The Fat Angel Sings

It’s the desire to celebrate their sonic bounty that first got Oberst and the band excited about the idea of comprehensive reissues. But this wouldn’t be a Bright Eyes project if a moment devoted to appreciating the past weren’t turned into an opportunity to connect with the future. That’s where these nine companion EPs come in. Or as Oberst puts it, “the supplemental reading” for the primary reissues: One six-track EP per reissued album, each featuring five reworked songs from that album. “My thing was they had to sound different from the originals, we had to mess with them in a substantial way.”

Plus one cover that felt “of the era” in which that particular albums was made – a song that meant something to the band at the time. To help the EPs come alive in the fullest way, Bright Eyes called in lots of old friends, like Bridgers, M. Ward, and Welch and Rawlings, as well as new ones like Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee.

Fevers And Mirrors: A Companion

Bright Eyes are the Omaha, Nebraska based band consisting of Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, and Nathaniel Walcott.

It’s the desire to celebrate their sonic bounty that first got Oberst and the band excited about the idea of comprehensive reissues. But this wouldn’t be a Bright Eyes project if a moment devoted to appreciating the past weren’t turned into an opportunity to connect with the future. That’s where the nine companion EPs come in. Or as Oberst puts it, “the supplemental reading” for the primary reissues:

One six-track EP per reissued album, each featuring five reworked songs from that album. “My thing was they had to sound different from the originals, we had to mess with them in a substantial way.” Plus one cover that felt “of the era” in which that particular albums was made – a song that meant something to the band at the time. To help the EPs come alive in the fullest way, Bright Eyes called in lots of old friends, like Phoebe Bridgers, M. Ward, and Welch and Rawlings, as well as new ones like Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee.

The revered band will reissue all nine of their studio albums as a ‘Companion’ series that gives Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis and Nathaniel Walcott a chance to revisit some of their earlier material and re-work it entirely – with the occasional addition of some talented friends. Each Companion EP also includes a cover version of an artist they found particularly inspiring at the time of the original recording. First to receive the Companion treatment on May 27th are Bright Eyes’ first three albums – “A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997”, “Letting Off The Happiness”, and “Fevers and Mirror”.

released May 27th, 2022

Over the course of five stellar albums, Papercuts’ Jason Quever has shown himself to be a top-notch song-writer and producer, equally at home with lush, baroque textures and more stripped-down arrangements. His skill in the studio has helped him build-up an enviable resume recording, producing and playing with artists including Luna, Beach House, Cass McCombs, Dean Wareham / Dean and Britta and Slumberland’s own The Mantles.

Papercuts’ new album “Parallel Universe Blues” reflects Quever’s recent move from long-time musical home San Francisco to Los Angeles and all of the searching and self-exploration that accompanies leaving your home, your friends and your scene. The sound is intimate and close, nicely balancing the sonic concerns of the last few Papercuts records.

The opening pair of songs “Mattress On The Floor” and “Laughing Man” superbly sets the table for the rest of the album: perfect Spectorian pop songs echoed down through The Velvet Underground, LA’s Paisley Underground, Spiritualized and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Never sacrificing song-writing for atmospherics, “Parallel Universe Blues” is a superb addition to the Papercuts catalogue.

Here it is! Our new single “Bad Faith” ft. Mandy, Indiana is out right now. We can also finally share the news that this track is taken from our upcoming debut EP ‘On The Wrong Side Of History’, due for release on 15th July via Bad Vibrations Records.

As well as the standard vinyl on Bad Vibrations, Rough Trade are pressing a limited edition pink record that will come with a signed postcard. There are four individual designs to be had – each printed with one line of lyric from a track on the EP!. In dark, troubling times, maybe the most instantly gratifying solace one can seek is a wittily barbed diagnosis of the situation. “The fox has his den. The bee has his hive. The stoat … his stoat-hole,” Stewart Lee once remarked: “But only man chooses to make his nest in an investment opportunity.” Caustic retorts like this are what fuel the debut EP by dance-punk outfit Regressive Left, ‘On The Wrong Side of History’. For pervading through their dynamic and glitching music is a duty to report unflinchingly society’s ills. They are a staunchly political group, but far from your average po-faced by-numbers punk band. There is a gristly social commentary at the band’s core, but the songs themselves are characterised by a need to have fun, to find some kind of solace and escapism from the inevitable rapture.

Recorded over an intense 5-day spell with in-demand producer Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, MIA, Amyl and The Sniffers) in Sheffield, Regressive Left’s debut EP ‘On The Wrong Side of History’ was immortalised over a handful of 11am-1am sessions in his studio. In many ways it is a time capsule of the maelstrom of ideas that got the group to this point in the first place – the infuriating, bleak political climate, and the urge to find escapism from it – consigned to vinyl in one herculean effort. Taking influence from the booming post-punk, funk and disco scenes of New York, Regressive Left’s sound is stark and danceable. Angular guitar scratches meet dirty synth basslines, whilst Simon Tyrie’s Edwyn Collins croon is chased around by effervescent drums. The banal horror of life in Tory Britain expressed with sharp and dry wit, and then set to truly barnstorming and infectious dance music, the new EP arrives following a trio of acclaimed singles (‘Eternal Returns’, ‘Take the Hit’, ‘Cream Militia’), tours with the likes of Bodega and Folly Group, festival appearances at End of the Road, Latitude, Great Escape and Wide Awake, and a sold out headline at The Windmill.

Regressive Left – “Bad Faith” (ft. Mandy, Indiana). Taken from the debut EP “On The Wrong Side of History” out 15th July on Bad Vibrations:

Originally released in 2008 and unavailable on vinyl until now – “22 Dreams” is Paul Weller’s 9th studio album. The album features Oasis stars Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer as well as Steve Cradock (Ocean Colour Scene) and Blur guitarist Graham Coxon. At the time critics called it Wellers best album to date.

It was Weller’s ninth studio album was critically acclaimed, after what was arguably a dip in form during the early part of the new millennium.

The long-player topped the charts and amongst the formats at the time was a special 2CD deluxe edition (which featured bonus demos, instrumentals and the like) which, for a while, was much desired and changed hands for high prices on the resale market (more were eventually pressed, bursting that particular balloon).

It went straight into the number 1 spot in the UK album chart. The release comes as a 2LP the Gatefold sleeve. Includes a 12″ x 36″ b/w-poster with printed lyrics, track-list and credits on the back side + Includes an 8-page booklet titled “The Missing Dream AKA Dream # 22” by Simon Armitage.

“22 Dreams” was issued as a 2LP set in 2008.

“22 Dreams” is out on 22nd July 2022 via UMC/Island. It’s unclear what is happening to the 1998 “Modern Classics” compilation which was supposed to be issued on the same day as “22 Dreams“, with a 2LP set with a bonus LP – “Live Classics” – as recorded at Victoria Park, Hackney (on 8th August 1998)

Originally released in 2008 and hasn’t been reissued on vinyl until now – “22 Dreams” is Paul Weller’s 9th studio album.

Due 22nd July.

 Lord Huron have released the deluxe edition of their most recent album, “Long Lost”. It includes the song “Your Other Life” along with a French version, “Ton Autre Vie.” They have shared a technically innovative video for both songs which consists of two videos seamlessly blended together: one featuring frontman Ben Schneider performing “Your Other Life” and the other featuring vocalist Sarah Dugas performing “Ton Autre Vie.” A fader on the bottom of the screen lets the viewer control which version they are watching, and if the fader is placed in the middle, the two vocalists’ performances are merged together as if performing a duet.

In a press release, Schneider states: “We recorded ‘Your Other Life’ during the sessions for “Long Lost“, but it didn’t end up finding a place on the album. Not because I didn’t like the way the song turned out, but because I kept hearing it in my head as sung by a woman instead of myself. Also in French….

“So we called up Sarah Dugas and recorded it that way as well, not really knowing what we’d do with it, just seeing where it went. She did an amazing job, not just with the singing but also with the translation. Listening to them side by side, I felt like the songs were made stronger by their proximity to one another. It seemed to bolster the themes of the lyrics—leading a double life, having wildly different perspectives on a situation.

“I started thinking of ways to present the songs together and had the idea of being able to switch or fade between them in real time. Almost like switching between the two lives implied in the song. I thought including a visual element would make it even stronger. A cross-fadeable, double music video sounded pretty interesting.

“We got in touch with Adam Willis who’s done some videos with us before and he had the thought of doing it as two perspectives on the same situation. Kind of a Rashomon inspired idea. So, we rented an Elk’s lodge in the valley and shot it at the bar there in a day.

“We hadn’t really thought too much about whether or not this was all possible technically. Luckily our friend Lee Martin was able to help us make it all happen.”

After Duster’s expected third album, the band also delivers a fourth album and “Together” is another wonderful album that rubs up against the box of slowcore, but never quite fits
The Californian band Duster released two beautiful but misunderstood albums at the end of the nineties and at the beginning of the current millennium. After that, nothing was lost from the band for a long time, until Duster showed up in 2019 with a particularly beautiful self-titled album. That album gets a sequel this week with “Together”. It’s an album that’s not miles away from its predecessors and like these predecessors, it intrigues hopelessly. Duster still makes dark and slowly dragging guitar music, which draws from many boxes, but does not fit into any box. It’s music that explodes occasionally, but is at its best when this just doesn’t happen.

The American band Duster debuted in 1998 with the album “Stratosphere”, on which influences from indie rock, slowcore, post-rock, noise rock and space rock were mixed with a bit of lo-fi and some psychedelics. The band from San Jose, California, returned in 2000 with the also home recorded and at least as fascinating “Contemporary Movement”, but despite a number of rave reviews, the band did not really move forward and the members of the band each decided to go their own way.

Ten years later after the disbanding of the first version of Duster, the Californian band slowly but surely gained cult status and started to itch again with the founders of the band, which eventually resulted in a third Duster album in 2019. On this self-titled album, the Californian band perfected its so special sound and delivered its best album to that point.

Now Duster returns with a fourth album and the production of the second edition of the band is in any case the same as that of the first edition. “Together” continues the line of the self-titled album from 2019, but it raises the bar even higher.

Duster has always incorporated influences from slowcore and those influences also play an important role on the fourth album of the Californian band. The tempo is low, the guitar lines are heavy and dark, the basses and drums deep and the vocals languid. Duster, however, never exactly fit into the slowcore box in the past and still doesn’t. All the influences I mentioned when describing the band’s first two albums also return on “Together“.

The band describes her new album with some humor and relativism: “Gather your loved ones, “Together” is here. Duster’s fourth album is a 13-song exploration of comfortable, interplanetary goth. A sonic vaseline of submerged guitars, solder-burned synths, and over-driven rhythm tracks. I know people say, ‘Oh Duster music so sad, we’ve even said it ourselves before, but it’s a lot more like absurdism than nihilism”. Personally, I think the weather is especially beautiful.

Duster makes intense music on her fourth album and that intensity is only increased by the slow tempo. The rhythm section of the band plays beautifully, but it is mainly the guitar work that provides Duster’s music with a special charge and a lot of beauty. Certainly the slowly dragging songs on the album impose themselves mercilessly, but even if the American band increases the tempo a bit, you can easily stay on top of things.

Duster’s oeuvre now covers almost 25 years, but in those 25 years not much has changed. The Californian band makes music that sounds familiar on the one hand and matches that of a number of other mainly American guitar bands, but Duster always sounds slightly different.

It has ensured that the band has never got much further than the cult status, but “Together” is also a beautiful guitar record full of adventure. It is a guitar record where, apart from an occasional outburst, the tempo does not want to get in and on which not much seems to happen, until the album grabs you and duster’s fourth album shows more and more beautiful and special. Let’s hope that this fascinating band sticks a fifth album to it and if possible soon too. 

Smash cut to Kiwi Jr.’s third album, “Chopper”, overseen by trusted pilot Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs) on storied Sub Pop Records. Turning nocturnal with necks mock turtle, our Local Kiwi Jr. takes neon flight off the digital cliff – like The Monkees starring in Blade Runner; like Michael Mann directs Encino Man. Ten songs with synth shimmer, zen gongs with yard strimmer. The signs along the highway read “LESS BAR, MORE NOIR AHEAD.” Ah, those late summer, Joe Strummer, Home on the Range Rover Blues.

There’s a melancholy to all forms of flight, and the view out the “Chopper” is as hazy as it gets: mission-oriented, both stealth and self-realized. This album is decidedly (yet almost secretly) anti-patio-sunscreen-Beach Boys bachelor cruise sing-a-long. Sure, these songs let a little light through the blinds, but they sting insomnia, corrupt mayors, Kennedy Curses, sex tapes, and deer rifles. “Chopper” is the bird’s eye view of the big event – a real night time character of oil stain, film grain, search light, night flight. It is muscular and fragile; loud yet quiet: both an observer and somehow the observed spectacle itself.

What was slack in the slacker phase, got tauter, with lacquer glaze. Slick gloss, rightened wrongs; murdered boss, promoted pawns. With Boeckner transmitting high-voltage shocks upon every reach for a familiar instrument, Kiwi Jr. expands the palette with string machine song, synthesizered oblong, and Dentyne Classic Menthol vocals from area soprano Dorothea Paas (US Girls, Badge Epoch Ensemble) like the missing piece all along.

On August 12th, 2022, Kiwi Jr. will release “Chopper”, the group’s third album! The album, which features the lead single “Night Vision” along with highlights “Unspeakable Things,” “The Sound of Music” and “The Extra Sees the Film,” was recorded and produced in Toronto by Sub Pop labelmate Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Operators).

The “Night Vision” video was helmed by returning director Laura-Lynn Petrick (Kiwi Jr.’s “Waiting In Line,” also directed videos by Weyes Blood and Jessica Pratt).

Singer/guitarist Jeremy Gaudet offers this, “Before ‘Night Vision’ was 100% written, just the basic idea of it existing as a Kiwi Jr. song inspired us and set the tone for the record. A lot of the images in the lyrics are of teenagers driving around, trying to make plans, sharing the aux, putting their parents’ car in the ditch, etc.  But the idea at the centre of the song is that of working up the nerve to make a big decision. Like a boxer getting pumped up before a fight.”

Kiwi Jr. brings the “Chopper” to a new space, demilitarizing the technology just like flasks, aviators, and cargo shorts. Graceful in the air above, but when the “Chopper” lands, there’s chaos on the ground. Kiwi Jr. shout, “Look Out!” When it gets close, it’ll blow the hat right off of your head.

KIWI JR. is Jeremy Gaudet vocals and guitar, Brian Murphy guitar, Mike Walker bass, Brohan Moore drums, and everybody played a little bit of keyboard.

From the album “CHOPPER” in stores on Sub Pop Records on August 12th, 2022

Fresh off the heels of a new Lykke Li album, Sky Ferreira has released “Don’t Forget”, her first new single in three years: somewhere out there is a gay man with emotional regulation problems, a magic lamp, and one wish left.

Ferreira wrote the song with Jorge Elbrecht and Tamaryn Brown, who she worked with on her last single, “Downhill Lullaby”. The track is an angsty, at times spiteful, melodrama; the melody is strong; the eighties-inflected production, while not reinventing the wheel, is satisfyingly slick and bombastic.

Speaking Ferreira said “the song isn’t minimal whatsoever. I realised that about my music, I’m just not a minimal person.” The lyrics feature repeated allusions to fire and destruction, which Ferreira said is about feeling “stifled” and then “freeing herself.” “Don’t Forget” feels like a more than solid return-to-form and, hopefully, a teaser of more music to come.

Despite only having released one album – “Night Time, My Time” back in 2013 – Sky Ferreira has earned herself an enduring place in the ‘music for sad girls and gays’ canon. Not many artists can disappear for such a long time (her career was stalled due to record label drama) and still generate this level of hype upon their return, which is a testament to both her continuing relevance and the emotional investment people have in her music. But whether she can prove herself a true great in this pantheon remains to be seen; there’s a lot riding on her long-awaited second album, “Masochism“, the release date of which is still yet to be confirmed. The good news is that Ferreira described herself as “100 per cent confident” the album will appear sometime this year. 

“90 in November”, the first full-length LP from Texas quintet Why Bonnie, crashes into existence with a squeal of feedback and a burst of distorted guitar. It’s a dynamic introduction to a more raw-edged indie sound from a band who have matured from bedroom dream pop into a sophisticated rock act, their evolving sound a reflection of the journey undertaken by songwriter Blair Howerton on this vividly rendered collection of songs.

As much a product of songwriter Howerton’s love for the intimate song writing of fellow Texans Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley as it is her affection for the alt-rock of the Lemonheads and the Replacements, the eccentric pop of Sparklehorse, and “definitely Sheryl Crow,” “90 in November” is a meditation on the pains and pleasures of nostalgia and a lesson in learning how to look back at the people, places, and experiences that have shaped us, with room for both unvarnished honesty and rose-tinted melancholy. “90 in November” is about “coming to terms with your past to accept all of the sweet and all of the bitter,” says Howerton.

The songs for “90 in November” were mostly written in Brooklyn, New York, where Howerton moved from Austin in 2019. Already in the midst of a major life change, Howerton’s feeling of being between worlds was compounded when quarantine hit and she found herself, like so many others, stuck in her apartment—about as far away from the wide-open spaces of Texas as one can possibly get. It was in this environment that she began to write songs parsing out the complicated, mixed emotions associated with building a new home while attempting to make sense of the one she had left behind.

As a result, “90 in November” is a trip through Howerton’s inner world, but it’s also a road trip through Texas. Often it is both at once. The songs are full of poetic, cinematic lyrics that flash like colourful scenes glimpsed from the window of a car as it barrels along an interstate highway cutting through the Lone Star State, each one a road stop revealing a different facet of Howerton’s experience.

The title track is a sunny guitar pop song about her hometown of Houston, packed full of sparkling snapshots—”a technicolour sun” and “a cardboard cut out cowboy waving me goodbye”—that matches the music’s shimmering optimism. The hazy “Hot Car” is the flipside, with a hypnotic synth line mimicking the way a mental loop of dormant thoughts that surface in the warm cocoon of a car speeding towards its destination in the dead of night. On “Nowhere LA”—that’s LA as in Louisiana, by the way—Howerton uses a broken down car on an isolated road as a metaphor for a stalled relationship: ”I know I walk fast, but my heart moves so slow,” she sings. Elsewhere, Howerton is more literal in her recountings. On the wistful and Sheryl Crow-like “Galveston,” built around a chiming guitar line, Howerton recalls childhood trips to the island city of Galveston, singing evocatively of “candyland beaches” and “the East Texas sunrise making a face.”

“90 in November’s” deep sense of place isn’t accidental. The band—Howerton, keyboardist Kendall Powell, guitarist Sam Houdek, bassist Chance Williams, and drummer Josh Malett—considered making the record in New York or California, but ultimately decided that it had to be done in Texas. In early 2020, Why Bonnie headed down to the town of Silsbee (population: 6,634) to spend two weeks recording with Tommy Read (Lomelda, alexalone) at Lazybones Audio. Howerton describes it as an idyllic period of time where days were spent walking around with cows and evenings drinking Lone Star beer and looking at the stars. The stillness begat an emotional catharsis that is symbolized mid-record with “Silsbee”, a song where Howerton finally allows herself to fully inhabit the present moment while acknowledging her past. She describes it as an ode to her brother, who passed away in 2016. “I wrote those lyrics while we were recording,” remembers Howerton. “I had a quiet moment out in this beautiful pasture where I was able to think about him and how our connection is still very present even though he’s not physically here.”

Even when handled with as much grace as it is on “90 in November”, nostalgia remains tricky to navigate, something Howerton addresses on the exuberant “Lot’s Wife.” The song is inspired by a story from the Old Testament of a woman who looked back at her city while fleeing and was turned to a pillar of salt. “I really liked that story and how it relates to the experience of nostalgia, how if you stare for too long, you’re gonna turn into something else and crumble,” says Howerton. With “90 in November“, Howerton has achieved the opposite. By looking back on her past with fearlessness and compassion, she propels her song writing forward into new realms of emotional sincerity and her band to new heights of sonic adventurousness. Yet no matter where the group goes from here, one thing will remain the same. “We’re a Texas band,” says Howerton. “We always will be.”