The Fat Angel Sings

Pink Floyd have announced that they will release a newly restored and re-edited version of their 1995 live album “P.U.L.S.E.” through Warner Music on February 18th. Helmed by film David Malle, the video footage has been expertly re-edited by Aubrey Powell/Hipgnosis from the original tape masters especially for “The Later Years” release in 2019. The cover design, originally created by Storm Thorgerson and Peter Curzon for the 2006 DVD release, has also been updated with photography by Aubrey Powell/Hipgnosis and Rupert Truman/StormStudios. The packaging artwork is designed by Peter Curzon from StormStudios, under the direction of Aubrey Powell/Hignosis.

“Essentially, it’s a device which we thought was entertaining,” says Nick Mason. “It’s an idea of Storm Thorgerson’s which related to “The Dark Side Of The Moon” and the pulse, and it’s a live album so the box is “alive”. After that, in terms of seriously deep meanings, one might be struggling a bit.”

The new release also sees the reintroduction of the iconic pulsating light as per the original 1995 CD release, this time operated by 2 replaceable AA batteries.  The deluxe packages include music videos, concert screen films, documentaries, “Pulse” Tour rehearsal footage & more, alongside a 60-page booklet.

The concert, filmed on 20th October 1994 at Earls Court in London, saw Pink Floyd include the whole live performance of “The Dark Side Of The Moon” – the only full live filmed recording of this seminal album, as well as play some of their classic tracks as well as highlights from the recently released album “The Division Bell”.

Pink Floyd’s P.U.L.S.E. – Restored & Re-Edited released February 18th

Also Pink Floyd have made 12 live albums, spanning the years 1970 to 1972, available on streaming services.

No prior announcement was made ahead of the sets, all official releases, emerging.

The earliest recording, titled “They Came In Peace“, and featuring performances from Leeds University on February 28th, 1970 and Washington University on November 16th, 1971 features seven tracks and clocks in at one hour 34 minutes in length: the track listing is “The Embryo, Careful With That Axe, Eugene, Atom Heart Mother (then still untitled), Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, Interstellar Overdrive” (introduced as “the fastest “Interstellar Overdrive” ever“), “A Saucerful Of Secrets” and “One Of These Days”.

The most recent of the recordings, taped in Tokyo on March 16th, 1972, finds the band performing seven tracks from “The Dark Side Of The Moon“, in sequence, almost a year before the album was released, on March 1st, 1973.

There’s also a full recording of the quartet’s September 23rd, 1971 show at the KB Hallen, Copenhagen, split into two volumes.

The full list of albums is:

They Came in Peace, Leeds University 28 Feb 1970 Washington University 16th Nov 1971
Live at Grosser Saal, Musikhalle, Hamburg, West Germany 25th Feb 1971
Mauerspechte Berlin Sportpalast 5th June 1971
Lyon & Tokyo, Lyon 12 June 1971, Tokyo 16th March 1972
Palaeur Rome 20th June 1971
Amsterdamse Bos Free Concert 26th June 1971
Live in Montreux 18th & 19th Sept 1971
KB Hallen, Copenhagen 23rd Sept 1971
KB Hallen, Copenhagen, Vol II, Live 23th Sept 1971
Over Bradford Pigs on the Groove Bradford University 10th Oct 1971
Embryo, San Diego, Live 17th Oct 1971
The Screaming Abdabs Quebec City, Live 10th Nov 1971

The three original tracks on the “These Dreams” EP were written and recorded in amongst the lot for “A Common Turn“. Before the final track listing, these were very much part of the album – but of course, decisions had to be made and these were cut. However, they are integral to the album and the album arc. I wanted to release them to show the edges of the emotional places that writing “A Common Turn” took me to. This EP traverses the expanse between possibly the most difficult and wrenching song (These Dreams) and the most positive and defiant (Since We Broke Up), and it’s not an easy listen by any means. Hairier Now was written about the same person as “Baby Grand“, but a year earlier, after a seven year absence. I also chose to do a cover of the classic Edwyn Collins track “A Girl Like You” as I wanted to tie another track in to the album, but obviously writing another track would’ve meant it was completely taken out of the time frame.

The Edwyn Collins owl mug is in Baby Grand, and I’ve loved this song ever since I saw it in Empire Records – what a sexy, sensual, surprising song. I decided to put a more “These Dreams” kind of spin on it, turning it in to a slightly creepier and more difficult iteration of the original track.

Released September 24th, 2021

Three of the hottest properties in rock’n’roll as the 70s dawned were David Crosby, Graham Nash and Neil Young and this LP compiles high quality versions of their various 1970 television appearances.  

Eight tracks are included from Crosby and Nash’s “BBC In Concert” programme, a combination of well-known songs and then-unreleased material. An acoustic Neil Young plays a similar mix of well-known and obscure tracks in a fine seven song set recorded for TV in San Francisco. Live in Concert at BBC. 1970 footage of the duo performing soon after the demise of the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Featuring beautiful harmonies, they perform CSNY and solo songs such as “Marrakesh Express” and “Guinnevere”. The Neil Young set is from KQED, February 19th 1970

Full sleeve notes included

Crosby and Nash have harmonies that work. This session shows they can hold up a super performance that has beautiful, full, sound. Their voices and their confidence were at a peak space in time. 1970, the togetherness of Laurel Canyon

Following on from their new album ‘El Refugio’ which was released last month, Mexican post-punk/krautrock group Sei Still are back already with an incoming Fuzz Club Session LP which is due out January 21st 2022

Having upped sticks from Mexico City to Berlin, the session was recorded live at Berlin’s Monoton Studio (which is also where they recorded the new album) back in October 2020 and is comprised of five tracks from the newly-released ‘El Refugio’ LP.

Alongside the video for ‘Me Persigue’ which was released last week, the session also features such album tracks as ‘Soldados Caidos’, ‘Hombre Animal’, ‘Las Puertas De La Noche’ and ‘Solsticiol’

The session is released on 180g black and white vinyl – the latter is exclusive to the Fuzz Club store. 

Mexican post-punk/krautrock band Sei Still perform ‘Me Perisgue’ as part of their incoming Fuzz Club Session LP, due out January 21st 2022.

Since 2019, L.A. native Eva Gardner has been stepping out of the shadow of her complementary roles — most recently as the bass player for P!NK to create some solo music.

Gardner’s second EP, “Darkmatter,” arrives Friday, and like its predecessor, 2019’s “Chasing Ghosts,” it was written and recorded in between her duties as a touring player. She has introduced the new EP with the single “London Nights,” a propulsive, New Wave-influenced rocker inspired by her experiences as the daughter of British musician who often visited her father’s homeland and her passion for stargazing.

“London is one of my favorite cities because my dad was from there,” Gardner explains. “Although I grew up in L.A., I spent a lot of time in London and felt connected to it as my home away from home. It was exciting to be in the city lights, infatuated with the British boys, running around town. The pub culture is such a specific way of life.”

Gardner, the daughter of bassist Kim Gardner, knows something about pub culture, too. Her parents founded the Cat & Fiddle in 1982. Eva started playing music as a teenager, was an early member of the Mars Volta and went on to back artists such as Moby, Cher and Gwen Stefani.

The EP was made with Josh Berwanger (The Anniversary) and Jarods Evans at Blackwatch Studios in Norman, Okla.

As for the title of the EP, Gardner says, “Before I had dreams of becoming a musician, I wanted to be an astronomer. Staring up into the night sky has always been a source of enchantment and wonder for me. What is really going on in the space between the stars in the sky? In astronomical terms, dark matter is material that cannot be seen directly, but it’s believed to account for the unexplained motions of stars within galaxies — just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Creating music is a deep dive within the dark matter of our own psyches.”

Los-Angeles-based singer/songwriter Claire Cronin is back with her latest album, “Bloodless”. The record follows after her 2019 record of spectral indie folk, Big Dread Moon, and her 2020 “horror memoir” “Blue Light of the Screen“. Once again pulling from supernatural themes, eerie mysticism, and atmospheric Americana, Cronin’s latest record was written and recorded under lockdown home with Ezra Buchla (Cronin’s husband and violist). Cronin also went to Deerhoof’s John Dieterich for mixing, collaborating again after her 2016 album “Came Down a Storm”.

Cronin has already shared “Bloodless” and “No Forcefield,” the first singles from the record, and today she’s back with “Feel This,” .

“Feel This” is another piece of stripped-back folk, with Buchla’s synths and viola offering the only accompaniment to Cronin’s guitar and ethereal vocals. Buchla gently builds a swirling layered atmosphere while Cronin is the song’s haunting focal point. Together they create a hypnotic reverie, a dense atmosphere that Cronin winds through as a spectral presence. Lyrically, Cronin dreams of inhabiting a similarly transcendent form, singing “I don’t want to be in my body / What I want is to be beyond me / Floating like God.”

Claire Cronin: vocals & guitar on all songs, claps (6)

Ezra Buchla: viola (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8), synth (1, 2, 3, 5), baritone guitar (2, 6, 7), vocals (3), drum (1)

John Dieterich: synth (6, 7, 9), claps (1)

Owen Ashworth: synth (5)

All songs by Claire Cronin (BMI)

Watch for Bloodless, out November 12th via Orindal Records.

John Mellencamp has announced a new album, “Strictly a One-Eyed Jack”, which will hit shelves on January. 2022. The heartland rocker previewed the LP with a new single titled “Chasing Rainbows,” released last week. Mellencamp has kept busy in recent months, releasing a collaborative song with Bruce Springsteen titled “Wasted Days” in September. It’s one of three songs on Mellencamp’s new LP to feature the Boss, along with “Did You Say Such a Thing” and “A Life Full of Rain.”

“I would consider Bruce now, one of my better friends in the music business. Bruce and I talk quite a bit,” Mellencamp told SiriusXM’s E Street Radio. “I think he and I relate to each other because we’ve had similar experiences of growing up in a small town. Starting out, big band leaders. … He’s like my big brother now.”

Mellencamp debuted another “One-Eyed Jack” song, “I Always Lie to Strangers,” at Farm Aid in September. The performance presaged an anticipated return to the road in 2022, where Mellencamp wishes to play theatres as opposed to arenas and amphitheaters.

“I don’t like playing outside and I don’t like playing in arenas,” he told the Indianapolis Monthly. “That means it’s more work and I make less money, but I’d rather have people see something that could turn into magic rather than something that’s a drunken brawl. In arenas, there’s always people drinking and fighting and all that bullshit.”

This summer, Mellencamp also released The Good Samaritan Tour 2000 live album and documentary, chronicling the trek that saw him playing free shows in public parks and common spaces across the U.S.

“Strictly a One-Eyed Jack” due for release January 21st, 2022

Typhoon is a band built out of contradictions. The eleven-piece Portland, Oregon, supergroup is both wild and tightly structured, punk and symphonic. Frontman Kyle Morton’s lyrics are concerned primarily with death, but Typhoon’s songs are resoundingly triumphant. The truth is that the band, formed by high school friends who somewhat miraculously overcame the interpersonal challenges and logistical nightmares of keeping a project of this scale intact to full maturity, was just built that way. It starts with Morton, whose significant battles with illness have left him at times struggling with meaning. “You can consider it one very bewildered man’s attempt to explain the universe, to himself, in the language of bewilderment,” he says of Typhoon’s music.

Typhoon’s debut Tender Loving Empire full-length, Hunger and Thirst, is a jaw-dropping concept album that fuses folk forms with classical elements and occasional outbursts of metal. It doesn’t work on paper, but on vinyl it is monumental. Follow-up EP A New Kind Of House features the hit song “The Honest Truth,” which placed third on Paste’s list of the 50 Best Songs of 2011. Sophomore full-length White Lighter, the band’s most cohesive and stunning release to date, was released in 2013 on Roll Call Records. “When we started working on White Lighter, I had reason to believe that it would be the last thing I ever did,” Morton said after the album’s completion. “I’m still here and there’s still work to be done.”

“Never Be Your Lover” is a bonus track included on the 11th anniversary reissue of Typhoon’s breakout debut album Hunger and Thirst, remixed by Kyle Morton and Paul Laxer and remastered by Adam Gonsalves.

Release date: 12/17/2022

With “Love on My Mind” – the six song mini-album, mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer (Tennis, Parquet Courts, Johnny Marr) – Bambara condense all the energy and darkness that have made them so compelling and rearrange it into something defiantly new. Opening track, “Slither in the Rain“, all hissing high-hat and spectral synthlines, is a true statement of intent. It’s minimal and atmospheric, foregrounding Bateh’s raw vocals as he introduces one of “Love On My Mind’s” main characters years after the events of the album are over, a lonely man who throws bottles at airplanes and dances a two-step in the pattern of a figure-8. While Bateh has always been adept at character sketches, tracks lke Slither introduce a newfound vulnerability that runs true through the entire album and cause the songs to hit on a more human level.

Similarly, “Point And Shoot “– in which each stanza describes the louche, lawless scenes of “rooftop girls / standing shoulder-to-shoulder, naked figures with their hips / cocked,” busted up jaws, and couches full of burn-holes captured by the snapshots of “Love on My Mind’s” female lead – displays an autobiographical intimacy that is not as apparent in Bambara’s previous releases.

This tenderness is echoed on “Birds“, a rare love song (from which the EP’s title is derived), and album closer “Little Wars“, a gripping finale of loneliness and isolation. But while these songs may display a softer side of Bambara, it’s important to note that they haven’t lost the thrill of what attracted so
many people to them in the first place. “Mythic Love” (featuring vocalsfrom Bria Salmena), with its driving bassline and ricocheting guitar lines, brings to mind past rave-ups like Serafina and Sunbleached Skulls but obliterates them in the process, while “Feelin’ Like A Funeral” – a dangerously oscillating tale of a city knifing – is probably the most thrillingly anthemic song the band have ever recorded.

Taken together, “Love on My Mind” amounts to another massive step forward for Bambara – the boldest thing they’ve ever done – and the sound of yet another breakthrough.

For the 50th anniversary of Cahoots, The Band has revisited the classic 1971 album with an expanded anniversary edition. Available now across streaming services and in a fully-loaded box set, the remastered album features all-new mixes overseen by guitarist/songwriter Robbie Robertson as well as a partial bootleg concert from Paris, France in 1971.

Coming on the heels of 50th-anniversary reissues of “Music From Big Pink”, “The Band”, and “Stage Fright“, the expanded Cahoots sees Robertson and engineer Bob Clearmountain taking a fresh look at the classic LP. As with the previous reissues, Clearmountain—under Robertson’s supervision and with his full blessing—completely reimagined the original recordings.

Their fortunes finally took a turn with album number four, though the extent of the turn is subject to debate. It’s hard to argue that 1971’s “Cahoots” is not a step down from its former releases, but those records set a very high standard. And it’s probably that standard that caused many critics to pounce on this LP.

Every member of the group continues to perform beautifully on “Cahoots“,  The atmospheric organ from Garth Hudson its first appearance here; and “4% Pantomime,” a Robbie Robertson/Van Morrison co-write that finds the latter guesting to share lead vocals. But the rest of the material falls short by varying degrees: numbers like “Smoke Signal” and “Shoot Out in Chinatown” are enjoyable, albeit insubstantial, while songs such as “The Moon Struck One” and “Volcano” seem like mere filler, though Hudson’s potent sax work partly redeems the latter.

“Robbie told me, ‘Just think of the original mixes as rough mixes. Pretty much don’t pay attention to the mixes themselves,’” Clearmountain notes in the box set’s liner notes.

Also included in the “Cahoots” reissue is “Live at the Olympia Theatre, Paris, May 1971“. Recorded on The Band’s momentous 1971 European tour, the partial recording captures 11 tracks from the May 25th, 1971 show in The City of Light. The Band’s 1971 return to Europe came five years after their infamous tour of the continent with Bob Dylan as his electric backing band where they were booed every night. Fast forward five years, and The Band returned to Europe at the top of their game and the top of the charts. Live at the Olympia Theatre hosts lively takes on such classics as “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “Don’t Do It”, “We Can Talk”, “Chest Fever”, “Rag Mama Rag”, and more.

“Cahoots” was the fourth studio album, and last album of original material for four years. The front cover painted by New York artist / illustrator Gilbert Stone Back cover features a photograph portrait of the group by Richard Avedon. Features guest vocals from Van Morrison (on “4% Pantomime”)

The surround-sound audio Blu-ray that makes it all sound much better. Listening to these, you may conclude that the strength of the performances outweighs the relative weakness of some of the material. Though The Band’s rustic recording techniques are part of what gives them a unique charm to this day, Robertson elected to bring Cahoots into the 21st century. Clearmountain created new Dolby Atmos and 5.1 stereo surround-sound mixes for each song on the album and the four bonus tracks presented in high resolution on Blu-ray, alongside the new stereo mix.

The anniversary edition adds other goodies, among them a seven-inch vinyl single; a 180-gram vinyl LP; and eight studio bonus tracks, including alternate takes of “When I Paint My Masterpiece” and “4% Pantomime” and a previously unreleased instrumental version of “Life Is a Carnival.” Other carrots include three frameable photo lithographs and a 20-page booklet with liner notes by Robertson and York University professor and musicologist Rob Bowman, who has long been associated with the group.