The Fat Angel Sings

“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.

Clairo has shared a new one-off charity single titled “For Now.” She released the song on her Bandcamp page yesterday (April 1), writing that all proceeds from the track will go toward For the Gworls and Everytown for Gun Safety.

For the Gworls is a Black, trans-led collective that curates parties to raise funds, which go toward Black transgender people who need assistance with rent, gender-affirming surgeries, doctor’s visits, travel assistance, and more. Everytown for Gun Safety is an organization has long worked to prevent gun violence through advocacy.

released April 1st, 2023

The Drums are back after four years without new music the indie pop band released the single “I Want It All” and announced a summer U.S. tour.

“The song emerged from the longing and the pain that stemmed from a loveless childhood,” says frontman Jonny Pierce about the new single. “It is only in the past few years that I have really begun to understand what happened to me as a boy, which has helped me start to build my own bridge towards real love.”

He adds, “The song is a declaration: That I will take what I was never given. I want the full experience of being human, which includes love and connection. I want it all.” In a signature Drums fashion, Pierce’s voice shines over a driving drumbeat and the sound of oceanside guitars as he repeats the song’s title in the chorus.

Pierce has long spoken about how difficult it was to grow up gay in a small town while being raised by Pentecostal preacher parents. “I didn’t have a happy home as a kid,” he told Yahoo Music in 2017. “It’s funny, you think you grow out of it and you move on, but you’d be surprised just how much of that sticks with you, well into adulthood.”

Along with the self-reflective new single, the alt-pop group is set to head on a U.S. tour, starting at San Diego’s House of Blues, then making their way across the country to stop in cities including Nashville, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco.

The new single follows the release of Mommy Don’t Spank Me, the group’s 2021 LP filled with rarities from their breakthrough Portamento era. The band made its debut in 2010 with its self-titled album.

released April 3rd, 2023

Written by Jonny Pierce

On “Cowprint,” the psychedelically-tinged new single from Austin-based band Holy Wave, vocalist/guitarist Ryan Fuson conjures up a world where the tension between inner thoughts and external reality collide in a hazy daydream. The song is highlighted by evocative fragments that would fit as well in a short story as they do in this pastoral-folk rocker. One more cigarette before saying goodbye, a note left in a coat pocket.

These nearly-tangible signifiers give the track its emotional heft, imbuing the straightforward refrain of the chorus with ample meaning: “With my headphones on.” Backed by Kyle Hager on bass, Joey Cook on guitar, Julian Ruiz on drums, and Tomas Dolas on keys, Fuson ambles through a world just slightly askew from the one we know and experience every day. The way he sings, it’s unclear if this memory occurred yesterday, months ago, or strictly in the dreamstate. The instrumental recalls the rich guitar tones of Yellow House-era Grizzly Bear, while the knotty breakdowns between choruses harken back to the 70s era of gold-tinged pop on AM radio.

Tying the track’s competing arrangements together is the sturdy and buoyant bassline, a melodically-infused bolster that both anchors the track in its structure and propels the way forward. Instead of one final chorus, though, the band introduces buzzing synths that recall growing tension in the distance. Past the warm memories of a lovely time together, these ominous swells give the impression that even if things were as they initially seemed, they might not ever happen again. It makes the story of the first verses simultaneously sweet and tinged with regret. “Hope it doesn’t take so long,” Fuson sings during the end of the first chorus, suggesting that a reunion may not be as inevitable as it initially seemed. He wonders if his partner is really committed, and if she even wonders about him the way he seems to always be reminded of her. He sends a text letting her know that he’s thinking of her, but the details remain vague. This is a story of instant connections and missed opportunities, the thin line attachment that fractures when our memories and the feelings of others come in direct contact.

Written & Performed by Holy Wave Ryan Fuson – Vocals, Guitar Kyle Hager – Bass Joey Cook – Guitar Julian Ruiz – Drums Tomas Dolas – Keys

“Hiding in Plain Sight” almost didn’t happen at all. Frustrated and insecure with his own singing voice prior to the pandemic, Drugdealer founder and primary songwriter Michael Collins was nearly ready to throw in the towel. Then, amidst the windswept art colony of Marfa, Texas, a chance encounter with the visionary artist and composer Annette Peacock changed his outlook. While attending Mexican Summer’s Marfa Myths festival, Collins ran into Peacock backstage. “I was so inspired by [Annette]. But similarly to all these other vocalists I’d worked with, I didn’t feel like I had it in me.” he recalls. “I told her my plight, then I played her a song, and she told me I wasn’t singing high enough for my speaking voice. When I returned to LA, I started coming up with new progressions, which I’d modulate up three half steps. It forced me to find a new way to sing.”

In the valley of the shadow of doubt, during a period when Collins was considering giving up on music and embarking on his lifelong dream of filmmaking, a furtive conversation with a legend allowed him to find his own distinctive voice. 

On “Hiding in Plain Sight”, Collins steps forward leading a collaborative group of players through Pacific Coast Highway cruisers, power pop, roadhouse country, trench coat jazz, and late night soul investigating the journey of life and love, of self acceptance and understanding your place in a world of change.

If the pandemic resembled a lost weekend full of messy midnight jams, the unsung LA songwriter Scott Archdale was Michael Collins’ natural counterpart. The two friends spent countless nights writing and singing songs when there wasn’t much else to do. “Lip Service,” the brilliant new single from Drugdealer, was written by Collins and Archdale as “normal life” resumed, the night before Drugdealer set out on its first post-shutdown tour.

As they had so many nights before, the duo sat down at Collins’ studio off Sunset in Echo Park without much of a plan. That night, “Lip Service” flowed out with a giddy urgency, recalling Lowe and Costello at their most threadbare. The song’s unnamed object of desire could be a new friend, a love interest, or, simply, the chance to roam free once again.

released March 14th, 2023

A Jason Isbell record always lands like a decoder ring in the ears and hearts of his audience, a soundtrack to his world and magically to theirs, too. “Weathervanes” carries the same revelatory power. This is a storyteller at the peak of his craft, observing his fellow wanderers, looking inside and trying to understand, reducing a universe to four minutes. He shrinks life small enough to name the fear and then strip it away, helping his listeners make sense of how two plus two stops equaling four once you reach a certain age — and carry a certain amount of scars.

“There is something about boundaries on this record,” Isbell says. “As you mature, you still attempt to keep the ability to love somebody fully and completely while you’re growing into an adult and learning how to love yourself.”

“Weathervanes” is a collection of grown-up songs: Songs about adult love, about change, about the danger of nostalgia and the interrogation of myths, about cruelty and regret and redemption. Life and death songs played for and by grown ass people. Some will make you cry alone in your car and others will make you sing along with thousands of strangers in a big summer pavilion, united in the great miracle of being alive. The record features the rolling thunder of Isbell’s fearsome 400 Unit, who’ve earned a place in the rock ‘n’ roll cosmos alongside the greatest backing ensembles, as powerful and essential to the storytelling as The E Street Band or the Wailers.

They make a big noise, as Isbell puts it, and he feels so comfortable letting them be a main prism through which much of the world hears his art. He can be private but with them behind him he transforms, and there is a version of himself that can only exist in their presence. When he plays a solo show, he is in charge of the entire complicated juggle. On stage with the 400 Unit, he can be a guitar hero when he wants, and a conductor when he wants, and a smiling fan of the majesty of his bandmates when he wants to hang back and listen to the sound.

The roots of this record go back into the isolation of the pandemic and to Isbell’s recent time on the set as an actor on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. There were guitars in his trailer and in his rented house and a lot of time to sit and think. The melancholy yet soaring track “King of Oklahoma” was written there. Isbell also watched the great director work, saw the relationship between a clear vision and its execution, and perhaps most important, saw how even someone as decorated as Scorsese sought out and used his co-workers’ opinions.

“It definitely helped when I got into the studio,” Isbell says. “I had this reinvigorated sense of collaboration. You can have an idea and you can execute it and not compromise — and still listen to the other people in the room.”

The first of five focus tracks from the album, “Death Wish,” is about being in love with someone suffering from depression, with a powerful universal undercurrent about the fragility of life and the power and limits of love. That grown-up kind of love. Musically the track is beautiful and fascinating. Isbell, clearly, has been listening to The Cure and tiny little tracers of post-punk find their way into this song and others. Matt Pence, the drummer and engineer, came into the studio to help with the drum sound. He got a bunch of kits set up and they arrived on structure for “Death Wish.”

The kick drum hits on the two, which was weird and disconcerting, even upsetting, until it clicked. Now it feels complicated and intricate, yet never fragile, like the subject of the song itself. As the first track it announces that Isbell is an artist growing, exploring new musical frontiers. The Sylvia Massy-added strings make it big and ambitious, almost like a James Bond theme song.

“Middle of the Morning” was a lockdown song. Melancholy, honest, with those Isbell phrases that will sneak into your vocabulary – ahem, “farmhand’s ghost” – the narrator, who both is and is not Jason himself, describes the feeling of being stuck in place, wheels and mind spinning, feeling like some essential part of yourself lives just outside your reach.

“It was about trying to keep my mind from unraveling over the couple of years there,” he says now.

In “Cast Iron Skillet,” which will be sung by audiences and printed on merch for years to come, Isbell returns to a common theme. He is southern in accent, and family tree, and in musical ancestors, but he uses his art to tear down the worst of the south and try to build a new, better, more loving region in its place. The engine in this song is breaking open the myths and legends he learned, from the small and insignificant to the large and deadly. The characters are murderers and racists, human beings who weren’t always those things, and in between the lines is an author grappling with the forces of nurture and nature.

“I think nostalgia is an abomination,” he says. “I think it is a crime. I think it’s unnatural.”

Isbell says “Save the World” was the hardest for him to write and record, going through several drafts and changing perspective. It is the hardest to listen to as well, describing the moment another school shooting hits the cable news ticker or the newspaper headlines. It’s not about a victim of the crime, or even anyone adjacent, merely worried parents trying to raise children in a world where something like this could happen. This is songwriting as journalism, very sophisticated journalism, and the music reflects the lyrics. There’s no reverb. No crutch. Everything feels bone dry, like the song is being played only for you.

“This Ain’t It” is a romp, with a live vocal take and live guitars except for the overdubs on the outro. This is the 400 Unit in a room playing, wings spread in flight, more southern sounding than anything Isbell has written in years. The spirit of Keith Richards is all over this track and the best part about the terrible fatherly advice being given here is that the father in the song, a totally untrustworthy narrator, really believes what he is saying. 

releases June 9th, 2023

Jason Isbell – Vocals, Background Vocals, Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Baritone Guitar, Electric Slide Guitar 

Derry deBorja – Acoustic Piano, Electric Piano, Organ, Accordion, Synthesizers, Therevox, Tack Piano, Background Vocals

Chad Gamble – Drums, Percussion, Congas

Jimbo Hart – Electric Bass, Bass Ukulele

Sadler Vaden – Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Electric 12 String, Acoustic 12 String, Background Vocals —

Special guests:

Amanda Shires – Fiddle, Background Vocals 

Mickey Raphael – Harmonica on Strawberry Woman

Background vocals on “If You Insist“ by Sylvia Massy & Ian RickardStrings on “Death Wish” by Morgan O’Shaughnessey

Dexys are back with their brand new album ‘The Feminine Divine’ It’s their first original LP in 11 years. 

The group’s fifth album of original material is produced once again by Pete Schwier, along with acclaimed session musician and producer Toby Chapman, and sees frontman Kevin Rowland with a fresh perspective and newfound positivity. 

Described as a “personal, if not strictly autobiographical, record portraying a man whose views have evolved over time,” the project explores every-changing views towards the concept of masculinity. It’s an idea reflected in the artwork for the project – a painting inspired by Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes – with two tracks on the album featuring the word Goddess in the title. 

Clocking in at nine new tracks, ‘The Feminine Divine’ is a combination of music hall-esque swagger and synth-heavy cabaret, penned in collaboration with original Dexys’ trombonist Big Jim Paterson, along with Sean Read and Mike Timothy.

Album opener “The One That Loves You” was originally written by Kevin in 1991. 

Alongside the album announcement, Dexys have released its first single, the horn-heavy, dance-hall-inspired “I’m Going To Get Free”, with the track out now digitally. 

“The Feminine Divine” is out July 28th on 100% Records