“Neil Young Rascals” is the title of a new album from The Tribe, a collective of some of Los Angeles’ most gifted singers and musicians.
As its title would suggest, “Neil Young Rascals” is a set of songs revisiting the iconic catalogs of both Neil Young and The Young Rascals, re-imagined by The Tribe’s stable of gifted musicians and recorded at Rock Cellar Studios in Southern California.
The project was produced by Michael Stern, and some of the musicians featured on the album include guitarists Grant Geissman (Chuck Mangione) and Fuzzbee Morse (Lou Reed), bassist George Bunnell of Strawberry Alarm Clock fame, Mark Pender and Joe Sublett from Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s band on horns, John “JT” Thomas (Bruce Hornsby, Rita Coolidge) on accordion and organ, Stanley Behrens (War) on harmonica, and many of the Tribe’s core band members. Singer spotlights include Gary Stockdale,Mark Lennon, John Pratt, Bill Cinque, Rob Bonfiglio, Chris Paul Overall, Cara Lee, Steve Goddard, Terrell Edwards, Freebo, and Alice Howe.
Since 2015, the Tribe has been performing live music events and has produced several recording projects in support of the Get Together Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization committed to action since 2004. They assist children and families in need, which includes bridge housing shelters, mobile meal delivery, crisis relief, and a music enrichment program serving underprivileged youth. With the help of several valued partners, GTF has been able to deepen its reach in the community. Their work spans Southern California, providing cooperative services with several other action-based organizations.
Jeff Rosenstock makes increasingly chaotic albums for an increasingly chaotic world. With each passing year, it feels like the temperature of the universe boils five degrees hotter, and with each new album, Rosenstock’s music grows more unwieldy and lawless. Louder, faster, more feral. Which brings us to 2023—a planet on fire, a mere 90 seconds to midnight on the doomsday clock, and the release of Rosenstock’s appropriately titled, anarchic record, “Hellmode“.
“To me, the album feels like the chaos of being alive right now,” Rosenstock says of “Hellmode”. “We’re experiencing all these things at the same time that trigger our senses, and emotions that make us feel terrible. We’re just feeling way too much all at once!” But for all its textured turmoil, there are also surprising glimpses of clarity and grace to be found in “Hellmode”, when Rosenstock deliberately slows things down in places that are prettier and more delicate, rare moments of shelter in the storm.
“Hellmode” marks the fifth studio album the prolific Rosenstock has released in the last ten years under his own name, following the dissolution of his beloved cult projects Bomb the Music Industry! and The Arrogant Sons of Bitches. Also tucked into his rapidly expanding catalog is a live record, a ska reimagining of his 2020 album “No Dream”, and various dumps of stray songs and loose singles.
On Jeff Rosenstock’s new album, “Hellmode”, the spontaneous DIY trailblazer returns with the most confident & cohesive album of his career. “Hellmode”, is yet another exciting glimpse into Rosenstock’s powerful and emotionally resonant music, making him one of the most mesmerizing songwriters of the last decade. This exclusive LP vinyl variant is on “Opaque Gold” and limited to only 350 copies, so order yours today!
“Doubt” is taken from Jeff Rosenstock’s new album, “Hellmode” – out September 1st, 2023.
Noise pop innovators the Jesus and Mary Chain have announced a live album. “Sunset 666” is due out August 4th via Fuzz Club Records.
The album was recorded at the Hollywood Palladium in 2018, when the band were opening up a series of shows for Nine Inch Nails; three of the vinyl sides come from the December 15th show, while the fourth side comes from December 11th. Former Belle and Sebastian member Isobel Campbell sings on two of the songs. The 17-song setlist kicks off with the signature tune “Just Like Honey.”
Recorded live at the Hollywood Palladium, LA in 2018, ‘Sunset 666’ is a discography-spanning, 17-track set with tracks from ‘Psychocandy’, ‘Darklands’, ‘Automatic’, ‘Honey’s Dead’, ‘Stoned and Dethroned’, ‘Munki’ and ‘Damage and Joy’
“To be surrounded by that sound was completely electric,” said Campbell in a statement. “I love singing with Jim [Reid]. That time in my life was pretty bleak, and being around the band and their people reignited a spark in me that had been dormant. And I was blown away by William [Reid]. He’s a guitar genius; one of a kind. It feels like we’re all kindred spirits. I can’t think of a band I would rather sing with.”
The band have shared a live version of “Sometimes Always,” from 1994’s “Stoned & Dethroned“, as a single. It features Campbell singing the part originally performed by Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval.
‘Sometimes Always’ feat. Isobel Campbell is taken from the new live album, ‘Sunset 666’, out August 4th 2023 via Fuzz Club Records.
NYC-via-Philly quartet Strange Ranger are amidst “their metamorphosis from indie rock to experimental electronic pop, keeping one foot in each genre with stirring, fascinating results” (Stereogum). Next month, the indie veterans will release their new album, “Pure Music“, out July 21st on Fire Talk, and today the band announce a US tour which kicks off in New York City at DROM with support from Nourished by Time and continues into the Fall.
Aslo the band shared another cut from the record last week entitled “Way Out”
“One of the most underrated bands in all of indie.” — Uproxx
from “Pure Music” out on Fire Talk on July 21st 2023.
“Last Splash” (30th Anniversary Original Analog Edition), remastered at Abbey Road Studios, the set includes two 12″ 45rpm vinyl discs + a 12” disc with two unreleased tracks from the 1993 “Last Splash” sessions: “Go Man Go,” co-written by Kim and Black Francis, and “Divine Mascis,” sung by Dinosaur Jr.’sJ Mascis. A monumental album of the ’90s, “Last Splash” turns 30 this year. Recorded by the seminal Breeders lineup of Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs, and Jim MacPherson, “Last Splash” immediately became an alt-rock classic. To celebrate this anniversary, the album has been remastered from the original analogue tapes at Abbey Road—previously thought to be lost
For this special edition, Vaughan Oliver’s original, iconic sleeve art has been gloriously reimagined by his long-time design partner Chris Bigg. Release date: September 22nd,
Montreal singer-songwriter Alex Nicol will release the “A Long Year” EP on June 30th and has shared the title track which features Angel Deradoorian. The title-track of a five-song EP (arriving 30 June), this lead single includes the unmistakable guest vocals of Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors / Decisive Pink).“I wanted to express my frustration at running from my feelings for so long,” Alex says. “It felt like the world was crumbling at the same time as I was pretending everything was fine, but I really wasn’t, and I finally expressed it. It feels like one long exhale for me.”
Guided by Nicol’s haunting vocal pirouettes, “Been A Long Year” is an acoustic ballad which connects personal feelings of grief and sadness at the loss of many loved ones with a wider feeling of an emptiness that permeates through the modern world. Conjuring images of towns desolated by unemployment and families feeling the pressures of these rapidly changing and challenging times, evocative lyrics like “And all the shops are empty / And the diners too / The miller, baker, and seamstress / Gotta find something new to do / But it’s hard times when you add it up…” weigh a heavy lode and will cut deep.
Speaking about the track, Alex Nicol explains: “In “Been A Long Year”, I wanted to express my frustration at running from my feelings for so long. It felt like the world was crumbling at the same time as I was pretending everything was fine, but I really wasn’t, and I finally expressed it. It feels like one long exhale for me.”
Dense of subject matter, but gossamer to the touch, the floaty backing vocals provided by Deradoorian, sombre french horn hums of Pietro Amato, and astral orchestrations of violinist Emmanuel Ethier provide an otherworldly mirror to Nicol’s lucid observations of real-world strife.
The years surrounding the EP’s creation weren’t particularly kind to anyone, but shortly after completing his 2020 debut long-player ‘All For Nada’, Nicol entered a phase of staggering loss and mourning. Friends died. Family members died. He lost his job. As each new crushing sadness hit, Nicol began realising he’d spent his adult life avoiding difficult emotions like the ones he was being overpowered by. It slowly became clearer that his upbringing had conditioned him to maintain a false but constant state of hyper-stability. A small lifetime’s worth of unacknowledged feelings began coming to the surface and everything in Nicol’s world began to change.
Steve McQueen released on 22nd June 1985, . Remastered vinyl versions of Prefab Sprout’s albums are available through Sony.
Paddy’s songwriting skills is so good on this album – ‘how’s your new girlfriend? How’s the wife taking it’. So many good lines. Some just make me laugh – it’s not easy to crack jokes in songs – Jarvis is good at it too but it’s uncommon. Paddy is just a world class songwriter. Put him together with Tomas Dolby and you have a very special partnership.
I have played this album to death over the years, For me, Prefabs best work was with Thomas Dolby. His production is pure class. He added a polished sheen to Paddy’s songs. He buffed them up. They were already brilliant songs as the acoustic albums testifies but Dolby turned then into jewels.
Paddy McAloon, singer, songwriter tells us, I grew up in Witton Gilbert in County Durham and started Prefab Sprout with his brother [Martin, who played bass] and Michael Salmon, who lived down the street. Michael borrowed a drum kit and Martin and I shared an amplifier. We rehearsed in my dad’s run-down wooden-framed petrol station. We were as rough as can be, but we sounded like a band, at least to ourselves.
We didn’t have music lessons but drawn to music that I read about and devoured everything from T Rex to Stravinsky. but we dreamed about influencing the course of pop. I’d been writing songs since I was 13 years old, Loving Bowie who didn’t like country and western, so I wrote “Faron Young” from the world-view of someone who disliked country music.
Bonny was written around the same time. People think it’s about my father’s death, but he wasn’t dead then – I imagined grief. Goodbye Lucille #1 started out as a 50s doo-wop parody – “Ooh, Johnny Johnny Johnny” – in waltz time, but turned into something serious. Most breakup songs were sad or accusatory, but I straddled the viewpoints of both the intense guy and the girl breaking up with him (“She’s a person too”).
I’d always written on an acoustic guitar, but just as we started making records I had a crisis and thought I’d exhausted the guitar and started writing instead on a Roland synthesiser. I was too eccentric or nervous a songwriter to incorporate a big chorus, but when “When Love Breaks Down” came along I didn’t fight it. I wrote that, and “Appetite” – over a hip-hop-type groove on a drum machine – and then Desire As in the same week in June 1984. “I’ve got six things on my mind. You’re no longer one of them” is so cold. I wouldn’t want to say that to anybody. “Desire as a sylph-figured creature who changes her mind.” I’ve no idea where these things come from.
I’d used my most off-kilter ideas on our first album, “Swoon”, and I’d deliberately held back my more commercial songs. The album title – “Steve McQueen” came to me in a dream. It doesn’t mean anything, but I decided to use it and we shot the cover using a motorbike like the one McQueen had in The Great Escape.
The album went gold and has sold steadily ever since. I’m humbled that it’s become a classic and people still discover it, but I still remember driving away from the studio in the snow thinking we’d get a lot of praise for something I felt I didn’t have much to do with. It was us playing the songs in the studio – Thomas Dolby and the team did a marvellous job of making us sound grand and opulent. When we were doing “Johnny Johnny” there was this embarrassing clunk, which was the sound of me hitting the microphone stand while singing. Thomas loved the take and wanted to keep it, so he went to the Fairlight sampler, looked at the wave form of the sound and just took out the clunk. I remember thinking, “Wow, so that’s what pop is going to be like in future.”
Thomas Dolby, producer, I was on Radio 1’s Roundtable programme reviewing records, and the other guests were raving about all these awful Christmas songs. Then Prefab Sprout’s Don’t Sing came on. I’d never heard anything like it. Paddy’s ideas seemed detached from everything except maybe a mid-20th-century American novel. The next thing I knew their manager invited me up to their old rectory in Consett. Paddy’s bedroom was twice the size of a single mattress. He sat with a guitar and played me songs from sheets of paper. I recorded them all, took them home and whittled 40 down to 12.
There was fantastic flair and imagination but the arrangements were hard to listen to, so we restructured the songs in a rehearsal room right down to the exact placement of a crash cymbal – Neil Conti was a tasty drummer. We recorded in a big London studio over three months, which today would only be an option for a platinum-selling band. Paddy’s voice was warm and emotive, Wendy [Smith]’s was pure and pristine – they created a nice aura together.
I played Paddy’s chords on my synthesiser using my own sounds. The Fairlight sampler had just come out so I could make orchestral arrangements. The gunshot on Faron Young came from a BBC sound effects disc played backwards. I did things like sampling Wendy’s voice and “playing” it on a few songs.
I’ve never seen a band eat like Prefab. Wendy would say “Paddy, do you want a bacon sandwich?” and they’d all go off for a fry-up. We recorded “Horsin’ Around” after a pub break. Paddy launched into a swing version à la Frank Sinatra. I laughed my head off, and thought it might make an interesting style for the middle section, so we kept it.
On November in 1977: London’s Wire released their ground breaking & influential debut album, ‘Pink Flag’, on Harvest Records – one of the most original debut albums to come out of the first wave of British punk (making it, in sound & spirit, one of the foundation releases of what would become known as ‘post-punk’); very few of the songs followed traditional verse/chorus structures – if one or two riffs sufficed, no more were added; if a musical hook or lyric didn’t need to be repeated, they immediately stopped playing, accounting for the album’s brevity (21 songs in under 36 minutes)…”Pink Flag” is one of the most original debut albums in the punk world, and one could argue it’s one of the “punkest” records on this list based on the fact that Wire follows no rules. The band’s blend of punk energy and avant-garde sensibilities also placed the band at the forefront of the post-punk movement. Labels aside, “PinkFlag” still sounds as fresh today as it did in 1977. Ranging from minimalist numbers with no repetition to faster songs featuring memorable vocals and biting wit, Wire’s ability to be unpredictable and incredibly consistent has cemented their legacy as a highly influential group that’s inspired countless genres.
Wire [push] minimalism to new heights” and said the band “dredges up images of…beat poetry–short fragments of impressions set to music.” the 21 tracks are “not songs…There’s no easy structure or meter. Each explores or describes or electrifies or challenges. There’s no easy listening.” “I can’t say this is an enjoyable album. Maybe it’s just a stupid bit of rubbish. But you won’t know unless you find out.
“Pink Flag” was perhaps the most original debut album to come out of the first wave of British punk” and also “recognizable, yet simultaneously quite unlike anything that preceded it. “Pink Flag’s” enduring influence pops up in hardcore, post-punk, alternative rock, and even Britpop, and it still remains a fresh, invigorating listen today: a fascinating, highly inventive rethinking of punk rock and its freedom to make up your own rules.” Retrospectively, Trouser Press called the album “a brilliant 21-song suite” in which the band “manipulated classic rock song structure by condensing them into brief, intense explosions of attitude and energy, coming up with a collection of unforgettable tunes”
“The Dirty South”, perhaps the best album by the American band Drive-By Truckers, appears this week in a new and to a limited extent polished version, which especially underlines the greatness of the album.
It is a great body of work that the American band Drive-By Truckers has to its name. It’s very difficult for me to choose between a huge pile of beautiful albums, but the albums with Jason Isbell stand out very carefully. “The Dirty South” from 2004 is one of these albums and it is an album that will be released this week in a slightly more extensive version, which also features a new mix and new vocals here and there. The differences are certainly not huge, but “The Complete Dirty South” is certainly no less than the original album, if only because of an extra track by Jason Isbell and the beautiful packaging. An undisputed classic in a subtle new look.
The American band Drive-By Truckers released two undisputed annual albums in 2020 with “The Unraveling” and “The New OK”. Since then, the band from Athens, Georgia, has slowed down a bit, although the somewhat underrated “Welcome 2 Club XIII” was released last year. That album may not be counted among the Drive-By Truckers classics, but that says more about the quality of the band’s complete oeuvre than about the quality of the album that was last until recently.
Drive-By Truckers began making classics in 2001, when the landmark “Southern Rock Opera” appeared. The ode to the Southern Rock of yesteryear convinced for an hour and a half and was the start of a glittering career. Drive-By Truckers now has an impressive pile of great albums to her name. These are albums that are very difficult for me to choose between, but today I choose “The Dirty South” from 2004 for several reasons.
“The Dirty South” is the second and final album on which Jason Isbell is part of the band, is the best-selling album of the American band, is the album that is considered by many to be the band’s best album and it is the album that has been released this week in a new version, “The Complete Dirty South“. “TheDirty South” celebrates its twentieth anniversary next year, but the version released this week is more than a 20th Anniversary Edition.
The band re-recorded the album for a small part, provided the songs with a new mix, messed around with the order and also added a number of songs to the new version of the album. Frontman Patterson Hood indicates that “The Complete Dirty South” sounds like the album was intended in 2004, but that didn’t immediately convince me. Reinventing old work is usually a fairly pointless activity and almost always the new version is less than the original, although there are exceptions.
The Dirty South had 2004 tracks and 14 minutes of music in 70. The new version adds three more tracks and more than fifteen minutes of music. Upon listening to “The Complete Dirty South”, my original skepticism slowly but surely appeared. Fortunately, the new version of the album doesn’t sound very different from the original. The new mix is perhaps just a bit better and the same goes for the re-sung vocals in a limited number of tracks.
Also, the limited sliding in the order of the tracks does not have much influence on the album, leaving the new tracks as the greatest asset. In particular, the TVA written by Jason Isbell is beautiful and is enough reason for me to switch to the new version of “The Dirty South“. The new edition is also beautifully packaged and provided with an informative booklet.
It could easily have been part of a deluxe edition of the album, but Patterson Hood wanted to shake off the frustration of a record company opposing at the time with this new version of the album. “TheComplete Dirty South” is a beautifully executed and beautiful sounding album, but it is above all an album that shows how good and memorable the original album was in 2004. “The Complete Dirty South” is ultimately a more than nice snack, which definitely makes you look forward to new work from the band from Georgia, but which will come out of the speakers very often.
“This ‘Director’s Cut’ is the way it was always intended to be heard” – Patterson Hood
The sound and the fury are back on the third album from Melbourne punk trio Cable Ties. ‘All Her Plans’ harnesses the band’s signature rage as they pummel through songs that are equally frantic and tender, veering from expressing frustration with the status quo to heartfelt and sincere odes to loved ones.
Jenny McKechnie’s distinctive vocals are the vessel through which she presents the world as we know it – and the world as she thinks it should be. Turning a sharp eye onto the failures of the healthcare system to protect the vulnerable on the wailing first single ‘Perfect Client’, she repeats “We’ve got no place for you to go” against an undulating bass line and wall of guitar. It’s a refrain that hits like a punch.
That energy continues on the righteous ‘Silos’, as McKechnie’s rapid speak-singing hurtles the listener through the life of someone struggling with Centrelink and then explodes into an indictment of the government’s inability to deal with actual issues and reliance on the carceral system. “Politicians use a tragedy to prove that they’re strong men / then incarcerate the victims that they’re claiming to protect,” she spits. It’s urgent and topical stuff, delivered at breakneck speed.
Have a look at our new video for the opening track, ‘Crashing Through,’ from our brand new album “All Her Plans” now out Go have a cackle, it’s bloody cute. The concept for this clip was inspired by a true event: a moth flew into the ear of director Triana Hernandez, sparking the idea for this video. Unfortunately, the original moth didn’t survive, but the moth in the video has a much better time. Huge thanks to Triana and the incredible crew who worked on this project.
These are classic Cable Ties songs, combining the group’s tight musical energy and chemistry with their clear-eyed vision for a more equitable society. McKechnie’s bulls-eye lyricism is as sharp as it is rhythmic – it’s what this band has always done best. There’s anger here, of course, but it is driven by kindness and hope.
But there are softer moments on ‘All Her Plans’ which reveal a new kind of intimacy for the band. On the folksy ‘Mum’s Caravan’, McKechnie’s voice takes on a gentler timbre as she considers the sacrifices her mother has made – it plays out almost like a Courtney Barnett song, all suburbia and regret.
On the beautiful ‘Time For You’, she slows down and reflects on the safe haven of secure romantic love. In a lovely contrast to the despair McKechnie expresses elsewhere, this is a love letter to the comfort and necessity of human connection in the face of the modern world’s increasingly inescapable political and sociological turmoil. The songwriter’s use of repetition across this album drives home her messages, and it’s especially moving here.
Melodies here are as often traditional as they are abstract: ‘Thoughts Back’ is built on dissonant harmonies that clash against the insistent, thumping rhythms backing the chorus, with drummer Shauna Boyle taking the lead on vocals for the first time. McKechnie climbs to an ethereal high on ‘Too Late’ against piano and organ, before her vocals split into their usual loose yell.
‘Deep Breath Out’ does what it says on the tin, as McKechnie sings to a troubled family member with love and understanding. It closes out the album, providing a soft landing for an unrelenting record heavy with emotions and themes, but still carrying a striking vulnerability that leaves an impression.
‘All Her Plans’ is a sonically more adventurous and varied album than the band’s previous output, but retains a strong sense of cohesion even as it barrels in multiple directions. Cable Ties are one of the most consistent and passionate bands in Melbourne both in the studio and on the stage – here is another manifesto, another soundtrack, for a better future.
Released June 23rd through Poison City / Merge Records
