“Remember, thou art mortal.” That ancient Roman warning wouldn’t seem to apply to Bruce Springsteen, whose Herculean shows with the E Street Band belie his age. And even though the man has moved past the need to talk about his childhood and his complicated relationship with his father, as was often the case earlier in his career , he clearly hasn’t lost his ability to hold an audience in the palm of his hand.
Bruce Springsteen estimates he wrote the song “If I Was The Priest” in 1970 or 1971, and he sometimes played it with the E Street Band at shows up until 1972. After that, the Boss sidelined the song for almost five decades until re-recording it for 2020’s “Letter To You” album. And now, finally, it has returned to their setlist after 51 years.
As NJArts.net reports, Tuesday night at the Toyota Center in Houston,the E Street Band played “If I Was The Priest” for the first time since May 5th, 1972 at the 300-capacity Gaslight au Go Go nightclub in New York. (From Cinco de Mayo to Valentine’s Day!) Before the performance, Springsteen told the crowd he wrote the song when he was 22 and “I still don’t have a clue what the fuck it’s about.”
Some fans noted that the song was also not on the printed setlist.
“Yet perhaps the most interesting celebration of Springsteen’s life and legacy comes not through his modern musings on death and dying, but in his inclusion of a trio of songs from his past.”
It went on: ”Hearing a man in his 70s singing songs he wrote when he was in his 20s is an interesting experience, not least for Springsteen himself, who recently told the New York Times: ‘It’s fun to go back and see how wild my lyric writing was, and how uninhibited it was at a certain moment, and to be able to take that and bring it into the present with the band, and sing it in my voice right now. [It] was a bit of a joy ride‘.”
‘If I Was The Priest’ existed for decades a bootleg demo before it was officially re-recorded with the E Street Band and released in 2020 on 20th album ‘Letter To You’.
Neil Young has teamed with three members of his on-off backing band Crazy Horse on a new folk-rock album, under a name that hearkens back to CSNY days. The newly minted old friends Molina, Talbot, Lofgren & Young will release “All Roads Lead Home” at the end of March.
It contains 10 tracks, with songs written by all four members: Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot, Nils Lofgren, and Neil Young. The album started as a pandemic project for Molina, Talbot, and Lofgren, with Young joining later. His lone writing credit here is a live solo version of “Song Of the Seasons” from the 2021 Crazy Horse album “Barn”, which apparently came together concurrently with this project.
Bass, Drums, Guitar, Keyboards, Percussion, Vocals: Nils Lofgren Vocals: Tom Lofgren Writer: Nils Lofgren
Our first preview of “All Roads Lead Home” is the shuffling, Lofgren-led “You Will Never Know,” out today.
“All Roads Lead Home” is out 31st March on Reprise Records.
“Lines” is about what we do to each other, some call the dance of intimacy, exchanges. What we are given, carry with us, then subsequently pass on to others- good and bad. How the recipient is often undeserving of the negative side of this reality. It’s about trying to dodge blame and the loneliness of guilt. It’s about the irony of impermanence and unhealthy patterns coexisting; ‘nothing stays’ but ‘nothings changed’.
The idea of change I had grown accustomed to but the reality that some things won’t change until you actively work on them is something new to me, preferring to adopt a slightly lazy attitude and misunderstanding the saying ‘all passes’. Sometimes it doesn’t quickly enough. It’s also a song about anger, and the familiarity of not knowing where to put it.
Inhaler have their second album ‘Cuts & Bruises’ due out February 17th 2023. It’s the album we’ve always wanted to make. We’ve been working on these songs for a while now and can’t wait to take them around the world and play them for you all next year.
The Irish indie boys are back with their second album. Following on from their phenomenal debut, we only have high hopes for this record. With their second album ‘Cuts & Bruises’ out next month and upcoming shows with Arctic Monkeys and Harry Styles, Inhaler are entering 2023 as indie’s brightest rising hopes.
They’ve gotten musically tighter and emotionally open on ‘Cuts & Bruises’, a record that also shows the wisdom they’ve gleaned from years on the road.
Inhaler return with their 2nd album “Cuts and Bruises” in 2023. The album includes the singles “These Are The Days” and “Love Will Get You There”. “Cuts and Bruises” is the follow-up to Inhaler’s debut “It Won’t Always Be Like This” which debuted at no.1 in both the UK & Irish Official Charts.
“It Won’t Always Be Like This” became the fastest-selling debut album on vinyl by any band this century and saw Inhaler become the first Irish group to top the album charts with a debut in 13 years. 2022 has seen a relentless touring schedule with a run of festival dates, including their first Glastonbury performance, a homecoming gig in Dublin at the city’s Fairview Park alongside support shows with Arctic Monkeys and Kings of Leon.
Set for release on 17th February via Polydor Records, Inhaler have their second album ‘Cuts & Bruises’.
The follow-up to last year’s debut ‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’, they’re giving us the first taste of what to expect from their forthcoming LP with new track ‘Love Will Get You There’.
Anna B Savage is a London based singer-songwriter and musician. Her songs are stark, skeletal paintings of moods and reflection, using a palette of mainly voice and guitar. Most prominent is her voice – strong and sonorous, yet with a vulnerability that feels as if she’s in the same room as you.
Anna B Savage has always asked questions in her music, but on new album “in|FLUX “answers are no longer her quest. Vulnerability and curiosity have consistently been operative words to describe her work and on her second album she ruminates on the complexities and variables of humanity, the pain or pleasure of love, loss and earthly connection, capturing it all in devastating, elating and powerful ways.
The key difference between this and previous releases: she’s not anxious about what’s on the other side. She’s come to appreciate staying afloat – basking even – in the open ended, uncertainty of the grey area.
About “The Ghost“: “Exhausted from years of being haunted by an ex-partner, this song is a plea to let go, or be let go of. Exploring the particular cruelty of the human brain, that love can be felt so deeply, hurt so essentially and so much, and still feel so present many years later.” Anna B Savage
I am so thrilled to share with you this mega fluxed version of my newest single ‘in|FLUX’, by none other than the absolute stone cold legend that is Dan Deacon. (Dan Deacon does this mean we’re best friends now? Please and thank you)
I first saw Dan Deacon in 2009- my boyfriend had a spare ticket and I went expecting a totally normal gig experience. Instead, I had a totally magnificent, interactive, confusing gleeful, sweaty and expansive time. I then promptly fell in love with Bromst, and then he remixed my favourite ever (Owen Pallett) and did my favourite ever remix (of Lewis Takes off His Shirt) firmly cementing himself into position of coolest ever. He’s only added to that since as a musician, composer, remixer, crowd wrangler and general legend. I can’t believe he knows who I am, let alone that he’s done a remix of my song.
I love the jigsaw approach he’s taken to “in|FLUX“. His additional choral expanses elevate everything, and also speak so acutely to me as the daughter of professional choral singers. The resolution at the end takes me back to being that sweaty teenager again, smashing in to people and dancing around them at his show. I love it and him.
On his new studio album “Norm“, Andy Shauf’s song writing veers decidedly more oblique, hinting at sinister happenings and dark motivations. The result: an intoxicating collection of mellifluous melodies and beguiling lyrics. Levitating, synth-laden atmospherics drive Shauf’s storytelling on “Norm”, mixed by Neal Pogue (Tyler, the Creator). In 2016, “The Party” catapulted Andy Shauf to indie notoriety, followed by 2020’s “The Neon Skyline” which landed Andy Shauf performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
It will be Shauf’s eighth LP overall and first since 2021’s “Wilds”. According to Shauf, the album is centred around the titular character of Norm, who was inspired by David Lynch’s film. “The character of Norm is introduced in a really nice way,” Shauf says of the first round of preview singles. “But the closer you pay attention to the record, the more you’re going to realise that it’s sinister.” Shauf’s status as one of indie’s greatest songwriters was solidified with 2020’s “The Neon Skyline”.
It’s usually multiple sheep that you would associate with sleep but here it’s Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs who are bringing us ‘Land Of Sleeper’.
Whether inhabiting the realm of dreams or nightmares, the primordial drive of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs is more powerful than ever and “Land Of Sleeper”, their fifth record in a decade of rancour and revelation is testimony to this. Arguably the most potent and assured record of their storied life so far, it’s the product of a band energised and fortified by their individual passions to incendiary effect. After the travails of the two and a half years since 2020’s “Viscerals”, “Land Of Sleeper”sees the Newcastle-based quintet not so much reinvigorated as channelling a furious drive which only appears to gather momentum as the band’s surroundings spins on their axis.
For all that the last few years have seen Pigs’ stature rise in the wake of triumphant festival slots and sold-out venues like, this remains a band fundamentally incapable of tailoring their sound to a prospective audience, rather standing alone and impervious as a monument of catharsis.“Certainly for me, writing and playing music is often surprising and revealing, it can be like holding up a mirror and seeing things you didn’t expect to see” reckons drummer Ewan Mackenzie, whose return to the Pigs fray after two albums away marked another big influence on the new record. “For me, the darker tracks on the record hold in common a determination not to lose faith, despite the odds”
The better to unite slumber and waking, “Land Of Sleeper” is no less than an act of transcendence for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – new anthems to elucidate a world sleepwalking to oblivion.
“Land Of Sleeper”come housed in eye-popping ‘Callum Rooney’ sleeve art.
Worriers, the band led by punk rock singer-songwriter Lauren Denitzio, will release the new album “Warm Blanket”. Denitzio recorded the album at home, with Against Me!’s Atom Willard adding drums remotely. We’ve already heard the lead single “PollenIn The Air,” and now Worriers have shared another one called “Prepared To Forget.”
“Prepared To Forget” is a warm, fond song about old friends making dumb decisions. You can hear echoes of Denitzio’s DIY pop-punk roots in the song, but it’s also got a grand, slow country-music feel to it. It feels sweeping and intimate at the same time.
Lauren Denitzio has always been the type of songwriter to say exactly what’s on their mind. Over the course of the past decade with their band Worriers, they’ve addressed gender liberation, capitalist violence, and searing heartbreak, all over the band’s signature style of triumphant chords and subtle pop sensibilities. Worriers was always a band that shined with the feelings of ecstatic potential; offering a sense of liberation amidst the chaos of the world.
And yet, on their newest album “Warm Blanket”, they’ve never sounded more free.
The band’s fourth full length record has the feel of an exciting debut and there’s a reason: it marks the first time that Denitzio accepted that the group they had been trying to treat as a band is actually a solo project. After a pace of touring and recording that would be breakneck for most, but de rigueur in the underground scene which forged them, Denitzio found themselves in the summer of 2022 with a chance to finally catch their breath. “I realized I could write whatever I wanted.”
Worriers are a band from Brooklyn, New York, centered around the songwriting of Lauren Denitzio. They released their 2nd LP “Survival Pop” on SideOneDummy Records and have toured with John K Samson, Against Me!, Julien Baker, Anti Flag, and more. Worriers’ debut album “Imaginary Life” was produced by Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!.
“Warm Blanket” is out 4/7 on Ernest Jennings Record Co.
Multi-Award winning, hugely influential musician Feist returns with a new album “Multitudes”, available April 14th on FictionRecords/Universal Music , her sixth solo album and first since 2017’s “Pleasure”. Three album tracks have been released “In Lightning”, “Love Who We Are Meant To” and “Hiding Out in The Open” “Multitudes” was produced by Feist with longtime collaborators Robbie Lackritz (The Weather Station, Bahamas, Robbie Robertson) and Mocky (Jamie Lidell, Vulfpeck, Kelela), with additional production from Blake Mills (Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple, Perfume Genius).
“In Lightning” opens the album with its glorious collision of clattering percussion, explosive guitar and brightly fluttering strings (courtesy of string arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson). Feist shuts out the modern world’s incessant buzz to charge the listener with the electrifying dare to look themselves straight in the eye to find something infinitely more elemental and personal than what the mirror reveals (“And in lighting flashes flash to show our natural age/And the lightning lights me up to be as God as I say”).
“Multitudes” took shape soon after the birth of her daughter and sudden death of her father, a back-to-back convergence of life-altering events that left the Canadian singer/songwriter with “Nothing performative in me anymore.” As she cleansed her songwriting of any tendency to obscure unwanted truths, Feist slowly made her way toward a batch of songs rooted in a raw and potent realism which is touched with otherworldly beauty.
Far more fragile in delivery but no less powerful in impact is the ageless sentiment of “Love Who We Are Meant To” which, with its cascading pattern of solo nylon string guitar against lush orchestral swells, conveys a jazz standard’s wide-angle lens on a delicate quagmire and presents Feist’s heavy-hearted revelation (“We will struggle with the truth/That sometimes we don’t get to/Love who we are meant to”).
On “Hiding Out In The Open” Feist’s hypnotically layered vocals sing in the round, presenting another piece of incandescent wisdom (“Love is not a thing you try to do/It wants to be the thing compelling you/To be you”) with the simple and open hearted cadence of a campfire sing along.
“The last few years were such a period of confrontation for me, and perhaps it felt that way to some degree for everyone,” explains Feist. “We confronted ourselves as much as our relationships confronted us. It felt like our relational ecosystems were clearer than ever and so whatever was normally obscured – like a certain way of avoiding conflict or a certain way of talking around the subject – were thrust into an unavoidable light. It became a chance to find footing on more honest ground when the effort to maintain altitude actually took more effort than just handing ourselves over to the truth.”
Largely written and workshopped during an intensely communal experimental show of the same name through 2021 and 2022, the songs on “Multitudes” developed in parallel with and were deeply influenced by the mutuality of the unconventional experience. The production, developed by Feist with legendary designer Rob Sinclair (David Byrne’s American Utopia, Peter Gabriel, Tame Impala) was formulated to bring people together as they re-emerged from lockdown while providing an outlet for connection between artist, art, and community.
For the recording, Feist returned to her 2011 collaboration with Lackritz and Mocky, who made her third album “Metals” in a converted barn in Big Sur. This time, Lackritz and Engineer Michael Harris (Haim, Lana Del Rey, Vampire Weekend) built a studio in Northern California next to the Redwood Forest, where Feist was joined by multi-instrumentalists Gabe Noel (Kendrick Lamar, Harry Styles, Kamasi Washington), Shahzad Ismaily (Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Tom Waits), and her regular cast who toured “Multitudes” – Todd Dahlhoff (woodwinds, synths, bass) and Amir Yaghmai (strings, guitars) – plus a guest appearance from longtime collaborator Chilly Gonzales.
Over the course of its 12 songs, “Multitudes”affirms Leslie Feist’s ability to construct elaborate sonic worlds by following her singular songwriting to its most poetic yet unbridled expression. Born in Nova Scotia but mostly raised in Calgary, she first explored her idiosyncratic musicality by playing in a local punk band as a teenager and later made her debut with 1999’s “Monarch (Lay Your Jewelled Head Down)” (an independent release primarily sold at merch tables). Along with co-founding Juno Award-winning indie-rock collective Broken Social Scene, Feist next achieved breakout success with her full-length sophomore effort “Let It Die” (winner of Alternative Album of the Year at the 2004 Juno Awards).
Released in 2007, “The Reminder” earned international acclaim and landed on best-of-the-year lists from outlets like Pitchfork, NPR, Spin, and Rolling Stone, in addition to winning Feist the 2007 Shortlist Music Prize and garnering four Grammy Award nominations. Now certified gold, the album features her iconic smash single “1234,” a Billboard Hot 100-charting hit that paved the way for Feist’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live” and “Sesame Street.”
In 2011, Feist returned with the Polaris Music Prize-winning “Metals”, named the best album of the year by New York Times chief popular music critic Jon Pareles. With AV Club hailing 2017’s “Pleasure” as her “most daring work to date” and NPR praising the album as “wrenching in its honesty,” Feist went on to premiere the Pleasure Studies podcast in 2019 – awarded “Podcast of the Year” by Apple Podcasts – and soon began developing the “Multitudes” live show, a boundary-pushing collaboration conceived by Feist and Robbie Lackritz and developed with artist/filmmaker Colby Richardson, artist Heather Goodchild and Artistic Producer Mary Hickson.
Australian The Church have just released the third single – “No Other You” taken from their forthcoming album “TheHypnogogue” (release date: February 24th, 2023, viaCommunicating Vessels). The release of “No Other You” continues the album’s retro-futuristic, dystopian narrative that revolves around a fictional machine (the “Hypnogogue”) that extracts music directly from subconscious dreams.
While the single “The Hypnogogue” introduces characters “Sun Kim Jong” (a Korean scientist/occult dabbler and creator of the aforementioned contraption) and her love interest/rockstar “Eros Zeta” who wants to employ the machine to revive his flailing career, and the follow up “C’est La Vie” served as a cautionary tale from Zeta’s agent not to mess with the Hypnogogue, “No Other You” continues the narrative on a more personal level. Bassist/vocalist/founder Steve Kilbey explains that it is an “ultra-romantic song that Zeta writes for Sun Kim Jong, who is the inventor of The Hypnogogue.
It’s a heartfelt song about an irreplaceable woman. And the Church gets to explore a slightly glam rock feel to boot.” At the heart of it, “No Other You” is pure and simply a cinematic love song. a reflective shimmering wall of sound with singer/bass player Steve Kilbey’s voice filled with a heart-aching yearning. It is one of the most anthemic songs the band has ever produced – filled with melody and orchestration that is ethereal and cinematic.”
Entering their fourth decade of making music and playing live shows with all the fierce creative energy of their early years, The Church will be setting off on a North American tour kicking off in March.
Starting out in 1980, The Church has continued to expand their atmospheric blend of indie rock, shimmering post-punk, icy dreampop and psychedelic post-rock without any retread. Their expansive music career yielded a string of hit songs including “Under the Milky Way,” “Reptile,” “The Unguarded Moment” and “Almost With You” amongst others and their equally stellar live shows have been deemed “spectacular” citing their “dreamy psychedelia that will daub your evening with shades of the paisley underground.
The 2022 epic five-piece line-up is bassist, vocalist and founder Steve Kilbey; with long-time collaborator Tim Powles, drummer and producer across 17 albums since ’94; guitarist Ian Haug formerly of Australian rock icons Powderfinger, who joined the band in 2013 and Jeffrey Cain (Remy Zero), touring multi-instrumentalist who is now a full-time member of The Church since the departure of Peter Koppes in early 2020. The band have also recruited Ashley Naylor, long-time member of Paul Kelly’s touring band and one of Australia’s finest and most respected guitarists.
The Church’s 26th album “The Hypnogogue” will be released on February 24th, 2023 viaCommunicating Vessels.
The Church · Steve Kilbey · Timothy Powles · Ian Haug · Jeffrey Cain · Ashley Naylor
