UK indie-punks Fresh have signed to Get Better Records, and they’ve also just followed this year’s “TheSummer I Got Good At Guitar EP with new single “Morgan & Joanne.” It’s a super catchy song that references the blind date that went viral in 2019. The Punx from London who love emo, shredding, touring, oat milk, and using friendship to fill a gaping uncertain hole inside of yourself. “I was so struck by the charm of Morgan and Joanne and how they turned what had the potential to be a really typical first date into an adventure,” singer Kathryn Woods says. Fresh have worked tirelessly since their inception – releasing two albums, touring with the likes of The Beths, PUP, Adult Mom, playing Fest, Manchester Punk Festival and The Fiest in Madrid. The EP continues their progression from 2019’s “Withdraw“, deeply personal and visceral song writing played in the most lively, fuzzy and catchy way possible!
After quietly releasing their self-titled debut album in 1999 while still in college, American Football disbanded after the album’s release to focus on other projects, only to reunite 15 years later to a fanbase that had been consistently growing throughout the underground / emo scene. The album later appeared on Rolling Stone’s “40 Greatest Emo Albums of All Time” While Pitchfork gave its deluxe reissue the “Best New Reissue” title, calling it the “most influential album in the genre.” The reunion was followed by 2 more self-titled full-length albums (LP2 and LP3), collaborations with the likes of Paramore’s HayleyWilliams, San Holo, boyband and others, as well as numerous sold-out world tours.
American Football have followed their first new music since 2019’s excellent “LP3“. It’s a new song called “Rare Symmetry” which feels cut from the same lush, atmospheric cloth as “LP3”, backed by a gorgeous cover of Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” with guest vocals by Miya Folick.
On the “Rare Symmetry / Fade Into You” 10” single, American Football (Mike Kinsella, Nate Kinsella,Steve Holmes) expand on the dense beauty of “LP3″ with “Rare Symmetry”, incorporating chiming vibraphones, intricate picking patterns, and devastating lyrics. For the B-side, the band offers up a dazzling cover of Mazzy Star’s 1994 hit single, “Fade Into You,” with Miya Folick contributing vocals.
“I think all my friends are jealous that I’m on an American Football song,” said Miya. “I truly couldn’t believe when they asked me to sing with them. And to sing this song. Is there anyone who has heard ‘Fade Into You’ and not loved it? To me, it is a perfect song. I feel ancient when I sing it.”
“Fade Into You” is kind of an over-covered song, but this one’s very worth hearing. American Football truly make it their own; they stretch it from a five-minute song to a seven-minute song, incorporate their trademark guitar and trumpet style, and if you didn’t know any better, you really might mistake this for an American Football original.
“Fade Into You” featuring Miya Folick (originally by Mazzy Star) is the new digital single from American Football – 10″ vinyl arrives June 10th, 2022.
The songs are the band’s final recordings with drummer/trumpeter Steve Lamos, who amicably left the band earlier this year. They’re coming out as a 10″ vinyl single on June 10 via PolyvinylRecords.
Shame have shared a new single, “Baldur’s Gate.” Despite the Dungeons & Dragons-y title, it’s a holiday song of sorts, but apart from a hint of sleigh bells in the opening moments and a mention of Christmas, you wouldn’t really know it. “Baldur’s Gate” is definitely a Shame song, though, with sinewy guitars and a dark romantic vibe: “If I could rip off all my skin,” Charlie Steen sings in the opening lines, “And parcel it inside a tin, I’d write your name in biro, on the ribbons, like decorations.”
“It’s about a period of time in which I’d regularly be trekking up to the streets of Edinburgh to see an ex-partner,” says Steen. “These are some of the thoughts I’d have when I’d be leaving Waverley station, en route back to London in the winter nights.
Shame released “Drunk Tank Pink” earlier this year “Baldur’s Gate” by out now on Dead Oceans Records
Old Crow Medicine Show cut loose with a bright blast of roots-rock in their new song “Paint This Town,” the title track from the Nashville band’s upcoming album due out April 22nd.
“Paint This Town”, will be the group’s seventh studio album, follows 2018’s “Volunteer” and sees the group moving back to former home ATO Records. This time around, Old Crow kept things close to home, co-producing the album with Matt Ross-Spang (Margo Price, John Prine) at their own Hartland Studio.
With its jangling guitars, harmonica, and decidedly rocking drums, “Paint This Town” feels like a continuation of the group’s evolving style on “Volunteer” rather than a return to the old-timey bent of their early years. Singer and de facto leader Ketch Secor evokes Bob Dylan and John Mellencamp as he describes a rebellious adolescence with a sense of nostalgia and awe. “I walked and crawled across six state lines by the time I was 8 years old,” he sings.
The accompanying video for “Paint This Town” captures one glorious night of youthful exuberance. After a quick cameo by Jim Lauderdale as a TV weatherman, a teenager slips out of his house with the keys to the car and gathers his friends. They score a case of beer on a fake ID and head to a party that’s broken up by the cops (Secor plays the angry neighbour who calls the police). Later, they end up at an all-night rager that features Old Crow as the band.
Of course, the group of young friends also bear a strong resemblance to the current lin-eup of Old Crow Medicine Show, a point they illustrate in the video’s final frame.
Aussie band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have announced Butterfly 3001, a full-length featuring remixes of Butterfly 3000 songs. The new album—out January 21st via KGLW—includes contributions from Yu Su, Deaton Chris, DJ Shadow, Donato Dozzy, Flaming Lips, DāM-FunK, and more. Below, take a listen to Peaches’ “Neu Butterfly 3000,” and the Scientist’s dub of “Shanghai.”
Butterfly 3000 was the prolific Australian band’s second studio album of 2021, following February’s “L.W.” Later this month, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are playing shows in Brisbane, Australia, before restarting their tour in 2022.
“We’ve put off doing a remix album for a long time. Maybe it was conscious, maybe it wasn’t. But it’s happening now. That’s not to say that “Butterfly 3000” makes the most sense to remix. It might seem like the obvious one, but it’s not. Yes it’s electronic. But so is a fridge. Have you tried to dance to Butterfly? It’s hard. It ties your shoelaces together. It’s duplicitous in its simplicity. But “Butterfly 3001” expands on this. It also deviates and obliterates. We’re honoured to have such esteemed people go to work on these songs. We hope you love this album as much as we do.
Singer Songwriter Mitski has released another track from her forthcoming LP “Laurel Hell”. It’s called “Heat Lightning,” and it arrives with an animated lyric video created by Alex Moy..
“Laurel Hell” is out February 4th via Dead OceansRecords. The follow-up to Mitski’s 2018 album “Be the Cowboy” includes the previously shared singles “Working for the Knife” and “The Only Heartbreaker.” Mitski recorded her upcoming LP with her long time producer Patrick Hyland. She will set out on a sold out tour in support of “Laurel Hell” early next year.
We don’t typically look to pop albums to answer our cultural moment, let alone to meet the soul hunger left in the wake of global catastrophe. But occasionally, an artist proves the form more malleable and capacious than we knew. With “Laurel Hell”, Mitski cements her reputation as an artist in possession of such power – capable of using her talent to perform the alchemy that turns our most savage and alienated experiences into the very elixir that cures them. Her critically beloved last album, “Be the Cowboy“, built on the breakout acclaim of 2016’s “Puberty 2” and launched her from cult favourite to indie star. She ascended amid a fever of national division, and the grind of touring and pitfalls of increased visibility influenced her music as much as her spirit. Like the mountain laurels for this new album is named, public perception, like the intoxicating prism of the internet, can offer an alluring façade that obscures a deadly trap—one that tightens the more you struggle. Exhausted by this warped mirror, and our addiction to false binaries, she began writing songs that stripped away the masks and revealed the complex and often contradictory realities behind them. She wrote many of these songs during or before 2018, while the album finished mixing in May 2021.
It is the longest span of time Mitski has ever spent on a record, and a process that concluded amid a radically changed world. Recorded throughout the isolation of a global pandemic, during which some of the songs “slowly took on new forms and meanings, like seed to flower.” Sometimes it’s hard to see the change when you’re the agent of it, but for the lucky rest of us, Mitski has written a soundtrack for transformation, a map to the place where vulnerability and resilience, sorrow and delight, error and transcendence can all sit within our humanity, can all be seen as worthy of acknowledgment, and ultimately, love.
CD variants: There are four limited edition alternate versions of Laurel Hell: the Stay Soft Get Eaten CDs. Each edition makes up one quadrant of a greater image so that when all four are put together, one cohesive exclusive image of Mitski appears. Each edition is named after a line from the hook of the album’s third track “Stay Soft”: “STAY Version,” “SOFT Version,” “GET Version,” and “EATEN Version.” These are signified by the version titles being in the corner of each slipcover.
Bully, the Nashville-based project of Alicia Bognanno, delivers another sugary-sweet slice of indie-pop heaven with “Just for Love.” The playful, Feelies-esque verses give way to a wall of fuzz and pile-driving energy on the chorus, where she snarls and spits about that oh-so-unpredictable four-letter word without ever losing sight of the melody.
Always awesome to wake up to new Bully. It felt like a good way to start tour and wrap up the year.
“Halsey penned the songs for her fifth album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power herself. She recorded the career-defining album with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, known for their work in Nine Inch Nails and as Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy-winning film/television composers. She continues to push creative boundaries, expanding her influence and impact beyond music. She uses her voice to speak up for causes she passionately believes in, including disenfranchised youth, women’s rights, mental health and the LGBTQ community.”
“If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power”, Halsey’s masterful pivot to a darker alt-rock focus, can partially be credited to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the Nine Inch Nails veterans who produced the project and helped locate its industrial centre. Yet few pop artists in recent memory have been able to shapeshift with Halsey’s dexterity, and they spend the album hopscotching across jittery electronica (“Girl is a Gun”), brash pop-punk (“Honey”), grooving R&B (“Lilith”) and lullaby balladry (“Darling”), all while reflecting on the challenges and revelations of her recent journey as a new mother. While Halsey found the perfect support system to bring “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power” to life, the songs shine because of the complex, daring — and, yes, powerful — artist at their centre.
“If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power” – Experience It In IMAX An Album and Film Experience from Halsey
