Laura Gibson is an Oregon born singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist currently living in New York City, where she is completing an MFA in Fiction Writing at Hunter College. Gibson currently records for the US Independent Label Barsuk Records, and the Berlin-based label City Slang . Gibson’s new album “Empire Builder” was released April 1st, 2016.
Within her fiction studies in grad school, Laura Gibson is finding her legs as a storyteller. Amidst trauma, loss and recovery, she rediscovered songwriting as a means of understanding her own life and choices. Empire Builder grapples with independence, womanhood, solitude, connection and aloneness. If Gibson has a thesis, it’s perhaps within the final words of the title track: “Hurry up and lose me / Hurry up and find me again.” With clear-eyed honesty, urgency and warmth, Empire Builder succeeds in capturing the moment between loss and rediscovery.
Tindersticks “Hey Lucinda” from new album ‘The Waiting Room’ featuring vocals from the late Lhasa De Sela
Release date: 22nd January 2016
For cinephiles, English band Tindersticks are perhaps best known for the soundtracks they’ve composed for the films of Claire Denis, while music fans have been taken by the group’s distinctive arrangements and intimate emotion. Next year, Tindersticks will release their tenth album, “The Waiting Room”, and it finds them taking another ambitious step.
The upcoming long player will not only feature guest appearances by Jehnny Beth of Savages and the late, beloved singer Lhasa De Sela, it will also find the band collaborating with filmmakers. Each track on The Waiting Room will be accompanied by a music video helmed by such figures as Christoph Girardet, Pierre Vinour, Claire Denis, Gregorio Graziosi,and Gabriel Sanna. And today, we’re excited to unveil “Hey Lucinda,” featuring the vocals of Lhasa De Sela, and directed Rosie Pedlow and Joe King.
The beautiful video finds the camera lingering down a row of shops and storefronts, almost like a contemporary Western, as the late afternoon sky allows the neon signs to really come to life.
“When we first heard ‘Lucinda’, we were struck by the way the instruments were used to help tell the story. The glockenspiel at the start reminded us of those wind-up musical Ballerina boxes that grind to a halt; the lurching rhythms of the backwards strings and steel drums made us feel a bit drunk,” Pedlow and King said. “We decided to use camera movement to echo the toing and froing of the duet, filming from opposite ends of the street in a series of mini tracking shots. Lhasa’s end would be the sleepy chalets; Stuart’s would be amusements. We used a camera slider to repeat the same shot allowing us to layer and cross-fade real time, slow motion and timelapse seamlessly. We wanted to convey not only something about the experiential nature of time but also something about memory and how it fades. We ramped each shot up and down and brought it to a halt just like a ballerina box and used time-lapse to inject a bit of ‘drunkenness’ into the image.”
Watch “Hey Lucinda” here The Waiting Room will be available as a limited edition CD/DVD, LP/DVD and very limited clear vinyl LP/DVD, worldwide through City Slang on January 22nd, 2016.
“Falling From The Sky” by Calexico from the album ‘Edge of the Sun,’ out now via Anti- and City Slang, ‘EdgeOf The Sun’ is a big party in the desert heat with many friends, a great composite work and probably their best album to date. Joey and the boys have re-found their Mojo. I’m pleased to say gone are the sombre sobering sounds of Algiers, to be replaced by vibrant up tempo songs that soar with the joyous melodies that made Hot Rail and Feast of Wire such originals. The sweeping Leone instrumentals are back along with the Mariachi Horns & strings. There are still shades of Dark and Light here, but even the slower numbers smoulder with energy and the band sound re-energised by their experiences in Mexico, with the album far more engaging for it. A wonderful mix of the classic Calexico sound, more latin influenced this time around with even a touch of Mexi-Skali to get the feet tapping. Oh, and make sure you get the special 2 disc edition, the bonus tracks are wonderful! This one is going to be a stayer on the Turntable for some time…order has been restored in Americana
Calexico has a special place in my heart, they put on a awesome set earlier this year , the familiarity of a beloved old friend, albeit one who lives on the US/Mexico border. Calexico are a band Ive followed for such a long time, Follow the River is a sad, wistful song that offers hope,
The Fat Angel Sings 