The Fat Angel Sings

On 14.10.22 Rachael Dadd is to release her new studio album ‘Kaleidoscope’. Her hope is that when people listen “they will feel held and find space to breathe, grieve and celebrate.”

Wildly creative free-form songwriter Rachael Dadd releases her brand new studio album “Kaleidoscope” via Memphis Industries and follows 2019’s “Flux“, which was released to much acclaim and which she was touring when the pandemic struck. Like so many people disconnected from their communities and struggling through the lockdowns, Rachael Dadd turned inwards, seeking escape through music and connection through song writing, and her hope is that when people listen to ‘Kaleidoscope’ “they will feel held and find space to breathe, grieve and celebrate.”

This album is a lot more honest and personal than ‘Flux’” she shares, “but I feel the songs are universal as they are largely rooted in truth and love. If I had to pick a favourite album it would be this one because of the magical rekindling of human connection when me and my band got back in a room together again. All that magic went into these songs.”

Co-produced “intuitively, boldly, and playfully” by Rachael and Rob Pemberton(The Staves, Emily Barker, Maja Lena), “Kaleidoscope” includes musical collaborators such as Maja Lena(Low Chimes), long-time collaborator Emma Gatrill(Willy Mason), Alex Heane(bass), Charlotte West(synths), Alex Garden(strings) and “Flux” producer Marcus Hamblett (Villagers, James Holden, The Staves), giving the record “just the right colour combination, just the right pattern of shapes, plenty of space where needed and finally landing in a sound world that feels fresh and open and true” reflects Rachael.

Japanese aesthetics absorbed from her time spent living there are subconsciously woven into Rachael’s songs. “I first stepped foot in Tokyo in 2008, sparked by the adventure of such a rich and different culture and later on I lived on a small island and experienced an appealing and balanced way of life: the aesthetics, the art and the traditions,” she recalls. “There was a lot of caring for each other, a lot of gentleness, and a lot of simple living in harmony with nature. Japan left its cultural mark on me and is now part of my inner world and I’m sure this comes out with the words and music I write”. But overall” Rachael explains “this is an album of homecoming and reconnecting to my own truth, to my community here, to the earthy land that I love and to the sky that I know”

‘Kaleidoscope’, including a limited ed. DINKED vinyl with bonus EP of featuring This is the Kit, follows Rachael’s critically acclaimed ‘Flux’.

Preorder Kaleidoscope DINKED edition (splatter vinyl + bonus EP), indie only yellow vinyl, black vinyl and

Musicians Rachael Dadd – electric guitar, voice Rob Pemberton – drums, rhodes, voice Alex Heane – electric bass, voice Charlotte West – synthesizer, voice Marcus Hamblett – fuel horn Emma Gatrill – clarinet Alex Garden – violin Written by Rachael Dadd

Releases October 14th, 2022

The band on many lips.

A misery intent on taking all down with it and its cacophonous chaos on its own terms as opposed to idly accepting its otherwise assured fall. This is what the end of the world sounds like.

For fans of Jesus Lizard, Melvins, Korn, Nick Cave, and The Flenser.

Album out July 29th 2022.

Melody’s Echo Chamber will release Unfold, a “lost” album of songs recorded in 2013 that were originally intended for her second album, this Friday. Before the whole thing drops, she’s shared one more song. “Norfolk Hotel” is spiraling psych, with Melody’s distinctive high harmonies and a big trippy crash at the end.

Melody’s Echo Chamber – “Norfolk Hotel” out now on Domino / Fat Possum. On 30 Sept 2022, the 10th anniversary edition of ‘Melody’s Echo Chamber’s’ self-titled debut will be released alongside ‘Unfold,’ the lost follow-up album from which seven rare and unreleased tracks will be made available.

A tenth anniversary edition of “Melody’s Echo Chamber“, the eponymously-titled debut album from French musician Melody Prochet. Recorded and co-produced with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker in Perth, Australia, and finished in the South of France, the album became a cornerstone of the new wave of psychedelia on its release in 2012.

The tenth anniversary edition is released alongside “Unfold”, the lost follow-up album from which seven rare and unreleased tracks will be made available. In their unexpurgated and unvarnished states, sometimes almost finished and sometimes in fragments, “Unfold’s” seven tracks demonstrate a splurge of righteous creation cut off at an inopportune moment and preserved like the ruins of Pompeii.

“Unfold”: featuring seven rare and unreleased tracks, it is the first time of what could have been the follow-up to Melody’s Echo Chamber have been available. The beautiful title track, featuring a euphonious electric guitar and Melody’s trademark falsetto tones, is released today alongside a nostalgic feel-good video by Australian videographer Matt Sav (Confidence Man, POND).

The Velvet Underground toured extensively in 1969, but the band set up shop in San Francisco in November and early December for a series of 18 nights over four separate engagements, the first at the Family Dog, the rest at the fabled North Beach club the Matrix, opened in a one-time pizza parlour by Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin in 1965. Over the course of their residency, which began November 11th, the club’s four-track recorder, manned by owner Peter Abram from a booth at the side of the stage, was rolling through much of it. The Velvet Underground – The Complete Matrix Tapes, a 42-track box captures the highlights of two nights – November 26th, the day Richard Nixon authorized a bill to create a draft lottery, and November 27th, Thanksgiving – as detailed in Rolling Stone editor David Fricke’s liner notes in the box set booklet.

These shows, taped several months after the release of the third, self-titled Velvet Underground album earlier that year, and before heading to the studio to record “Loaded” the following spring, featured the post-John Cale incarnation of the band, with newest member Doug Yule on bass and keyboards joining Reed and remaining members guitarist Sterling Morrison and percussionist Maureen Tucker.

Some versions of these performances were first issued in 1974 by Mercury Records as part of a double LP, “1969 The Velvet Underground Live”, while other audience recorded versions released were taken from cassette tapes made by the late Bob Quine, a huge fan and, at the time, a St. Louis law student who later went on to play guitar for both Richard Hell and Lou Reed. Quine was at a number of the shows during their stint at the club, and his cache eventually was released in 2001 as “The Quine Tapes“.

Now, for the first time, “The Velvet Underground – The Complete Matrix Tapes” features 42 recordings that have been mixed down directly from the original in-house multi-tracks, including the 18 tracks featured in a Super Deluxe Edition of the Velvets’ third album and nine previously unreleased performances marking the first time all the available tapes will be released commercially. As can be heard, the shows were intimate, and features early versions of yet-to-be-recorded songs like “Sweet Jane”, “New Age“ and “Rock and Roll”. Highlights includes previously unreleased versions of “Some Kinda Love” and “Sweet Jane” plus the almost 40-minute-long “Sister Ray“.

The Velvet Underground Trust, under license to Universal Music Enterprises, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc. Released on: 2015-11-20

“Only The Strong Survive” is the new album from Bruce Springsteen, and his first new album since 2020’s “Letter To You“. The album is a collection of soul music gems, that celebrate the legendary songbooks of Gamble and Huff, Motown, Stax and many more.

“Only The Strong Survive” features vocals from Springsteen and instrumentation primarily from his longtime producer Ron Aniello. The album also features guest vocals from Sam Moore, as well as contributions from The E Street Horns, full string arrangements by Rob Mathes and backing vocals from Soozie Tyrell, Lisa Lowell, Michelle Moore, Curtis King Jr., Fonzi Thornton and Dennis Collins. 

Vinyl versions are 140 gram double albums with 3 sides of music and an etched side 4. Housed in a gatefold sleeve with a 12″ x 24″ poster,

Watch the brand new video for Bruce’s cover of the Commodore’s “Nightshift”

Taken from the forthcoming album “Only The Strong Survive”

Channelling The Strokes with an effortlessly cool, understated, boxy indie vibe, The Horn’s new single ‘Do It Now’ is an example of everything which is great about this breakout up and coming five piece.

Infectious energy, tight guitar lines, catchy vocal lines and subtle depths, the band manage to tread the line between reflective, thoughtful lyricism and simplistic yet affecting indie soundscapes to create music that is effortlessly enjoyable on an a number of levels. Only the bands fourth single, ‘Do It Now’ possess a strikingly complete sound, complimenting the tracks which have come before and cementing the fact that they know their sound and have carved their own unique sonic lane.

Talking about the single, the bands lead vocalist Jonny Taylor shares: “I think it expresses the frustration, which is perhaps that of not being allowed to do something, waiting in line, or just the sheer impatience of what it is to be a human being on this planet.”

The Skids album “Days In Europa” has been re-packaged and re-released. The original cover with a painting evoking the look of the Berlin’36 Olympics apparently stirred up some people into thinking the band had pro-Nazi leanings. Nonsense! Lead singer Richard Jobson told Sounds, “We checked things out very carefully, even the gothic script we used on the cover, which supposedly has Nazi connotations, is actually Jewish!” He went on to say they even had a call from some British fascists who offered to give money to the band if they’d wave a few flags about. Instead of swimming against the current of public opinion, no matter how misinformed, The Skids have just repackaged the album with a nice ’20s style painting of high society people.”

‘Days in Europa’ by the Skids. Now over 30 years old and (depressingly) it stands up and over modern music, and in most cases, crunches them underfoot like beetles. ‘Days in Europa’ is a classic. I don’t know any other way to put it.
Despite being produced by the bombastic, Bill Nelson, it breathes joy and celebration.
It’s a happy album. It has loads of notions and possibilities streaming from its grooves. It’s an ideas album. Ideas of being brilliant electro-dance rock music which hasn’t dated.

‘The Olympian’, ‘Charade’, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, ‘Home of the Saved’, ‘Thanatos’, it’s an arresting roll-call of literary mightiness and majesty. Extra tracks include the rare ‘Masquerade/Aftermath Dub’ and the Volgar Boatmen wannabe ‘Grey Parade’.

The Skids being Scottish, there’s a definite air of bagpipes at Bannockburn, claymores at Culloden about some of the melodies. This, clashing stridently with Nelson’s pulsing euro-rock supervision, is what gives  it’s memorable uniqueness .

Singer Richard Jobson eventually ended up doing poetry and directing films; and guitarist Stuart Adamson formed the stadium rock act Big Country before despairingly topping himself over a woman .
Forever though, their crowning glory is ‘Days in Europa’ and not even that old critic-killer – time – can take it away from them.

After eight years away, The Arcs will return in January with a new album “Electrophonic Chronic”, the band’s first album since its lauded 2015 debut “Yours, Dreamily”. The project helmed by Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) on Thursday shared “Keep On Dreamin”, the lead single from the album due to arrive from Dan’s own Easy Eye Sound.

“Electrophonic Chronic” features The Arcs’ full original line-up of Auerbach, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and the late Richard Swift, who passed away in 2018. The 12-track offering was recorded largely before Swift’s death and serves as a tribute to the singer-songwriter/producer who toured as The Black Keys’ bassist from 2014–15 and also produced albums by Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Guster, The Shins, and a host of others.

“This new record is all about honouring Swift,” Auerbach said. “It’s a way for us to say goodbye to him, by revisiting him playing and laughing, singing. It was heavy at times, but I think it was really helpful to do it.”

While The Arcs appeared to have gone silent following “Yours, Dreamily“, and the accompanying two-year world tour, the band continued to record prodigiously. Michels, who co-produced “Electrophonic Chronic”, notes that they probably laid down between 80 and 100 tracks.

“Whether it was New York City or Nashville or L.A. or Swift’s hometown of Cottage Grove, Oregon, wherever we were, we would always get in the studio together. Always. It was our favourite thing to do,” Auerbach added. “It’s rare that you meet a group of people that you click with like that, who you instantly bond with. We were just having fun, making sounds, making music. It was an amazing time for me.”