Gracie and Rachel, the collaborative duo of keyboardist Gracie Coates and violinist Rachel Ruggles, have been praised by NPRto “make unforgettable, surprising music.” The duo’s new album “Hello Weakness, You make Me Strong” explores the depths of their emotional states and the walls we build up inside ourselves. It’s music to excavate our inner fears and help us find the empowerment from within. It’s been quite a year. Putting out a record in the midst of the world being shut down wasn’t what we had in mind, but it certainly has made us stronger. Thank you to each and every person who poured their hearts into bringing ‘Hello Weakness, You Make Me Strong’ to life with us. Thank you to our incredible label and management team who support this music with such fierce generosity. Mostly, thank YOU for taking our sounds into your sphere.
Piano-violin duo with boundary issues. New album ‘Hello Weakness, You Make Me Strong’ out on Righteous Babe Records.
“Gracie and Rachel make unforgettable, surprising music.” –Bob Boilen/NPR Music
Today we share a remix of our song “Speak” from our album ‘Hello Weakness, You Make Me Strong,’ by the ever-talented Future Generations. Thanks, Eddie, for putting your sweet spin on our sounds.
Acid Dad first appeared in the New York scene at the onset of 2016. After spending the year self-releasing demos recorded at their studio in upstate New York, the band garnered local praise from the likes of Oh My Rockness, Consequence of Sound, BrooklynVegan, Stereogum and more. After releasing their debut EP “Let’s Plan a Robbery” way back in February 2016, followed by their first sold-out show at Baby’s All Right, Acid Dad embarked upon a two month tour of the United States. Fresh off their first tour, which included numerous SXSW performances as well as appearances on Daytrotter, Audiotree and Jam in the Van, the band started writing their debut LP.
At the outset of 2017, the band began recording what would become their first full length. Now part of the Greenway Records family, their Self-Titiled debut LP was released March 9th to rave reviews from the likes of The New York Times, Consequence of Sound and Brooklyn Vegan. The release of Acid Dad album was followed by a US tour which again included SXSW & sold out shows in New York, LA & San Francisco. On the tail of that success, the band crossed the Atlantic for their first European tour which included riotous shows in Amsterdam, London and Paris. Now back home in NYC, the band has transitioned into creation-mode. Acid Dad is hard at work on LP 2 with new singles slated for release and a Greenway Records full length expected soon after!
Here’s a brand new one from Brooklyn’sAcid Dad! Their new record “Take It From The Dead” will be a co-release between The Reverberation Appreciation Society and Greenway Records.
The first single “RC Driver” is out today and accompanied by a video that transports us to warmer times and reminds us to gas up the ol’ jet ski and go climb a waterfall. Stay tuned for more Acid Dad very soon,
“RC Driver” by · Acid Dad released through Greenway Records Released on: 2021-02-19
Arriving at a time of considerable uncertainty in the world, Son Lux’s multi-album ‘Tomorrows’ is ambitious in scope and intent. Born of an active, intentional approach to shaping sound, the music reminds us of the necessity of questioning assumptions, and of sitting with the tension.
The music encompassed on Tomorrows provides an appropriate parallel for the sustained cacophony of the present moment, advancing a friction that reveals the strange in the familiar and the familiar in the strange. While this carefully crafted inversion acclimatizes the ear to tension, the steadily hardening exterior fractures at unlikely moments, revealing a strikingly visceral, emotional core. The process of creating Tomorrows is iterative in nature, with the lyrical content and music continually adapting and responding to one another and the shifting landscape of the moment.
Slothrust are back in our heads with sweet medicine for our hearts, sharing a brand new single and video, ‘Cranium’, out today on Dangerbird Records. As the band’s first release since 2019, it’s safe to say a lot has happened between now and then. With scores of viable candidates stepping up to claim the mantle of the ‘very saddest girl in rock’, the many skills of Slothrust bandleader Leah Wellbaum are put to much better use in other pursuits.
The new single vividly captures Wellbaum’s powerful voice as a songwriter, lyricist and guitar player and demonstrates an intellectual curiosity and emotional confidence that has deepened in scope as the band’s profile has steadily risen.
With bandmates Will Gorin (drums) and Kyle Bann (bass/keyboards) rounding out the trio’s essential framework, Wellbaum’s quirky visual and tactile inspirations come to life. “I think of ‘Cranium’ as an absurd mating ritual dance by one of those beautiful complex birds with iridescent tail feathers. Except instead of feathers, I am holding family heirloom tweezers and my hands are coated in honey. It’s sweet, but incredibly uncomfortable and definitely overbearing,” Wellbaum said of the new single.
At long last, a new song for you. This one is called “Cranium”. And, there is a very beautiful (in my opinion) music video co-directed by yours truly and our amazing longtime collaborator, Adam Stone. This song is about wanting to serve love but not knowing the “right” way to do so— often offering too much, or something unwanted entirely. It is a promise to love both absurdly and impossibly with a heavy sprinkle of pain.
Thank you in advance for coming with us on this ride. Take some time to celebrate your mind and we shall do the same.
Wild Pink’s last album, 2018’s “Yolk In The Fur”, concluded with a song about the strange sense of relief that comes with “letting go of youth.” Frontman John Ross, then in his early thirties, was singing from a place of newfound comfort and wisdom, but it ended with a repetition of the line, “I don’t know what happens next.” The song, titled “All Some Frenchman’s Joke”, is a beautifully concise rendering of a universal milestone: levelling up from the wide-eyed naivety and self-destructive routines of our youth, only to realize that we’re as unprepared for the future as we were for the past.
On Wild Pink’s third album and first for Royal Mountain Records, “A Billion Little Lights”, Ross explores that dichotomy of finally achieving emotional security—of accepting the love and peace he deprived himself of in his twenties—while also feeling existentially smaller and more directionless than ever before. The record is a two-pronged triumph: an extraordinary reflection on the human condition presented through the sharpest, grandest, and most captivating songs Wild Pink have ever composed.
The band, which is rounded out by bassist T.C. Brownell and drummer Dan Keegan, formed in New York City in 2015 and put out a handful of EP’s before releasing their critically acclaimed self-titled debut in 2017. It was a sophisticated showing for a band’s first album, but it was the striking maturation of Yolk In The Fur that established Wild Pink’s unique sound: a glistening variety of pastoral indie-rock akin to The War On Drugs, Death Cab For Cutie, and Kurt Vile, but informed by classic American rock poets like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. The album received glowing praise from Pitchfork (a score of 8.1), Billboard, NPR, Stereogum, and Uproxx, the latter deeming them “one of indie’s best emerging bands.”
Even though Wild Pink were operating within the relatively modest world of contemporary indie-rock, critics likened them to the types of revered rock auteurs who rack up Grammy nominations. So for A Billion Little Lights, they actually made that leap. The record was produced, mixed, and co-engineered by producer David Greenbaum, who’s worked with the likes of Beck, U2, Cage The Elephant, and Jenny Lewis. Like all Wild Pink records, the songs were entirely written and arranged by Ross, who shaped them into high-quality demos over the course of a year in his new home in New York’s Hudson Valley. But unlike previous Wild Pink albums, Ross enlisted a deep bench of session musicians and friends to perform a litany of additional instruments, finally granting Ross’s musical visions the space and sonic resources they needed to achieve their finest forms.
The ten songs on A Billion Little Lights are adorned with fiddles, violins, wurlitzers, saxophones, accordions, pedal steel guitars, and a variety of richly textured synths and keyboards. In addition to the instrumentation, Julia Steiner of the Chicago band Ratboys provides beautiful harmonies throughout the record, her soft voice recalling the friendly glow of a porch light when it switches on behind Ross’s dusky coo. On past records, Ross’s breathy delivery rarely raised above a hushed murmur, but here he sings with a melodic confidence that makes songs like “Pacific City”, “DieOutside”, and “The Shining But Tropical” some of the catchiest, most anthemic cuts in the Wild Pink catalogue. The band have never sounded dated or nostalgic, but the lingering twinge of Americana in their sound has always given their songs a familiar, classicist resonance. On A Billion Little Lights, there are little details like speckles of auto-tune, flashing synths, and even trip-hop-esque drum loops that subtly yet effectively rebuff the notion that Wild Pink’s music yearns for a bygone era: the album sounds at once timeless and unmistakably modern.
That sonic quality is a fitting complement to the album’s lyrics, which see Ross caught in the bramble between his past and his present; feeling suffocated by the repetition of life while simultaneously gazing at the stars above and marvelling at the unquantifiable vastness of it all. “Time spreads like Jasmine on a fence / Always behind, I can let go but I’m still always behind” he sings on the shimmering “Bigger Than Christmas”. On the sprightly folk-rocker “You Can Have It Back”, he cheekily sizes up his flaws (“Everybody laughs easily / There’s something wrong with me”) and outwardly admits, “Never figured out how to live / Just dreaming all the time.” “Family Friends” and “Track Mud” are musings on day-to-day stasis: “Every day is Groundhog’s Day now” he sings in the former, while lamenting about being “lost in anxious thoughts again” in the latter.
However, it’s the final two songs, the record’s musical standouts, that offer a tepidly hopeful counter to those periods of despair. In “Pacific City”, Ross sings about barely being able to recognize the person he once was, a self left behind once he shedded self-hatred (“For every little thing about myself I couldn’t change”) and learned to “make hay while the sun shined.” “And you deserve the good things that’ll come to you / You just need a little room”, goes its hook. It’s unclear whether that “room” is a reference to his literal relocation to rural upstate New York, or a metaphor for emotional space, but either way “Die Outside” is all about making it. With a stadium-sized hook and the rhythmic swing of a two-ton pendulum, Ross calls to “let every wall come down” with a windswept sing-song of a delivery, a barn raiser of a hook.
Whereas Yolk In The Fur ended with an admission of utter uncertainty, this album ends with a more conclusive observation: “Your blood is like ocean water.” It’s an almost soothing acceptance of our primordial nature, that like the ancient water of the sea or the billions of little stars above, we’re as much a part of something greater and everlasting as we are a mere flicker in the night sky. Wild Pink’s music has always rooted around in those sort of immortal complexities, but A Billion Little Lights is the first time the surrounding music truly captures those alternatingly micro and macro quandaries. It, too, is something to marvel at.
Where does a piece of music originate? Before decisions about form and refinement of material, before building up or carving down, before composition itself—what lies in this white room, and how does one find it? Dan Knishkowy of Adeline Hotel did not set out to answer these questions when he began recording “Good Timing”, a mostly instrumental album whose crystalline latticework of acoustic guitar marks a departure of sorts from his previous releases as a songwriter. But as he worked, he found a certain freedom in a process uninhibited by pretense. “I liked the idea of embracing that,” he says, “instead of turning this into something more conventionally polished.”
The fifth album from Dan Knishkowy’s psych-folk project Adeline Hotel is aptly named: Arriving at the end of an rougher-than-average week for our collective psyche, Good Timing feels designed to envelop and ease any troubled mind. Knishkowy interweaves crystalline acoustic guitar improvisations, creating a kaleidoscope of bright, glassy finger-picking that expands and recedes unceasingly, as if shaping itself of its own volition. Reverb functions like a distinct instrument on the album, elongating Knishkowy’s guitar work and complicating the interplay between its layers. At just 23 minutes, Good Timing’s glow is fleeting, but when it passes, it will take your troubles—or at least their sharp edges—with it.
Knishkowy created Good Timing by layering improvised guitar parts, each one reacting intuitively to those that came before and guiding those that came after. Like a fractal blooming or a snowflake accumulating ice, the music dictated its own shape as it grew, a dynamic that is perceptible in the shifting surfaces of each piece. Rhythms unspool slowly, without tether to any strict pulse. Lines begin in apparent disarray, then converge for an epiphanic moment, then separate again. Though Knishkowy is well versed in the greats of solo guitar—among several possible connotations of the album’s title is a sly homage to a Jim O’Rourke acoustic masterwork—the effect of these multitracked pieces may have more in common with ambient music than anything from the American Primitive school. Low strings toll like distant bells; high ones sparkle like windchimes just outside the window. The physical properties of Dan’s instrument are as present in the music as his own hands.
He arrived at this instinctual approach while working alone at home in the quarantine summer of 2020, when more precisely arranged compositions began to feel stifling. As a reprieve, he began recording the sort of ostensibly aimless music that had often uncovered the seeds of songs in the past. By centering these embryonic sounds as an expression in themselves, rather than a route to some other end, he crafted 10 pieces that glow with intimacy and presence, vessels for capturing memory in real time. “I feel like all records are approximations of your creative process, in a way” he says, “but with Good Timing, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to the source.” – Andy Cush
Making their debut on Wick Records, New York’s own Steady Sun deliver two sublime sides of ethereal psych. We’re not talking about your run-of-the-mill fuzz fodder here, folks – Steady Sun delivers some of the most refreshingly satisfying psychedelia in decades! “Truth is the Needle” floats out of the speakers like lysergic vapor, engulfing the listener in layers of delicate guitar, spaced-out vocals, and pulsating bass that swirl around the heavy, grounded groove – generating an intoxicating juxtaposition. On the flip is “To Lash Around”, whose insistent beat and hook-heavy melody will send you through a sonic wormhole that marries the experimentation of Barrett era Floyd with the hypnotic bounce of 1990s Manchester.
“Truth Is A Needle” feels slow, and not just in a musical sense. It sounds like experiencing time in slow motion and being only half-aware of it, but extremely attuned to the details that would ordinarily fly by. It’s a very stoned piece of music, psychedelic in the most literal way. The vocal melody is the most immediately appealing aspect of the song but the coolest part is the way the drums seem to drop you off to new levels through the piece. It feels like a drop, but not quite a descent – if anything, the gravitational pull seems to get weaker as you move through it.
Holy Sons from Brooklyn, New York, The music of Emil Amos is at once intimate and expansive. Under the name Holy Sons, as well as with bands Om, Grails, and Lilacs and Champagne, Amos harnesses boundless sonic textures to embellish delicately crafted songs. His music balances cues from classic and indie rock traditions with a tenderness and sense of foreboding through unparalleled artistry. Holy Sons’ first double album “Raw and Disfigured” showcases Amos’ mastery of songcraft through a seemingly impossible combination of subtle yet potent gestures, bold arrangements and resolute vulnerability. Raw and Disfigured stands as Amos’ most ambitious and comprehensive album yet, a panoramic gallery of songs as beautiful as they are crushing.
Raw and Disfigured draws thematically from the archetypal tale of Quasimodo and classic ghost story imagery to illustrate the “hero’s journey” in the time of a coming apocalypse. Album opener “The Loser That Always Wins” acts as the album’s thematic thesis and traces the tale of an underdog triumphing against all odds. From the opening swells, Amos creates a sense of mystery and tension. Melodic sections pierce through the thick fogs of unease with gliding choral harmonies and guitar lines. The looming threat of apocalypse hangs in the air of “Cast Bound King” and “Permanent Things” which gives way to sun dappled catharsis.
Songs like “Lady of the Hour” and “Transformation” serve as vistas amidst the gloom with sweeping pastoral layers and melodies that grasp towards hope rather than resignation. Amos pays homage to one of the greatest champions of the underdog in outsider pop music with an anthemic cover of Daniel Johnston’s “Held the Hand.” Closing piece “Bloody Strings” quietly draws the curtains on the album, borrowing melodic phrases from “Permanent Things” and reconfiguring them into a funeral march towards acceptance of our inevitable decay.
The recording of Raw and Disfigured took place largely at Sonic Youth’s studio Echo Canyon West. Amos, who plays the bulk of the instruments and sings the majority of the vocals throughout the album, is joined on a few pieces by drummer Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), as well as album and WFMU in-house engineer Ernie Indradat. The swirling atmospheres of “Lost in the Fire” and “Slow To Run” (featuring Shelley) invoke the spaced-out textures of Spacemen 3 to colour Amos’ moving pop structures. “Coiste Bodhar” buttresses the album’s cinematic undercurrent across nine minutes of instrumental grandeur as affecting as the touchingly raw electric piano and voice duet of the album’s final minutes.
Holy Sons’ songs contain entire epochs, elegantly stretching the bounds of pop songs. Amos’ lyrics are as immediate as they are haunting, spilling out across the expense of entire lifetimes. A keen observer, Amos describes the world from the darker side. Rich vocals draw you into an exotic atmosphere of mystical musical sounds, while classic lilting guitar lines entice you further. Raw and Disfigured proves the enduring power of the rock ballad without dwelling on the nostalgic tropes. The ballads of Holy Sons are ballads for these dark times.
Emil Amos’ (Grails, OM) fantastic double LP from last year, “Raw and Disfigured”, is back on orange wax. The first press of this sold out super quickly,
Activity recently shared this track “White Phosphorus,” a b-side from their debut album “Unmask Whoever”, named as one of the best rock albums of 2020. Much like their LP, the New YorkCity band’s latest track has a pervading eeriness, complete with hushed vocals, a steady synth hum and elusive guitar lines—not to mention bleak lyrics like “decorate the walls with horse insides.” Its twisted drama is quite cinematic, and their instrumental sprawl is nothing if not absorbing.
This is actually the first song we recorded but it didn’t work on the album. Putting it out NOW on Bandcamp only. It’s called “White Phosphorus.” We hope you enjoy!
Phantom Handshakes are the New York- based duo of Matt Sklar (Exiles) and Federica Tassano (Sooner, Mônetre), a band who have pretty much only existed in the age of social distancing. Last year saw the band release their debut album, “Be Estranged”, recorded in their respective homes in Brooklyn and Manhattan at the end of Spring 2020. The album was released by Slovakian cassette-label Z Tapes, who will also release their second offering, No More Summer Songs, recorded in the same manner as their debut, and due out in April. Ahead of that release, today Phantom Handshakes are sharing the first single from the album, No Better Plan.
In Phantom Handshakes’ Instagram bio, the project is described as “a band born to cope with the quarantine’s gloom,” but it would be just as accurate to say the dream-pop duo has been helping us cope, with gorgeous songs that have offered some serious sonic solace during what’s certainly been the strangest of years.
Now, about five months after the release of the NYC duo’s excellent debut EP “Be Estranged”, plus the newest track from Phantom Handshakes
Musically, Phantom Handshakes’ sound seems to exist in-between worlds, the guitars have a certain to the production of early-90’s shoegaze and the catchy unforget-ability of indie-pop. Through this heady mixture of influences, they seem to mark a path of their own, while there’s touchstones to the likes of Chorusgirl or Hazel English, ultimately Phantom Handshakes are plotting their own course, and sounding increasingly compelling doing it.
New single ‘No Better Plan’ available now From the upcoming LP ‘No More Summer Songs’ out April 30th Written and recorded by Phantom Handshakes (Federica Tassano & Matt Sklar)
The Fat Angel Sings 