The Fat Angel Sings

Jethro Tull have released a third song from their 23rd studio album, “RökFlöte”, due April 21st, 2023 via InsideOutMusic. Following the worldwide success of 2022’s “The Zealot Gene”, the band’s first album in two decades, Ian Anderson and the band are returning with a 12-track record based on the characters and roles of some of the principle gods of the old Norse paganism, and at the same time exploring the ‘RökFlöte’ – rock flute – which Jethro Tull has made iconic.

Anderson explains the album’s title and theme in more detail: “The title of this offering went through a little change or two along the way. I started with the idea of a predominantly instrumental album for rock flute – as in rock music. When the subject material of the album presented itself, I was drawn to the term Ragnarök from Norse mythology – their version of apocalyptic end times or Biblical Armageddon.

The ‘final showdown’ scenario is ubiquitous and inherent in Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, for example. Ragnarök translates as ‘destiny of the Gods,’ the rök part meaning destiny, course, direction. With umlaut firmly in place, courtesy of the Germanic origins of Old Norse, Flute became Flöte in keeping with the spelling.” “The Navigators” explores the Norse god Njord, who was the god of wealth, fertility, the sea and seafaring.

“RökFlöte” will be available on CD and vinyl, as well as on two limited deluxe formats that include bonus demo material, extensive liner notes & a Blu-ray featuring Dolby Atmos, 5.1 surround sound, alternative stereo mixes by Bruce Soord, as well as a bonus track and in-depth interview with Ian Anderson. The album will also be available digitally in the spatial audio formats Dolby Atmos & Sony 360 RA.

“Hammer on Hammer,” released on April 5th, takes inspiration from the god Thor, a loyal & honorable warrior who wears a powerful symbolic belt and wields a hammer. His mortal enemy & nemesis was Jormungand the sea-serpent.

Jethro Tull continues live dates this year, with shows in Europe, as well as a date in London to celebrate the new album release. They will also return to North America later this year, with shows to be announced in the coming weeks. The lineup consists of Anderson (concert and alto flutes, flute d’Amour, Irish whistle and vocals), David Goodier (bass guitar), John O’Hara (piano, keyboards and Hammond organ), Scott Hammond (drums), and Joe Parrish-James (electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin).

With more than 30 albums to their credit and sales totalling more than 60 million, Jethro Tull are one of the most successful rock bands of all-time with a catalogue that contains classic rock favorites “Aqualung”, “Thick As a Brick“, and more.

Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell has taken yet another musical detour, this time collaborating with Essex-based duo Masal on an incredible new album of ambient, astral jazz. “Tidal Love Numbers” is released via Sonic Cathedral, and is made up of four mesmerising, meandering instrumental tracks that combine Andy’s incredible guitar playing with analogue synths and harp.

Andy was inspired by the likes of William Basinski, Harold Budd, Ariel Kalma’s Osmose and Babe, Terror’s Ancient M’ocean, while Masal shared their love for Prince Lasha, Turkish prog and folk, medieval harp music and Guitarrorists, a 1991 compilation of outsider guitar sounds. The end result – sympathetically mastered by Andy’s Ride bandmate Mark Gardener – lands somewhere between Mary Lattimore, psych-folk guitarist Sandy Bull and Spacemen 3’s Dreamweapon, with the four pieces subtly ebbing and flowing from pastoral picking to psychedelic bliss to noisy drones and back again, all punctuated by Oz’s heavenly harp.

Despite their length, the tracks never outstay their welcome, and their stream-of-consciousness titles add to the sense of intrigue.

“Tidal love numbers are quantities without dimension, measuring how much things alter, for example on a solid planet, due to tidal forces. The number is assigned based on levels of gravity and solidity and I guess this measurement is the scientific kernel behind astrology. I was introduced to this concept by the harp/synth duo Masal (masalbanduk.bandcamp.com), and having got my head around it, felt like it might be a good title for the album we had just happened to make.

I’m so happy to announce this new collaboration and can’t wait for people to hear it. I’m not sure how you categorise it, there are elements of ambient, classical, jazz, shoegaze, electronic and drone. All I can say is that it was a lot of fun to create. The music was composed in a semi-improvised way between the three of us and we’ll be entering that same creative space together at the Social on May 21st.”

released April 6th, 2023
Written by Andy Bell, Ozlem Simsek & Alastair Johnson

This Is The Kit, the group led by Paris-based bandleader Kate Stables, today announced the band’s new album “Careful of Your Keepers”–produced by Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals)–will be released on June 9th, 2023, via Rough Trade Records. The album’s propulsive yet introspective lead single “Inside Outside” finds Stables as magnetic as ever, joined once again by her stalwart band of Rozi Plain(bass/vocals), Neil Smith (guitar), and Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums), and accented by a cascading horn quartet arrangement by Jesse Vernon.

“Careful Of Your Keepers” is daring and soft, cutting and warm–a wild feat of complexity and combined dispositions. There’s a shared language of the band’s family experience that is as audible as ever in these recordings, which boast beautiful instrumental performances that still leave the nuanced space required for Stables’ vocals to live at the forefront. “The album was nearly called “Goodbye Bite“. And in a way it still is,” says Stables. “I went for “Careful of Your Keepers” in the end. It’s one of my favourite songs on the album, a song that for me holds the general feeling of the album as a whole. The fragility of things. Of situations. Of relationships. Of humans. What we do to look after each other and ourselves. The passing of time and what that does to us, and how we live our lives going forward.”

Guiding the ship through changing seas is producer Rhys. Stables described his role as being a “tonesetter,” watchful and attentive to the band dynamics while making sure to always follow a hunch for where a new sound could find its place in the recording. “I’ve always loved the idea of working with him somehow, and when this album started getting planned, I realized that maybe this was my chance to reach out and see if he was up for working together,” Stables explains. “And he was! As if that wasn’t enough, he was also up for doing a bit of singing on the record, which totally blew my mind and made my year. His way with harmony and melody and the tone and quality of his voice is a totally killer combo.”

This Is The Kit announced her/their new album on Tuesday – ‘Careful Of Your Keepers’ is out 9th June,

Formed in Liverpool in 1978, The Teardrop Explodes were one of the most revered British bands of the early 1980s, pioneering a post-punk neo-psychedelic sound that can still be heard in bands such as The Coral, The Flaming Lips, Tears For Fears, U2 and Blur.

“The Culture Bunker” compiles all the band’s singles and B-Sides as well as 4 discs/5 LPs of unreleased studio out-takes and a wealth of unheard live recordings. Curated by writer and long-time band publicist Mick Houghton, “The Culture Bunker” also includes the 12,000-word sleevenotes containing rare memorabilia, an essay and timeline of the band’s illustrous career.

released through Universal Music Recordings “Culture Bunker 1978-82” in June a new The Teardrop Explodes box set available as a 6CD package or a 7LP vinyl offering.

The Teardrop Explodes originated as a critical band in the emerging Liverpool post-punk scene of the late 1970s, which included Echo & The Bunnymen, their former manager Bill Drummond of The JAMS/KLF, The Mighty WAH! and future pop stars Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and The Lightning Seeds Ian Broudie, who would also produce many bands from the scene. The group also launched the career of group frontman Julian Cope and keyboard player David Balfe, who later founded Food Records and signed and mentored Blur.

“Culture Bunker 1978-82” compiles all the band’s singles and B-sides as well as four CDs / five LPs of unreleased studio outtakes, a wealth of unheard live recordings and several tracks taken from ‘Zoology’, the Teardrop Explodes compilation that Cope released himself in 2004. Writer and long-time band publicist Mick Houghton has curated “Culture Bunker” and has gained exclusive access to Julian Cope’s archive. These early and later recordings show the evolution of one of the era’s most influential bands from their inception to their finale.

The 6CD set features a staggering 57 previously unreleased tracks and is packaged in a 10-inch slipcase with a 64-page hardcover book which features a 12,000 word essay from Mick Houghton (drawing from new, recent conversations with Julian Cope). That same story is told via the seven printed inner-sleeves on the 7LP vinyl box set which features 43 previously unreleased tracks (the CD box has 95 tracks in total, the vinyl box, which comes with a poster, has 82).

The audio for this new box set has been remastered by Andy Pearce wherever possible from original tapes and cassettes. 

“Culture Bunker 1978-1982” is probably the last word on The Teardrop Explodes and both editions are described as “very limited” by the record label. These boxes are not available via normal retail channels are can only be ordered via Universal direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites.

It is released on 2nd June 2023, via Universal Music Recordings.

Our Third album “Something New” is now available for pre-order!! Shipment from 27th May 2023. Recorded at Gizzard Recording Studios, London.
Out on Beluga Records (Sweden) and Dangerhouse Skylab (France)

Lead Vocals: Mike & Elsa Whittaker
Guitars: Mike & Elsa Whittaker
Bass: Alexandra Cools
Drums: Mole

releases May 27th, 2023

Indigo De Souza returns with the third single . “You Can Be Mean” from her upcoming album “All Of This Will End”. Speaking of the track, she says: “I wrote “You Can Be Mean” about a brief toxic experience I had with a manipulative and abusive LA model fuckboy. However brief, it had a life-long impact on my understanding of self,” De Souza explains. “Leading up to that experience, I had a history of putting myself in toxic situations and pining for validation from people who treated me poorly. I was stuck in some delusion that I could help abusive people through their trauma and teach them to love me in the way I deserved. I wrote this song when I finally realised that I could choose not to allow harmful behaviour into my life, and that there is a deep, deep importance in protecting the body and spirit. I stopped caring about validation from assholes, stopped thinking it was my responsibility to help them, and started caring for myself in a real way.”

“All Of This Will End” – which was recorded at Drop of Sun Studios with producer and engineer Alex Farrar – is the follow-up to 2021’s “Any Shape You Take”, which Farrar also worked on. The release marks a pivotal point in the artist’s career. “All of This Will End” feels more true to me than anything ever has,” she says. “I was finally able to trust myself fully.”

“All Of This Will End” is out 28th April via Saddle Creek Records

“i/o” is the fourth song from and title track of the forthcoming album by Peter Gabriel. This is the Bright-Side Mix by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent. Released on the full moon, 6th April 2023. Written and produced by Peter Gabriel, “i/o” was primarily recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire and The Beehive in London.

The song features Soweto Gospel Choir, who were recorded at High Seas Studios in South Africa. ‘This month the song is “i/o” and “i/o” means input / output. You see it on the back of a lot of electrical equipment and it just triggered some ideas about the stuff we put in and pull out of ourselves, in physical and non-physical ways. That was the starting point of this idea and then trying to talk about the interconnectedness of everything.

The older I get, I probably don’t get any smarter, but I have learned a few things and it makes a lot of sense to me that we are not these independent islands that we like to think we are, that we are part of a whole. If we can see ourselves as better connected, still messed up individuals, but as part of a whole, then maybe there’s something to learn?’ “i/o” as a potential album title has long-been known within fan circles, and is now the name of the current project, the album and the forthcoming tour, but as Gabriel says, ‘It’s been around for a long time as a title for this project. I always knew I was going to write a song called i/o, but the title came first.’ “i/o” sees Gabriel working again with Soweto Gospel Choir, who previously featured on the song “Down to Earth” that was recorded for the film Wall-E and who he’s also performed with twice in South Africa at events for Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu;

‘I didn’t always hear the Soweto Gospel Choir on this song, but every time I’ve worked with them it’s always been fantastic. You can just feel the energy whenever they sing on this record, and on the song I did for Wall-E, it’s just joyous. It hits you in the heart.’ Continuing the theme of working with a different artist for each song release, this month’s track is accompanied by a cover image featuring the work of Olafur Eliasson, who is someone Gabriel first met when the artist was launching his Little Sun Project. Olafur Eliasson is an extraordinary artist who, in many ways I think, is the king of light. A lot of his work is to do with light and with nature and I really felt that for this song in particular he would be absolutely perfect and I was delighted when he said, yes.

This piece is called Colour experiment no. 114, from 2022. ‘I think Olafur is a mixture between artist, scientist and magician. He always has a mission and something to say about the world and nature and light and our experience of it and that helps us to reconsider how we interact with our environment.’ Just like the previous full moon releases, “i/o” will come with differing mix approaches from Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Bright-Side Mix), released here, and Tchad Blake (Dark-Side Mix) and Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos mix (In-Side Mix), whose versions are released later in the month.

‘This month the song is i/o and i/o means input / output. You see it on the back of a lot of electrical equipment and it just triggered some ideas about the stuff we put in and pull out of ourselves, in physical and non-physical ways. That was the starting point of this idea and then trying to talk about the interconnectedness of everything. The older I get, I probably don’t get any smarter, but I have learned a few things and it makes a lot of sense to me that we are not these independent islands that we like to think we are, that we are part of a whole. If we can see ourselves as better connected, still messed up individuals, but as part of a whole, then maybe there’s something to learn?’

released April 20th, 2023
Words and Music Peter Gabriel

The western themes of Cory Hanson’s previous “Pale Horse Rider“, made flesh in the form of an electric band, lashed with gleaming guitar strings to tracks whose gnarled, proggy path only climes to the top of the listener’s Compulsion Index. From steel to synth, from old-school ballad to nu hardcore and ambient, Hanson and band run the table of modern rocks.

There’s a hot new Cory Hanson solo album on the horizon! In 2021, Wand singer/guitarist Cory Hanson delivered his critically acclaimed second solo album titled “Pale Horse Rider“, a combination of songs and sounds that journeyed through the bleak and broken territory and places of sweet, lush remove… Musically loose and cosmic, it was a fine country-rock offering, cut with native psych and prog strands.

For “Western Cum“, his third solo LP (June 23, 2023, from Drag City), Hanson ups the heat to molten levels, six strings at a time, driven by a rhythm trio dubbed “Slowhand”, featuring the stalwart bass of brother Casey Hanson and the drums of Evan Backer, with a few passing acoustics from Cory and the intermittent spirit moans of Tyler Nuffer’s steel guitar.

With “Western Cum“, our debauched and shameless world is redeemed in the same breath as it is repudiated. A massing of guitars, guitars, guitars and voices form post-gospel harmony, with a panoply of melodic impulses within, bright and burgeoning. The second single, “Twins”, is now among you! Establishing a peaceful easy feeling up front, it delves deep and sails high when the strings come in (guitar strings, right), rummaging through the nightmare of modern existence with the bones of prosaic wisdom left behind by our singer-songwriter fore-brethren.

For Cory Hanson’s new single ‘Twins’, taken from his highly-anticipated third solo LP (via Drag City Records), Director Amy Scott captures him in his native California environment – rambling around a ranch home. Also – Hanson has just been added to the line-up of this year’s Green Man Festival (17th-20th August).

“Western Cum”, available on LP/CS/CD/Digital on June 23rd, 2023, from Drag City Records.