The Fat Angel Sings

Away back in June, the Australian psych-rock band Pond announced their new album titled “9“. We’ve already heard several songs from it, including “Pink Lunettes” “Amerca’s Cup” and “Toast” Today, they’re back with another.

Pond’s latest is called “Human Touch.” Here’s what frontman Nick Allbrook had to say about the song and its accompanying video:

One time a woman was smashing up a car outside my house, begging me to help her steal it. It was a lovely day. She was wired but sweet in a way. Her dog, Josie, was sitting in the passenger seat being very cute and fluffy. We talked for a good few hours in the sunny cul-de-sac and neither of us ended up committing grand theft auto. The music started with a grimy Casio loop Jay made, that we built the song around.

My original idea was to be dancing in the central business district of Perth, being thoroughly ignored by suits on their lunch break. Turns out me and Duncan Wright (Director) are both quivering Fremantle natives and terrified of the City. When Duncan saw a pretty sliver of morning sunlight in the West End we figured, stuff it, let’s do it there. Zero people is kind of the same thing as being ignored by lots of people, right? I need some human connection blah blah blah. It was super fun to make. We didn’t really have a strict plan and I overcame by anxiety about dancing in platform shoes to no music at 9am on a Tuesday morning like a kook.

Our new album “9” is right around the corner. For your chance to win one of 5 merch packs, follow us on Spotify, Pre-add the album on Apple Music, or Subscribe to our YouTube channel or Newsletter in the link provided below. You’ll get all the music, videos, and news as they come out, and you’ll also be the first to see behind-the-scenes footage of us making “9” delivered to your inbox the day the album is released.

9 is out 10/1 via Spinning Top Records. New single ‘Human Touch’ out September 1st. Taken from the forthcoming album ‘9’ out October 1st.

It is the Hull and Leeds-based band’s first new material since the release of their hugely acclaimed debut album, “Bedroom“, which was hailed as a latter-day shoegaze classic when it came out in July 2020 and ended up in several end of year lists, including a respectable number eight in Rough Trade’s.

Sounding not unlike the Low of Double Negative or Hey What deconstructing The Temptations’ ‘(I Know) I’m Losing You’, ‘Port’ is a much darker hued song; the distorted drones and beats eventually burst into life with frenzied guitar and howls of anguish.

“I think a lot of the music going forward will be a lot, not darker, but coming from a much deeper place than the first album,” explains singer and guitarist Ryan Smith, who points out the influence of Canadian indie-rockers Suuns and Portishead’s ‘Machine Gun’, which half explains the title, which also means ‘any port in a storm’, when someone will use anything for comfort when in a bad situation. 

“‘Port’ was written at the height of addiction,” continues Ryan. “It comes from a place where you know you need to change but feel that you can’t. I wish I could come up with some profound meaning for what this track means, or what it is, but I’d just be lying. I was in a difficult place, and this was the end result.”

bdrmm have recently returned to the stage, playing to huge crowds at festivals including Latitude and End Of The Road. Following the conclusion of their much-delayed UK tour in November, they will head back into the studio to continue work on their second album. 

“I think we’re looking to be delving more into soundscapes,” hints Ryan. “I am so excited to embrace the next chapter of bdrmm. It’s been a fucking tough ride, but one I never want to get off.”

Released on September 24th, 1991, the following year saw the Seattle grunge band head to Australia where their gigs became the stuff of legends. They headlined Big Day Out as well as playing The Palace in Melbourne (captured back then by triple j) and now, that Melbourne show is getting an official release as part of the 30th anniversary reissue of “Nevermind” Box Set. When Nirvana journeyed to Australia in 1992, they were on the verge of achieving celebrityhood. The year that grunge broke would still be a little way off and, for a relatively fresh band, the tour was a way to win new fans – whose minds would be colonised when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” ; expose fans to their songs and repertoire and, probably above all, have some fun. That also means that the group could take chances and try new things. Hence, one highlight of the show in Melbourne on February 1st, 1992 is the feedback-drenched jam (before Negative Creep) during which Krist Novoselic recites poetry.

On the Australian leg of this tour, apart from Melbourne, Nirvana also played in Adelaide and Sydney. Melbourne was the last stop before the band took a press trip to $ingapore and then they played Tokyo and Osaka. 

The set is Nirvana’s second night of a 3 night stint at the Palace in Melbourne, a date whose main distinction was that it was the only all ages show of the tour. Several songs were broadcast on the radio triple j that had surfaced many years ago and whetted traders’ appetites for the full show. This recording is unsurprisingly far and away the best sounding recording of the tour.

It is evident that the band is still struggling with their performances Kurt’s voice weak in parts, causing him to hold back on many of the songs, both “Lithium” and “Drain You” show clear evidence of this while on “Negative Creep” his voice sounds truly awful. Kurt even manages to screw up the riff to “School”.

The high points of this gig have mostly appeared on the broadcast JJJ made which unusually instead of focusing on the hits played the best performed songs of the set. “About A Girl, Lounge Act” and “Breed” are all executed well, as is “Lithium” (even though Kurt does forget to turn on his distortion pedal for one of the choruses!). “Love Buzz” features competency by Kurt on guitar as he makes some innovative flourishes that add a lot to the song.

The main centrepiece of the performance is a feedback jam during which Krist recites a couple of lines of improvised poetry.

This new reissue is really stuffed with exciting Nirvana content, featuring a total of 94 audio and video tracks (that’s almost too much Nirvana, almost). 70 of those tracks are also previously unreleased.

And it’s not just the Melbourne show that’s included: live concert footage from Amsterdam, California, Tokyo is also in the reissue. If that somehow wasn’t enough, two live albums are packed in, “Live at the Paramount” (Seattle) and “Live at Reading”, which is a very famous gig indeed.

There’s the standard different bundles and formats to tickle your fancy, including the basic remastered version through to the imposing sounding Super Deluxe. The Super Deluxe is seriously overflowing with stuff and will be available in both vinyl and CD+Blu-ray (5 CDs plus Blu-ray – Live in Amsterdam, Netherlands complete concert video newly remastered audio & video in HD).

So once the reissues arrive on November 12th, you know what to buy for the Nirvana fan in your life for Christmas.

Courtney Barnett releases ‘Write A List Of Things To Look Foward To’ off her upcoming album 
“Things Take Time, Take Time” dropping November 12th – a melodic love letter to friends and friendship.

And how we are looking forward to that one!! Courtney took the song’s name from advice given by a friend to get her out of a depressive funk, “I found a deeper communication with people in my life – deeper conversations”, she notes of this new phase. “And a new level of gratitude for friendships that had been there for so long that I had maybe taken for granted”.

the wholesome and heart-warming video by Christina Xing, featuring Courtney as the sender and recipient of a series of gifts and letters.

Courtney Barnett – “Write A List Of Things To Look Forward To” (Official Video) Taken from the new album ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’ released 12th November 2021

Fake Fruit the Oakland, California band’s self-titled debut favours spirited punk primitivism and two-minute art-rock tracks—punchy, melodic songs united by nervy guitars and cutting takedowns of modern frustrations. Miraculously, they manage to avoid self-serious posturing, resulting in an occasionally dissonant, frequently delightful album where fun and fury overlap. Rarely does a band’s first record speak with such a trenchant voice.

Fake Fruit has had time to figure itself out: Chief songwriter and frontperson Hannah “Ham” D’Amato originally founded the band in 2016 in New York, then moved to Vancouver, B.C. and restarted as a trio, before finding new footing in Oakland. There, she secured a semi-finalized line-up with guitarist Alex Post, drummer Miles MacDiarmid, and a rotating cast of bassists. By mid-2019, D’Amato, Post, and MacDiarmid had saved up enough to turn a tour tape into their debut LP, tracking the instrumentals in two days spaced a year apart. Now, two years later,their self titled “Fake Fruit” finally arrives via Smith’s label Rocks in Your Head. It’s well worth the wait: In the half-decade since its first iteration, the band has evolved from nomadic experimentation into nascent punk prowess.

Fake Fruit is electrifying. Rhythmic, garage-y riffs ignite “No Mutuals,” propelled by the song’s dissatisfaction with online social etiquette. At its centre is Fake Fruit’s most distinctive asset: D’Amato’s voice, which hits like Courtney Barnett fronting a punk band. “I don’t wanna wait to be christened as cool,” she sings, blowing up the pronunciation of “cool” until it fractures, sounding almost like “cruel.” The final word in “You look like a fool” receives a similar distortion—an eviscerating affectation.

Fake Fruit distill Pink Flag era Wire, Pylon, and Mazzy Star to expound on the absurdity of modern life. Front woman Hannah D’Amato leads the group through three minute clap backs of minimal, moody post-punk.

released March 5th, 2021

Hannah D’Amato– Vox + Guitars
Alex Post– Guitars + Vox
Miles MacDiarmid– Drums
Martin Miller– Bass

David Bowie’s 2001 album “Toy”, which was shelved amid problems with his record label, will receive its first official release as part of the late singer’s latest reissue campaign. A mix of new songs and re-recordings of lesser-known tracks from 1964-71, Toy was recorded live in the studio shortly after Bowie’s 2000 Glastonbury performance. He planned to surprise release it almost immediately, but EMI/Virgin stalled, which some say led to Bowie’s switch to Columbia Records. After a leak in 2011, “Toy’s” official release is set for November 26th. Listen to the re-recording of his third single, “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving,” below.

“Toy is like a moment in time captured in an amber of joy, fire and energy,” said co-producer Mark Plati of the album, which he recorded alongside Sterling Campbell, Gail Ann Dorsey, Earl Slick, Mike Garson, Holly Palmer, Emm Gryner, Lisa Germano, Gerry Leonard, and Cuong Vu. “It’s the sound of people happy to be playing music. David revisited and re-examined his work from decades prior through prisms of experience and fresh perspective—a parallel not lost on me as I now revisit it twenty years later. From time to time, he used to say ‘Mark, this is our album’—I think because he knew I was so deeply in the trenches with him on that journey. I’m happy to finally be able to say it now belongs to all of us.”

Also available as a Bonus discs in the “Brilliant Adventures”  box set will feature alternative versions, proposed B-sides, and the “Tibet Version” of “Silly Boy Blue” recorded in 2001 with Philip Glass on piano and Moby on guitar. A third disc comprises “Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric” mixes of 13 Toy tracks. alongside remasters of Black Tie White Noise, The Buddha of Suburbia, Outside, Earthling, Hours, the rarities compilation Re:Call 5, and a live album recorded at BBC Radio Theatre in 2000.

The legendary previously unreleased album is available as A special edition 10″ Vinyl set.

For the fourth instalment of the Jim Beam Welcome Sessions, Mercury Prize-winning alt-rock act Wolf Alice take to London’s Union Chapel’ for a sepulchral performance of their “Blue Weekend” single, ‘Lipstick on the Glass.’

The Jim Beam Welcome Sessions is an ode to the special relationship between artists and the venues they cut their teeth in. Inspired by Jim Beam’s welcoming spirit, each episode of the multi-year partnership will see an artist return to an independent venue close to their heart. The series launched with a performance from Brit Award-nominated artist Jack Garratt, who returned to London’s Village Underground for a divine multi-instrumental rendition of ‘Time.’

In July, Grammy-nominated Irish act Fontaines D.C. return to beloved North London independent music venue, The Lexington, home to the band’s first shows outside their native Ireland. For the third instalment, Swedish singer-songwriter José González took to Berlin’s The Michelberger for a beguiling performance of his single ‘Valle Local.’

London based rockers Wolf Alice take to the Union Chapel (where lead singer Ellie Rowsell sang in the choir growing up), the film is a gesture of reverence to the space as well as a celebration of the live music experience. “We wanted to play ‘Lipstick on the Glass’ for its melodic grandeur that we hope pays homage to the space we are in. It’s a privilege to play here and something we will collectively remember forever” – Ellie Rowsell, Wolf Alice, A reclaimed 19^th-century Gothic church, for an uncanny take on their Blue Weekend song ‘Lipstick on the Glass’.

The Jim Beam Welcome Session reunites artists with a venue that occupies a special place in their heart. “As performers, there are just some venues that you connect with musically and emotionally,” explains vocalist Ellie Rowsell. “That can be rooted in memories of seeing live music there or the spectacle of the space, but it’s also the people that make it what it is.”

Of their decision to perform at Union Chapel, the band explain: “It has Incredible acoustics and is visually very beautiful and for Ellie a sense of nostalgia who grew up nearby and even did an annual Christmas concert with the local community choir here.

“We wanted to play ‘Lipstick on the Glass’ for its melodic grandeur that we hope pays homage to the space we are in. It’s a privilege to play here and something we will collectively remember forever.”

Lala Lala, the project of Chicago musician Lillie West, shares a new track “Prove It,” the latest single from her upcoming album, “I Want The Door To Open”, out October 8th on Hardly Art Records. Next month, West will perform a string of record release shows before embarking on a UK, European and North American tour in 2022. “Prove It” is contained and polished, with West singing over sparse guitars before the track reaches its percussive climax. “‘Prove It’ is a song about insatiable people and the idea of ‘good’ vs ‘bad,’” says West. “It’s about lack of control. Even though this song is accusatory, I relate to the person I’m talking to. I think sometimes when we criticize other people we’re also talking about ourselves.

Additionally, Hardly Art presents Open the Door: Find Your Keys and Unlock Total Serenity, an infomercial for the album. Created by Sarah Squirm and Will Duncan, it features testimonials from CHAI, Sasami Ashworth, Camilo Medina (Divino Niño), IAN SWEET, and more. Watch “Open the Door: Find Your Keys and Unlock Total Serenity“

Following the release of “Colour Of The Pool” and “Diver,” “Prove It” is accompanied by a beautiful essay by renowned poet, essayist, and critic Hanif Abdurraqib:

“What I crave, what I have always craved, is a collection of songs that make me feel like they are surrounding me in preparation for a season. Not a good season or a bad season, but a season that I can identify as both. This, I’m sure, has to do with me being a product of the Midwest. Where, at least for now, there are still distinct and palpable shifts from month to month, almost as markers of time.

“I think it is the amount of voices on I Want The Door To Open that make me feel comforted, encased, prepared for that moment I know so well where the warmth fades and the darkness comes a little earlier and then, abruptly, a lot earlier. And I don’t mean voices as in different people, I simply mean the multitudinous nature of the choir of sound that one voice can offer. Take, for example, the end of ‘Diver,’ a song that swells and swells until it fades, leaving behind only the residue of voices that echo until the song’s exit, fading right into “Photo Photo,” where the same bursts of choir reappear as the song’s spine. 

“I’m saying I like an album that might make me feel less alone, the kind of alone that many of us became acquainted with in newer and sharper ways in the early darkness of the past year, and that some of us might be revisiting in the early darkness of the fall, and the winter, and beyond. I Want The Door To Open is an album that is immense, though not particularly loud. Its volume is in its tenderness, thoughtful arrangements, and elements of surprise, the things that leap out at you when you think you are hearing one song that becomes another song in its final act, a trick this album pulls off alarmingly well, every time. Take, for example, the pulsing heartbeat in ‘Color Of The Pool’ that gives way, right at the last minute, to a fluorescent blooming of horns. “It’s a magic trick, in a way. Making these songs that are not often long in minutes in seconds feel like mini-suites. Like rooms you don’t want to leave. 

“Speaking of a room I don’t want to leave, I firmly believe that I have maybe given up and given in for good. The inside is where I wanna be whenever the fragile ecosystem we’re all tumbling forward in starts to go south again. And if that is going to be the case, then I require albums that are generous enough to make the inside feel like the outside. An album that feels like a gathering, like a warmth creeping in through a window, no matter the weather. An album that feels like a park, bursting with friends and strangers, shouts and laments. I think this is the one for all of my internal and external joys, sadnesses, anxieties, and the small survivals that open up the door to all of the larger survivals to come.”

West co-produced I Want The Door To Open with Yoni Wolf of WHY?. It features contributions from Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, poet Kara Jackson, OHMME, Sen Morimoto, Christian Lee Hutson, Kaina Castillo, Meg Duffy, Will Miller, Gia Margaret, Josiah Wolf, Adam Schatz, and former tourmate Ben Gibbard. 

“Just when we thought we’d arrived at a conclusion, [West] pulls out the rug again: A euphoric sax bursts in (courtesy of Adam Schatz), playing one freaked-out bent note that never wants to be caught, multiplying itself back into inscrutability.” – Pitchfork on “Color of the Pool”

“[‘Color of the Pool’ is] enveloped in effervescent synths and visceral harmonies” – Stereogum

“‘DIVER’ introduces us to I Want The Door To Open in beautiful, memorable fashion.” – PAPER

“Featuring baroque instrumentation and a soaring crescendo, [‘DIVER’ is] a warm introduction to [I Want the Door to Open].” – The FADER

Early this summer LA’s La Luz announced a much-anticipated fourth album, with the self-titled La Luz set for October 22nd on long-term label Hardly Art. Recorded at Linear Labs Studio in Los Angeles with the help of the eclectic producer Adrian Younge, La Luz fearlessly launch themselves into a new realm of emotional intimacy with a collection of songs steeped in the mysteries of the natural world and the magic of human chemistry that has found manifestation in the musical ESP between guitarist and songwriter Shana Cleveland, bassist Lena Simon, and keyboardist Alice Sandal. 

Following the critically-acclaimed trio of singles “In The Country, “Watching Cartoons” and “The Pines” comes a new lyric video for their latest song, “Oh, Blue.” A heartfelt ballad that somehow manages to land between time zones, between genres, into a place of lush melody and a feel that is timeless. The group shares that the song is “a love song from a long distance.

About the kind of longing that keeps you in a constant daydream.” The lyric video was directed by the band. 
La Luz international headlining dates in support of their self-titled record for the US, UK, and EU have been announced.  

“La Luz’s new single “In The Country” is an extremely cool piece of spectral, shimmering folk-rock. It’s full of eerie, layered harmonies and reverb-drenched surf-guitar notes, and it absolutely nails its out-of-time pop-psychedelia sound.” [“In The Country”] –  Stereogum

“La Luz create a vibrant and balmy atmosphere on “In The Country”, with warm guitars and Cleveland’s tender vocal. The fuzzy and chirping electronic additions do indeed sound something like cicadas in the nearby trees – or perhaps something further flung like intercepted alien broadcasts.

Either way, La Luz are settling back, pushing aside any obligations, and taking it all in, purely enjoying being “In The Country” – and with this song they invite us to join them in repose and enjoy the summer air.” Beats Per Minute 

“Known for reverb-heavy guitar licks, a tasteful deployment of dynamics and singular harmonies––a range of emotive “oohs” and “ahhs” that vacillate between haunting melancholy and revelrous mirth––the band (Shana Cleveland-guitar, Lena Simon-bass, Alice Sandahl-keys) has crafted a lush, earthy and undeniably psychedelic collection of songs for La Luz. And the record is also the band’s most personal.” [“Watching Cartoons”] – WJCT

Singer/songwriter/guitarist Colleen Green is releasing a new album, “Cool”, on September 10th via Hardly Art. She then shared its third single, album opener “Someone Else.”

Green had this to say about the song in a press release: “This song is about double standards within a relationship, and how they can go both ways. It’s about coming to terms with you how you actually feel about something and taking responsibility for how that affects you. It’s about taking back power in a one-sided relationship and not letting someone else dictate your happiness. It’s about choices and the act of making them.”

Colleen Green’s “Cool”, which features official videos for “I Wanna Be a Dog,” “It’s Nice to Be Nice,” and “Highway,”  along with the track “Someone Else,” is out now on all DSPs and LP/CD/CS formats from Hardly Art Records. LPs ordered through Hardly Art Mini Mart, select independent retailers in North America, the UK, and EU will receive the vinyl on cool, cloudy smoke vinyl.

Previously Green shared Cool’s first single, “I Wanna Be a Dog,” via a video for it. Then she shared its second single, “It’s Nice to Be Nice,” via a video for it featuring Green performing the song on a sailboat.

Cool is Green’s fourth album and the follow-up to 2015’s very well-received I Want to Grow Up. Green co-produced the album with Gordon Raphael, which was mixed by Brendan Eder.

You can now watch Colleen Green’s “Highway”, a new standout from Cool, her Hardly Art release, directed by Ben Kettleson.
Green says of the track, “The newest in a long line of my songs that use driving and being in cars as allegory. Living and touring on the west coast for 10 years, I grew to dislike the highway. It represents so many things that I hate about myself and about humanity/society in general. Not having a car for over a decade helped make me a much calmer person. When I’m on the bus or walking, I am stress-free. I don’t have to talk and I don’t have to worry about anything. I love being able to look all around me and notice beautiful, simple things. When people are on the highway, they’re going too fast to notice any kind of beauty, and they have a whole mess of stressors to deal with. Country roads represent freedom and serenity. Something I appreciate about where I’m from and where I’m now living again is that there are many different ways to get to a place. Even though LA is a huge city, there’s pretty much only one way to get anywhere and it’s very confining.” 

The album was recorded at various Southern California studios: comp-ny (Glendale), Tenement Yard (North Hollywood), and Cosmic Vinyl (Los Angeles). Frida Claeson Johansson mastered Cool at Svenska Grammofonstudion in Gothenburg, Sweden.