JUST MUSTARD – ” Boiler Room with Jameson Connects ” Live Session

Posted: September 8, 2022 in MUSIC
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

Just Mustard are a 5 piece band from Dundalk, Ireland. Five friends from a mid-size town in Ireland Katie Ball, Shane Maguire, Mete Kalyoncuoglu, David Noonan, and Rob Clarke, from Dundalk—are pushing out what is quite possibly the most unexpected and exciting sound in rock ‘n’ roll today.

They are the five parts that make up Just Mustard (named for the colour and not the condiment), a band that has played with The Cure, toured with Fontaines DC, and is about to release their highly anticipated second album, “Heart Under”, on Partisan Records, on May 27th. Their first album, 2018’s “Wednesday”, gave us tracks like ‘Tennis’, ‘Pigs’, and ‘Deaf’ this last song packing a melody that sneaks into your eardrum oozing strife and release, with a crunchy, voided finish.

The record is brimming with hypnotism and Lynchian discomfort. It is an album that sounds like it knows you at your worst, and lets you be worse—a comforting sort of uncanny musical companion. 

Accolades don’t come higher than being hand-picked by Robert Smith himself to support The Cure. Just Mustard up next in tonight’s St. Paddy’s Day show with Jameson.

Just Mustard’s forthcoming album tilts its head, living somewhere slightly above and harder to find than its predecessor, indecipherable and undiscoverable in a midnight mist of fuzz and stalking pedal noise. ‘I Am You’ lumbers, throbs, and thrusts its momentum at you, as Katie’s voice tantalizes, raising you up to some strange blue height only to set you back down again. “Heart Under” pushes the band’s technical ability with bolder drum patterns and a more unexpected approach to guitar arrangement and effect implementation, while revealing thoughtful yet simple lyrical imagery. 

Just Mustard – “Deaf”, Taken from ‘Live In Dreams’ concert film.

Following the release of their stunning second album ‘Heart Under’, thrilling Irish quintet Just Mustard bring their genre-pushing soundscape to Nottingham on 21st September.

 

WORLD PARTY – ” Egyptology “

Posted: September 8, 2022 in MUSIC
0

May be an image of 2 people

“Egyptology” is the fourth studio album by World Party released in 1997, re-released in 2006. It contained the single “Beautiful Dream” and the award-winning “She’s the One”, among other songs. But the album was not a commercial success, and Karl Wallinger was upset when his label, Chrysalis Records, used “She’s the One” as a vehicle for pop artist Robbie Williams; Williams’ version hit No#1 on the British pop charts and won Williams several awards. Wallinger later wrote: I was so lucky that Robbie recorded “She’s the One” because it allowed me to keep going [after his aneurysm in 2000]. He nicked my pig and killed it but gave me enough bacon to live on for four years. He kept my kids in school and me in Seaview [Wallinger’s recording studio] and for that I thank him.

“Egyptology” is a good record, even if it doesn’t reach the heights of both “Goodbye Jumbo” and “Bang!” It’s home to ‘She’s The One’, the song Robbie Williams took to number one in the UK, and while it’s a little workmanlike in places (‘Is Is Time’, ‘Call Me Up’) that counterbalanced by some more interesting compositions and arrangements (‘Rolling Off A Log’, ‘Hercules’, ‘Vanity Fair’).

Due in part to the disagreement over “She’s the One”, “Egyptology” would be Wallinger’s last album with Chrysalis; his 2000 album “Dumbing Up” was released on his own label.

This 2LP set is actually slightly expanded. Top marks to frontman/one-man-band Karl Wallinger for putting five live tracks on side four (recorded Live in NYC 1997), rather than giving us the dreaded ‘etched disc’, even if, in truth, I’d have preferred some of those cover versions and studio bonus tracks from the ‘Beautiful Dream’ single.

“Egyptology” is reissued as a 2LP gatefold set on 29th October 2022. 

The GOLDEN RAIL – ” Songs from Empty Streets “

Posted: September 8, 2022 in MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
0

No photo description available.

‘Songs from Empty Streets’ is the third album by Melbourne based indie-pop band The Golden Rail. The band has deep roots in the Perth jangle pop tradition, and has garnered international acclaim for their previous albums.

The album is available as a limited edition, translucent orange vinyl, on black vinyl, and digitally. All vinyl comes with a digital download card.

Continuing an endless quest for the perfect chord, preparations for the third album were under way in early 2020 with a new batch of material rehearsed and sessions booked with producer Nick Batterham. A global pandemic saw sporadic sessions, often months apart, before a completed release was finally scheduled for the end of 2022. The band see this as their Winter album, following a seasonal progression from the first two, but the lyrical themes are more simply a quiet contemplation on friends, family and relationships past and sometimes lost. With the very able assistance of Batterham the band have been able to flesh out and realise their major song writing influences: from Carole King to Jimmy Webb; Burt Bacharach to Paddy McAloon with a touch of mid-70s West Coast cool thrown in for good measure.

“The perfect marriage of sophisticated melodies and soulful lyrics performed and sung by an equally soulful voice. The Golden Rail have risen to the top of the perfect pop charts with songs that Jimmy Webb would be proud of.” – Dom Mariani (The Stems, The Someloves, DM3, Datura4)

Old friend and fellow Melbourne-based Perth ex-pat Kim Salmon says, “The music of The Golden Rail evokes my teenage years like no other band. Deserted Perth suburbs in the summer. Boans Morley. The Purple Ear record store. The Golden Rail brings it all back. This is what Joni Mitchell was really talking about with “The Hissing of Summer Lawns”. The sense of lost love as Ian Freeman imagines a ship that might bring his love back looking out from Wireless Hill is palpable. Thing is, he’s strictly northern suburbs. Golden Rail’s music speaks of a kind of loneliness that a boy growing up in the northern suburbs of Perth could know. We had The Triffids to bring us South of the River, but The Golden Rail speaks to something else. Equally specific and paradoxically universal. Add to this all the gorgeous melodies and arrangements, and I never really had a chance!”

The partnership of Ian Freeman and Jeff Baker goes back to the 80s, and The Golden Rail is the culmination of a 30-year writing partnership between them. The pair met and started performing in Perth in the mid-80’s running through a string of bands either together or as side players in The Palisades, The Rainyard, Header, Summer Suns, DM3, The Lazybirds and more recently with The Jangle Band.

By 1995 the pair we’re touring separately with different acts around Australia and overseas and the song writing was put on hold until the early 2000s when both found themselves settled in Melbourne and looking to pick up where they left off 10 years earlier!

After playing and recording with several other West Australian ex-pats including Dave Johnstone (Ammonia) as The Lazybirds and in the cross-continental combo The Jangle Band with fellow Perth pop luminary Joe Algeri, Ian and Jeff formed a new band, taking its name from an infamous Perth CBD watering hole The Golden Rail. With a couple of line-up manoeuvres, the band settled as a 4-piece, with former Header guitarist Dave Chadwick on bass and Saki Garth on drums. The sound of the band today is a reflection of the longer musical and life experiences of its members, with the flash of those golden Australian indie pop years.
The band released its first album “Electric Trails from Nowhere” in 2017 and followed it up in 2018 with “Sometimes When”. On the back of those two albums, The Golden Rail garnered critical acclaim here and abroad and have built a cult following in underground guitar pop/jangle pop circles.

A classic rock/pop combination of guitars, bass and drums with some generous harmonies and occasional keyboard flourishes. It’s a reading of 60s and 70s pop sounds through an indie-rock prism with a subtle Australian bent. (Think The Triffids, Died Pretty, the Falling Joys or The Apartments).

The streets were empty and quiet, bar the occasional worker on their way to or from. It’s an internal life just like that – tragic, joyful, plain or otherwise – that The Golden Rail have documented on their third album ‘Songs from Empty Streets’.
“Another excellent album from this wonderful band!” – Crispian Winsor, 3PBS Radio City 

Players:
Saki Garth: drums, percussion
Dave Chadwick: bass
Jeff Baker: guitars, additional keys
Ian Freeman: guitars, voices, additional keys
With:
Nick Batterham: keyboards, backing vocals, harmonica, cello
Kelly Day: clarinet, saxophone, backing vocals
Andrew Batterham: trumpet, flügelhorn
Christopher Moore: viola
David Berlin: cello
Dave Johnstone: flamenco guitar, lead guitar on ‘Backyard Blues’ and ‘I Suppose’credits

releases October 7th, 2022

PIXIES – ” Doggerel “

Posted: September 8, 2022 in MUSIC
Tags: , , , , ,
0

Pixies four band members standing by orange background

The iconic Pixies forged an influential path for alt-rock during their first era, while their post 2004 reunion has seen them alchemize more sophisticated dark arts – a return which has them add another three UK Top 10 albums to the three they achieved on their first run. Now as fired up as ever before, Pixies release their eighth studio album “Doggerel” via BMG Records, including lead single ‘There’s a Moon On’.

“Doggerel” is a mature yet visceral record of gruesome folk, ballroom pop and brutal rock, haunted by the ghosts of affairs and indulgences, driven wild by cosmic forces and envisioning digital afterlives where no God has provided one. And all the while, right there on the news, another distant storm approaches.

“The only bar that we subscribe to in general is we don’t want to be boring” says Black Francis.

The entire band – frontman and songwriter Black Francis, lead guitarist Joey Santiago, bass player Paz Lenchantin and drummer David Lovering. “You would have thought that I spent a lot of my downtime writing songs but I did not” says Francis.

“In fact, I procrastinated until the absolute last minute. “I finally sat down and informed my children that I would be a bit vacant for a couple of weeks, and I sat up in my attic with a guitar and hoped for the best”.

Procrastination or not – the results were highly productive, feeding into a pile of 40 songs considered for the band’s forthcoming record ‘Doggerel’.

Recorded in Vermont in early 2022, the album’s publicity boasts “a mature yet visceral record of gruesome folk, ballroom pop and brutal rock”.

Joey Santiago offers a simpler description – “Doolittle Senior” – invoking the band’s 1989 classic.

“It’s a mish-mash of songs like a good radio station. We’re not like… one flavour. We’ll give you twelve flavours! I really love it”. ‘Doggerel’ sees the band reunite with British producer Tom Dalgety, who previously helmed 2016’s ‘Head Carrier’ and 2019’s ‘Beneath the Eyrie’.

“It’s interesting working with him because he has become familiar with the way that we play, and the things that we’re capable of and the things maybe that we’re not capable of” says Black Francis.

“It’s interesting hearing him playing the band like an instrument a little bit. I think that’s maybe the first time I’ve experienced that with a record producer.” “I guess I was in kind of a zombie state, just playing,” Santiago explained. “After I stopped playing, I put it down and went, ‘Well, that was a fucking waste of time, what a piece of shit I am.’ I beat myself up a lot, but my girlfriend, unbeknownst to me, was recording me. She played it back to me, and I go, ‘Fuck! Hold on a second here! This stuff is good!’”

Black Francis also noted that the single is about “living in Los Angeles in the ‘90s with my then-wife, hanging out with Joey and his ex-wife, lots of trips to Las Vegas, a lot of drinking, little bit drug taking, some genuine good times.”

‘Doggerel’ includes some Pixies firsts, including Santiago’s first song writing credits with the band, contributing lyrics to ‘Pagan Man’.

“The last song we did in fact was an unfinished bit of music that the producer kept insisting that we try again” says Black Francis. “I was not in the mood to compose a lyric because I was already spent, if you will. So Joey wrote the lyric.” “Charles had these sounds and it was just a matter of grabbing them and making sense of it” Santiago explains.

“It was a fun puzzle. My version of what looking at a cloud looks like. This is what I see!”

“I finally sat down and informed my children that I would be a bit vacant for a couple of weeks, and I sat up in my attic with a guitar and hoped for the best”. Procrastination or not – the results were highly productive, feeding into a pile of 40 songs considered for the band’s forthcoming record ‘Doggerel’.

Pixies – the new album “Doggerel”, out on September 30th.

AOIFE NESSA FRANCES – ” This Still Life “

Posted: September 8, 2022 in MUSIC
Tags: ,
0

May be an image of 1 person, outdoors and text

“The song is about the juxtaposition of feeling small in an endless universe while reflecting on the significance of my own birth and existence,” Frances shared. “It’s about learning to move slowly through the world, listening to nature, and trusting that I can find my answers within.” 

She further explained how this single was the cornerstone for the full record, and how she’d been inspired by an album cover created by her friend Adrian Crowley, “a still life of different objects including nails, a seahorse, ash, and shells.” See continued, “Later on I dreamt I was swimming in the sea close to dark somewhere off the coast of Mayo. I looked up at the sky and saw his album cover looking back at me. It appeared real; the seahorse and nail on the horizon with all the planets and stars made of stone and ash. In the dream, I asked Adrian about it and he told me it wasn’t a still life after all, but actually the sky when seen at night in a special part of Mayo from a particular angle, when you walk out to the Atlantic Ocean. It was to be kept a secret because the world wasn’t ready to know about it yet. I wrote ‘This Still Life’ the next day, and a week later began recording “Protector” with my band.”

Watch the Ella Margolin–directed video for “This Still Life”

PARKER GISPERT – ” Golden Years “

Posted: September 8, 2022 in MUSIC
0

“Golden Years” is a full-band rock album and a return to being inspired by some of my first musical influences,” Gispert shares of the project, which officially drops tomorrow. “I’m a child of the ’90s, and I think there’s a good bit of grunge and ’90s indie rock in the mix, as well as classic rock influences like Loaded by The Velvet Underground, Armed Forces by Elvis Costello, or Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones—all of which I was listening to a lot while writing the album.”

With much of the garage-rock edge shaved off the full-band sound we’re used to hearing Gispert’s vocals accompanying, the songs on this new record are a far cry from his solo debut. “Originally I’d plotted the follow up to “Sunlight Tonight” as a more acoustic affair,” he claims, “but I felt like the clash of rock and roll and its inherent dissonance were a more appropriate backdrop for the lyrical topics I wanted to write about. Fortunately I was able to work with Roger Moutenot, who engineered, mixed, and then co-produced the album with me at his Haptown Studio in Nashville. Roger was able to capture the emotion of me and my band rocking out on these tunes, and I’m really looking forward to people hearing the album and getting to hear this collection of songs live at shows.”

the upcoming album ‘Golden Years’ out September 2nd

While we’ll have to wait a week for any of those live shows, 

MELODYS ECHO CHAMBER – ” Unfold “

Posted: September 8, 2022 in MUSIC
Tags: , ,
0

May be an image of 1 person and text that says 'MELODY'S CHAMBER UNFOLD MELODY'S CHAMBER ROAD UNFOLD OTEL PLU 0004'

Melody’s Echo Chamber was the creation of musician Melody Prochet with production from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker—her partner at the time. The two reconvened after the first album’s release and starting working on the follow-up in 2013 in Perth. During that period, Melody’s Echo Chamber was touring. “I wrote bits of the songs around the world while swirling with the clouds around the globe, moving too fast,” she said. “I remember trying to blow those bubbles of creation for us into very uncertain windows of space and time.” However, the two went their separate ways and, as a result, Melody’s Echo Chamber didn’t finish the intended follow-up album.

“The album was 50 percent completed, and then the relationship just didn’t make it through the process,” Melody explained. “And then I tried to work on it on my own for a couple years, until I realized that I was just really hurting myself doing that.” Seven tracks from that period remain, which are now getting a proper release.

Today, Melody’s Echo Chamber shared the title track from the forthcoming project. “This song captures the emotional ambivalence of a crossroad, like a child finding a special seashell hidden in the sand but the ocean’s creature still lives inside,” Prochet explained. “I guess it’s the sound releasing of the beloved.”

Melody’s Echo Chamber – “Unfold” out now on Domino / Fat Possum Records. On 30th September 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.

The MURLOCS – ” Compos Mentis “

Posted: September 8, 2022 in MUSIC
Tags: , , ,
0

May be an image of 5 people, people standing, indoor and text that says 'CALAMAN CALAM'

While Austin, Texas has long been keeping things weird with a healthy psych-rock scene, the Australian city of Melbourne has been creeping up as the psych capital of the world in recent years. Although The Murlocs came up at the same time as groups like The Black Angels and Night Beats, the band has consistently been winning over more listeners as they benefit from the wild success of groups like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, with whom they have overlapping members. 

As the release date for their latest album “Rapscallion” approaches, The Murlocs have never felt more comfortable amongst a growing scene of weirdo-psych bands matching the playful energy on full display in the group’s video for new single “Compos Mentis,” which sees each band member emerge from a trash can/trash bag as they jam the relatively restrained, fairly soulful, and immediately catchy track about vibing at the junkyard. “After a long day of truck stop fights, hitchhiking, and getting kicked off trains, our beloved rapscallion protagonist decides to spend the night in an abandoned junkyard,” vocalist Ambrose Kenny-Smith explains, setting up the clip. “Finding peace within the garbage that surrounds him, he begins to question his purpose in life and whether or not he’s in control of his own mind.”

HANOI ROCKS – ” 60th Anniversary Concert “

Posted: September 8, 2022 in MUSIC
0

May be an image of 4 people, people standing and people playing musical instruments

This is the big Michael Monroe news everyone has been waiting for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Michael Monroe’s big surprise – the final climax of the 60th anniversary concert at the Helsinki Ice Hall on September 23rd is the reformation of the original Hanoi Rocks line-up

Michael Monroe, who turned 60 in June, will celebrate the milestone with a bang at the Helsinki Ice Hall on September 23rd. Now Monroe reveals the big news: as the Grand Finale of the concert, the original line-up of Hanoi Rocks, one of Finland’s most significant rock bands of all time, will take the stage: Michael Monroe, Andy McCoy, Sami Yaffa, Nasty Suicide and Gyp Casino. The quintet, who started a historic chapter in the world’s music scene, was seen on stage for the last time at Helsinki’s Tavastia on July 27th, 1982.

Internationally acclaimed, as they were throughout their career, Hanoi Rocks has had a great impact on the entire history of rock. Several international bands, such as Foo Fighters, Guns N’ Roses and Skid Row, acknowledge the influence of Hanoi Rocks and hold the band in very high regard. For decades there’s been an endless amount of requests to reform the original line-up of the legendary band to perform live. An idea that has previously seemed impossible, is now becoming a reality at Monroe’s 60th anniversary concert.

“This is the only appropriate time and place for all five original members of Hanoi Rocks to get on stage to play together after a break of over forty years. This is not a Hanoi Rocks re-union, but a unique part of the anniversary concert. At first I planned to keep it a surprise but after giving it some more thought, I realised that it wouldn’t be fair, especially to the fans, not to make this public in advance and that everybody should have the chance to be there.”

Michael Monroe and Andy McCoy founded Hanoi Rocks in the late 1970’s and the band’s original line-up was established in 1980. Hanoi Rocks, the first Finnish rock band to make an international breakthrough, recorded their first three albums with the original line-up: “Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks” (1981), “Oriental Beat” (1982) and “Self Destruction Blues” (1982). Gyp Casino was replaced in 1982 by Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley who became an integral member of Hanoi Rocks. Razzle died in a tragic accident in 1984. Unfortunately this led to the band’s untimely demise in early 1985.

Another big surprise for the unique 60th anniversary concert is that the ”support band” for the show will be the legendary Demolition 23 reunited. Led by Monroe, the band rose to great cult fame, although they only released one album (“Demolition 23”) in 1994 and broke up shortly afterwards. This is the first performance of the band since the band’s breakup in 1995.

At the 60th anniversary show, Monroe is mostly accompanied by his long-time band Sami Yaffa, Karl Rockfist, Rich Jones and Steve Conte. In addition to the original Hanoi Rocks line-up and Demolition 23, several top musicians and artists who have collaborated with Monroe over the years will take the stage. The almost three-hour long concert allows you to hear many Michael Monroe classics during the evening. To top the event, the lights and visuals are designed by the internationally acclaimed, world-wide phenomenon, Mikki Kunttu.

The BLACK LIPS – ” Apocalypse Love “

Posted: September 8, 2022 in MUSIC
Tags: , , ,
0

Singer and saxophonist Zumi Rosow muses, “It’s a weird dance record, one that reflects the moment that the world’s in right now…”

“Apocalypse Love” is an album that emanates from a dive bar jukebox in the back of your mind; with a playlist that bends between tub thumping doom- glam, Plastic Ono singalongs, cocktail-shaken space age pop, Morricone reverberations and lo-fi outsider acoustic-punk, with mariachi horns, theremins, drum machines and harmonies filtering through the infectious melodies.

Stand-out number ‘Among The Dunes’ is an amorphous platform-heeled anthem, a signature sax-fuelled stomper filled with trippy swagger. While opener ‘No Rave’ proffers a hypnotic locked groove, with Cole Alexander’s trademark snarl delivered over a sulphurous wall of distorted hedonism, a dystopian anthem for an apocalyptic manifesto. Meanwhile, the twisted exotica of ‘Whips Of Holly’ with its silver screen façade is like the soundtrack to a classic Theda Bara vamp-fest.

As the band venture into their third decade, Apocalypse Love is proof that The Black Lips show no sign of slowing down…

Stand-out number ‘Among The Dunes’ is an amorphous platform-heeled anthem, a signature sax-fuelled stomper filled with trippy swagger. While opener ‘No Rave’ proffers a hypnotic locked groove, with Cole Alexander’s trademark snarl delivered over a sulphurous wall of distorted hedonism, a dystopian anthem for an apocalyptic manifesto. Meanwhile, the twisted exotica of ‘Whips Of Holly’ with its silver screen façade is like the soundtrack to a classic Theda Bara vamp-fest.

Released October 14th, 2022

Older Entries
Newer Entries