Posts Tagged ‘California’

ARRLO – ” WFTWTE “

Posted: February 23, 2021 in MUSIC
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Arrlo combines elements of pop and rock in their debut songs “LSD” and “WFTWTE.” The two songs serve as a great introduction to the band, showcasing their musical and song writing talents. Both tracks are packed with emotion and energy.

Their first release, “LSD” combines the elements of heavy drums and catchy melodies to tell the story about a toxic relationship that’s coming to a close. This song has a dance beat, but stands out with an emo sounding vocal delivery style. The song features a breakdown section with a melodic guitar solo. The chorus on this track is irresistible and definitely hooky enough to get a party singing along. I could definitely see this song becoming an anthem at live shows or college parties!

On “LSD” Arrlo says: “With lyrics that showcase a “DGAF” attitude, LSD highlights the nature of wanting your cake, and eating it, too. So much growth comes from ending toxic relationships, but some of us don’t end them because we’d rather spare someone else’s feelings. That’s when two-timing, drug use, and mentally/emotionally checking out of the relationship all together can come into play. LSD gives off mysteriously seductive energy throughout, and presents the listener with the chaotic freedom of finally finding yourself again, by putting yourself first.”

“WFTWTE” is another song about the ending of a romantic relationship, where the singer seems to take the blame. The band mentions their hometown of Riverside, California in the opening lyrics. The songs title is an acronym meaning “Waiting For The World To End.” This song has another irresistibly catchy hook line, that feels very relatable during the pandemic as the singer paints the picture of sitting alone in an apartment and waiting. The guitarist plays a quickly paced riff which serves as another hook line for this already very catchy song.

San Francisco-based singer/songwriter Tim Cohen has long been a fixture of the city’s garage rock and psych rock revival scene as one of the minds behind The Fresh & Onlys and Magic Trick. Despite his already storied career over the past 20 years, his forthcoming sixth solo album, “You Are Still Here”, represents another step forward with his first solo album recorded in the studio. The result is a set of sounds that invites with a friendly psych folk sound but holds some wild instrumental breakdowns just beneath. Cohen has now returned with his latest single, “Bottom Feeders,”

“Bottom Feeders” brings the anxious undercurrent of these songs to the forefront, opening on a wiry surf guitar line before the hypnotic refrain enters, bolstered by a psychedelic horn flourish. The driving pace hints back to Cohen’s garage rock roots, but the song holds onto a sense of trippy melody that is pure ‘60s psych rock. Both arresting and alluring, the song brings out both Cohen’s catchy melodies and acid-fried freak-outs in equal measure. The qualities that have made him such a fixture in the Bay Area are out in full force on his new record.

Cohen says of the song, “My flight out to Denver, where I plan to record my new album with James Barone, was delayed for six hours. I had eaten the weed edible, but sitting in the airport for so long began to drive nails into my brain. I decided I would use this anxiety to my benefit and write all the lyrics to the album. ‘Dead and Company,’ the rebranding of one of my favourite all-time bands (except with John Mayer), were doing shows at Red Rocks the next day and it turns out I was sharing a plane with many of their fans.” 

“In a dark turn, I painted a picture of these people’s lives in my mind. I thought about what it used to mean to be a (Grateful) Dead head, squandering your life possessions and following the Dead to the end of the road. In this new world, following “Dead and Company” meant something entirely different. So I came up with the worst insult I could for people that pretend to be something they are clearly not: bottom feeders. People that feed on other peoples’ vision or opinion of them. The whole song was about deadheads flying first class to a show in Colorado.” 

“I ended up recording those lyrics but scrapping the whole thing. I reassigned the song to a different idea and kept the title. The new lyrics which you hear are more about oblivion and self-awareness, nothing to do with bottom feeders per se. But I liked the title so I kept it.” Check out the song below and watch for You Are Still Here, coming March 26th via Bobo Integral.

Releases March 26th, 2021

Johanna Samuels just announced “Excelsior!”,
Here’s what they say about it: “Before making this record, I felt the furthest from myself that I ever had. There was a lot of cognitive dissonance–wanting to pursue my music while also feeling good about who I am as a person. This record is a lot of me identifying what I don’t want to be & recognizing the importance of listening to each other, understanding that a conversation doesn’t have to end because one person has to be right & the other wrong.

I made it during a very snowy winter with Sam Evian producing at his new cabin studio in the Catskill Mountains. We tracked live to tape, laughed a ton & ate amazing meals. I’ll never forget where I was at when we made it & I’ve learned so much since–through both beautiful realizations & some very painful, disappointing experiences. I’m grateful for all of it because I’ve never felt more like myself. I feel resolute in what I believe & in my musical relationships & friendships. I love the record we ended up making & the personal growth it paved the way for.

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Releases May 14th, 2021

100% of Bandcamp profits from “Pictures of Flowers” will be donated to Harriet’s Apothecary, an intergenerational Brooklyn based healing village led by Black Cis Women, Queer and Trans healers, artists, health professionals, magicians, activists and ancestors. The intention of Harriet’s Apothecary is to continue the rich healing legacy of abolitionist, community nurse and herbalist Harriet Tubman.
Written by Jess Williamson
Performed and recorded by Jess Williamson, Meg Duffy, and Jarvis Taveniere remotely from their homes during quarantine
Recorded in Los Angeles, April 2020Jess Williamson – Acoustic guitar, Vocals
Meg Duffy – Electric guitar
Jarvis Taveniere – Bass, Drums, Mellotron

released June 24th, 2020

Published by Orgasmic Bliss

Having originally been born as a solo drum machine project by Bert Hoover, Hooveriii (pronounced “Hoover Three”) has now evolved into it’s true final form – a six member band adept at creating their own brand of psychedelic space rock. And after almost a decade in, the band is set to release their sophomore album and debut for The Reverberation Appreciation Society, “Water For The Frogs”. Influenced by Iggy’s The Idiot, Bowie’s Berlin records, and Soft Machine, the LP sees the band creating their own version of prog rock, circa 2021.

In 2019, Hooveriii took their live show to Europe for the first time. Bert Hoover shares, “seeing all the old cities and beautiful landscapes while becoming closer as a band had a huge impact on this album. A lot of our favourite music came from the Krautrock scene in Germany from the late 60’s-70’s, and when we had a day off in Furth, Germany, we spent most of it writing the record,” he continues, “we were able to rehearse in an old German bunker that has been converted to rehearsal space. It definitely had a strange energy that helped give this album light.”

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Releases April 9th, 2021

Sarah Tudzin released her debut album as Illuminati Hotties, “Kiss Yr Frenemies”. It was named as one of the best albums of 2018, so naturally each bit of Hotties news this year has been something worth paying attention to. Amidst touring pretty relentlessly, Tudzin’s given us a couple new releases: “I Wanna Keep Your Dog” and a cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” and a standalone single called “ppl plzr”. And now, Tudzin’s back with one more new one called “Post-Everything.” As you might guess by the name, there’s a certain end-times vibe to the song. “The world’s burnin, so why the hell not,” Tudzin wrote in a note on Bandcamp before continuing, “Happy 2020.” On Twitter, she elaborated a bit more: “2019 was somehow the absolute Best & absolute Worst year of my life. so here’s a song about the apocalypse.” Fittingly, the lyrics feature snapshots of people losing it, screaming on the street in some form or another — they sound like pretty run-of-the-mill scenes in 2019, which is to say they do sound a bit like the encroaching end of the world.

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Released February 4th, 2021

Frontier Records’ third Lilys re-issue is here! This remastered edition of “A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns” features a previously unreleased track, “G. Cobalt Franklin,” replacing “Glosseder” from the original 1994 10” LP. The songs “Elsa,” “Coby,” “Timber,” and “Hymn” — originally recorded in 1994 during the demoing process for Eccsame The Photon Band — were shelved, and then quietly released in 2000 on the long-out-of-print Lilys/Aspera Ad Astra split EP.  “Ginger” is as sweetly sung as any song written in the indie rock canon. These bonus tracks, etc, are also excellent. SOOOO glad to see this reissued! 

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Released January 29th, 2021

Tracks 1-5 were performed by Harry Evans, Paul Martin, and Kurt Heasley. Additional vocals by Joey Sweeney.  Tracks 6-10 were performed by Erik Sahd and Kurt Heasley

All songs by Kurt Heasley

From the many musical lives of artist Glenn Donaldson emerges The Reds Pinks and Purples, a project that sifts out the purest elements of pop music and in the process chronicles the point of view of an assiduous songwriter. His new album “Uncommon Weather” is both an elusive portrait of San Francisco –– during one of its fluctuations as an untenable place for musicians and artists –– and also a self-portrait of a songwriter who has dispatched another treasured collection of timeless sounding DIY-pop songs.

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Self-recorded and mostly self-performed, the music on “Uncommon Weather” continuously reckons with the influence of The Television Personalities’ Dan Treacy, whose own forays into drum-machines, echo, and reverb in the early 1990s is an important reference point. Paul Weller, Robert Smith, and Sarah Records also come to mind. The album arrives with grateful timing, quick on the heels of the recent EP “You Might Be Happy Someday” and alleviating, for a brief window at least, whatever it is that keeps us coming back to this elemental music. Donaldson imagines his listeners are just like himself: fascinated and addicted to the spiritual power of uncomplicated pop classics.

Releases April 9th, 2021

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Babehoven are a band who featured on the site back in May last year, when they shared the single “Dissociative Tally”. That was originally penned as the first taste of an upcoming EP, “Yellow Has A Pretty Good Reputation”, a record that was subsequently delayed, and will finally see the light of day at the end of this month. The record is the follow-up to last year’s, “Demonstrating Visible Difference of Height”, both EPs being recorded in the band’s current home of Vermont.

Led by singer, songwriter and producer Maya Bon, Babehoven have gradually been growing a following as Maya wound her way between Portland and Los Angeles, honing her craft and using music as a way of, “externalizing my deepest, most vulnerable sense of self through song”. Discussing the inspiration behind Yellow Has A Pretty Good Reputation, Maya has described it as an exploration of, “dissociation, loss, and the quest for self-love”. Musically, this manifests in a certain warped quality, as the warm fuzz of tape-distortion adds a wobbly quality to both Maya’s lightly muffled vocals and the steady rhythmic quality of her guitar playing. Working with producer Ryan Albert, Maya seems to have created an insulated musical world, a place for us all to sit with our discomfort, and learn to come out the other side stronger and more sure of who we are. Keep this up and even yellow might have to bow down to Babehoven and their rapidly burgeoning reputation.

Releases June 19th, 2020

Johanna Samuels broadens the definition of pop music. The melodically and lyrically focused singer-songwriter stands on the shoulders of the great musicians of the 1960’s and 70’s she manages to create a sound and sense of musical place that is completely her own. Although Johanna Samuels has been sharing her music with the world since back in 2016, there’s a certain buzz around her of late that suggests an artist very much on the up. Back in October, Johanna shared a new single, “High Tide for One”, the first offering from her upcoming Sam Evian-produced album, due this Spring as a co-release between up-and-coming UK label, Basin Rock and Mama Bird Recording Co. The album was recorded in the Castskill Mountains alongside a small band of musicians, and features guest vocals from a stunning array of female singers, including the likes of A.O. Gerber, Lomelda and Courtney Marie Andrews.

Born in New York, and named after a Bob Dylan song, Johanna’s path to music was never really in doubt. After re-locating to Los Angeles, Johanna has spent the best part of a decade honing her song writing craft and learning to find a way to balance her inherent way with a melody while crucially finding plenty to say. Thankfully, High Tide for One was a particularly exciting example of Johanna achieving exactly that. The track was written in response to watching Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, as Johanna recalls, “it felt a bit hopeless. I felt exhausted, and for a while, I didn’t have the strength to explain it or try to talk it through with anyone who wasn’t working to change it”. These feelings are set to a perhaps contrastingly lush backing, as warm Rhodes-piano and a gorgeous-meander of slide-guitar, the breeziness of the musical backing set against the steely quality of the vocal, as she sings, “last night I saw that man on TV, his tears tasted like silver bullets and supremacy“. It may only be a single track, yet there was plenty within it to suggest Johanna Samuels might just be one of 2021’s most important musical voices.

Released October 27th, 2020
2020 Mama Bird Recording Co.