Posts Tagged ‘PA’

SON LITTLE – ” Demon To The Dark “

Posted: December 17, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
0

Image may contain: 1 person, guitar and indoor

“It was a sort of dark time in my life when I was struggling to find my way. I was in a relationship when it occurred to me that a lot of times you find yourself apologizing to someone after you’ve let them down. So, the idea came to me to apologize in advance. Instead of waiting to apologize until I mess up, let me apologize before, ha ha!

The song went through a lot of changes. From point A to point B there was a bunch of things I put in and took out but what I ended up with was weirdly similar to what I started out with… In spite of that, all the things that I did were necessary. There were times when I took out the main electrical piano that I started with and tried to fill the space with something different, but it never sounded right to me, so I put it back in.

This comes up a lot, I think. You’re always looking for this vibe or tone, you want it to be as pristine and well-recorded as possible, but sometimes there’s really no substitute for the feeling you that had in the beginning. At this point I don’t even remember where I played that electric piano sound or where it came from, but after trying to duplicate it in the studio with all the grand equipment I just couldn’t seem to get the right sound. Sometimes you have to try things that are wrong to figure out what you don’t want, just to confirm that your original idea was right.”– Aaron Earl Livingston,

“Demon To The Dark” by Son Little from the album ‘New Magic,’ available September 15th

SECOND GRADE – ” Hit To Hit “

Posted: July 31, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

 

“We live in a punk-rock world / Oooh-oooh, oooh-oooh,” sings Peter Gill on 2020’s astounding Hit to Hit, which honours both sentiments by sounding like Big Star if Alex Chilton had Bob Pollard’s ADHD, across 24 tunes that only break the two-minute mark on a quarter of the record. Homemade-sounding music is often championed for its roughness-as-realism, but Gill’s band shows how gorgeous and pristine the DIY life can be, albeit by leading with the Beach Boys rockabilly of “W-2,” a tax-form lament for anyone just trying to get their fucking quarantine check. Treat their breakthrough album as a thought-experiment about what would happen if you straightened all the crooked lines in Wowee Zowee and marvel at how much fractured beauty is still there.

2nd Grade have shared the fourth and final single from their debut album Hit to Hit. It’s another short ‘n sweet taste of the humble power pop that defines the album. 

“The record’s latest single “Boys in Heat” clocks in at just over a minute and is incredibly catchy, so it’s easy to find yourself on your fourth or fifth listen without noticing. It’s a confident indie rock jam that exudes carefree summer fun.”

“Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider” is their “September Gurls” for a generation that first experienced “Little Honda” via Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. Philadelphia’s 2nd Grade has released the third track from their upcoming full-length Hit to Hit. According to the band, “Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider” is “a rip-roaring earworm about clueless machismo set in the world of the road dog.” It’s insanely catchy.

Second Grade is Peter Gill, Jon Samuels, Jack Washburn, Catherine Dwyer, and Will Kennedy.

CUDDLE MAGIC – ” Working On Me / What If I “

Posted: May 19, 2020 in MUSIC
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Kristin Slipp, also a member of Dirty Projectors, is the voice of Brooklyn– and Philadelphia-based collective Cuddle Magic, who recorded their new album Bath in a bathroom. You can preview its twinkling, understanding “Working On Me” here.

Big news: we have a new song out today, “What If I,” and we’ll have a new album out soon. It’s called ‘Bath’ and it’s coming out on July 3rd on Northern Spy.

Please take a moment right now to pre-save the album, follow us on your chosen streaming platform, and listen to “What If I” (the link below should let you do all three of those things). It’s the first song we all wrote together and we’ve been wanting to release a recording of it for a long time. We love how it turned out and hope you do, too!

Band Members
Benjamin Lazar Davis, Alec Spiegelman, Kristin Slipp, Christopher McDonald, Cole Kamen-Green, David Flaherty

The album is released on July 3rd by Northern Spy Records, and you can pre-order the digital version of it by visiting the band’s Bandcamp page now.

CONTROL TOP – ” Covert Contracts “

Posted: February 20, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Image may contain: 3 people, people standing and indoor

The modern post-punk landscape was in danger of becoming a reductive cliche of itself as it softened its spikes, but Philly trio Control Top are razor-sharp and full of fire in their delivery with their debut full-length Covert Contracts. It’s an extreme case of the personal, political and technologically terrifying converging at the forefront of the conversation as well as attacking your senses, with lead singer and bassist Ali Carter acting as the live wire mouthpiece with a maximalist current from drummer Alex Lichtenauer and guitarist Al Creedon downloading a surge of dark truths from their secret server. In the age of information overload, Control Top are here to tear down capitalist walls and the algorithms set up to pocket millions off of it one piece of the hate machine at a time. When it’s over, Covert Contracts has hopefully hacked a staying power in your brain as well.

If Siouxsie Sioux decided to join the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to make frayed-edge dance-punk, it would probably sound like Control Top. Ali Carter’s voice maintains the ethereal and haunting style of her predecessors, but with a channeling a contemporary aggressive force when she commands: “Quit your job today!” Diligently releasing new music for the past three years has paid off with their 2019 breakthrough tantrum Covert Contracts, and they summarized early 2020 by releasing the one-off single “One Good Day,” as in wishing for one. In light of the recent national protests, they’ve spread awareness about Black issues and raised proceeds for the Philly Community Bail Fund and the Black and Pink Bail Fund. But it’s their feral tunes that make them Philly’s best contemporary punk band, so the Dead Milkmen better watch their backs.

“Betrayed,” from Covert Contracts, sums up everything you want to scream at the top of your lungs in 2020: “Betrayed by the nation, betrayed by the fight / Betrayed by the cronies on the left and the right.

SON LITTLE – ” Aloha “

Posted: February 9, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , , ,
0

Image may contain: one or more people and text

There’s a palpable joy and freedom to these recordings that make it the most appealing Son Little album to date. The songs themselves benefit from a lack of spit and polish, as Aaron Livingston has always been a bluesman at heart. His compositions here are raw, unvarnished extrapolations of old country-blues and early rock and roll tropes, and they’re all the better for sounding a bhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpcl0_4cPnsit shaggy. And if Livingston has an old soul, he’s by no means stuck in the past, something evident from the SoundCloud-style naming conventions in some of these songs (“bbbaby,” “about her. again”).

“Letting go can be a scary prospect,” says Son Little. “But there’s beauty in it, too. Everything you leave behind opens up space for something new in your life.”

That was certainly the case with Little’s remarkable new album, ‘aloha.’ Written in only eight days and recorded at Paris’s iconic Studio Ferber, the entire project was an exercise in letting go, in ceding control, in surrendering to fate. While Little still plays nearly every instrument on the album himself, he put his songs in the hands of an outside producer for the first time here, collaborating with French studio wizard Renaud Letang (Feist, Manu Chao) to create his boldest, most self-assured statement yet.

“I’d always produced myself in the past,” explains Little, “but it’s easy to get caught up in an endless quest for perfection when you do that. Working with Renaud let me see my work from an outsider’s perspective, and that helped me get out of my own way.”

Son Little from the album ‘aloha’, available now

The GOTOBEDS – ” Debt Begins At 30 “

Posted: December 10, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
1

In May The Gotobeds – Cary, TFP, Eli and Gavin – return to the fray with their third full lengther, After 10 plus years in the underground, Sub Pop’s least-famous band made their best record yet with “Debt Begins At 30”, a fitting title for a record that isn’t afraid to sound its age or remind you of yours. Featuring contributions from a laundry list of fellow punk lifers, Debt Begins At 30 is a rollicking post-punk mixtape of sorts that still bears all the hallmarks of a Gotobeds record: thrashy guitars, loudmouthed politics, more guitars, and heaps of bitingly acerbic humor—this time, with even stronger songwriting and some studio polish that does nothing to dial down their inherent commitment to being the loudest band in the basement. And you’ve gotta give it up for a band with enough confidence to not only put the title track on the record twice, but let Victoria Ruiz of Downtown Boys, who takes vocal duties on the second go-round, rewrite the lyrics in Spanish when none of the band’s members actually speak the language.

Give me a minute or three to extol the virtues of The Gotobeds, the modern rock and roll sensation that has always sounded like they love to play. Never maligned by having the world’s weight on their backs,

ALEX G ( SANDY ) – ” Hope “

Posted: July 17, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , , ,
0

Image description

House of Sugar – (Sandy) Alex G’s ninth overall album and his third for Domino – is a highly meticulous, cohesive album: a statement of artistic purpose, showing off his ear for both persistent earworms and sonic adventurism.

Alex Giannascoli’s new album, House of Sugar, is populated by gamblers, chancers, and conmen — the same spirits that have haunted his work for a decade. Now that (Sandy) Alex G has outgrown his status as indie’s best kept secret, he’s grappling with those demons in public.  Alex — the 26-year-old singer, songwriter, bandleader, pitch-shift enthusiast, poet, session guitarist, book-lover, son, friend, brother, boyfriend, and aspiring pool shark better known as (Sandy) Alex G — is in New York for a few days to put some final touches on his new album a collection of haunted-feeling collection of off-kilter Americana.

“Hope” appears on (Sandy) Alex G’s new album ‘House of Sugar’ – out September 13th, 2019 on Domino Recordings.

PETAL – ” Better Than You “

Posted: May 15, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , , ,
0

Image may contain: 1 person

Petal is a singer-songwriter from Pennsylvania. Kiley Lotz, is a the singer and songwriter who records under the name Petal, released a strong under-the-radar debut album called Shame in 2015. Since then, she’s covered Fleetwood Mac and released a very impressive 7″.

Her music reminds me of Blake Babies sometimes. On this song, the guitars that are fuzzed out and grungy, but her voice is really melodic and it reminds me of Aimee Mann. She has this sob in the back of her throat that Aimee Mann had, but over a much grungier, fuzzier guitar base. She’s the guitar player in the band. This song is this really cool kind of fuzzed-out description of queer life right now.

Of the new album, Lotz says:

Magic Gone is the physical and sonic representation of me fighting for my right not only to survive but live all while coming to terms with encroaching adulthood. I was a closeted queer person struggling with chronic mental health disorders; terrified that if I tried to deal with these two major issues in my life I would lose everyone and everything I loved. Coming out was the beginning of a long and continuing process of self-actualization, of taking a hard look at myself and the problems I had and how I could fix them. This record is the result of being the most honest I have ever been in my life, and the constant battle of overcoming the thought that, “maybe if I were just someone else completely, everything would be better.” Magic Gone is about letting go of the anger induced by all the paranoia, anxiety, guilt and pain, and embracing the magic of your own endurance and hoping for the best.

Better Than You” by Petal from the upcoming album ‘Magic Gone’, Originally released June 15th, 2018 on Run For Cover Records

ANTHONY GREEN – ” Keep Your Mouth Shut “

Posted: July 24, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
0

Image may contain: text

Each Anthony Green album has been a invitation to read his most personal pages of his secrete journals. We get to experience every drop of the grief, joy, anguish, torment, self-doubt, destruction, hope, unification and brilliance this one man has to offer. His bare soul lives between the melodies. These albums are a measure of not only his own self-preservation and redemption but throwing the rest of us a life line;

Keep Your Mouth Shut by· Anthony Green from the album Would You Still Be In Love on Memory Music Records

OLDERMOST – ” Same To Me “

Posted: July 8, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
0

Image may contain: 4 people, people sitting and indoor

Same To Me is the second single Philadelphia’s Oldermost have shared ahead of the release of their new album How Could You Ever Be The Same? (out 13th July).

It follows the rollicking lead single The Danger of Belief, . This introspective new song was one of the first written for their new album, and is a gorgeous, hazy stand-out, highlighting the bands’ penchant for creating era-blending Americana-infused rock & roll with a more indie rock vibe in the vein of The War On Drugs (their Philly contemporaries!) or Wilco.

http://

Released by: AntiFragile Music

Older Entries