpm. They’ll support the album with a U.S. tour, kicking off later this month.
Wilco previously shared “Cousin’s” “Evicted” in August. The new album is out September 29th and follows last year’s “Cruel Country”. “I’m cousin to the world,” Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy confesses. “I don’t feel like I’m a blood relation, but maybe I’m a cousin by marriage.” Produced by the singular Welsh artist Cate Le Bon, “Cousin” marks the first time since“Sky Blue Sky” that Wilco have handed the reins over to a producer outside their immediate circle of collaborators. Le Bon’s influences — among them the inclusion of saxophone, cheap Japanese guitars, and a cinematic, new wave-style drum machine — drive the album into the future.
The result is Wilco’s most pointed and evocative album, one related but not tied to our present moment, truly new ground for a band that has tested musical boundaries throughout its lengthy career. Longtime admirers of each other’s work, Wilco and Le Bon first met at the band’s Solid Sound Festival in 2019, where they formed an immediate connection, inspiring Tweedy to invite Le Bon to the band’s famed Chicago studio, The Loft, in 2022 to work on “Cousin”.
Le Bon pushed the band to take risks, repurposing Wilco’s established strengths and challenging them to oppose habits — all the while maintaining what has, for the last 30 years, defined Wilco as a band, their fearlessness, made possible by musical virtuosity and the secret language only a family shares. “The amazing thing about Wilco is they can be anything,” Le Bon says. “They’re so mercurial, and there’s this thread of authenticity that flows through everything they do, whatever the genre, whatever the feel of the record. There aren’t many bands who are able to, this deep into a successful career, successfully change things up.”
On “Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling”, Slaughter Beach, Dog start on the outside of something and doesn’t really try to get inside The first single—and the album’s second track—“Strange Weather,” sets up this seeking early. “How am I still unsure?” Ewald questions, across an upbeat arrangement laced with rounds of percussion and scratchy, quietly moody guitar instrumentation reminiscent of Abbey Road-era Beatles.
Jake Ewald formed Slaughter Beach, Dog in 2015 as a means of fighting writer’s block while writing songs for his main band at the time, Modern Baseball, and the project – now featuring his former Modern Baseball bandmate Ian Farmer on bass, Adam Meisterhans on guitar, Logan Roth on keyboard, and Zack Robbins on drums – has since released four LPs as well as multiple EPs and live albums. At the beginning of the pandemic, Ewald relocated from his longtime home of Philadelphia to a house in the Poconos, filling his time with long walks, surrounded by nature, and listening to classic songwriters like Neil Young, Randy Newman, and Tom Waits.
There’s a sense of drifting across the album, a soft indie-rock escapade through city streets, small towns and diners. The songs are full of Americana imagery and richly detailed scenes vivid enough to take in—and taking them in feels incredibly easy when the music has such a gliding, soaring quality. “Engine” is one of the clearest examples—an easygoing but troubled odyssey through the desert, the woods, bars and a family reunion—as it boasts such an even-keeled rhythm of soft taps and drum beats, so much so that you might not even notice that it’s nearly nine minutes long.
For an album with such a relaxed, shade-dappled feel, the lyrics make up something almost surprisingly restless. On “Strange Weather,” it’s “I don’t wanna think about you anymore”; on “Summer Windows,” it’s “I wish that I could tell you what I’m thinking about.” But, by “Easter,” this searching resolves into something that does indeed feel like death—or, at the very least, a dream. Guided along by steady guitar strums and lullaby-gentle vocals, the divine finds its way into Americana here, in a trombone, in an offering of potluck casserole, on a black sand beach. There’s no attempt to communicate through words on “Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling”, so nothing can fall short.
Across these songs, love is something felt through someone’s presence next to you: reading a sign, their hand on a drink next to your own. That’s what these lovers and characters are maybe feeling, and that’s the wordlessness these songs offer
Föllakzoid aiming with each record to fill longer spaces of time with fewer and fewer elements. And like the best techno, kraut, and psychedelia have proven throughout time, sometimes the most minimal framework is the strongest container for transcendence. Which is what Föllakzoid have achieved with “V,” an immersive opus that takes the listener on seductive journey straight to the dance floor.
“V” is the fifth album from the long-running Chilean psychedelic and experimental outfit Föllakzoid. Leader Domingæ and remote producer AtomTM worked on the album over the course of a month, editing and layering dozens of stems. The latest in a series of albums released with Sacred Bones, it follows 2019’s “I”.
The creative perspective of the band has always been about unlearning the narrative, musical and visual paradigms that shape physical and digital conceptions, in an effort to make a time-space metric structure that dissolves both the author and the narrative. As the creative project of queer and trans artist Domingæ, the band has had a unique experience navigating the psychedelic rock scene.
Unlike past Föllakzoid records, that were done in single takes with the full band, their latest record “V”took a month to construct out of more than 70 separate stems. Guitars, bass, drums, synthesizers, and vocals, were all recorded in isolation and producer Atom™, who was not present for recording, was then asked to re-organize the four sequences of stems without any length, structural restrictions or guidelines.
The inherent possibilities were endless yet bound together by the inner logic of the game itself and by the spirits of the players. “V” is the exercise of telling an elaborate story about nothing, with the smallest number of words necessary. The story is one of the electricity and code which we inhabit – or which may inhabit us, and can be imagined through heart-pounding bass, skittering beats, head swirling melodies, and an ominous allure that feels at times like genuine hypnosis.
Like so many of the most essential rock bands, The Gaslight Anthem have a rare gift for finding glory in the inescapable pain of being alive. On their new album “History Books” – their first new music in over nine years – the New Jersey-bred four-piece bring their soulful breed of punk to ten thrilling songs exploring everything from mortality to mental illness to the more precarious dimensions of human connection.
In the tradition of their seminal sophomore album “The ’59 Sound”, The Gaslight Anthem’s sixth full-length ultimately achieves the tremendous feat of hitting every raw nerve while endlessly inspiring wildly triumphant singing-along. “A lot of this record is questioning all the bad stuff we see in the world and the difficult things we go through in life, and asking how to deal with it,” says vocalist / guitarist Brian Fallon, whose bandmates include drummer Benny Horowitz, bassist Alex Levine, and lead guitarist Alex Rosamilia. “I think the answer is that we’re all in this together and that somehow makes it okay, even when it’s anything but easy.
”The first release from their own Rich Mahogany Recordings (a label distributed via Thirty Tigers), “History Books” finds The Gaslight Anthem working with acclaimed producer / engineer Peter Katis (The National, Interpol, Death Cab for Cutie) and recording at his Bridgeport, CT-based Tarquin Studios. Featuring a guest appearance from longtime Gaslight Anthem champion Bruce Springsteen, “History Books” matches its unfussy yet gracefully crafted sound with the force-of-nature energy that’s defined the band since getting their start playing basement shows back in the mid-aughts.
“Making this album clarified that we want to keep doing what we’ve always done – because no one else can do it in quite the same way, and that’s something I’ve started to become very proud of,” says Fallon. “At the end of the day it’s just rock-and-roll music, but I really do believe it can have a positive impact on people’s lives. I think there’s so much beauty and magic in that.”
The secret is out Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s new album is bold enough to roll in the fearsome waves of Makapu’u! Through moments of joy and terror, KSWDY guides the listener with a strong sense of community and the triumph of intention, of which is the marrow and life blood of this music.
“Rise and Rule (She Was Born in Honolulu)” is a song of tribute and celebration, and about the way living takes and takes without compromise – then gives back in ultimately generous fashion. It captures the essence of maternal love and the indomitable spirit of mothers who exemplify courage and resilience in the face of adversity. Over a serene guitar line flowing forth from the silence (and back again), the ‘Prince Billy’ sings it with circumspect reserve and draws from a profound personal experience, letting the words sink in slowly and deeply.
“Rise and Rule (She Was Born in Honolulu)” is from “Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You,” available on LP/CS/CD/Digital from Drag City on August 11th, 2023.
Frequent collaborator and director of “Rise and Rule”, Sai Selvarajan, spoke on the creation of the video: “It was an incredible honor to work on the music video to “Rise and Rule.” The song is very raw, honest, defiant and ultimately triumphant. Being that the song was about Will’s mother, I knew I had to honour her memory and her legacy and this beautiful song. Will asked me if I wanted to see these collages that his mother had made and if I thought we could incorporate them into the video. The emotions they triggered in me were so strong. I felt like I could build the music video with these collages and tell the story of the song with them. I tapped my long time collaborator Matthew Wohlrab to do the hand painted animations of Will. Since the collages were made by hand, I wanted every image in this video to be made by hand.”
“Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You” – an album made as it was meant to be heard, in a room. The sound of people together – a sound we’d so recently feared that we’d lost – playing, communing, strings and wood and keys and voices singing. “Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You” presents simply, and is sung along easily and happily with in time BUT – is it family portrait or fairy tale? How does it think the world was made, and will end?
“Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You” was recorded in Louisville by Nick Roeder, featuring Sara LouiseCallaway on violin, Kendall Carter on keys, Elisabeth Fuchsia on viola and violin, Dave Howard on Mandolin, Drew Miller on saxophone and Dane Waters’ voice. The presence of so many local players and music educators in the band lends not only to a flow of moments so fluidly encompassing of a wide range of musics from classical to Japanese acid folk and elsewhere, but perhaps even more importantly, to the sense of community, heredity and the triumph of inheritance that is the marrow and life blood of this music.
Any bands who share a name with a Wim Wenders masterpiece have got my vote—it doesn’t hurt when they drop a song as magnetic and irresistible as “A Gun In Every Home,” either. The track is one-half of a brand new double-single (along with “001 [Tame The War, Feed The Fire]”) from James Taylor and Chloe Little two UK musicians who parade around under the name Wings Of Desire. “A Gun In Every Home” is anthemic and beautiful and catchy; exactly what I imagine U2 would sound like in 2023 if they could just remember how to write a good record.
I have to tip my cap to Wings Of Desire here, as I was not familiar with their game prior to hearing this song—and boy, do I regret that. “Beautiful angel, I’ll pull you out the rubble in the city when it’s tumbling down,” Taylor sings. “You got your reasons and they’ll never love you. Baby, can’t you see how they build you up to pull you down.” With rushing, noisy guitars and Little’s angelic harmonies, “A Gun In Every Home” is bright and undeniable and definitive.
“A Gun in Every Home” explores the idea of reflecting on one’s shadow in order to break through to the other side. A dark night of the soul, although painful, is a necessary storm we have to go through in order to experience growth and expansion in this incarnation.”
“001” was a song written before this incarnation of the band. The last few lines giving us the final piece of the puzzle…our name: ‘Tame the war, feed the fire, can’t deny the wings of desire’.
Our desires often take over us and have wings of their own. We must eliminate/burn through our desires in order to reach higher states of consciousness. Our attachments can lead us down destructive paths.
Wings Of Desire, the duo made up of James Taylor and Chloe Little, have been around for a couple years now, and they’re collecting all of the songs they’ve released so far into an anthology collection called “Life Is Infinite“, out in December.
Brooklyn-by-way-of-Texas band Why Bonnie’s Audiotree Live performance crashes into existence with a squeal of feedback and a burst of distorted guitar. Performing songs off their debut LP, ’90 in November’, the band’s session is a dynamic introduction to a more raw-edged indie sound from a band who have matured from bedroom dream pop into a sophisticated rock act. Their evolving sound reflects the journey undertaken by songwriter Blair Howerton to create a vividly rendered collection of songs.
Check out Why Bonnie on Audiotree Live!
released September 22nd, 2023
Band MembersBlair Howerton – Vocals and Guitar, Kendal Powell – Keys, Sam Houdek – Guitar, ChanceWilliams – Bass, Josh Malett – Drums
Blurring the limits between speed and slowness, Meg Duffy (guitar) and Greg Uhlmann (guitar) communicate in velocities, underwriting each other’s peaks and flurries as they ache toward a mutual horizon. These one-take improvisations, recorded in Uhlmann’s brothers’ house on a borrowed tape recorder, unfold like a game of truth or dare. Their constant motif is an unceasing return, a steady heartbeat they mutually commit to, knowing when one wanders off, the other will either follow or call them home. Here, flushness overrides order, each note saunters by like initials etched into tree bark: a devotion both passing and eternal.
After playing in Perfume Genius and Hand Habits, Duffy and Uhlmann embarked on their first record together, “Doubles”. A testament to the wordlessness of their musical intimacy, Duffy and Uhlmann take up the guitar in order to make an imprint of the slowness and presence of their improvisational practice. They weave together a sonic meditation, embracing intuition and relying on trust.
Side A of “Doubles” consists of two guitars in conversation: looping feelings, braiding sound, blowing kisses, and finishing each other’s sentences. Less of an echo and more of nod, the songs unfold in radical, mutual witnessing. Refraining from any over dubs or edits on the final tracks, the immediacy of the compositions makes it feel like we are in the room with them.
Where Side A establishes a glistening intimacy, Side B takes on the tone of sonic scavenging, incorporating sounds from their past year of touring together. Taking the self as source material, the second half of the album dismantles the presence of Side A in order to incorporate the tactility of memory. Using samples from the road and from the world, these compositions are a scrap book of glued and chopped up sound.
When I listen, I feel the crunchiness and static of being-in-the-world as it is mediated by time. Without us knowing, our devices capture sounds we may have missed the first time around. And they land like a sucker punch, snapping us back to the present, tuning our attention to what surrounds us.
True presence in any given moment is one of the most difficult things to cultivate and sustain. When it is offered, I treasure it like a rare gift. Listening to Doubles, I sink into the generosity of Duffy and Uhlmann’s offerings. In songs like “Glacial Fanfare,” I whisper to myself: it hurts now and it’s gonna hurt more, but then it’s gonna stop hurting. In “Euphoric Recall,” I understand how even the worst storms can offer gentleness. In “Braid,” I know trust is about bodies in contact, feet hitting the ground day after day. I return to the urgent question posed in the title of the track: “Which One Is You?” The answer is a low steady bass marked by chaotic and bright fluctuations of sound. The sonic response leaves me knowing: Both. All.
The intimacy in these songs dances like shadows – providing relief even as they slip away. I want to put this music in my pocket and hold it in my palm like a worn down stone. Duffy and Uhlmann give us a sweet rawness that reverberates even once the song is over, hitting the body the very moment words fall away. – Rosie Stockton
Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim Macpherson played their first show together on Friday 19th June, 1992, in a snooker hall behind Warrington Rugby Club in the north of England. Two days later, they supported Nirvana in Dublin and Belfast, and then played at Glastonbury. Back in the US, after playing 27 sold-out shows, they made their way to San Francisco to record “Last Splash”.
Released on August 30th 1993, reviewers described “Last Splash” as, “effervescent,” “blistering,” and “incoherent.” At its centre is the infectiously appealing, instantly recognisable ‘Cannonball’. Propelled in part by the video directed by Kim Gordon and Spike Jonze, the song was voted Single Of The Year by NME. “An alt-rock classic” (Pitchfork’s Top 100 Records of 1990s) upon release, the album quickly attained Platinum status in the UK and the US.
Throughout “Last Splash”, The Breeders demonstrate their versatility and panache, seamlessly transitioning from the dreamy, melancholic melodies of “Do You Love Me Now” through the grungy, frenetic energy of “SOS,” to the downright creepy weirdness of “Mad Lucas.” Kim’s song-writing—with its authentic rebelliousness, atmospheric instrumentation, and playfully ironic lyrics—has the extraordinary ability to express the intangible, which, together with the undeniable talent and electric presence of Kelley, Josephine and Jim, created a powerful force of a band. It was also, in part, a family affair; as described by Kim, “here I was in Dayton, my sister in the band, my dad driving the RV on our first tour. My friend Jo. Jim from Dayton too. That’s what this album reminds me of — time spent with my family and friends.”
“Last Splash” was mixed at the legendary Record Plant in Sausalito, a labyrinth of dark carpeted hallways hung with the gold and platinum records of Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac, and Jefferson Airplane. One morning, setting up a mix, the engineer accidentally erased the first 45 seconds of ‘Do You Love Me Now.’ Miraculously, a copy of the 2” tape had been made—mailed to Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis with an invitation to overdub guitar on ‘Divine Hammer’—and the engineer was able to rebuild the missing part, a painstaking process (before digital recording) that took seven days.
The album’s artwork—as memorable as its sound—was devised by Vaughan Oliver, the creative force behind the distinctive visual aesthetic at 4AD Records. His sleeve for ‘Cannonball’ perfectly embodies the playfulness, irreverence, and idiosyncrasy of the Breeders. Josephine recalls Vaughan’s initial brainstorming, sent via fax – a drawing of “a man’s testicle, alone—pushed through a piece of card to ensure its loneliness.” “He said he had tried it out that morning and ‘thought it looked super’ and he thinks it’s never been done before—I can’t imagine why not (?!)”
A defining album of the 90s, “Last Splash” has its 30th Anniversary this year. To celebrate, the record has been remastered for the first time, using the original ½ inch analog tape, lovingly worked on by Kim, Benjamin Mumphrey, and Miles Showell at Abbey Road. The tape, consisting of final mixes, but un-sequenced and unmastered, was only recently rediscovered in the Warner Bros. archive, a discovery that has made possible this ultimate audiophile vinyl pressing, and also brought to light two unreleased tracks from the 1993 “Last Splash” recording sessions, a bonus which will delight fans.
The album has never sounded so good. Titled “Last Splash (the 30th Anniversary Original Analog Edition), cut at half speed at Abbey Road, it now spans two 12” discs running at 45rpm. Also included is an exclusive one-sided etched 12” disc featuring the two “new” tracks: a song that Kim co-wrote with Black Francis titled ‘Go Man Go,’ and a different version of ‘Divine Hammer’ with lead vocals by J Mascis and titled, naturally enough, ‘Divine Mascis.’
For this special release, the late Vaughan Oliver’s iconic sleeve art has been gloriously reimagined by his long-time design partner Chris Bigg. A Japanese CD release will also be available.
The ‘classic’ Breeders line-up of Kim Deal (vocals, guitar), Kelley Deal (guitar, vocals), Josephine Wiggs (bass, vocals) and Jim Macpherson (drums, vocals),
To celebrate 30 years of the album, the band are currently on the road for a special run of shows performing “Last Splash” in its entirety, appearing with Belly (formed by original Breeder Tanya Donelly), Screaming Females and Horsegirl in select markets. They will also be supporting Olivia Rodrigo in Los Angeles and New York shows in 2024
