MANDANCING – ” The Good Sweat “

Posted: March 9, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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ManDancing didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. It’s a tale as old as time: singer/songwriter makes record in New Jersey basement, band forms, label signs them and then waits 3 years for a new piece of music.

They were once described as sounding like “if Death Cab for Cutie were having a mental breakdown.” Frontman, Stephen G Kelly, says the band name might as well be “For Fans of Manchester Orchestra” due to how often the comparison gets tossed about. The band, however, liken themselves to a modern day Journey, for reasons that aren’t so obvious or valid.

Their sophomore LP ‘The Good Sweat’ is a ride. We’re not talking your family friendly local farm hay-ride either. It is a rollercoaster. Upon entry, the dialed-in ambient drones give way to Kelly contemplating whether or not he should even strap in, and before he can come to a conclusion, the rest of the band pull you into the first descent of its cathartic depths immediately before soaring to thrilling heights.

Centered around Kelly’s fumbling acoustic guitar, each instrument has its unique voice that when laced together, make for a beautifully controlled chaos. Drums that push you to the edge of reason and back home to safety mesh perfectly with the playful yet business-like bass guitar. The electric guitars dance neatly at the ends of the rails, and provide a vast environment for Kelly’s vocals to swim within. Lyrically, Kelly struggles with the dark trenches of his psyche, while searching for reasons to keep moving forward with spirit.

It is at times overwhelming, yet the passenger is never made to feel like the floor has completely fallen out. Have you ever awoken from the panic of a nightmare, relieved to discover that you were only dreaming? Moments like this are strewn all over this steadfast amusement park dragon. That’s the feeling of ‘The Good Sweat.’ManDancing live for it. 

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Written by ManDancing

Acoustic Guitar & Vocals – Stephen G Kelly
Guitar – Ben Petty
Drums – Thomas DeVinko 
Bass – Adrian Kabigting
Guitar – James Bauman
Percussion – Dragon Yup

Released November 20th, 2020

LUCY DACUS – ” Thumbs “

Posted: March 9, 2021 in MUSIC
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Lucy Dacus is teasing new song ‘Thumbs’

Posting some pictures of mysterious blue VHS tapes yesterday, it looks like Lucy Dacus is teasing new song ‘Thumbs’. With similar VHS packages sent out to fans, one lucky Reddit user and VHS receiver said, “She has performed it live a bunch (I actually heard her perform it at Webster Hall in 2019). This version is super sparse and the song itself is devastating. There is no video to accompany it — it’s just a blue screen with a looping image of a VHS spinning.”

Lucy Dacus previously tweeted that the track, which is a live fan favourite, was her favourite lyric ever written, when asked back in December.

And if you’re still not convinced that ‘Thumbs’ is destined to wow when its dropped, there’s was even a dedicated Twitter account called “Has Lucy released Thumbs Yet?”,

Lucy Dacus, shares a devastating new single, “Thumbs.” The Richmond, Virginia native penned the song during a 15-minute drive to dinner in Nashville, about a moment she shared with a friend during her freshman year of college. She describes what happened as “significant,” but something she hadn’t thought about for a while. 

Dacus first performed the song more than two years ago while on tour with Boygenius—the group she formed in 2018 with Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker. With her bandmates’ encouragement, she shared a gut-wrenching memory on stage. 

“Like most songs I write, I wasn’t expecting it, and it made me feel weird, almost sick,” she says. “I knew I wanted a long time to get used to playing it since it made me feel shaky, so I ended sets with it for about half the shows I played in 2019. Before I played it, I would ask the audience to please not record it, a request that seems to have been respected, which I’m grateful for.”

The single is her first of the year. After releasing a series of singles throughout 2019, her EP, 2019, was released on November 8th of that year. 2020 was quiet for the artist, who shared one collaboration with Hamilton Leithauser, “Isabella.” Between her 2016 full-length debut, No Burden, and 2018’s Historian, Dacus stripped back the rock-edged percussion-driven production and began honing her heartfelt song writing and lyrical delivery. Dacus grows more sure-footed with each release, chronicling a coming-of-age narrative with evolving perspectives and musical approaches. 

The TALLEST MAN ON EARTH – ” The Tallest Man on Earth Has Cabin Fever ” A Short Film by Rolf Nylinder

Posted: March 9, 2021 in MUSIC
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I wake up, put a palm to my forehead like the day before, and the day before that. Sure, it’s still going on. Severe cabin fever. The internet is not a cure. My long time friend Rolf decided to come down and check in on me, I was not making sense over the phone anymore. Maybe he was checking in on himself as well. I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. Now he’s put together a 15 min short film about our day. It’s just about us finding out there’s still joy to be found, still hope and dreams about stuff we want to do in the future. Second half is me recording a new version of an old song of mine.

The Tallest Man on Earth has cabin fever. A short film by Rolf Nylinder

SKULLCRUSHER – ” The Storm in Summer ” EP

Posted: March 9, 2021 in MUSIC
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Helen Ballentine has announced the next project under her Skullcrusher banner. “The Storm in Summer” EP releases April 9th via Secretly Canadian, and has released the title track as an early preview. The five-track follow-up to her 2020 Skullcrusher EP finds Ballentine reeling from the spotlight after experiencing some unexpected success. As she explained in a statement,

“I wrote ‘Storm in Summer’ after releasing the first Skullcrusher EP. Over that summer I thought a lot about what it means to really put myself out there and share something personal. I felt so vulnerable and overwhelmed by the fact that these songs I had written in private were exposed and likely being misinterpreted or disliked. I think the song really tries to communicate these anxieties in a cathartic way while also leaning more into the beauty of relinquishing part of myself.”

The song begins with a kind of sonic disassociation: A banjo played by Noah Weinman seems to come to the listener from a great distance, as if your next-door neighbour played it on the radio. But after a few seconds, everything comes crashing into place. “And I wonder if I go back home,” Ballentine sings, “Can I hide away?/ Or if I step into the storm/ Is it warm?/ Will I find my place?” The track comes with a music video that shows Ballentine staring out of a rainy window, 

Previously, Skullcrusher shared the lead single from “The Storm in Summer” EP,  track “Song for Nick Drake”. Skullcrusher is the musical project of Los Angeles based songwriter Helen Ballentine

ELIZABETH and the CATAPULT – ” Sincerely E “

Posted: March 8, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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“sincerely, e” was conceived of and recorded in singer-songwriter Elizabeth Ziman’s living room as a way to try and reach beyond the isolated bubble of her home to connect with others, during quarantine. It was also a personal reckoning with solitude, helping her explore new layers of herself. This juxtaposition — the anxiety of loneliness coupled with over stimulation, chaos and the urgency of numerous global crises converging — is present in so much of her writing as she grappled with connection and existence.

sincerely, e showcases two sides of the same Elizabeth and the Catapult coin: thoughtfully peppered through the album are intimate, live, solo-piano songs that tremble, raw, with the intimacy of their making; the other half, songs that required a larger sound, fully display Ziman’s film scoring and composition background. Producing tracks from her home provided new opportunities to work remotely with a few talented friends and the decision to explore rhythm without percussion, proved to be a constraint that enabled her lyrics to properly breathe. With the desire to connect at the core of this collection of songs, lush background vocals prominently express sincerely, e’s “together, alone” sound – a symptom and product of the time in which she, and we, find ourselves.

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Released March 5th, 2021

MIDDLE KIDS – ” Today We’re The Greatest “

Posted: March 8, 2021 in MUSIC
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Middle Kids from Sydney, Australia, will release sophomore album “Today We’re The Greatest” on March 19th via Domino Records. Today the Australian-based trio have released another single from the album with “Stacking Chairs,” which follows previously released singles such as “Questions.”

The band has found this sweet spot between chugging anthemic rock and an undeniable power-pop sound that combines to such a winning degree. The band toes the line between the two sounds so well. ‘Today We’re The Greatest’ is the second studio album from Australian indie-rock trio Middle Kids. Inspired by the marriage and parenthood of two of the band’s members – singer Hannah Joy and instrumentalist Tim Fitz – there’s an exuberance and openness here that was absent on 2018 debut ‘Lost Friends’.

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Written by Hannah Cameron and Timothy Fitzmaurice

Released October 15th, 2020

LADY LAMB – ” Arizona / We’ve Got A Good Thing Going ” Record Of the Week

Posted: March 8, 2021 in MUSIC
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Indie rocker Lady Lamb, aka Aly Spaltro, returns with a new single called “We’ve Got a Good Thing Going”. The offering is her first since the release of last year’s impressive “Even in the Tremor” album. Additionally, she’s announced a new round of tour dates, including an intimate run featuring a string section.

“We’ve Got a Good Thing Goings” finds Spaltro shaking off her fears in an attempt to better appreciate her everyday life. She elaborated in a statement,

“‘We’ve Got A Good Thing Going’ was ultimately inspired by seeing a young woman bungee jump off of the side of the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas. It was nearly 1am, closing time, and I was pressed against the back wall of the observatory as I watched her suit up alone with a look of total calm. It really made me reflect on my fears — my fear of living, in some cases. This song is my way of confronting my anxiety and deciding I’d like to make more of an effort to be fearless, because life and I have ‘a good thing going.’”

After a quiet and somewhat hesitant start to the track, Spaltro eventually launches into a rollicking sprint as she manages to push her anxieties to the side. “We’ve got a good thing going/ I want to be alive for the rest of my life/ To feel the gratitude in giving everything,” she sings with an inspiring conviction.

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Released February 1st, 2020

TRIPTIDES – ” Alter Echoes “

Posted: March 8, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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With a sound oscillating between psychedelic pop and space rock, Triptides’ album “Alter Echoes” channels both The Byrds at their most hallucinogenic and Floyd at their most cosmically composed while creating something immediate and new. The band has established itself as a preeminent part of the Los Angeles new wave psych music. With “Alter Echoes,” they pull away from the pack, thanks to the quality of their song writing, performance and production. Triptides is led by multi-instrumentalist Glenn Brigman, and with drummer Brendan Peleo-Lazar and bassist/guitarist Stephen Burns.

Another ripper of a single from Triptides this week. Tapping into their fuzz-soaked psych with a nods to garage days gone past, the song was written together in quarantine and the video was shot at a shuttered Zebulon in L.A. Stomping riffs give way to jangles and reverb-laced lyrics. A lounged bridge cools the waters, but only temporarily, and then the band jumps back in with all the force of rave up rippers who’ve long found their place among the new generation of psych-pop acolytes. The band has been especially potent of late in the single format, and this track seems to be yet another stand-alone nugget of heady bliss. While it’s not heralding a new album, it’s more than enough fun to pop on repeat for a few runs around their kaleidoscopic roller-coaster.

With a sound oscillating between psychedelic pop and space rock, Triptides’ album “Alter Echoes” channels both The Byrds at their most hallucinogenic and Floyd at their most cosmically composed while creating something immediate and new.

The band has established itself as a preeminent part of the Los Angeles new wave psych music. With “Alter Echoes,” they pull away from the pack, thanks to the quality of their song writing, performance and production.

Triptides is led by multi-instrumentalist Glenn Brigman, and with drummer Brendan Peleo-Lazar and bassist/guitarist Stephen Burns.

Triptides continues their  jangly, wiggy voyage into the unknown. – SHINDIG! (5 star review)

They write impressive songs, not unlike their more famous inspirations. And in some cases, even better. – AMERICAN SONGWRITER (4 star review)

Brings to mind ’60s psych rock with a sunny California vibe. – GLIDE MAGAZINE

You will be instantly reminded of The Byrds, but these folks bring their own brand of jangle pop to the table, however well worn it might be. And in this pandemic still plaguing us, it is so refreshing and calming to hear upbeat music. – ECHOES AND DUST

L.A.’s Triptides  push a bit more progressive than they have in the past. Still flirting with those summer sun jangles, they slice much deeper into the gauze of their psychedelic side, tapping lysergic pools that hit the psych-pop sweet spot. – RAVEN SINGS THE BLUES

The SPRINTS – ” Swimming “

Posted: March 8, 2021 in MUSIC
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The riff to this track is EXPLOSIVE! Here we have the awesome post-punk band Sprints from Dublin, offering us an action packed and mighty single, which also includes some really well put together lyrics. Sprints sound tight but incredibly wild, which allows this song to be so much fun but still filled with punk attitude. This is a wicked live version of the song, that shows off their worth as the performance is incredibly impressive and fun!.

Sprints embody our favourite sounds right now. Brimming with presence and intention, “Swimming” is a raucous introduction to one of the most intriguing post punk acts active. Their energy reminds us how much we miss live music. We covered them before, and they only seem to get sharper, grittier, and tighter with each track we hear. In genres like these, it is easy to coast – losing your edge along the way. But if the past twelve months have given us anything, it is plenty of reasons to smoulder intensely. Sprints knows the time in which they live and they capture it beautifully and with precision.

Sprints blew the roof off the Button Factory when they played TiLT a few months ago. Here is their track ‘Swimming’! Massive thanks to Sprints & all involved! Tilt Dublin, Sound Training Productions, Totally Irish 98FM Button Factory. Keep your eyes peeled over the coming weeks for many, many more!

Sprints (Karla, Colm, Jack and Sam) from Dublin in Ireland.

HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER – ” If It Comes in the Morning / Sanctuary “

Posted: March 8, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Hiss Golden Messenger has detailed the forthcoming release of their next studio album, “Quietly Blowing It”, due out June 25th on Merge Records. Yesterday I set the song “Sanctuary” free out into the world, accompanied by this beautiful video created by KidEthnic. This is just the beginning of what’s to come this year. I hope this song does something for you.

The 11-track album—written primarily by bandleader M.C. Taylor—will act as the band’s full-length follow-up to their 2019 Grammy-nominated Terms of Surrender. The album features a song entitled “Painting Houses” which was co-written by Gregory Alan Isakov, and will also hear guest contributions from Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Zach Williams (The Lone Bellow), Buddy Miller, and Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman).

The band released Quietly Blowing It‘s lead single earlier this year with “Sanctuary”, and have now followed that up with “If It Comes in the Morning” 

“Initially, I didn’t know how much hope to include in the song—I wasn’t feeling particularly hopeful myself in that moment—but I felt that it was important to remember that whatever happened, most of us were going to be fortunate enough to be given another day in which to enact what I feel are the most important and fundamental parts of being alive: joy, love, peace, the willingness to keep moving forward whether the cards fall in our favour or not,” Taylor said of their latest song, which was written last summer at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I suppose it became a song of hope. The Staple Singers and Curtis Mayfield were very good at writing these kinds of songs, and I suppose I was looking to their music as inspiration for ‘If It Comes in the Morning’. When I got stumped on a verse, I called my friend Anaïs Mitchell, and she got me straightened out. I’m very thankful for her help.”

All songs written by M.C. Taylor with the exception of “If It Comes in the Morning” by Taylor and Anaïs Mitchell and “Painting Houses” by Taylor and Gregory Alan Isakov. 

Every Hiss Golden Messenger release is a cause for celebration and, although MC Taylor is such a prolific songwriter, it’s seemingly never at the expense of the quality. each accomplished addition to the Hiss Golden Messenger catalogue is lavished with critical acclaim and fan praise alike. for a long time, it’s felt like hiss golden messenger are ready to find an extended audience and now just might be the time!. Steeped in country and americana traditions, these songs go way beyond those parameters & pull in gorgeously languid gospel and soul vibes of the kind that Matthew E. White & his Spacebomb crew has an affinity for (not to mention the purple one, prince). there are winding blues vibes, too, which pay homage to Dylan but end up in a similar terrain to fink’s recent mesmerising output. indeed, ‘quietly blowing it’ is a distillation of the rolling

If It Comes in the Morning available on Merge Records Released on: June 25th, 2021 written by M.C. Taylor Composer: Anaïs Mitchell Lyricist: M.C. Taylor .

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