The Fat Angel Sings

Fleetwood Mac was at the top of its game in August 1977 when the band returned to its adopted home in Southern California to play three shows at The Forum in Los Angeles. 

“Rumours Live” captures the energy and excitement of the band’s opening night at The Forum on August 29th, 1977. The nearly 90-minute performance includes live versions of most of the songs from “Rumours” and “Fleetwood Mac”, the group’s first multi-platinum #1 album, which came out in 1975.

Over the course of four legs between February 24th, 1977 and August 30th, 1978, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood travelled across North America, Europe, Oceania, and Japan touring the album “Rumours”.  Fleetwood Mac released their seminal classic album on February 4th and would perform most of it on the road. Now, a full concert performance recorded on August 29th, 1977 at The “Fabulous” Forum in Inglewood, California is coming to CD, vinyl and digital platforms.

On September 8th, “Rumours Live” will arrive on two discs from Warner Records and Rhino – in stores justs a couple of months before the recently-announced pair of solo reissues from the late, much-missed Christine McVie. Fans can look forward to spectacular performances of hits like “Landslide,” “Songbird,” “The Chain” and “Rhiannon.”

The Forum concert remained hidden for several decades until 2021 when “Gold Dust Woman,” performed during the show, was included as a bonus track on Rhino’s extended version of Fleetwood Mac’s 1980 concert album, “Live: Deluxe Edition”. The remaining 17 songs on the collection have never been heard before.

Since their formation in 1967, Fleetwood Mac had endured radical personnel changes, a stylistic shift from blues to rock, and even a challenge from a “fake Mac” claiming to be the band in concert. When guitarist-songwriter-vocalist Bob Welch became the latest member to pass through the Fleetwood Mac revolving door, drummer Mick Fleetwood and husband-and-wife duo John McVie (on bass) and Christine McVie (on vocals and keyboards) invited two young Californians to bolster the line-up. Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and his then-girlfriend Stevie Nicks first appeared on 1975’s self-titled album, which signified a new start for the identity crisis-stricken band. With “Rhiannon,” “Landslide,” “Over My Head,” and “Say You Love Me,” the all-new Fleetwood Mac launched the group into the stratosphere.

Its slow ascent up the charts culminated in a No.1 berth on the Billboard 200 over one year after entering the chart. The stage was set for “Rumours”, which would handily surpass its predecessor’s great success.

The relationship between Buckingham and Nicks was coming apart at the seams, while the threads of Christine and John McVie’s marriage were also fraying. Not long after the album’s release, Nicks found herself in the arms of Fleetwood, his own marriage having recently crumbled. In other words, all five members of the band were involved in break-ups and other torrid affairs of the heart while crafting one of the best-selling albums of all time. They brought all of the attendant emotions into their songwriting and performances on “Rumours”. The seeds for dissension were there, especially once the culture of music biz hedonism took its toll, but so were the seeds of great strength. The two-woman, three-man band boasted three strong songwriters, who also happened to be its three vocalists. Buckingham and Nicks were from California; the other three members were from the United Kingdom. Each member’s sensibilities were singular, but when they marshaled their powers, it was clear that the sum of their parts was greater than any one individual’s. The power of “Rumours” would translate well to the road, in effect transforming Fleetwood Mac into the concert powerhouse it remains today even with further changes to the group’s makeup.

The set, recorded by original album engineer Ken Caillat, is comprised primarily of tracks from the “Fleetwood Mac” and “Rumours” albums (with the addition of Peter Green-era favorite “Oh Well”). Only one of the tracks was released before on the expansion of the group’s “Live” album from 2021. It’ll be available on two CDs and two 180-gram LPs cut by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering; in America, Walmart will carry a crystal clear vinyl variant as well. Sam Graham has penned liner notes for the package.

Look for “Rumours Live” on September 8th 

The Menzingers have released a new single, “There’s No Place In This World For Me,” and confirmed that it’s from a new album which they say is “coming soon!” They also announced a tour with Microwave, Cloud Nothings, and Rodeo Boys.

Very excited to share our new single, “There’s No Place In This World For Me” from our upcoming album that… well we can’t go into details just yet but trust us, it’s coming soon! This song is an anthem for anyone stuck between where they are and where they want to be. Recorded at Sonic Ranch in April 2023, produced by Brad Cook, mixed by Jon Low, and mastered by Ryan Smith.

Epitaph Records is an artist-first indie label founded in Los Angeles by Bad Religion guitarist, Brett Gurewitz. Early releases from a variety of punk heavyweights helped launch the 90s punk explosion. Along the way, Epitaph has grown and evolved creatively while sticking to its mission of helping real artists make great recordings on their own terms.

A big return and an all-new LP from the iconic shoegazers. Slowdive have shared a second single from their upcoming fifth album, “everything is alive”. Sung primarily by Neil Halstead, the especially dreamy “skin in the game” really comes alive when Rachel Goswell adds backing vocals on the chorus.

“everything is alive”, Slowdive’s 5th record, is exactly what the title suggests: an exploration into the shimmering nature of life and the universal touch points within it.

While there are parts of this record that could sit neatly next to the atmospheric quality of 1995’s “Pygmalion” “everything is alive” also manages to break down the boundaries of what’s come before it. Spanning psychedelic soundscapes, pulsating 80’s electronic elements and John Cale inspired journeys, the album lands immediately as something made for 2023 and beyond.

For a genre that is often thought of as divisive, and often warrants introspection, here Slowdive show their craft as the masters of it by pushing it outwards, beyond the singular; the end result being a record which feels as emotional and cathartic as it is hopeful.

from the forthcoming album ‘everything is alive’, out September 1st on Dead Oceans.

Seattle’s Natalie Lew will release her new EP as “Sea Lemon” on August 25 via Luminelle Recordings. Lead single “Vaporized” is instantly likable jangly dreampop and comes with a very striking video directed by Otium and Lew. ““Vaporized” was the first song I wrote that I knew specifically would be for the new EP,” Lew says. “The song is all about my personal health anxieties and fear of death, which is something I’ve dealt with since I was little. The chorus’ ‘I thought he was buried alive/out of my mind/I thought she was vaporized/out of my mind’ is playing on the most unlikely, almost impossible ways to die because I think making light of my personal anxieties can help me from spiraling. I have insomnia a lot and wake up in the middle of the night, and used to have this tendency to read headlines while I was awake (a terrible idea), wondering if some horrible accident might happen to me too. The song instrumentally gets a little heavier and more intense each chorus, which implies this impending doom feeling that gets worse and worse as I worry.”

All her life, Natalie Lew had been a music fan, but she never envisioned herself gracing the stage as a musician. Growing up in Seattle, Lew was raised on local cultural touchstones like the Capitol Hill Block Party, KEXP, and the Museum of Pop Culture’s annual Sound Off (Battle of the Bands), which led her to believe she’d pursue a career working for a label, maybe as an A&R rep, anything to keep in close proximity with the thing she loved most. Though Lew grew up playing the piano, that was the extent of her musical prowess, at least until she moved to New York and started playing a roommate’s guitars, which led to playing rhythm guitar in a friend’s band. The experience opened up a new future for Lew who returned to the Pacific Northwest in the early days of the pandemic and, in isolation, wrote her very first songs which were released as an EP, “Close Up”, in 2022 under the moniker Sea Lemon in homage to the acid-yellow sea slugs who populate the waters of the Puget Sound. Now signed to Luminelle

Sea Lemon’s new single “Vaporized” is out now off of her upcoming EP “Stop at Nothing”, due out August 25th on Luminelle Recordings.

Harmony’s (aka Harmony Tividad, formerly of Girlpool) debut solo EP, “Dystopia Girl”, is out next month, and the latest single is “Shoplifting from Nike,” a bright electro-pop track. “‘Shoplifting from Nike’ is about trying to function under the weight of all things and creating a personality that is so shameless that you believe you can survive it,” Harmony says. “It’s about modern spirituality, materialism and disassociation. And the 2008 housing crisis. And being annoying and epic. And having fun and not taking life too seriously… but also being deeply invested in reality.”

“Dystopia Girl” EP out August 25th

The world is a mad basket of spinning chaos, full of the most intense beauty & pain. Something in me has always craved the slow motion version, a distillation of ordinary struggle, something to hold close when the high blue wave of it all threatens to crest. I guess this is a deeply human hunger. We want so badly to see the mundane & the transcendent lit up, see in our stories glimpses of the heroic, the vital. Writing songs, for me, is a constant attempt at the distillation, a devotion to watching, listening & trying to hold the small gravity of experience up to the light. See how meaningful? See how moving? Let me try again to tell it another way. Let me try again to believe it.

Here are the songs from ‘Outsiders’ recorded live & unembellished by the magic veil of production & band sound. Just my good friend Jon Neufeld & I in his living room with two acoustic guitars wandering through the stories as they were first imagined. Jon plays guitar with singular feeling, seems to live inside the emotion of every line as it forms. He’s intuitive & tender, spacious & reverent. I first heard him at the Laurelthirst Pub in Portland long before I wrote songs & have been spellbound by his playing ever since. We sat facing each other in wooden chairs, closed our eyes, & just let the songs be as they are. Jon captured the recordings, then mixed & mastered them into being. For those of you drawn to things at their most unadorned, this one is for you.

The live version of Anna Tivel’s fantastic 2022 album “Outsiders” is out in August, and she’s shared another track from it, a pared-down acoustic version of “Invisible Man.”

“Invisible Man (Acoustic version)” is the second single from Anna Tivel’s forthcoming ‘Outsiders (Live in a Living Room)’, which is due for release on August 18th, 2023 on Mama Bird Recording Co. ‘Outsiders (Live in a Living Room)’ is an acoustic companion record to Anna’s critically acclaimed 2022 album ‘Outsiders’.

All Selections Written by Anna Tivel
Anna Tivel: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Jon Neufeld: Acoustic Guitar

releases August 18th, 2023 Mama Bird Recording Co.

Indie rock trio Longings will release their new album “Dreams In Red” on July 7th, 2023. The album was recorded by band member Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios. It’s Longings second full-length album, “Dreams In Red“, reveals a broad post-punk vision of haunting atmospheres and driving melodies. Eight new songs with a sense of urgency, range from the abrasive to the abstract.

From the woods of Western Massachusetts, Longings are a powerhouse trio featuring Cole Lanier (California X, Rogue Trooper), Meghan Minior (Siamese Twins, Ampere), and Will Killingsworth (Orchid, Vaccine). Self-Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered at Dead Air Studios.

Longings released the album’s first single “Expensive Graves”, The first single “Expensive Graves” – streaming everywhere now – is a breakneck tight two minute melodic pop gem that will demand several subsequent re-listens. Of “Expensive Graves” the band says: “When our lives are in chaos, what becomes of our dreams? Even our means of escape have become a hostile environment. While we may distract ourselves from the path ahead, the end remains certain.”

Longings have found their considerable power at the blackened cross-section of cold post-punk lurch and direct, brutal rhythms.” – Pitchfork

We are thrilled to announced the release of “Child Ballads: The Final Six“, a new album from The London Experimental Ensemble with Richard Thompson, Wesley Stace, Sivert Hoyem, Marissa Nadler and Gina Fergione.

The Child Ballads are 305 three to five hundred year old songs (originally broadsides) of the British Isles which have become synonymous with modern folk music since the 1950’s. However, the final six ballads (#’s 299-305) were never put to music.

Assembled here are Richard Thompson (Fairport Convention, Richard and Linda, et al), Sivert Høyem (multi-platinum Norwegian music giant), John Wesley Harding (British folk icon and novelist), Ed Pettersen (Award-winning singer-songwriter and producer), mezzo-soprano Gina Fergione and Marissa Nadler (Indie-rock high-priestess) weaving beguiling original melodies to these classic tales of love lost, magic, myth, fiefdoms and turf wars back by the London Experimental Ensemble live in the studio.

Out of a cornfield eden at the northern tip of Lake Winnebago comes Wisconsin’s Dusk, a unique country rock ’n’ roll group that blends their rural roots and love for 60s and 70s soul. Formed in 2014, the band has been a favorite of midwest and east coast stages, sharing bills and tours with the likes of Sheer Mag, Screaming Females, and Reigning Sound.

Dusk (whose line-up includes Amos Pitsch of Tenement) have announced new album “Glass Pastures”, due October 20th via Don Giovanni. Lead single “Pissing In A Wishing Well” is a dose of punky, ragged alt-country.

The outfit is six strong, each a song-er, sing-er, and multi-instrumentalist in their own right. Julia Blair’s tender howl floats atop the flurry of voices, fingers mincing the keys of her Wurlitzer piano. Ryley Crowe works the pedal steel guitar, gracefully gliding across the bandscape like a horse on ice. Tyler Ditter grips his electric guitar as a knight his sword, falling any vine or villain in his path. Bill Grasley is second-to-none guitar, an intelligent player who can kick back or blast off, his drape of hair prepared for either. Behind the kit is Amos Pitsch, whose hands draw melody from each drum like tufts pulled from carnival cotton candy. Ridley Tankersley is there too with a bass guitar, scrounging up the loose change from the green room couch.

Their newest LP “Glass Pastures,” the group’s first since 2017’s full-length debut “Dusk”, is not only a museum of earworms, but a crusade in the name of love and truth. Produced between 2020-2022 in the various rooms of the band’s recording studio, Crutch of Memory, a mid-century castle in the heart of Appleton, Wisconsin, the album showcases a range of writing and vocal talents. Therein is Dusk’s force– its spirit– the breadth of voice unified and concentrated like a beam of light on a ruby velvet curtain.

The Pretenders have announced a rare U.S. headlining club tour for this summer to fill in dates in between their opening slot on Guns N’ Roses’ 2023 stadium tour. Limited tickets for the nine intimate shows go on sale on July 21st .

The band have also shared a pair of songs from their new studio album, “Relentless”, coming September 1st, via Rhino Records. The album marks the band’s return to Warner Music Group after more than two decades having first been signed to Sire Records in America by the legendary Seymour Stein. The original album announcement, coincided with the release of the first single, “Let the Sun Come In,” featuring Chrissie Hynde’s usual tough-as-nails vocal. The band completed a tour of the U.K., Ireland and Europe in mid-July, that included a performance at BST Hyde Park in London.

“I enjoy seeing the various meanings and origins of a word,” says Hynde of the album’s title. “And I liked the definition: ‘showing no abatement of intensity.’ So when it came to an album title, it seemed fitting. You know…to keep doing it. I think anyone in a band is constantly questioning if they should keep going. It starts as a youthful pursuit and eventually, it makes you wonder, why am I doing this? It’s the life of the artist. You never retire. You become relentless.”

More from the announcement: Produced by multiple Grammy Award-nominee David Wrench (Courtney Barnett, David Byrne) at the famed Battery Studios in Willesden, North West London, “Relentless” marks the second consecutive full-length songwriting collaboration by Hynde and Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne following 2020’s acclaimed “Hate For Sale”.

The two are joined on the album’s twelve tracks by what Hynde has dubbed “The Pretenders Collective,” including Kris Sonne (drums), Chris Hill (double bass), Dave Page (bass), and Carwyn Ellis (keyboards and guitars). In addition, “Relentless” features a landmark collaboration with Academy Award-nominated composer Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead, The Smile), who provides the string arrangement and conducted the 12 Ensemble for the album’s closing track, “I Think About You Daily,”.

“I met Jonny a couple of times and we’re obviously big fans of him because he’s done some incredible music over the years,” Hynde says. “I saw him at the Phantom Thread premiere where the film was running on screen with a live orchestra playing. And we spoke afterward and he expressed an interest in doing something one day. I was thrilled and very surprised. So when we had the idea of getting strings on ‘I Think About You Daily,’ he was first choice. Legend!”