After providing backing vocals on his 2021 single “Feels Like Yesterday,” Detroit singer-songwriter Emily Parrish has teamed up again with fellow Michigan artist Ian Ruhala (a.k.a. Hala) on her new single “Drown.” Co-written with Ruhala and other frequent collaborator Isaac Burgess, and mastered by John Naclerio, “Drown” is a splendid document of Parrish’s woozy alto and a bright display of her own translation of the bedroom-pop songbook.
“I know you are hurting right now / But I won’t let you drown,” Parrish sings on the refrain. The track wrestles with self-worth while detailing two people being kind to each other in romance: “He calms me down when I’m too high,” she sings, “And I try to put him back on track / And he’ll fall right.” Although Parrish meditates on keeping her surroundings grounded and healthy, her voice is acrobatic and intoxicating, soaring high above Ruhala’s daydream arrangements but never flying too close to the sun.
The Detroit-based songwriter shares her debut solo single, which was produced by Hala’s Ian Ruhala.
There’s something Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst has been trying to tell the world for a long time now via his politically charged punk side-project Desaparecidos. That band’s first album, 2002’s “Read Music/Speak Spanish“, was a seething indictment of American Capitalism™. They returned 13 years later with “Payola“, a similarly caustic reflection of life in the U.S. that captured a burgeoning zeitgeist of discontent. A more explicit denunciation of the System—remember, this came out when Obama was still in office—songs like “The Left Is Right,” “MariKKKopa,” and “The City on the Hill” confronted, among other issues, the increasing division in American politics, the widening gulf between rich and poor, and systemic racism on these shores. “All the founding fathers sowed their seeds into servant girls,” decries Oberst on the latter, before later doubling down and suggesting it was “so we could sing together in America / The price of an anthem paid in blood.”
They’re lines he chews up and spits out with extra disaffected venom on this, the band’s first live album, recorded at the now-shuttered Shea Stadium, a Brooklyn DIY venue that was run by the So So Glos. Recorded on June 23rd, 2015—two days after the album came out and almost 18 months before Hillary Clinton and the Democrats’ self-serving neoliberalism caused them to lose an “unlosable” election against a dumb, ignorant, and barely literate failed businessman.
Channelled through a wonderfully raw and ragged performance that pays less attention to being in tune than it does to turning the rage of the songs into tangible energy, it’s a performance that contains the anger everybody seemingly felt during the Trump administration.,
It means that those aforementioned songs, as well as “The Underground Man,” “Man and Wife, theLatter (Damaged Goods),” and “Radicalized”—which looks at the (obviously negative) effects of war on families on both sides of an international conflict—are all conveyed with devastating, breathless vitriol.
The result is a record that bristles with inspiring discontent that sounds like the swelling of a very necessary (but equally unlikely) revolution. The only downside is that, as someone who was actually in the audience for this show, this album only contains 11 of the 15 songs that were played that night. Presumably because otherwise it wouldn’t fit on a single vinyl record. Capitalism strikes again, then.
This 2015 performance from Conor Oberst’s punk band pays less attention to being in tune than it does to turning the rage of the songs into tangible energy.
Usually one waits until they release a song before they label it a “global smash hit.” But Los Angeles-based rockers Surf Curse have taken a bold approach with their latest single “Sugar” and its video directed by the band’s two core members Nick Rattigan and Jacob Rubeck. The now-fourpiece performs on a fake talk show where the nerdy host announces their performance of the major hit, which it has yet to become in our own reality. The band is manifesting. Or maybe Surf Curse knew they had a hit on their hands after brushing shoulders with viral fame recently when “Freaks” from their debut album “Buds” went viral on TikTok nearly a decade after its release.
Their new single, which bursts into rapturous gallops, announces their currently unnamed fourth album. “Sugar” was produced and mixed by Chris Coady, who’s worked with Beach House, SASAMI, and Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs.
Their forthcoming album will be their first major release since signing to AtlanticRecords.
Blue Skies is Dehd’s first album for Fat Possum, and their follow up toFlower of Devotion, an album designated Best New Music by Pitchfork. Upon arrival during the fraught summer of 2020, Flower ofDevotion felt like Dehd’s necessary prescription for us all. That was, of course, a moment of unprecedented anxiety and uncertainty, when just contemplating the future could seem overly optimistic. But Dehd captured and shared the precarious balance between real life and real hope, a feat mirrored by instant pop melodies and infectious punk energy. The Chicago trio had the audacity to look ahead when many of us didn’t, to imagine improvement through mere existence. It was an album we needed. We need its follow-up, the triumphant Blue Skies, even more.
Dehd’s fourth album (and first for Fat Possum) is also the band’s second consecutive breakthrough, loaded with the most compelling, compulsive, and expansive songs of their career. Blue Skies offers another jolt of timely hope, only with twice the power. These 13 hits feel like flashlights in the dark, acknowledging how difficult everything from love and sex to living and dying can be while supplying the inspiration of their own experiences.
The writing is sharper and smarter on Blue Skies. The harmonies and rhythms are more sophisticated and considered. The moods are deeper, the swings between them more inspiring. But this is still Dehd, just more wild and wonderful than ever before. “This is all we get,” Emily shouts with relish on the record’s last lines, during a song about the ways geologic deep time should free us all to live more. “Best to take the risk.” Heard, loud and clear.
Dehd is a three-piece indie rock band from Chicago formed in 2015. The band consists of members EmilyKempf, Jason Balla, and Eric McGrady.
“The Unraveling Of Pup The Band”, the fourth album by the great Toronto punk band PUP, starts out with frontman Stefan Babcock banging out a few chords on the piano, sounding like Conor Oberst by way of Patrick Stickles as he slurs his way through a tongue-in-cheek verse about PUP and the people who hate them (“they only listen to noise punk, or nothing, and they haven’t listened to any new music since college”). He hits a wrong chord, says “fuck” under his breath, and then the whole band kicks in, accompanied by rousing trumpets. Titled “Four Chords,” it’s a song that Stefan, who is not a pianist, wrote after buying a Fender Rhodes on a whim, sent to his bandmates as a joke, and never pictured as something that would appear on a PUP album.
But at the last minute, bassist Nestor Chumak encouraged Stefan not only to properly record it, but to start the album with it, and then PUP reprised it twice throughout the album. On it, Stefan sounds like the album’s narrator, breaking the fourth wall the way The Beatles did on the title track to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. And like that album, “The Unraveling Of Pup The Band” is at least a semi-concept album, inspired in part by the need to do something different. But whereas The Beatles were playing the role of a made-up band, PUP are leaning even more into exactly who they are.
“The Unraveling Of Pup The Band”is the funniest, darkest, and weirdest PUP album yet, which also makes it the PUP-iest thing PUP have ever done. It uses the same introspective self-deprecation as its predecessors, but on a more macro level, and it found PUP pushing themselves even further to the brink of implosion than they ever had before.
“It was just a record of extremes for us,” Stefan told us, “like, wanting to kill each other but also loving each other and being so happy and proud of each other for making a record that we’re all stoked on.”
New album ‘“The Unraveling Of Pup The Band” out April 1st, 2022.
King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard have shared details of their 20th (!) studio album “Omnium Gatherum“. Those details include the release date April 28th via the band’s own KGLW imprint — and the 16-song tracklist.
The album’s a double as you might expect, as the first single was the 18-minute “The Dripping Tap” The new single is the one that follows that on the album, the comparatively shorter (six minutes) “Magenta Mountain” This is the second single from King Gizzard’s new album “Omnium Gatherum” and is in the danceable pop style of the band’s Butterfly 3000 and has been in their live set lists for a while.
Stu: Guitar, Vocals Ambrose: Keys, Vocals , Percussion Joey: Synth, Vocals Cookie: Keys Lucas: Bass Cavs: Drums, Percussion Recorded at Reunion Park, Melbourne on March 5 by Sam Joseph, Nico Wilson, Toby Brandon. Mixed by Stu Mackenzie
San Francisco indie/DIY living legend KelleyStoltz is back for Round Two on the Dinked Edition series, with his upcoming album appearing on Exclusive wax with a pair of 7’’ singles, a set dreamt up by the man himself.
There’s few better pop/rockers out there today than Kelley Stoltz. He’s like a throwback to the days when guys like Marshall Crenshaw were known for producing gem after gem of melodic ’60s influenced guitar pop without seemingly batting an eyelid. Now on just his seventeenth album, ‘The Stylist’ sees him once again recording solo as he wanders through the pack pages of jangle rock referencing the likes of Todd Rundgren, Emitt Rhodes and The Zombies along the way.
“The Stylist” is a little different for Stoltz, who this time eschews his usual ’60s pop / ’80s new wave proclivities in favour of a more modern psychedelic pop sound. You can hear that in the very catchy first single “Your Name Escapes Me,” which comes with a very cool animated lyric video by Meryl Press. “After seeing Meryl Press’s artwork online, I was really taken with her rapid fire imagery and Peter Max hues,” Kelley tells us. “I thought she would be perfect to make a more artistic video than me just sullenly lip syncing. ‘Your Name Escapes Me’ is my favourite song on my new album, and one of my best ever… and I wanted something beautiful to live with it.”
Kelley was so impressed by the Dinked release of previous album ‘Ah! (etc)’ that he’s re-joined for its follow-up. On ‘The Stylist’, Stoltz pairs indie with psychedelia once more for a record inspired by Rundgren, Wilson, Nilsson, and The Zombies.
The singles include a pair of tracks each, one of which houses a cover of The Fall’s ‘Wings’. We’ve got word that the records have already been pressed so it will be good to go for its summer release.
+ Dinked Edition 188
+ Released: 10th June 2022
+ AGITATED RECORDS / AGIT061DE
+ “Butterfly effect” blue / pink / purple LP *
+ 2 x bonus 7” (3 exclusive tracks & a Fall cover!) *
+ Hand-numbered Dinked sticker *
+ 450 copies only *
* Dinked EXCLUSIVE
The album was recorded early in 2021, and has been languishing in the vinyl pressing log jam ever since – but luckily Stoltz writes timeless songs, the kind that might’ve appeared on the fringes of the late 60’s or mid 80’s!
If you’re looking for a raw, sugary blast of distorted pop, look no further than Weird Nightmare.
Weird Nightmare is, in its own way, a study in extremes: Edkins’ melodic instincts and penchant for dissonance are both turned up to the max throughout, the latter reflecting not only the barn-burning tendencies of METZ, but Alex’s own sonic predilections. “It doesn’t sound right to my ears until it’s pushed over the edge.” He also cites other artists who are masterful at mixing the sublime and the punishing—Kim Deal and Scout Niblett among them—as influences on his own songwriting. “My favourite songs are the simple ones,” he explains. “I’ve never been attracted to virtuosity or technicality. Certain songs have the power to lift your spirits like nothing else can. I wanted to create that type of song.”
Sub PopRecords is delighted to welcome Weird Nightmare, the electrifying new project from Metz guitarist and singer Alex Edkins, to the label’s storied roster of artists. Label co-founder, JonathanPoneman on the irresistible allure of Weird Nightmare: “One can hear, respect, and fully appreciate Alex’s reverence for the ingratiating hook, which he wields both generously and masterfully. Yeah. Killer!”
The debut full-length Weird Nightmare album will be released by Sub Pop later this year and we’ll have a lot more to say about that very soon. In the meantime, please enjoy a brief glimpse of Weird Nightmare in this gloriously fuzzy teaser.
The Metz frontman Alex Edkins is releasing his solo debut as Weird Nightmare on May 20th and he’s just shared this anthemic new song that sounds like The Who by way of Dayton and Dunedin. “I let my obsessive love of ’60s pop, garage rock and ’80/’90s Flying Nun come to the surface,” says Edkins. “I feel like my true musical personality comes out in these songs.”
Weird Nightmare from the self-titled album, out May 20th on Sub Pop Records
NYC-based indie label Sacred BonesRecords turns 15years old this year, and as part of their celebration, they’re releasing “Todo Muere SBXV”, a compilation featuring various Sacred Bones artists covering other the songs of other Sacred Bones’ artists, past and present.
The new “Todo Muere SBXV” compilation celebrates the disparate threads that Sacred Bones has cultivated over these past 15 years by asking artists on the label to cover one another’s songs. It’s an exhilarating, adventurous collection that emphasizes the spiritual unity of the roster. Listening to “Todo Muere SBXV” feels like sitting down to dinner with a large, unruly, loving family. One of the biggest aesthetic leaps on the comp is Institute’s gnarled post-punk cover of Spelling’s lush The Turning Wheel highlight “Boys at School.” “I’d say we were inspired by her star qualities,” Institute frontman Mose Brown said. “The audacity, uniqueness, and talent poured into that record inspired us as to what’s possible on the Sacred Bones roster.” Guitarist Arak Avakian concurred: “I’d say Mose hit the nail on the head, with the key words being talent and audacity. Spelling is altogether inspiring. I am pervasively encouraged by her music.” Admiration and fandom were recurring themes for artists who recorded songs for the comp.
That was certainly the inspiration for Thou singer Bryan Funck, who covered Zola Jesus’s “Night” alongside Emma Ruth Rundle and Mizmor. “Before I knew about Sacred Bones, I was a huge fan of ZolaJesus,” Funck says. Ben Jones of Constant Smiles, one of the most recent signees to the label, had a similar reason for covering Jenny Hval’s “Spells.” “Jenny is a true force to be reckoned with and really elevates music and Sacred Bones to high art.”
Annika Henderson has long been a part of the Sacred Bones family, both as a member of Exploded View and as a solo artist. Her contribution to “Todo Muere XV” is a cover of Psychic TV’s “Godstar,” which she recorded in tribute to the late Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, one of her biggest inspirations. Hilary Woods and Marissa Nadler both chose to cover David Lynch, though the songs they chose come from two wildly different parts of the director and musician’s long career. Woods contributed a new version of “In Heaven,” the song the Lady in the Radiator sings in Eraserhead. Nadler chose “Cold Wind Blowin’,” a track from Lynch’s 2013 LP “The Big Dream“.
TRACKLIST: 01 Boris – “Funnel Of Love” (SQÜRL Cover) 02 Anika – “Godstar” (Psychic TV Cover) 03 The Hunt – “I Can’t Stand” (Zola Jesus Cover) 04 Constant Smiles – “Spells” (Jenny Hval Cover) 05 Dean Hurley – “Our Day Will Come” (Mort Garson Cover) 06 Domingæ – “Change” (Anika Cover) 07 Thou, Mizmor, & Emma Ruth Rundle – “Night” (Zola Jesus Cover) 08 Hilary Woods – “In Heaven” (David Lynch Cover) 09 Institute – “Boys At School” (SPELLLING Cover) 10 Marissa Nadler – “Cold Wind Blowin’” (David Lynch Cover) 11 “The Holydrug Couple – “Coca Cola Blues” (Psychic Ills Cover)
From ‘Todo Muere SBXV’ Out 5/27/22 on Sacred Bones Records
