Posts Tagged ‘Philadelphia’

BEACH SLANG – ” Everything Matters But No One Is Listening “

Posted: May 22, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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If Beach Slang is James Alex fawning over The Replacements, Quiet Slang is him head-over-heels for The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt.” Their first two and a half years as a band (2014-2016) saw them release two great EPs and two great full-length albums, and that’s not counting their cool covers EPs where they pay tribute to the artists they very openly love. If they were to put out a “greatest hits,” it’d be one of the most rock-solid punk albums of our time, and frontman (and only remaining original member) James Alex has sort of done just that with his new solo album as Quiet Slang. Titled Everything Matters But No One Is Listening, it’s stripped down versions of ten of Beach Slang’s best songs, from their first EP to their latest album, re-arranged for piano, cello, and voice.

This is an utterly gorgeous record that moves, inspires, and invites mixtape inclusion at every turn, Alex’s punk rock transformed into ethereal hymns to love and comradeship. A true delight.”

“Musically, these new versions feel totally natural, with Slang’s melodies holding up to scrutiny and the simple chord patterns leaving room for piano and cello to decorate the songs.

Beach Slang can be a raging punk band, but they’ve always had a sweet side to their songs, and that comes through loud and clear (well, quiet and clear) on Everything Matters. The songs sound beautiful with these arrangements, and in their own way, they’re just as effective as the originals. Who knew that the headbanging punk of “Filthy Luck” could work as a minimal piano ballad, or that the fist-raising “The night is alive, it’s loud and I’m drunk!” shouts of “Noisy Heaven” could flow so gorgeously into a sea of cello? It’s a really special record, one that could easily appeal to longtime Beach Slang fans and newcomers alike, and we’re excited to be premiering a stream of the whole thing. Listen, along with the just-released video for “Future Mixtape For The Art Kids,” .

Considering that, there’s something almost cheeky about the title of his new project: Quiet Slang. As the name implies, Alex is embracing minimalism, smothering the fuzz in favor of a cello, a piano, and his voice. In October, Quiet Slang released We Were Babies & We Were Dirtbags, an EP comprised of two Beach Slang songs and two covers from The Replacements and Big Star. Consider it an introduction to what Alex calls “chamber pop for outsiders,” because it simply serves as prelude to Everything Matters But No One Is Listening, a collection of 10 Beach Slang covers that’s set to drop on May 18th.

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That’s when he turned to the project’s key influence: The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt. Merritt’s influence lent itself not only in his heartrending use of cello and piano via his work with the Fields, but also in one of his most famous lyrics. “Why do we keep shrieking/ When we mean soft things?” goes the final lines of “100,000 Fireflies.” “We should be whispering all the time.”

“That just always stuck with me,” Alex says, “how quiet can sometimes be more powerful.” He continues, “If Beach Slang is me fawning over The Replacements, Quiet Slang is me head-over-heels for Stephin Merritt.”

Quiet Slang

JAPANESE BREAKFAST – ” Tiny Desk Concert “

Posted: May 22, 2018 in MUSIC
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Japanese Breakfast, 'Soft Sounds From Another Planet'

As Japanese Breakfast, Michelle Zauner writes sparkling, opulent dream pop about grief and love (and, occasionally, robots). After releasing its debut album, Psychopomp last year, the band returned with this year’s stunning Soft Sounds From Another Planet. Where Psychopomp, was written in the immediate aftermath of the death of Zauner’s mother, zeroed in on the experience of Zauner’s grief, Soft Sounds widens her aperture, featuring paeans to her coping mechanisms, ruminations on crooked relationship dynamics and said sci-fi robot fantasy. At its Tiny Desk concert, the band swapped out Soft Sound’s gauzy, astral synths for acoustic guitar and piano, and was joined by members of Washington, D.C. string quartet Rogue Collective.

Zauner had wanted to do something special for the performance, and was tipped off by Landlady’s Adam Schatz that the Rogue Collective make pretty great Tiny Desk partners. The Collective practiced with Japanese Breakfast the day before the Tiny Desk, and was a featured guest later that night at the band’s D.C. show. The adaptation highlighted Zauner’s strength as a songwriter, providing an even more direct line into the raw emotion at the heart of her songs. The string swells during “Boyish” lent gravity to the song’s bittersweet desperation. During “Till Death,” her ode to marriage, Zauner sang — as she often does — in a way that strains her voice to the crackling, taut edge of heartbreak. It’s arresting on any stage, but particularly powerful in the stark midday light of NPR Music’s office. For its final song at the Tiny Desk, Japanese Breakfast performed “This House.” Gone was the Rogue Collective, and indeed much of the band — just Zauner and pianist Craig Hendrix remained. The song describes moments in love that are more fearful labor than bliss, the hazy space where commitment, confusion and longing intersect. Like much of Japanese Breakfast’s music, the performance shows Zauner looking unblinkingly at fear and pain, daring us to do the same.

Set List “Boyish” “Till Death” “This House”

Musicians Michelle Zauner; Deven Craige, Craig Hendrix; Peter Bradley; Alexa Cantalupo; Kaitlin Moreno; Natalie Spehar

JAPANESE BREAKFAST – ” Audiotree Live – EP “

Posted: May 20, 2018 in MUSIC
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A solo moniker for Philadelphia musician Michelle Zauner, Japanese Breakfast began as a month-long, song-a-day writing challenge during a break from her indie rock band Little Big League. The result was 2013’s June, an intimate set of melodic, electric guitar-accompanied lo-fi tunes issued on cassette by Ranch Records. She continued to write solo and with her band, with Japanese Breakfast’s self-released Where Is My Great Big Feeling? and the Seagreen Records cassette American Sound both following in the summer of 2014 before Little Big League’s Tropical Jinx arrived that October. With a varied palette including markedly bigger, synth-boosted sounds that bridged lo-fi and indie pop, Japanese Breakfast’s Yellow K Records debut, Psychopomp, was released in the spring of 2016.

The album dealt with the emotional fallout of her mother’s death, and was, in Zauner’s mind, the one and only Japanese Breakfast record. She soon changed her mind, signed with Dead Oceans (which re-released Psychopomp to a wider audience), and began work on another album with the help of producer Craig Hendrix, who had also helmed Little Big League’s debut album. The pair played the bulk of the instruments on the album and went for a much bigger sound, taking the project out of the bedroom and into a much bigger space. An expansive mix from indie pop alchemist Jorge Elbrecht made it sound even larger as Zauner delved into themes like grief, dead pop stars, outer space, and moving on. Soft Sounds from Another Planet was released by Dead Oceans in July of 2017

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WAXAHATCHEE – ” Early Recordings “

Posted: May 14, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Katie Crutchfield’s southern roots are undeniable. The name of her solo musical project Waxahatchee comes from a creek not far from her childhood home in Alabama and seems to represent both where she came from and where she’s going.

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ESPERS – ” Another Moon Song “

Posted: May 12, 2018 in MUSIC
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Something has been missing from the last few mini-millennia we’ve all been living through here in the two-thousand-teens, but it is a discreet thing; have you noticed at all? . If you can raise your thousand yard stare from the heart of the campfire embers, you might be roused by the sign that’s been posted on your cabin wall: our old favorite neo-troubadours Espers are manifesting once again!.

Re-birthed into an inextricably changed world after the interminable gap of nearly a decade, Espers mean to bring their kaliedoscopic folk vibe back with a vengeance – while not committing to a world tour , their three shows in the Northeast will doubtless be a potent presentation of their earthy-yet-expansive style! The classic sound of Espers is intact (Greg Weeks, Meg Baird, Brooke Sietinsons, Helena Espvall, Otto Hauser) and you know what that means; impeccable live performance of an almost timeless vintage.

Albums

  • Espers (2004)
  • The Weed Tree (2005)
  • II (2006)
  • III (2009)

The DISTRICTS – ” Love Will Tear Us Apart ” Joy Division Cover

Posted: May 11, 2018 in MUSIC
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Philadelphian indie quartet The Districts have shared a cover of Joy Division’s famous 1980 single, “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

The band’s cover is accompanied by a series of moving, flashing images of scientists performing ominous experiments. The Districts frontman Rob Grote adds a more animated take on Ian Curtis’ famously strange deadpan vocals while the band turns Joy Division’s jolting post-punk into a warm, indie-rock sound that Districts fans will recognize in an instant.

The Districts recently released a limited edition 7”, “Nighttime Girls” backed by b-side “Soft Auxiliary,” via their Bandcamp page. “Nighttime Girls” is a gritty garage-pop/rock tune, which the band says is “about the allure of escapism and a character’s general preoccupation with shallowness and neon light.”

After touring with Chicago’s Twin Peaks in support of The District’s 2017 LP, Popular Manipulations, they’ll be making a stop at various Festival’s, as well as some additional headlining shows and festivals across the U.K. and Europe.

The band’s latest album, Popular Manipulations resembles a sunset that’s far more than ordinary, the red sky at night before the darkness of the latest hours. It’s an album thats not letting anyone down.”

The Districts cover Joy Division’s classic “Love Will Tear Us Apart” along with moving images.

CONTROL TOP – ” Type A “

Posted: April 27, 2018 in MUSIC
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The post-punk trio Control Top is a tribute to persistence and evolving through doing. Amid periods of dormancy, stylistic forays and lineup changes, singer/bassist and founding member Ali Carter was determined to keep the project going after the release of the band’s demo tape. In 2017, she recruited drummer Alex Licktenhour (HIRS, Get Better Records) and guitarist Al Creedon (Bleeding Rainbow, I IM EYE MY). Licktenhour was searching for a new project to get involved in, while Creedon was rediscovering electric guitar after years of playing noise and electronic music. Together, they forged a clear identity, blending diverse tastes to create music for a time beyond despair and naïveté.

“Your false authority is dreadfully boring me,” howls Ali Carter, leader of the Philladelphian trio Control Top, her voice dripping with sneery contempt. “Type A” is a part of a proud punk tradition: songs that rip the shit out of acquaintances for being assholes. In this case, the asshole in particular is someone who feel the need to control every possible situation: “Static vision! Cold precision! Manic control! Hands off my soul!” The irony is that “Type A” is a ferociously controlled song. Control Top play fast and hard, and there’s wildness in Carter’s voice, so it’s almost like they’re a runaway train of a band. But there’s no chaos in the way they play. Instead, their sound is tight and crispy and impeccably constructed. It’s tension and release all at once.

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“Control Top play fast and hard, and there’s wildness in Carter’s voice, so it’s almost like they’re a runaway train of a band. But there’s no chaos in the way they play.

KISSISSIPPI – ” Sunset Blush “

Posted: April 8, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Philly indie folk act Kississipi have announced the release of their upcoming debut album, ‘Sunset Blush’.

The Philadelphia-based project have announced that their debut full-length will come out in just a little over two weeks. The album’s called Sunset Blush, The opening track starts off pillowy and warm, the synths making space for Zoe Reynolds’ voice the same way she’s trying to be more accommodating for the person she’s singing about. “Up to now I’ve given all I’ve got/ You could always keep it if you want/ I’ll make myself easier to love,” she sings. The song operates in a grey area — its final hook of “I didn’t think it would be you” suggests that maybe all that change was worth it, but some of the verses seem to lean towards the other end of the spectrum, giving up too much of your independence in order to be there for someone else. That’s true of the constant push-and-pull of an adult relationship, though, balancing autonomy with partnership.

It will be released in April next year via SideOneDummy Records

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Performed by Kississippi, Kyle Pulley.
Drums by Michael Tashjian.
Backup vocals on Cut Yr Teeth by Mary Allen.
Backup vocals on Easier to Love and Shamer by Kaylen Alan.
Backup vocals on Lash to Lash by Sofia Verbilla of Harmony Woods.
Guitar Feature on Cut Yr Teeth by Katie Capri of Fern Mayo.
Cello on Shamer by Luke Shefski.

HOP ALONG – ” Bark Your Head Off Dog “

Posted: March 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Written over the course of 2016 and 2017 and recorded in the summer of the latter year by Frances Quinlan (songwriter/vocalist/rhythm guitar), Tyler Long (bass), Joe Reinhart (guitar), and Mark Quinlan (drums), “Bark Your Head Off, Dog” addresses disappointment, particularly in man’s misuse of power, and relates accounts from the periphery — one’s attempts to retreat from the lengthening shadows of tyrants, both historical and everyday. It considers what it’s like to cast off longheld and misguided perceptions, yet without the assurance of knowing what new ones will replace them. Much like on Hop Along’s first and second records, Get Disowned and Painted Shut, Quinlan seeks in real time to work through these issues.

Throughout the album, one gets the sense that Quinlan is wandering in the thicket of a forest—a state of being that will feel familiar to longtime listeners—and on this outing, she hasn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs behind her. The album’s artwork, which Quinlan painted herself, invites the listener into that forest, as well. “There is a terror in getting lost,” she says, “the woods are at the same time beautiful and horrifying.” This curious wandering gives the album, both lyrically and musically, a heightened dimensionality.

Bark Your Head Off, Dog is, without question, Hop Along’s most dynamic and textured record yet. Self-produced and recorded at The Headroom in Philadelphia by Reinhart and Kyle Pulley, Bark Your Head Off, Dog features the familiar sounds that have always made the band allergic to genre: grunge, folk, punk, and power pop all appear, with inspiration from ELO to Elvis Costello to ‘70s girl group vocal arrangements. This time around, they’ve added strings, more intricate rhythms, lush harmonies (featuring Thin Lips’ Chrissy Tashjian), along with a momentary visit with a vocoder. In more than one place, Mark Quinlan drums like he’s at a disco with Built to Spill. 

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Most significantly, Bark Your Head Off, Dog shows the band at its strongest and most cohesive. Hop Along (which originally began as Quinlan’s solo project under the moniker Hop Along, Queen Ansleis) has never sounded so deliberate, so balanced. “So strange to be shaped by such strange men” is a line that repeats on more than one song on the album. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. That I just deferred to men throughout my life,” Quinlan says. “But by thinking you’re powerless, you’re really robbing yourself. I’m at a point in my life where I’m saying instead, ‘Well, what can I do?’”

releases April 6th, 2018

HOP ALONG – ” Bark Your Head Off, Dog “

Posted: March 16, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Philadelphia’s Hop Along will release their third studio album “Bark Your Head Off, Dog” on April 6th! Available on black vinyl, and a tri-color striped vinyl that is limited to 750 copies and sold exclusively on the Saddle Creek Store.  The formidable 9-song collection is the band’s strongest and most cohesive album to date. Crafted by Frances Quinlan (songwriter, lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist), Tyler Long (bass), Joe Reinhart (guitar), and Mark Quinlan (drums), the album considers what it’s like to cast off longheld and misguided perceptions, yet without the assurance of knowing what new ones will replace them. Quinlan has been meditating a lot on power.

In this particular moment in history, this thought begs a greater question: what do we do with power and the men who so freely brandish it? “So strange to be shaped by such strange men” is a line that repeats on more than one song on the album. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. That I just deferred to men throughout my life,” Quinlan says. “But by thinking you’re powerless, you’re really robbing yourself. I’m at a point in my life where I’m saying instead, ‘Well, what can I do?’

On album opener, “How Simple,” Quinlan wrangles with what it’s like to learn about yourself—which can get ugly. Quinlan explains, “People romanticize the idea of finding themselves, but when they do, at least in my experience, it can be really difficult. You see how you fail others and how others fail you.” Offering fans a classic dose of Hop Along’s searing songwriting and unabashed honesty. 

Self-produced and recorded at The Headroom in Philadelphia by Reinhart and Kyle Pulley,Bark Your Head Off, Dog features the familiar sounds that have always made the band allergic to genre: grunge, folk, punk, and power pop all appear, with inspiration from ELO to Elvis Costello to ‘70s girl group vocal arrangements.

This time around, they’ve added strings, more intricate rhythms, lush harmonies (featuring Thin Lips’ Chrissy Tashjian), along with a momentary visit with a vocoder. In more than one place, Mark Quinlan drums like he’s at a disco with Built to Spill. Bark Your Head Off, Dog is, without question, Hop Along’s most dynamic and textured record yet.

Throughout the album, one gets the sense that Quinlan is wandering in the thicket of a forest—a state of being that will feel familiar to longtime listeners—and on this outing, she hasn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs behind her. The album’s artwork, which Quinlan painted herself, invites the listener into that forest, as well. The record calls upon references that Quinlan has woven throughout all of the band’s albums: the wild presence of animals (rabbits, foxes, dogs, and blue jays all appear on this record) and historical touchstones (from a podcast on World War I to books by Karl Ove Knausgaard). Hop Along’s songs continue to reveal the curiosities nesting in Quinlan’s mind.

“If Philadelphia is the capital of indie rock, then Hop Along sits at the table with its top leaders.  […] Quinlan’s gripping vocals, an earworm of a chorus, and an unexpectedly dreamy violin outro. “How Simple” may leave you feeling a touch of whiplash, but the ride is undeniably fun.”
– Pitchfork,

Best New Track“ …with some extra touches like layered vocal tracks and a touching string outro, [“How Simple”] is a song that hits all the emotions that Quinlan can reach in one breath.”
– Esquire

“How Simple” is easily one of Hop Along’s poppiest moments, and as the two parties at the center of the song try to make sense of their confused situation, the answer comes in a glorious gang vocal you can’t help but sing along to: “Don’t worry, we will both find out, just not together.”
– NPR

New album “Bark Your Head Off, Dog” out April 6th!
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