Minneapolis-based trio Gully Boys, made up of Kathy Callahan (guitar, vocals), Natalie Klemond (bass, vocals) and Nadirah McGill (drums, vocals), shared a ripper on Tuesday to mark their signing to Get Better Records. The band’s stated influences (No Doubt, Hole) shine through on “Russian Doll,” a grungy, relentlessly melodic rock track with a complicated sentiment at its core: “There’s no one coming to make things right.” The trio repeat this declaration in unison, counterbalanced by subtle synth touches, their chants and crashing guitars growing more raucous as the track builds to its explosive conclusion. But don’t let that killer hook distract you from the depth of Gully Boys’ song writing: Depending on your perspective, that refrain can indicate either resignation or empowerment—either “we’re screwed” or “we can do this.”
Take a guess which way Gully Boys are going.
Released June 29th, 2021
Produced and mixed by Jake Luppen, mastered by Caleb Hinz, written by Gully Boys
Torres’ fifth album “Thirstier” pumps the miraculous into the mundane. It is in open revolt against the grey drag of time, a searing and life-affirming eruption of an album that wonders what could happen if we found a way to make our fantasies inexhaustible. What if we got whatever we wanted and still wanted it, endlessly, with no threat of boredom and no danger of depletion? What could we become if we let ourselves grow incandescent with eternally renewing desire?
Recorded in the fall of 2020 at Middle Farm Studios in Devon, UK, Thirstier marks a turn towards a bigger, more bombastic sound for Torres. The anxious hush that fell over much of Scott’s previous music gets turned inside-out in songs tailored for post-plague celebration. Scott co-produced the album with Rob Ellis and Peter Miles, drawing on her experience self-producing the acclaimed 2020 LP Silver Tongue to push her music onto an even broader scale. Guitar-driven walls of sound, surge and dissipate like surf in high winds, carrying Scott’s commanding voice to the fore.
From the sparkling country romp of “Don’t Go Puttin Wishes in My Head” to the sour grunge bite of “Keep the Devil Out” and the unabashed, overflowing devotion of the album’s title track, Thirstierclasps together love songs from all angles. Romantic love, platonic love, familial love, self-love, and freeing spiritual love all commingle, all feeding one another and vaulting toward the horizon.
Indie singer/songwriter Torres (moniker of Mackenzie Scott) is gearing up to release “Thirstier”, a follow-up to 2019’s “Silver Tongue” and Scott’s second album with Merge Records. In addition to the album announcement came its first single, “Don’t Go Puttin Wishes In My Head.” The track is a heart breaking explosion of emotions as Scott reflects on a relationship built on empty promises, yearning for a sign she should keep going. Scott’s bright guitars and vocals that sneak into blissful high notes feel like being on the brink of tears.
The new album marks a stylistic change for Scott, who was inspired by the dynamic sounds of Butch Vig’s work with Nirvana and Garbage. Of this new direction, Scott said in a statement: “I wanted to channel my intensity into something that felt positive and constructive, as opposed to being intense in a destructive or eviscerating way. I love the idea that intensity can actually be something life-saving or something joyous.
“Thirstier” is out July 30th, 2021, on Merge Records.
Midwife’s third full length record, “Luminol”, was written and produced during quarantine. “Luminol” is a chemical used by forensic investigators to reveal trace amounts of blood left at a crime scene. When it reacts with blood, luminol emits a chemiluminescent blue glow that can be seen in a darkened room.
“Heaven metal” multi-instrumentalist Madeline Johnston announced her third album as Midwife and released its opener, “God Is a Cop,” in June, after sharing the album’s closer “Christina’s World” back in April. If “heaven metal” doesn’t compute for you on paper, it will soon after you push play on “God Is a Cop,” a hauntingly minimal experimental-pop track that revolves around “the evil thought” Johnston can’t shake, no matter how hard she tries: “Am I the villain, am I the cop?” Her gentle keys—so soft, it’s as if she’s barely touched them—and thrumming guitars echo over and over again, a dreamlike, yet subtly disturbing reflection of her fixation.
The follow-up to Midwife’s acclaimed 2020 album “Forever”, Luminol has an origin story common among COVID-era albums: Robbed of touring by the pandemic, the New Mexico-via-Colorado artist shifted her focus back to writing and recording her new six-song set. The album takes its title from “a chemical used by forensic investigators to reveal trace amounts of blood left at a crime scene.
Midwife is interested in profound truth—turning trial and tribulation into sources of light,” a press release explains. “Luminol navigates themes of incarceration, locus of control, clarity, self harm, confinement, agency and truth-seeking, all erupting in a bioluminescent Rothko colour-field of blue.
My new album Mythopoetics is out July 9 on Anti Records , I have always loved myths. We mythologize our lives all the time – sometimes we find solace in those stories & sometimes we are bound by them. This album was a way for me to take a look at the patterns that have been handed down to me through my family & through society, the stories I have been telling & have been told, & see how I could transform that into something of my own – a source of power & of healing.
The evocative and existential project of Nandi Rose, aka New York-based artist Half Waif, has never shied away from deep emotional territory, often exploring anguish and catharsis through intricate synth-pop compositions. Mythopoetics, featuring spellbinding single, “Orange Blossoms” and composed in part with multi-instrumentalist and frequent collaborator Zubin Hensler, explores the beauty of self-transformation while on the path towards healing. Creating a diverse sonic universe, Rose describes Mythopoetics as “the album I’ve been trying to make for 10 years.”
“Swimmer” by Half Waif from the album ‘Mythopoetics’, available July 9th
Arranged, produced, and performed by Zubin Hensler & me
Julien Baker has joined Ohio-based rock band The Ophelias on a new song – watch the video for ‘Neil Young On High’ below.
The track is the first preview of the band’s new album ‘Crocus’, set for release on September 24th via Joyful NoiseRecordings. The Ophelias are: Spencer Peppet (she/her), Andrea Gutmann Fuentes (she/her), Mic Adams (he/him), JoShaffer (they/them).
Explaining the origins of the collaboration, The Ophelias’ singer and guitarist Spencer Peppet said: “We met Julien for the first time in 2019 at a show we played in Nashville. She introduced herself (as if we didn’t already know who she was) and I tried to not show how nervous I was!
“About half a year into 2020 quarantine I worked up the nerve to ask if she wanted to feature on a song from the album we were working on. She said yes, and I was seriously over the moon. She recorded her parts in Tennessee and we talked virtually.
“Her parts reinvigorated the song completely: she added lightness, openness, but also depth and complexity. It’s incredibly cool that she put so much care into those parts.”
“Neil Young on High” featuring Julien Baker by The Ophelias off their album ‘Crocus’ out on Joyful Noise Recordings
“This seventh chapter of The Lords of Altamont’s body of work strikes with an unapologetic conviction built up from 22 years of soul seasoning and nonstop rock action, fine tuning their iconic fuel injected sound. Tune In, Turn On, Electrify! takes a ride through the mental landscape of these four musicians: thrusting raw, aggressive garage punk in your face, then flips the script inviting you on elaborate psychedelic trips. Get kicked in the teeth with We’ll Never Leave (This World Alive), fight the demons in your head with Mud, then come down easy with Soul In Flames.
Formed in 1999, TheLords of Altamont, having gone through multiple line ups over the years, retain loyalty to their garage punk roots while evolving into heavier grooves. Never compromising that unmistakable Lords attitude, Dani, Rob and Barry having earned their colours tenfold, bring a gritty collective of experience and talent to join Jake on this journey of no-nonsense auditory exploits.”
1st video from the album MIDNIGHT TO 666 by The Lords of Altamont. Released on Fargo Records (CD/Vinyl). The 2nd video from the album for the song “Soul for Sale” can be found here
A Note about the filming of this Video…
“Save Me (From Myself)” was filmed over the course of one day (about 7 hours) in a warehouse in Hollywood literally a stones throw away from the Capitol Records Building. Everything you see in the video was done “In Camera”… there was no Post Production FX added whatsoever. All of the Psychedelic Lighting Effects were performed “Live” by Sherry Lee and Blues Williams while we filmed the band playing back to their tune. Sherry used an “old school” Overhead Projector and a couple of clock faces filled with water, mineral oil and candy dyes to achieve the liquid light/psychedelic/Fillmore Era effects. Blues used an Opaque Projector with an assortment of transparencies that we designed a few days before the shoot. A Video Projector and a couple of strobes that the band brought were also used, but other than that there were no other lights. We filmed the band playing together and then separately to get all of the shots. Moana Santana and Julie Faravel were filmed last, Go-Go Dancing in front of The Lords of Altamont’s Tour Film.
The Lords of Altamont are: Jake Cavaliere – Vox/Organ John Saletra – Guitar Shawn Medina – Bass Harry Drumdini – Drums with Moana Santana – Dancer Julie Faravel – Dancer
……
Some Wackiness…
Between each take we had to clean the clock faces and change out the oils as they would get unusable pretty fast. About halfway through the shoot, Sherry tried to clean inside the Overhead Projector and ended up cracking the Lens. If you pay attention to the wall behind the band you can see that crack every once in a while.
The Gretsch Guitars that Shawn and John use in the video were borrowed from True Tone Music in Santa Monica, CA. Just to be on the safe side, the fellas lined the back of the guitars with felt so as not to scratch them up.
We spent about $150 on making this video – $75 for the Overhead Projector (found on Craigslist) and another $75 for all of the Oils and whatnot.
We filmed the video on our Panasonic HVX-200a P2 Camcorder w/ SG Blade 35mm Lens Adapter (Canon lens). We edited the video in Avid Media Composer.
“The Flatlanders are the iconic Texas trio of Butch Hancock, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. “Treasure Of Love” is their first album of newly recorded music in more than 12 years. Completed during COVID-19 lockdowns with the help of long time friend and collaborator Lloyd Maines, Treasure of Love finds The Flatlanders in classic form, serving up a rollicking collection of twang-fuelled, harmony-laden performances full of wry humour and raw heartbreak. While a few of the songs here are never-before-heard originals, the vast majority of the track list consists of vintage tunes the band picked up during their 50-year career, some stretching as far back as the group’s earliest performances in the honky tonks around Lubbock. “I like to say that this album evolved more than it was recorded,” explains Ely, who hosted the initial recording sessions and worked extensively on the tracks at his Spur Studios in Austin. “We’d been chipping away at these songs for a while without ever really finishing anything, so when lockdown started, it seemed like the perfect time to really focus on it.”
If you’re talking to a musician about the influence of a Springsteen solo record on their sound, the odds are decent that it’s Nebraska. The same goes for Tom Petty, both with and without the Heartbreakers. The smart money says it’s the blockbuster tunes of Damn the Torpedoes or Full Moon Fever that did the damage.
But if you’re talking to Wild Pink’s John Ross, expect things to be more about Tunnel of Love or Into the Great Wide Open or Wildflowers. Expectations be damned. “It’s not just Petty and Springsteen, it’s Paul Simon and Jackson Browne too, those big classic songwriters,” he says. “My favourite records of theirs are from the 80s and 90s, where they have every resource available to them, and they’re still making timeless music. How can you not want that?”
With Wild Pink, Ross has been zeroing in on this goal for the past five years or so. Each of his records has been a refinement, beginning with the gutsy indie-rock of 2017’s self-titled being retrofitted to encompass sweeping heartland rock in time for the following year’s “Yolk In The Fur“. Then an intake of breath, but not a pause. Ross’s new LP, “A Billion Little Lights”, is the result of two years of writing, demoing and recording. It is a meticulously planned, beautifully executed decision to go big or go home.
“That’s something that started on the first record, which was my first time making a record in the studio,” he says. “It got me thinking about recording a lot differently. By the time I did Yolk in the Fur I was able to plan ahead, make things sound bigger, with more and more layers, which was really exciting. When that was done I was like, ‘Oh my God, I just want to keep going with that idea.’ With this record I had a year or two to really drill down into these songs and make them sound as lush as possible.”
Helping Ross to bring the LP to life was producer David Greenbaum, whose experiences of recording with U2 and Jenny Lewis equate to a pretty good Wild Pink Venn diagram. “A Billion Little Lights” is packed with moments of warmth and granular instrumental innovation, alongside sky-scraping melodies and rootsy guitar breaks. It’s hugely ambitious but carried off with a sense of bone-deep confidence. “He totally empowered me to do these things,” Ross says. “I’d have an idea and he’d know how to execute it. I love that so much. It’s such a valuable working relationship.”
The LP’s lead single The Shining But Tropical told us an awful lot about where Ross’s head was at during the planning stages. On first listen it was an objectively beautiful, synth-heavy indie-pop tune. But repeated investigation revealed hooks that hung in the air and disappeared, getting one shot in the limelight, along with washes of harmonizer and a much, much bigger sense of ambition. It’s not content with verse-chorus-verse or beginning-middle-end. It’s a sunlit wander along streets that might lead you where you need to go.
“More and more that’s what I’m interested in doing, making a little world out of each song,” Ross says. “There are multiple ideas, but they flow as seamlessly as possible. A big part of that is just layering textures. It’s way more fun for me to work when it’s like that, coming up with sounds that I haven’t heard before. I really just like to jam ideas, as many ideas as possible, into a song.
“I shy away from conventional song structures, even though I think these songs are deceptively simple – three or four chords, major keys. If you looked at a chord chart, it looks pretty simple. But I like to subtly and sneakily make it kinda fucked up and harder for the guys to play, at least.”
On A Billion Little Lights the cast list has opened up a little bit. Alongside Wild Pink’s usual rhythm section – bassist T.C. Brownell and drummer Dan Keegan – are a raft of session players and collaborators, and these outside voices offer a gentle shock to the system. All of a sudden Ross, who writes and arranges every note of the band’s music, is dragged from a state of creative autocracy into having his ideas reinterpreted and built upon as he nominally watches from the sidelines. “It’s like Christmas morning when someone plays something great on a song,” he admits.
“By the time I get into the studio, and definitely by the time I’m ready for players to come in and do their thing, the songs are done and everything is icing at that point. I should basically be ready to release a song before anybody else plays on it. Everything that they do totally elevates it.”
Among these hired hands, particular mention should be reserved for violinists Libby Weitnauer and Sarah Williams, pedal steel player Mike Brenner, a regular team-mate of the late Jason Molina in both Songs: Ohia and MagnoliaElectric Co, and Julia Steiner, vocalist and guitarist with the Chicago indie-rock band Ratboys.
Whether it’s Brenner’s winding answer to the monolithic synths of The Wind Was Like A Train, the breezy folksiness of Steiner’s harmonies on You Can Have it Backor string arrangements that conjure Springsteen’s palette on The Rising, they add accents and counterpoints to Ross’s melodies, which can skew low-key.
“After the last record our live show featured more singing and guest vocals,” Ross says. “I loved that. I definitely wanted the vocals to not sound boring at any point on this record, which was why I was experimenting with a harmonizer and Julia and Dan, he sang quite a bit, just to freshen it up. As far as Mike goes, I can’t imagine making a record without him at this point. He is wildly talented and creative. Pedal steel is my favourite instrument, gun to my head, and he is amazing.”
Gear-wise, Ross also tends to view a small group of trusted advisors as the way forward rather than spending time getting lost in a crowd of instruments. “I lean pretty heavily on a handful of synthesizers,” he says. “My guitar that I take on tour, my go to electric, is a J.Mascis fender Jazzmaster. I put a Mastery bridge on it and that’s about it. It’s pretty much stock and a total workhorse. I love it. As far as acoustic goes I have a nylon Alhambra, nothing nice but a cool, vibey classical guitar. That’s probably my go to when I’m just sitting down on the couch and zoning out.”
Way back at the start, while touring Yolk in the Fur in 2018, Ross was toying with the idea of making a double album based around the American west, with all of the open skies, empty plains and complex history that entails. That plan eventually fell into disrepair (“Who wants to hear a double album right now?” he recently told Corbin Reiff’s Sonic Breadcrumbs newsletter) but a sense of its scope remains in songs that conjure endless miles of open road, the sun racing towards the horizon, and Laurel Canyon jams on the radio.
“A Billion Little Lights” is wistful and unabashedly pretty in a way that only a New Yorker (or anyone who doesn’t live somewhere else, basically) could assume the west coast to be. “The record is definitely rooted in the west, both in a historical old west kind of way and also in an L.A., breezy, airy kind of vibe,” Ross says. “The through line is not so much a specific time and place but a mood that’s consistent throughout. I’d totally place it as a western, Californian feeling to me, as someone who’s never lived there. We recorded in LA. In more ways than one it is a record in and of the west.”
What will come around the next bend for Wild Pink is a difficult one. This record leaves in its wake the nagging doubt that Ross might have perfected this iteration of the band’s sound, and to try to outdo it might inevitably mean failure. But, equally, it’s easier to imagine him performing from behind a wall of synths in five years’ time than it is to picture him playing coffee house-ready songs on an acoustic, foregoing the bells and whistles. “That’s something I’m thinking about now, where to go next,” he says.
“I feel like I’ve brought this idea to fruition, of making something sound as big as I can with the resources that I have available. The idea of making something sound as pretty and lush versus being deliberately austere with it, which is a way of thinking I totally respect, is something I’ve so leaned into. I’m all about that. I can’t imagine steering too far away from that whatever happens next.”
An upcoming five-piece acoustic live stream to celebrate the release of A Billion Little Lights is set to situate Ross right at the centre of this crossroads. He is keenly aware of the push and pull between how a song is written and how a song is subsequently staged, but tends to view each discipline as equally exciting. “I think it’s really cool when a song starts on a guitar, but it’s not a guitar song,” he says. “You can always go back to picking up an acoustic and playing it, and it sounds great. It sounds like the way it should be too, you know?” Yeah, man, we know.
Wild Pink’s “A Billion Little Lights” is out now through Royal Mountain Records.
March 2021 American singer/songwriters Matt Sweeney and Bonnie Prince Billy (who seems to sleep with his guitar lately. He’s everywhere) joined forces in 2005 for a long player release called “Superwolf” .They got together again to can another LP, titled, “Superwolves” due out 30th April 2021.
Billed not just as a follow-up but a direct sequel to its predecessor. It’s perhaps no surprise that they’ve managed to recapture that same energy – their nearly 25-year-old friendship has only sharpened their ability to play off each other’s strengths, becoming the sole constant character throughout the album’s loose and ambiguous narratives. But Superwolves is also marked by a newfound sense of vitality and purpose: these are crisp, buoyant songs that eschew the introverted, solitary qualities often associated with the singer-songwriter tag without stripping away the unique intimacy that can arise from it. There’s still a lot to unpack, but the ease with which the two artists exchange ideas is accompanied by song writing that, at its core, is stronger and more direct than before, relying on emotional impact rather than ambivalence. “Got no friends, got no home/ There must be a someone I can turn to,” Oldham sings on highlight ‘There Must Be Someone’; Sweeney steps in for a brief solo halfway through, but his playing remains less an answer than a constant, reassuring presence. Read more: The 30 Best Albums of 2021 (So Far) – Our Culture https://ourculturemag.com/2021/06/10/the-30-best-albums-of-2020-so-far
One of the 14 tracks is MY BLUE SUIT. A characteristic troubadour ballad. Smooth, mellow, and romantic.
Track from the Matt Sweeney & Bonnie “Prince” Billy album “Superwolves,” out on Digital & Streaming on April 30th, 2021 and LP/CS/CD on June 18, 2021 from Drag City/Palace Records and Domino Recordings.
On her first two albums as Ian Sweet, 2016’s Shapeshifter and 2018’s Crusher Crusher, Jilian Medford dove into varying indie-pop textures in search of a dynamic that felt honest enough to match both her ambitions and the earnestness of her song writing. Though it’s not hard to trace her artistic growth throughout these records, it wasn’t until her latest release, “Show Me How You Disappear“, that Medford was fully satisfied with the result.
Reciting mantras is a form of teaching — leaning into the repetition, retraining your brain, learning new realities. For Jilian Medford, it was a way to fight through her anxieties. And here, on Show Me How You Disappear, through a haze of tangled, inverted pop, her new truths push their way to the surface.
The inklings for the record began slowly. In 2018, Medford wrote “Dumb Driver” on an acoustic guitar while living in a “hobbit hole” back house in Los Angeles. Skeletal, stripped-back versions of the undulating, amorphous “My Favorite Cloud” and “Power” emerged next. Mentally she was in a dark place. By January 2020, following increasingly severe panic attacks, Medford began a two-month intensive outpatient program, including six-hour days of therapy. It yielded an unprecedented level of self-reflection for Medford, who already plumbs the depths of her emotions for her song writing. She took a step back from music to completely immerse herself in the program, and once she felt ready to move on at the end of February, the rest of the songs poured out of her.
The album grapples with internalized trauma in an attempt to chart a path towards self-acceptance. With help from a number of handpicked producers, including Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Empress Of) and Andy Seltzer (Maggie Rogers), she sharpens and amplifies her approach in ways that not only evoke the overwhelming intensity her emotions but are marked by a towering confidence that at times seems to transcend them. That newfound clarity cuts through a haze of synths on the final of the album’s many transformative mantras: “I see it now, I see it/ So much more than before/ I see everything.”
