Fleet Foxes returned with a new single titled “A Sky Like I’ve Never Seen” featuring Brazilian musician Tim Barnardes. The blossoming folk tune was written for for the documentary “Wildcat” that’s out December 21st. The film, directed by Melissa Lesh and Trevor Beck Frost, details the story of young veteran Harry Turner whose life is changed after venturing into the Amazon. He meets Samantha Zwicker who runs a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center and begins to care for an orphaned baby ocelot.
Fleet Foxes songwriter and vocalist Robin Pecknold detailed his motivation for the track: “I was inspired by how the film employed unconventional means to arrive at something universally moving, and was struck by all the collisions inherent in the film’s conceit—between species, between hemispheres, between individuals, between the psychological and the natural. In hotel rooms and in borrowed studios, on time stolen from a world tour, I put this song together. It was an honor to be asked to make a song that could serve as an end-cap to this unique and affecting story and to collaborate with Tim again.”
“A Sky Like I’ve Never Seen” Performed by Fleet Foxes featuring Tim Bernardes Written by Robin Pecknold
Last week, Destroyer (the project of Dan Bejar) shared a new song, “Somnambulist Blues,” which features Sandro Perri and is out now via Mexican Summer’s Looking Glassseries. Bejar also shared a Spotify playlist of songs which have inspired the new single.
In a press release, Bejar states: “I come back to Sandro’s music as something to sing to at the crossroads moments of my life in music. There is something about the landscape Sandro lays out—it’s a world in which things become imminently singable. A lotta room to roam, and all of it good.”
Looking Glass focuses on the human condition as reflected through chance and destined encounters. Mirroring the tenets of Mexican Summer’s ten plus years of supporting adventurous music, Looking Glass looks inward to artists close to the label’s core, and outward to familiar names not far from the family tree, to encourage discovery, diversity, and collaboration.
Destroyer’s latest album, “Labyrinthitis”, came out in March via Merge Records.
For nearly 60 years, John Cale has been reimagining how his music is made, sounds, and even works. “Mercy”, Cale’s first full album in a decade, moves through true dark-night-of-the-soul electronic torment toward vulnerable love songs and hopeful considerations for the future with the help of some of music’s most curious young minds. Cale has always searched for new ways to explore old ideas of alienation, hurt, and joy; “Mercy”is the latest transfixing find of this unsatisfied mind.
The Former Velvet Underground member John Cale announced the release of his first new album in a decade, “Mercy”, which will be out on January 20th, 2023 via Double Six/Domino Recordings. He shared a video for a new album single, the WeyesBlood collaboration “Story Of Blood” .
In a press release, Cale states: “I’d been listening to Weyes Blood’s latest record and remembered Natalie’s puritanical vocals. I thought if I could get her to come and sing with me on the ‘Swing your soul’ section, and a few other harmonies, it would be beautiful. What I got from her was something else! Once I understood the versatility in her voice, it was as if I’d written the song with her in mind all along. Her range and fearless approach to tonality was an unexpected surprise. There’s even a little passage in there where she’s a dead-ringer for Nico.”
“Mercy” also features musical contributions from Animal Collective, Sylvan Esso, Laurel Halo, Tei Shi, and Actress. Cale previously shared the album track “Night Crawling.”
Amber Arcades, the project of Dutch musician Annelotte de Graaf, announced the release of a new album, “Barefoot on Diamond Road”, which will be out on February 10th, 2023 via Fire. She shared a new album single, “Just Like Me.”.
In a press release, de Graaf elaborates on the new single: “I wrote this song when I had just moved to Amsterdam, right before the lockdown. It was a sequence of extremes; we lived dead center, at first we couldn’t go out of the house without being in a huge crowd of people, then overnight it felt like an apocalyptic ghost town. The song is about the tension between togetherness and being alone that comes with living in an urban environment. The need for both but then often not being quite satisfied with either.”
Regarding the album, she adds: “This record really reveals parts of me and my relationship with being a musician and making music. It’s like a reckoning, more in the moment, realizing how important it is to do things for the right reasons and how that can change your process into one that embraces what exists, including yourself.
“I worked with Ben Greenberg who also produced my first record. I kept track of him over the last couple of years. He’s been working on a lot of film music, and these songs felt quite filmic. I wanted that big atmosphere, that’s why I approached him. I had this idea of a harp, a cello, classical instruments. To be honest, I was just kind of bored with guitar music.”
De Graaf released her previous album, “European Heartbreak”, in 2018 via Heavenly. The new Amber Arcades “Barefoot onDiamond Road” released through Fire Records on: 2023-02-10
Interpol have shared a video for the song “Passenger” taken from their latest album, “The Other Side of Make-Believe”. with a video, directed by Jamie McDonald, below.
In a press release, McDonald states: “‘Passenger’ spoke to me. As soon as I listened to it, I was inspired. The idea behind the music video visually, is that of a fever dream. We’re exploring the subconscious, delving into dreams, and delving even deeper into nightmares. This is really a passion project for me.”
“The Other Side of Make-Believe” came out in July via MatadorRecords. In August, Interpol re-released their 2003 EP “TheBlack” EP.
“Passenger” is taken from the album ‘The Other Side of Make-Believe’ by Interpol, out now on Matador Records:
Legendary indie pop outfit Heavenly are re-issuing all four albums on vinyl over the next two years, starting with the band’s debut “Heavenly vs Satan” which comes out this Friday (11th November). Originally released by influential independent label Sarah Records in 1991,“Heavenly vs Satan” remains one of the most iconic records to emerge from the post-C86 indiepop scene. The re-issues will be released on the band’s own Skep Wax label and each one will also feature a seven-inch booklet with lyrics.
“Le Jardin de Heavenly” – originally released in 1992 – will follow in the summer of 2023, with “The Decline and Fall of Heavenly” (first released in 1994) and 1996’s “Operation Heavenly” both due in 2024. Special edition t-shirts will also go on sale alongside each album.
The band will also be playing their first shows for 28 years at the Bush Hall in London. Originally muted as a one-off, the initial date on Saturday 20th May sold out in 36 hours so the band have now added a second show on Friday 19th May.
For those unaware of just how inspirational Heavenly are, they’re regularly cited as one of the pioneers of indiepop and Pitchfork recently featured “Heavenly vs Satan” in its 25 best Indie Pop albums of the 1990s.
Formed from the ashes of Talulah Gosh in Oxford in 1989, Heavenly ignored the increasingly macho environment of the contemporary UK indie scene and forged a separate path, along with other bands on Sarah Records.
Later, having co-released their albums on K Records in Olympia, Heavenly toured the US, hooking up with bands in the embryonic riot grrrl scene. Heavenly’s quiet feminism became louder and more articulate, and the hostility of the UK music press less relevant. The indie-punk-twee scene was parting company with the fake-indie of the big labels and their ladrock bands. Back on home turf, Heavenly invited Bratmobile to tour with them and helped import the sound and politics of the riot grrrl movement to the UK.
Heavenly came to an abrupt and tragic end when drummer Mathew Fletcher took his own life in 1996. After a year’s hiatus, the group reformed as the short-lived Marine Research, before going their separate ways musically. Amelia Fletcher (vocals & guitar) and Rob Pursey (bass) currently play in The Catenary Wires and Swansea Sound. Peter Momtchiloff (guitar) plays in Would-Be-Goods and Tufthunter. While Cathy Rogers (keyboards) is now a renowned television producer.
Heavenly were Amelia, Mathew, Peter, Cathy and Rob.
They released four albums from 1991-96. All four will be re-released on vinyl over the next couple of years.
Songwriting project of Justin Sullivan (Kevin Morby, The Babies, Flat Worms). Songs from the cafe of eternal youth.
Earlier this year, Justin Sullivan, The longtime drummer for Flat Worms, The Babies, and Kevin Morby Band, shared his second solo solo album as Night Shop,”Forever Night“. Following after the record’s release, Sullivan is keeping his momentum up this year with a new double A-side, “Universal City / “Harness,” the band’s third release on Dangerbird Records. He has already shared the first single, “Universal City,” and today he’s back with “Harness,” .
“Harness” is a gorgeously textured and meditative effort, gently unfolding in a swirling mix of expansive instrumentation. Sullivan’s vocals and swaying harmonies cast an evocative spell, imbuing it with deep longing and inviting the listener to get lost in the track’s poignant moonlit beauty. Lyrically, the track finds Sullivan exploring the complicated territory of a relationship, recognizing the danger ahead and celebrating the unknown rather than running from it一“And when you said, Just come and take my hand/I thought, ‘There’s danger up ahead’/We closed our eyes and then we jumped right in/We closed our eyes and I don’t want to open them.”
Sullivan says of “Harness” and its counterpart, “Universal City:”
I’ve been describing them as the twin faces of Janus; the god of transitions and dualities. They reflect different perspectives on the same situation and the duality inherent in desire. “Harness” is about accepting a dynamic; submitting to it, wanting to indulge in it and celebrating it. A way of being in an unconscious space where you see only the beloved. Whereas “Universal City” reflected more of my conscious mind; seeing all the other things in life outside of that dynamic.
He goes on to explain of the accompanying video:’
I wanted to make a video with my friend Madeleine Daste because I love her sense of aesthetics and how she can create a sense of place and narrative without being heavy handed. She’s a romantic but also has the right amounts of humor and practicality to balance out that perspective which I think really serves the song. We just spent a few days together, driving around and basically talking about relationships the whole time, which I think created an overall romantic, playful and melancholic result.
Finally, he says the pair of singles may prove to be marks of where Night Shop is going next.
I definitely see them as a bridge to what’s to come. Or maybe they’re more like a rope ladder to climb out of a well haha. It’s been a rebuilding time in my life to say the least and these songs and the ones that I’ve begun writing have been really important for me. They’ve allowed me to believe that I will be in a different place soon, if I just keep following the music.
released November 8th, 2022 Recorded August 23rd and 24th Justin Sullivan: vocals, guitar, drums Jarvis Taveniere: bass, guitar, piano, synth
Cat Power performed a show at the Royal Albert Hall where she covered Bob Dylan‘s legendary 1966 gig in its entirety,
Speaking to The Guardian ahead of the gig, Power said: “It’s important for me to not do my thing. I’m not being Bob, not at all. I don’t know how to describe it – I’m just recreating it, that’s all. But not making it mine. I had the inkling that I should protect that period of time and him making that crossover. It’s like this precipice of time that changed music for ever.”
She continued: “My heart is racing, I’m terrified … It’s not like, ‘Oh what will Bob think?’ It’s like, ‘What am I doing? Am I doing something right?’ I’m going to cry.”
The gig took place on Saturday night (November 5th), with Cat Power (Chan Marshall) covering Dylan’s exact set from the gig. The first half of Marshall’s show was acoustic before she was joined by an electric band for the remainder.
Dylan played the Manchester Free Trade Hall at the end of his ‘Dylan Goes Electric’ tour in 1966. On a bootlegged version of the show it was mistakenly labelled as a gig at the Royal Albert Hall in London and has unofficially been known as such ever since.
In 1998 the bootlegged version of the gig was officially released under the title ‘Bob Dylan Live 1966, The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert’. Marshall’s show was originally announced in July. The musician said: “When I finally got the opportunity to play The RAH, it was a no brainer. I just wanted to sing Dylan songs. And as much as any, this collection of his songs, to me, belong there.”
Power has been covering a host of artists over recent years and released a new covers album earlier this year featuring versions of tracks by Frank Ocean, The Pogues, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Billie Holiday and others.
Reviewing ‘Covers’, Power said : “Often, cover records are dismissed as simply a bit of fun or as an indulgent aside to an artists’ original output, but when Cat Power does it, it’s nothing less than soul-nourishing.”
Black Honey have announced their third album ‘A Fistful Of Peaches’ – listen to new single ‘Heavy’ The Brighton band are due to release the new 12 track record – the follow-up to last year’s ‘Written & Directed’ – on March 17th, 2023 via FoxFive Records.
Arriving this week, the grunge-y and anthemic ‘Heavy’ sees frontwoman Izzy Phillips delve into “the parallels between grief and depression”. It also references Artax’s traumatic death scene in The NeverEnding Story (“Serotonin let us down/ Don’t wanna watch the white horse drown“).
“We wrote this song the day I found out the founder of our fan club passed away from COVID-19,” explained Phillips in a statement. “We were talking about the weight of grief and the way it holds you down.
“The weight of mental illness and how it brings you a deeper understanding grief. There’s always a glimmer of light though and I love how ‘Heavy’ has that kind of glitter darkness. It’s in my nature to become co-dependant and I think in this song I’m reaching for someone to help me climb back out.” This record is the most unapologetic and honest story telling so far and I never really understood what people meant about capturing a moment in time until now. I think this one is for my fellow neurodivergents and anyone who struggles with their mental illness.
“Heavy’ arrives with an accompanying official visual directed by and starring Dakota Schiffer from Drag Race UK. Schiffer explained that the visuals, which mark her directorial debut, are “centred around the themes of trans femininity”.
“A self-portrait of a struggling trans person who’s exterior appears alluring and glamorous but is constructed out of a need for survival,” she added. “That survival has led many trans people in history to endanger themselves in pursuit of euphoria.”
“A Fistful Of Peaches” features 12 tunes and we have launched with a “peach swirl” vinyl alongside a deluxe signed mountain mural picture disk.
Phillips explained: “If the vibe of ‘Written & Directed’ was creating this whole Tarantino world and this safe space of me almost refusing help and saying I was fine, then with this album it’s the opposite.
It’s their 3rd RECORD “A Fistful Of Peaches” is available to pre-order NOW. It lands on planet earth March 17th. Get it from our shop with a bunch of bundles that our fan club have already blitzed through.
