Michelle Zauner, sole creator of the indie pop project Japanese Breakfast, made 2016’s Psychopomp amid the death of her mother from cancer, a catastrophic event that can easily send anyone down an unfamiliar path. For Zauner, it meant an ongoing search for solace in loss. Soft Sounds From Another Planet continues that journey. It’s a somber, starry lullaby that results in periods of fitful sleep marked by struggles with fading love and death’s vague mystery. But there’s something comforting about the record too, with its interlocking muted chords, muffled drums, and sudden shocks of electric guitar that add sharp slices of lightning. Soft Sounds is full of pretty interludes of ambient noise mixed with shoegaze and electropop touches.
The Body Is A Blade from the new album, “Soft Sounds From Another Planet” out now Dead Oceans Records.
Shame is a five-piece post-punk band from England that are set to release their debut via the fine folks at DeadOceans. Songs of Praise will see the light of day on January 12th. This tune rocks and I’m looking forward to catching a set while they’re at SXSW.
The track itself is the first song the band wrote together. “I think that’s reflected in the simplicity of it,” Steen states. A song about embracing insecurity as a strength, he continues, “It’s honest and raw, whilst attempting a stab at number one in the pop charts across the Eastern hemisphere.”
The London five piece have swiftly earned a reputation as one of the most visceral and exhilarating live bands in the UK, their combustible shows being honed through a heavy touring schedule in the UK – including an incredible sold out show at the Scala and a personal invite by Billy Bragg to play the Left Field stage at Glastonbury this year , and recently announced 2018 dates as well.
“One Rizla” from ’Songs Of Praise’ out January 12th, 2018 on Dead Oceans Records.
Alex Lahey was going to draw comparisons to Courtney Barnett. She’s a young singer-songwriter from Melbourne who, initially and somewhat incorrectly, comes across like a witty slacker-rocker similar to Barnett. Lahey’s recent debut I Love You Like A Brother boldly underscored the fact that she’s onto something very different. Songs like “Lotto In Reverse” and “I Haven’t Been Taking Care Of Myself” burst into huge, cathartic choruses more akin to ‘90s and ‘00s alt-rock than anything in today’s indie sphere. Lahey’s got a way of capturing the particular anxieties and frustrations of the listless years of post-college life. And while her songs convey all that, those giant hooks tell a different story: the triumphant and defiant part where you kick the door down to life’s next phase.
Kevin Morby has shared the new black and white video for single ‘Downtown Lights’ taken from his latest album City Music.
The video, directed by Hugo Jouxtel of La Blogothéque, was shot in Paris and features Morby wandering the striking streets handing our white flowers to Parisians.
“Paris has always shown a lot of love towards my music, and I am very grateful,” Morby said. “On my first European solo tour I was selling maybe 50 tickets a city until I showed up in Paris and heard the show was already at 150 tickets, which at the time really blew my mind and took me by complete surprise. Before the show, a company called La Blogothéque asked me to do a ‘Take Away Show,’ which I agreed to do, though I didn’t really know what it was. The film crew was so kind and took me on a magical adventure around the city filming me playing some songs in a park and in a boat going down the canal,” he continued.
“Two years later, I was back in Paris and they asked me to film a show playing to a small crowd inside a house next to Père Lachaise Cemetery and that, too, was very magical. So when it came time to do a video for ‘Downtown’s Lights’ I knew just who to ask. La Blogothéque has a way of capturing the meeting of artists and a city half way, letting them both do the work and play off of each other and the result is always fascinating.”
Kevin Morby “Downtown’s Lights,” from his album, ‘City Music’, out now on Dead Oceans:
Barely out of their teens, the five-piece are renowned as one of the UKs most exciting new groups with Loud and Quiet praising them as ‘One of the most watched and crucially most talked about live bands in London’.
Updating the politically conscious protest music of the Thatcher era to the modern day, the band marked the General Election with satirical Theresa May ode Visa Vulture as a free download. A taster for their as yet untitled debut album set for release later this year, the group recently signed to powerhouse US indie label Dead Oceans.
With a full programme of Summer festivals including an invitation from Billy Bragg to play the Leftfield Stage at Glastonbury, Shame’s reputation as an essential live act continues to grow.
Kevin Morby has shared his new video for ‘Aboard My Train’, the new single off his forthcoming album, City Music. Morby, who self-directed the video for his new song, said: “I wanted to make a video at home, something sort of lo-fi.
“I kind of missed the challenge of having to come up with something creative with little to no money. Doing what I do, people are constantly coming in and out of your life. The moment you think you’ll never see someone again, they reappear and that’s what this song is about starting with my first best friend, Pablo, who lived on my street in Tulsa, and was my first memory of having a best friend.”
In the video, Morby writes the names of many of these people who have made lasting impressions on his life:
Kevin Morby “Aboard My Train,” from his forthcoming album, ‘City Music’, out 16/6 on Dead Oceans
Reunited shoegaze greats Slowdive have finally returned after 22 years. Following a victory lap / festival run in 2014, Slowdive have officially thrown their hats back in the ring with “Star Roving,” the band’s new song and “part of a bunch of new tracks” on the way from the Reading legends. So far, no word on tour dates or what those tracks will become, but the band has announced their signing to Dead Oceans Records.
Their newest single “Sugar for the Pill” is a gorgeous reverb-laden ballad with hints of that dreamy psychedelic haze that Slowdive perfected over 25 years ago. It’s an instant buy of the highest calibure, but keep in mind that Dead Oceans knows this, and the only way you’re going to be able to acquire the silver vinyl variant through them is by grabbing their bundle. You’ll get a t-shirt, a slipmat, some enamel badges and, of course, a handy dandy CD to throw into that portable discman that’s been collecting dust in your attic. If there ever was an album to bring that puppy back into the world, this would be it. Listen to the new tracks below and grab a bundle after the ‘buy’ link.
Slowdive’s first album in 22 years is starting to come along quite blissfully, and now it has a name. A calmly geometric, geologic video for “Sugar For The Pill” announces Slowdive, but not to be confused with the band’s eponymous EP from 1990.
Shoegaze fans, rejoice: Slowdive are releasing a new album! Nu-gaze has been a thing for at least a decade now, so no-one can accuse Slowdive of cashing in on a wave of nostalgia by getting back together — which they did in 2014 — and in any case, new single “Sugar for the Pill” suggests that they have more interesting things on their mind. The song is definitely dreamy and beautiful, but it’s not shoegaze-by-numbers by any means — there are no thick washes of distortion and half-buried vocals here at all. In fairness, Slowdive were always more restrained than, say, My Bloody Valentine but even so, this is notably stripped back than the sound of their 1993 classic Souvlaki: the mix is clean and minimalist, with only a single delay-laden guitar, a quiet, subtle bassline and understated drums accompanying Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead’s dual vocal. The result is a song that’s given plenty of room to breathe, and is all the prettier and more delicate for it. The album from which the song is taken is entitled simply Slowdive, and it’ll be out on May 5th via Dead Oceans.
‘Sugar for the Pill’ from Slowdive, out May 5th on Dead Oceans Recordstheir first album in 22 years.
Like the wild geese that the Portland-based trio are named after, the members of Greylag have all undertaken amazing journeys, migrating as if by homing instinct from different parts of the US, Greylag rich in melody, mood and detail embracing electric and acoustic with a sound that’s both subtle and forceful. Andrew Stonestreet (lead vocal, acoustic guitar, originally from West Virginia), Daniel Dixon (lead guitar and other stringed things, keyboards, from Northern California) and Brady Swan (drums, from Texas). The venerated Phil Ek (Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, Modest Mouse, The Shins) produced the album at Seattle’s Avast! Studio, who clearly knows a sublime enterprising combination of roots and rock music when he hears it.
The name Greylag looks and sounds strong but has developed more meaning for the band – It’s a wild goose, from which all domestic geese originate, so it’s the first survivor, and it’s still wild, and doing things its own way – the ‘lag’ part refers to it being the last bird to migrate. It sits back and watches. We love the connotation.”
The influences range wildly – Dixon talks of Swan’s love of house music whilst Stonestreet grew up with folk and bluegrass. Other named influences that can be spied through those lenses are Led Zeppelin and Portland’s most famous son, the late Elliott Smith. Stonestreet also enthuses about Fleetwood Mac’s 1969 classic Then Play On, Bob Dylan, and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Dixon says Neil Young more than CS&N, and also, more surprisingly, the other worldy-ness of Sigur Rós.
The new record is their first proper recording as a band. This can be sampled in the dynamic sway of “Mama”, “Kicking” and “One Foot” while “Black Sky” and “Walk The Night” illuminate that “spooky” Led Zep III/Buckley axis. “Yours To Shake” and Burn On”, meanwhile, connect the two poles, building from quiet to loud, as Greylag take flight, gloriously. It’s a selective journey, though: though up to 65 demos were recorded, the album is a modest, yet very complete, nine tracks and 37 minutes in length.
The album artwork is the final touch. It resembles an old hardbound book, with the name pressed into the surface and a symbol above it, roughed up on edges, like something you’d find in a grandfather’s attic, something a little dark and strange and mysterious. It feels modern but it’s inspired by something from an earlier era.
Taken from their forthcoming self titled album “Greylag” released late last year, this Portland trio has a folk Fleet Foxes type sound, the songs are catchy and briskly strummed epics with great vocals
Kevin Morby has just announced “City Music” a new album via the fine folks at Dead Oceans. Here’s a little more on the album via the PR Team – His fourth album, “City Music” works as a counterpart to Morby’s acclaimed 2016 release “Singing Saw”, an autobiographical set that reflected the solitude and landscape in which it was recorded. SingingSaw was imagined as “an old bookshelf with a young Bob and Joni staring back at me, blank and timeless. They live here, in this left side of my brain, smoking cigarettes and playing acoustic guitars while lying on an unmade bed.”
And now follows City Music, the yang to its yin, the heads to its tails. It is a collection crafted using the other side of its creator’s brain, the jumping off point perhaps best once again encapsulated by an image. “Here, Lou Reed and Patti Smith stare out at the listener,” explains Morby. “Stretched out on a living room floor they are somewhere in mid-70s Manhattan, also smoking cigarettes.” It finds Morby exploring similar themes of solitude, but this time framed by a window of an uptown apartment that looks down upon an international urban landscape “exposed like a giant bleeding wound.”
The Fat Angel Sings 