Sad surf honey tries to ride the biggest wave in the Midwest, Born in a tsunami off the coast of Kahoolawe, BeachBunny was raised as a sea critter till the time her paws were strong enough to swim. By 1961 she had learned how to speak the language of every ocean and trekked from Rainbow Falls to Eastern California where she was exposed to the reverb-drenched surf culture of Orange County. Bunny became hypnotized by the exotic noise and by 1968 found herself singing the Sunset Strip alongside psychedelic west coasters and teen dropouts. Bunny released her first EP “Animalism” the following year, and is currently swimming the Gulf of Mexico in pursuit of positive vibes and new music.
Riding high after their debut Honeymoon was featured on all the crucial Album of the Year listings, Chicago indie pop band Beach Bunny now continue their rapid rise to the top with new EP Blame Game. Featuring the single “Good Girls (Don’t Get Used)”, Blame Game explores the dark territories where relationships turn toxic, as singer Lili explains; “As a veteran of engaging with emotionally unavailable people, I wanted to create a sassy song that calls out players by talking down to them as if they were children, showing that poor communication skills and mind games are immature.”
“It shifts the blame to the person that was acting disrespectful, instead of myself. The song also hammers home the point that I know my worth; I’m not afraid to call out players on their stupid behaviour, and I’m not going to tolerate being thrown around emotionally.” – Lili Trifilio
Beach Bunny album ‘Honeymoon’ was included in Best Albums of 2020 at The New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, Los Angeles Times & more!
Chicago-based singer-songwriter Gia Margaret released an ambient album, Mia Gargaret, last year, and she’s now followed it with her first new single of 2021, a studio version of a song she’s been known to perform live. “I just felt like sharing a song,” she writes. “I’ve been missing the spontaneity of releasing music on a whim, I suppose. During these slow winter months and after such a slow (and rough) year for everyone– I thought it would give me (and maybe you) something nice to start 2021 with. It is my offering. It also feels like a misfit (production wise) in a body of newer songs and especially with the direction I’m moving into. That’s not to say there might not be another version on a record at some point. I just decided this deserves it’s own celebration.”
I just felt like sharing a song. I’ve been missing the spontaneity of releasing music on a whim. During these slow winter months and after such a slow (and rough) year for everyone– I thought it would give me (and maybe you) something nice to start 2021 with. It is my offering.
Released January 12th, 2021 Produced by Gia Margaret
Charles Rumback and Ryley Walker are both known for their creativity and curious spirits. Rumback is a drummer in high demand in Chicago’s free-jazz circles, and a pillar of the second wave of improvisers in a scene first shaped by the legendary players like Sun Ra and the AACM. Walker draws deeply on other distinctly American styles, bringing a strong sense of folk tradition to his playing that is as arresting as his freewheeling performance style. Walker’s musical explorations are not limited to his own song writing: the guitarist regularly collaborates in Chicago and now New York with innovators of every genre. Together, Rumback and Walker find common ground in their kinetic, intuitive playing and yearning creative outlook. “Little Common Twist”, their sophomore release as a duo, finds both players at their most adventurous. It compiles instrumental pieces that convey a striking range of emotions, at once introspective and expansive, with a delicate interplay that delights as they move with ease across a spectrum of styles. The recording has a pastoral quality that recalls Van Morrison’s classic album Veedon Fleece, and captures a remarkably dexterous performance by both Charles and Ryley that make this album so expansive and fresh.
“Little Common Twist” was recorded over several sessions throughout 2017 and 2018 with producer John Hughes, capturing the duo playing in the moment with minimal overdubs. The guitar and drums duo eschewed each instrument’s traditional roles of rhythm and melody, experimenting with texture and rhythm. Rumback and Walker remarkably paint in both broad, gestural strokes and intricate melodic details. “Half Joking” and “Self Blind Sun” are warm, deep songs that draw on structures from the American primitive guitar songbook. “Idiot Parade” leaps into more explorative territory, Rumback setting an urgent, rolling cymbal groove while Walker paints melodic sonic vapor trails across the sky. “Menehbi” experiments further with abstract forms, atomizing guitar and drums into an ambient haze where loose flourishes from Rumback hint at rhythm and structure, while a steady electronic pulse provides an anchor amidst the fog.
Little Common Twist is the culmination of a creative partnership that has seen Rumback and Walker constantly challenging each other. In stretching the bounds of their interplay even further than before, the duo created their most evocative and expansive work to date, conjuring the afterglow of sun-scorched landscapes and ethereal after-hours ambiance.
A casual scan of Nels Cline’s dizzying discography echoes this – spanning lead guitar duties in iconic Chicago rock band Wilco, to over 200 recordings across alternative, punk and jazz. While accolades have been plenty (Rolling Stone once hailed him as one of its 20 “new guitar gods”), Nels Cline has hardly had time to rest on his laurels with various projects fuelling his flair for genre-bending.
“Share The Wealth”, his latest Blue Note Records outing with long-time band The Nels Cline Singers, is no exception.
Well Nels Cline does it again. The man just doesn’t miss. This 10-track, almost 80-minute album is a tour de force. Nels brought in a bunch of heavy hitters for this effort: Skerik on saxophone, Brian Marsella on keys, Trevor Dunn on bass, Scott Amendola on drums, and Cyro Baptista on percussion. The talent oozing out of this record is palpable. They never step on one another and each musician is given room to do damage as the music ebbs and flows between quietness and rowdiness. Nels brought this group together as an experiment and decided he liked the jams so much that he didn’t really want to mess with them as originally intended to do by picking pieces of the jams apart to make a different sonic landscape.
So here we have this behemoth of a jazz record that just pulls you in and never lets go. From the opening notes of “Segunda” to the ending of “Passed Down” you just have to strap in and go for the ride. “Beam/Spiral” really sets for taking off into outer space around the five-minute mark. “Stump the Panel” is a 17-minute excursion that will leave your jaw dropped. Each member of the band really goes for it, with Skerik and Brian battling it out in the first half before a dip in the action leads to a beautiful quieter portion until it turns into what sounds like the beginning of a horror movie. “Princess Phone”, “The Pleather Patrol”, and “Headdress” all sound like music from outer space coming to take over the land.
Listening to Nels go from quiet background player to upfront shred fest to psychedelic slides to ambient noises all from the same instrument throughout the record hurts my brain. The man just does so much with one instrument. Please listen to this one on some good headphones.
Blue Note Records; under exclusive license to UMG Recordings, Released on: 13th November 2020.
I just felt like sharing a song. I’ve been missing the spontaneity of releasing music on a whim. During these slow winter months and after such a slow (and rough) year for everyone– I thought it would give me (and maybe you) something nice to start 2021 with. It is my offering.
Emo garage-rock becomes thrillingly new on this Chicago band’s debut, driven by the bracingly real song writing of singer-guitarist Lili Trifilio. Pop-punk torpedoes like “Promises” and “Colorblind” power through self-doubt in a way that makes post-teen romantic angst seem at once archetypal yet wholly original; Beach Bunny are college-age kids who’ve been playing together for years, so there’s a surprisingly amount of song writing chops and musical precision here, and when Trifilio gets what she deserves on “Cloud 9,” singing “I don’t want to seem the way I do/but I’m confident when I’m with you,” you can’t help but want to jump up and high-five her.
Honeymoon is the excellent debut album from Beach Bunny, the four-piece band out of Chicago. Recorded at the iconic Chicago studio Electrical Audio with producer Joe Reinhart (Hop Along, Algernon Caldwaller), the nine songs on the LP burst with energy that capture their vital and life-affirming live shows. Songs like the swooning and anthemic singles “Dream Boy” and “Ms. California” encapsulate the highs and lows the exiting the honeymoon stage of a relationship.
Beach Bunny found its initial legs in 2018 as fully formed fuzz-pop quartet, landing a streaming hit with the dark-witted body image paean “Prom Queen.” More so than on her earlier more-acoustic releases, Trifilio’s full-band version of Beach Bunny revealed a knack for infectious pop hooks played with a collaborative energy, which helped propel her anxious observations beyond mere folk confessionalism. The success of “Prom Queen” also helped the group net a deal with New York indie Mom + Pop Records, which offers up their full-length debut, Honeymoon.
Like the self-released EP that preceded it, Honeymoon capitalizes on Trifilio’s emotional honesty and strong melodic sense, but with a bolder production aesthetic, doing away with some of the lo-fi leanings of her previous output. Having spent the last couple of years gelling as a live band, Beach Bunny seem altogether more streamlined here, even flirting with elements of pop-punk precision on cuts like “Cuffing Season” and “Colorblind,” though without losing their indie charm. Most of the songs are up-tempo, with Trifilio taking a timeout on the introspective electric piano piece “Racetrack” and the more jagged “Rearview,” the latter of which is played entirely solo until its mighty final 30 seconds. Honeymoon is bookended by a pair of highlights in “Promises” and “Cloud 9,” two rousing tracks that connect squarely and showcase the best of what Beach Bunny can do.
There’s an endearing tenderness to Trifilio’s personal song writing style that mostly avoids emo clichés, and the band’s cautiously buoyant indie pop walks the line between sweet and muscular on this solid debut. The long-awaited debut LP “Honeymoon” from Beach Bunny follows their breakout hit with “Prom Queen” (65 million global streams). released February 14th, 2020 on Mom+Pop Records
Some psychedelic albums reach a hypnotic end cheaply. But “Shadow Talk”, the second album from Chicago experimental five-piece Cafe Racer, reaches heady emotional and sonic heights, not by leaning on overused effects or sprinkling meaningless, abstract imagery, but by expecting more out of a song and its lyrics. Shadow Talk is all about finesse and dynamics—melodies cascade with subtlety and spark with a euphoric glow. They’re also masters of grooves both meditative and invigorating, and they experiment with foreground and background sounds in mind-numbing ways. It’s an extremely calming album until it isn’t—the guitar and synth fury on “Faces” is life-affirming, the guitar solo in “Exile” is painfully emotive and its subsequent outro track creates blistering, ambient havoc. It’s a moody, empathetic album, bolstered by repetition and the palpable scenes they create, whether that’s an imagined, heavenly gorge or the melancholy urban landscapes you traverse every day.
Cafe Racer continues Chicago’s long tradition of indie-rock / post-punk / whathaveyou, but with splashes of psych. Fluid but not overly studied. The debut album from Chicago five-piece Cafe Racer arrived in 2018 with Famous Dust, which artfully wobbles as much as it confidently struts. Their ability to make keyboard and guitar sounds bend, zigzag and squeal was already well-developed, so by the time they released their 2020 follow-up Shadow Talk, they were firing on all cylinders. With art rock, psych and krautrock as their backbone, they lock into immersive grooves, but even when a groove is dismantled or they’re building up to another one, Cafe Racer have a way of dazzling with subtle, snaking riffs and luscious vocals.
Written and Performed by Cafe Racer: Michael Santana, Adam Schubert, Rob McWilliams, Andrew Harper, and Elise Poirier. Saxophone on ‘Breathing’ performed by Spencer Ouellette.
The Staple Singers, the gospel-soul family group from Chicago led by Roebuck “Pops” Staples and featuring the unimpeachable vocals of Mavis Staples, was already a going concern by the time they signed with Stax Records in the late ’60s. But that move over to the Memphis label, and the input of producers Steve Cropper and Al Bell, helped take the ensemble to bigger stages and greater commercial heights. This long overdue collection brings together all the full-lengths that the Staples recorded for Stax; a run of albums that resulted in peak R&B/funk recordings like “Respect Yourself,” “I’ll Take You There,” “Heavy Makes You Happy,” and “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me).” The group’s spiritual leanings were ever-present, but what took precedent was an Afrocentrism born from the waves of change being created by the Civil Rights Movement. Who better to bring messages like “Love Comes in All Colors” and “Give A Hand, Take A Hand,” than this church-bred group. This marvellous run of records sound brand new in these new all-analogue pressings, with the earthy tang of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and the Bar-Kays horn section ripping out of the speakers with hip-shaking fervour.
It’s all capped off by a collection of stray singles and, most vitally, a recording of the band’s set at Wattstax, the day-long concert that brought the best of the label to celebrate the Black art and the Black community of Los Angeles. The Staple Singers’ performance is all fire and sweat, with Pops urging the Black Power movement to keep up the good fight and, on “I’ll Take You There,”Mavis testifying like the Holy Spirit had a hold of her body and soul. This is a milestone of American musical history, treated with the appropriate levels of respect and reverence.
From their gospel beginnings through the folk-rock era to their soul music peak, the Staple Singers travelled a long, artistically-rich road into the mainstream of American music, spreading messages of peace, equal rights and love. When the Staples –comprised of family patriarch Roebuck “Pops” Staples and daughters Cleotha, Mavis and Yvonne– joined Stax in 1968, they were working alongside major rock acts at forums like the Fillmore West and East. Over the next few years, The Staple Singers saw 12 chart hits, including “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There”, both off their 1972 breakthrough album, Be Altitude: Respect Yourself. The Staples continued to record through 1994, when they found a new audience with their cover of The Band’s “The Weight” for MCA Records’ compilation “Rhythm, Country & Blues.” Mavis Staples, who received her first GRAMMY® Award in 2011, continues to record and tour, performing everywhere from the White House to the Kennedy Center Honours stage to major festivals like Outside Lands. Most recently, Staples is the subject of documentary “Mavis!”
The self-produced debut album from indie-rock four-piece Slow Pulp—Emily Massey (vocals/guitar), Henry Stoehr (guitar), Alex Leeds (bass) and Teddy Mathews (drums)—may as well have been written and recorded in another lifetime. The Madison-bred, Chicago-based band began work on their first full-length last spring, and they redirected their efforts after Massey was diagnosed with Lyme’s disease and chronic Mono; her newfound focus on self-care dovetailed with Slow Pulp fine-tuning their approach to song writing, parallel processes each rooted in accountability and communication.
Vulnerable yet defiant, ‘Moveys’ is ten moving tracks that are guitar driven with a real anthemic quality. Included is the powerful single ‘Idaho’ which is Massey’s account of overcoming her health struggles and finding self-acceptance when being constantly rejected by others:
“The diagnosis validated a lot of what I was feeling. I got tools for how to take care of myself better. The way that I internalize trauma is I will hold it in and not process it for a very long time, but writing songs is the one place where I can’t hide from myself. It just comes out whether or not I want it to or if I’m ready for it to. Figuring out how to write together, as a band, was like me learning how to take care of myself and learning how to communicate better.”
All kinds of bad things prefaced the making of Slow Pulp’s debut album Moveys: frontwoman Emily Massey parents endured a car crash—and then a global pandemic unfolded. Yet the songs that were birthed from these circumstances reverberate with sonic serenity and clarity. Lead single “Idaho” depicts a band reflecting and moving from darkness toward light; Massey’s voice is weightless while she sings the line “I’m losing all the while.” This sprawling ballad fuses indie rock with folk, which a lot of the albums seems to do. “At It Again” leans into indie rock, electrified and spinning from the beginning, and sticks out among the abundance of tamer songs it’s a burst of unrestrained frustration, and it’s refreshing.
Slow Pulp were often been categorized as “shoegaze,” and Moveys exhibits the Chicago band showing off their abilities in other realms. “Falling Apart” proves that they can create gorgeous, slow tracks that resemble Hovvdy or Lomelda; “Movey” showcases their desire for idiosyncrasy with upbeat keyboard effects celebrating the ending of a sad record. It can’t quite be summed up into a single genre, but it can be summed up as an evocative collection of songs that convey the ups and downs of being human.
These new songs came together in earnest during the band’s fall 2019 tour alongside Alex G, but in March 2020, as they were finishing the album, Massey’s parents were injured in a serious car accident, requiring her to return home to Madison to care for them—soon after, the COVID-19 pandemic’s Stateside spread required her to stay there. The ensuing seven months of lockdown have distorted time almost beyond recognition. The band finished “Moveys” (its title, in part, a nod to the upheaval of its making) from afar, and it’s better than it has any right to be, a vividly realized debut with the bold, exploratory confidence of a mid-career release.
Many bands find it a struggle to gain attention and simply continue to exist in an environment that is so hostile to anyone other than acts with mainstream appeal and huge commercial backing. Indie rock quartet from Slow Pulp were facing these familiar problems the adjustments in Massey’s life led to a radical change in direction for the band and the sound of what has become their debut album ‘Moveys’.
Catch Slow Pulp playing UK shows during February 2021!
Chicago-based rock quartet Ganser shared a self-directed video for their new track “Emergency Equipment and Exits” off of their forthcoming LP “Just Look at That Sky”, out July 31st on Felte,.
Out of the din of distorted pads emerges a groove that bursts into a soaring melody at full speed, immersing you in a hook only to branch elsewhere. The video features the band performing at their practice space interspersed with shots of downtown Chicago before settling on a swamp for a fleeting instance of pastoral quiet. With two terrifyingly cool lead vocalists in Nadia Garofalo and Alicia Gaines and a relentless guitar/drum attack from their bandmates Charlie Landsman and Brian Cundiff, this Chicago quartet kicked up one of 2020’s most impressive rackets on their second LP.
Post-punk outbursts like “Projector” and “Self Service” (both shouted by Garofalo) hit with just the right intensity to crowd out this headache of a year for a few minutes. Just as impressive were the subtler sounds that emerge on Just Look at That Sky’s back half: “Shadowcasting,” sung by Gaines, is a sparkling slow-burner that recalls mid-2000s Radiohead. The only thing missing was a chance to see how these songs sound in concert — and the webcasts that Ganser put on this year suggest they’ll leave our ears ringing in the best way when they’re able to tour again.
Alicia Gaines (vocals and bass) describes the video as follows: “Sometimes everything gets too close, even when things are good, and you get this screaming desire to run away. The song and video are both about feeling estranged from reality and choosing nothing over too much—the floor drops out, and you only have yourself to deal with. It was very strange to be focused on not only the video direction, but also safety precautions during this time.”
Single taken from Ganser’s ‘Just Look At That Sky’ Album —- Recorded 2019 at Altered States
The Fat Angel Sings 