We’ve mentioned the Forth Wanderers before for the bands next move ever since their debut album last year Today the Montclair, New Jersey band have announced that they have signed to Sub Pop, who will release the bands sophomore album (which is self-titled) on April 27th .
The band also shared the first single “Not For Me,” a track that expands on their previous rock palate and offering even more fuzz and production that only gives their sound an even bigger feeling than ever before. These guys are making the sorta of rock songs that resemble some of the best stuff released in the 90s. While there’s an immediacy to their sound, there’s also something about their songs that benefit from a few extra listens to let it all sink in and truly appreciate.
“Not For Me” the official video which features animation done by the band’s very own Benjamin Guterl.
Four kids from the Sydney & Melbourne. Bloods have been peddling their garage-punk-pop tunes since 2011, playing alongsidebands like Dum Dum Girls, Redd Kross, DZ Deathrays & many others. Reminiscent of the energetic pop of The Go Go’s, ‘Feelings’ is a song that explores the complications of love. The brand new single is the title track of the band’s forthcoming sophomore album , teaming up with producer Shane Stoneback (M.I.A/Sleigh Bells/Fucked Up) once again, ‘Feelings’ is a continuation of the emotional journey set out by the previously bubbly love song ‘Bug Eyes’ and delves into what happens when the butterflies start to wear off and you’re in the throes of a brand new relationship. Singer MC says of writing the track:
“I had some serious writer’s-block and it had been about a year since I’d written any music, but I really wanted another song for the album we were working on. I started strumming and the song literally poured out of me. It was written in about an hour on a Wednesday night, I sent it to the band on the Thursday and by the Sunday we were recording it.
It’s about the complexities of new love when you’re trying to move on from a previous heartbreak and in that, not trying to rely on the new person to make you happy. So the chorus ‘Learning to be happy, without you’ refers to finding happiness beyond the pain of loss and the promise of the new, and learning to be happy on your own.”
Along with the release of this new single, Bloods are excited to announce that they’ve inked a deal with Share ItMusic, a US-based record label. Headed up by Sub Pop Records’ Cayle Sharratt, Share It Music is operated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation, splitting proceeds between artists, their chosen charity, and the label. Bloods have chosen to support the Australian-based Indigenous Literacy Foundation through this campaign.
With the band’s sophomore album Feelings due for global release in May this year, it’s set to be another (hopefully not emotional) roller coaster for team Bloods.
Swami John Reis and Rick Froberg have been making noises together since high school. The mean swagger of Hot Snakes. Reis and Froberg are responsible for some of the most turbulent rock and roll of their, or any, generation.
Hot Snakes streamlined Drive Like Jehu’s complex compositions and emerged as bona fide downstroke warlords. They have made 3 studio albums of high-velocity, slash-your-face, piss-punk: 2000’s Automatic Midnight, 2002’s Suicide Invoice and 2004’s Audit in Progress. The band ceased activity in 2005 but reunited for a triumphant world tour in 2011, planting the seeds for what would further happen.
Now, after a 14-year hiatus from the studio, Hot Snakes have kicked down the door back into our lives with their new album, Jericho Sirens, due out March 16th from Sub Pop Records. The new album blasts out of the speakers with the furious “I Need a Doctor,” inspired by Froberg’s experience needing a doctor’s note in order to miss an important work function. “Yeah, I had to be quick on my feet,” says Rick. “Luckily a friend had a stack of stationary from Planned Parenthood and I used that to forge a note relieving me of my obligation”.
Throughout Jericho Sirens, Froberg commiserates with the frustration and torrential apathy that seems to be a fixture in our daily lives, while also reminding us that we have no fucking clue. “Songs like ‘Death Camp Fantasy’ and ‘Jericho Sirens’ are about that,” he says. “No matter where you look, there’re always people saying the world’s about to end. Musically, the album incorporates the most extreme fringes of the Hot Snakes sound (the vein-bulging, 78-second “Why Don’t It Sink In?” the manic, Asian Blues on speed of “Having Another?”), while staying true to longstanding influences such as the Wipers, Dead Moon, and Suicide on propulsive tracks such as “Six Wave Hold-Down,” one of the first songs written for the project during a Mummer Parade 2017 session in Philadelphia. Other moments like the choruses of “Jericho Sirens” and “Psychoactive” nod to Status Quo and AC/DC with Froberg admitting, “I still flip bird and ride my BMX on top of cop cars.”
Jericho Sirens was recorded in short bursts over the past year, mostly in San Diego and Philadelphia with longtime bassist Gar Wood,Jason Kourkounis and Mario Rubalcaba, both of whom drummed on prior HotSnakes releases but never on the same one. For Reis, reactivating his creative partnership with Froberg was one of the most rewarding aspects of the process: “Our perspectives are similar. Our tastes are similar. He is my family. And what more is there to say? My favorite part of making this record was hearing him find his voice and direction for this record. I came hard.”
In tandem with a full back catalog reissue series and the new album, Hot Snakes will return to the road in 2018 to incinerate the villages, and they’re already looking ahead to more music. Says Gar Wood, “There’re already 2 more records written and recorded. We wanted to come out with this one using the more mainstream sounding stuff to give people a chance to catch up.”
Jericho Sirens (Release Date: March 16th, 2018) Sub Pop Records, Catch the band LiveTuesday, January 30th Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
Loma is the new Texas based project between Shearwater vocalist Jonathan Meiburg, and Emily Cross and DanDuszynski of Cross Record. The three will make their mark with their self-titled debut album on February 16th 2018 via Sub Pop Records.
After their earlier debut single ‘Black Willow’, they now close off the year with another track from the album. If you ever wondered (though probably unlikely!) what a krautrock track might sound like accompanied by frogs and cicadas, then Loma come up with the answer on ‘Relay Runner’.
“‘Relay Runner’ was the happiest accident on the record,” says Meiburg. “We discovered it when we wired up a tremolo pedal the wrong way, and got this funny, stuttering loop – and then we built a whole song around that sound. The last thing we did in the mix was erase the loop, which had gone from inspiring the song to ruining it! But it made sense that what was left underneath was a song about how to escape from a sealed room”.
The project was contrived when the two bands went on tour together; the members of Loma convening at a house in Texas, creating their debut record while Emily and Dan’s marriage fell apart around them. Jonathan became the middle ground in an atmosphere he describes as, “both challenging and inspiring”. The isolated house where the band worked became, “the album’s muse”, and a fascinating record was born.
Musically, it is a record produced with great freedom, with the exception of Emily’s omnipresent vocal there were no particular roles on the album, the trio playing instruments as inspiration hit them, forming a record built from buried energy resonating from the players. Two brilliant singles, Black Willow and Relay Runner, have so far emerged from the self-titled release, enough evidence to suggest its release in February promises to be one of the most fascinating and exciting musical moments of 2018.
Loma, comprised of Jonathan Meiburg, best known as the singer of Shearwater, and Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski of Cross Record, will release their self-titled debut album on February 16th via Sub Pop.
Loma, comprised of Jonathan Meiburg, best known as the singer of Shearwater, and Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski of Cross Record, will release their self-titled debut album on February 16th via Sub Pop Records.
Moaning is a band defined by its duality. The abrasive post-punk trio comprised of LA DIY veterans, Sean Solomon, Pascal Stevenson, and Andrew MacKelvie, began nearly a decade after the three started playing music together. Their impassioned debut album comes born out of the member’s experiences with love and distress, creating a sound uniquely dark and sincere. Although the band is just breaking out of their infancy, Moaning’s sleek and cavernous tone emphasizes the turmoil of the era they were born into. One where the endless possibility for art and creation is met with the fear and doubt of an uncertain future.
We have a new song streaming today, called Jesse. And a new album coming out, called Vessel! New York-native songwriter Greta Kline has shared a bounty of her innermost thoughts and experiences via the massive number of songs she has released since 2011. Like many of her peers, Kline’s prolific output was initially born from the ease of bedroom recording and self-releasing offered by digital technology and the internet. But, as she’s grown as a writer and performer, devising more complex albums and playing to larger audiences, Kline has begun to make her mark on modern independent music. Her newest record, Vessel, is the 52nd release from Kline and the third studio album by her indie pop outfit Frankie Cosmos. On it, Kline explores all of the changes that have come in her life as a result of the music she has shared with the world, as well as the parts of her life that have remained irrevocable.
Frankie Cosmos has taken several different shapes since their first full-band album, 2014’s Zentropy, erupted in New York’s DIY music scene. For Vessel the band’s lineup comprises multi-instrumentalists David Maine, LaurenMartin, Luke Pyenson, and Kline. The album’s 18 tracks employ a range of instrumentations and recording methods not found on the band’s prior albums, while maintaining the succinctly sincere nature of Kline’s songwriting. The album’s opening track, “Caramelize,” serves as the thematic overture for Vessel, alluding to topics like dependency, growth, and love, which reemerge throughout the record. Although many of the scenarios and personalities written about on Vessel are familiar territory for Frankie Cosmos, Kline brings a freshly nuanced point of view, and a desire to constantly question the latent meaning of her experiences. Kline’s dissonant lyrics pair with the band’s driving, jangly grooves to create striking moments of musical chemistry.
Vessel’s 34-minute run time is exactly double the length of Frankie Cosmos’ breakout record, Zentropy, and it is an enormous leap forward. Typically, albums by artists at a similar stage in their careers are written with the weight of knowing that someone is on the other end listening. Yet, despite being fully aware of their ever-growing audience, Kline and band have written Vessel with a clarity not muddled by the fear of anyone’s expectations. Vessel’s unique sensibility, esoteric narratives, and reveling energy place it comfortably in Kline’s ongoing musical auto-biography.
A product of their hometown’s DIY scene, this Los Angeles trio have spent the past couple of years creating moody guitar music that draws on shoegaze, slacker-rock and post-punk. They’ve already whetted appetites for their upcoming debut album with a series of driving, dirge-like, deadpan tunes.
Los Angeles band Moaning recently toured with Sub Pop labelmates Metz, though they’re a new enough band that they’re likely being introduced to most listeners with the release of their upcoming debut album. And though they certainly have the energy and intensity to fit in comfortably alongside an aggressive, intense band like Metz, there’s a sexier, darker undercurrent of vintage post-punk in what they do that sets them apart. Throttling intensity plus sinister grooves? Sounds like Moaning has some serious potential.
Sam Beam’s return to veteran indie label Sub Pop after five years with major label Nonesuch seems significant. When Beam introduced himself as Iron & Wine on the lo-fi-recorded folk pluck-alongs of 2002’s The Creek Drank The Cradle, he proved that all you need to make a great song is a few good chords and a warmly melodic voice. Yet with albums like 2013’s Ghost On Ghost, Beam strayed far from that stripped-down approach by adding strings, ’70s soft-rock production and a lushness that sounded dramatically different, even if the songs at their core were just as warm and nourishing.
Beast Epic, Beam’s fourth for Sub Pop and sixth overall, is a happy midpoint between his starkest, simplest recordings and his more indulgent ones. Beam keeps to simpler arrangements on Beast Epic. The days of him simply finger-picking an acoustic guitar alone are well behind him, but a track like “Thomas County Law” only features slightly more instrumentation: light taps of percussion, a sparse bassline and gentle piano accompaniment. It’s the most intimate he’s sounded in years.
The album’s relative spaciousness is neither shocking nor unexpected. Beam wears this comfortable, lived-in approach well, delivering songs that maintain the prettiness and emotional impact of past records while offering the illusion of sitting in on a loose session between veteran session players. “Call It Dreaming” is just such an example, a big-hearted hymn about making the most of our short-term flesh-and-bone rentals. There’s a knowing sense of hurt, yet he delivers it with a smile.
Everything about Beast Epic feels true to Iron & Wine. Beam neither abandons his greater ambitions nor overindulges. He’s making a return trip to his roots, offering a gentle reminder of his early records’ simple beauty while allowing himself the freedom to build.
We were excited when Sub Pop Records signed Kyle Craft, and now we’re extremely pleased to have him & the band in for a #KeepOregonWell session for Kink.fm!This is one of the shows you won’t want to miss! Join us in the Studio (1210 SW 6th Ave downtown PDX .
Kyle Craft grew up in a tiny Louisiana town on the banks of the Mississippi, where he spent most of his time catching alligators and rattlesnakes instead of playing football or picking up the guitar. He’s not the born product of a musical family, and bands never came through town–it was only a chance trip to K-Mart that gave him his first album, a David Bowie hits compilation that helped inspire him eventually to channel his innate feral energy into songwriting and rock and roll.
That self-made talent drives every note of his previous album release Dolls of Highland, Craft’s exhilarating, fearless solo debut. “This album is the dark corner of a bar,” he says. “It’s that feeling at the end of the night when you’re confronted with ‘now what?’”
Craft knows the feeling well–Dolls began to take shape when everything he took for granted was suddenly over, including an eight-year relationship. “All of a sudden I was left with just me for the first time in my adult life,” he says. He decided to get himself and the music he’d been working on far away from the ghosts of his home in Shreveport, Louisiana, to make a new life for himself in Portland, Oregon, living under a friend’s pool table while he demoed new songs and started to tackle his own question about what came next.
Dolls of Highland crashes open with “Eye of a Hurricane,” a whirlwind of ragtime piano and Craft’s dynamic, enthralling vocals. He calls it a “jealous song,” stirred up by the memories of an ill-fated crush and a drama of “weird little connections, a spider web of what the fuck?”
The swinging, resonant “Lady of the Ark” is also tied up in that web, “a very incestuous song,” says Craft. “It’s about these messed up relationships, maybe involving me, maybe revolving around me.” Most of the characters and atmospheres on the album come from in and around Shreveport, where Craft briefly returned while recording the album for an intensely productive reckoning with his past. He stayed in a friend’s laundry room in the Highland neighbourhood, where he recorded the whole album in two months on a home studio rig. “I dedicated the album to Shreveport and called it Dolls of Highland for all the girls and ghosts in town who influenced it so strongly.”
Craft eventually returned to Portland where Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel of The Helio Sequence helped refine and mix the album to move it from its DIY beginnings to a more fully realized work. Craft played most of the instruments on the album, but the recorded songs transmit the power of his live performance. “It’s just letting go,” says Craft. “I think it’s just all about feeling it in your chest.”
And then there’s Craft’s unforgettable voice–”I’m fully aware that I have a very abrasive, very loud voice, but Bob Dylan is the one that taught me to embrace that,” says Craft. “I stray away from him from time to time, but always come back. I don’t want to come off as antique, but I also don’t want to be afraid of paying homage to the stuff I’ve always loved.” With those influences as inspiration, Craft’s talent and singular creativity move the conversation into new and unpredictable places.
Kyle Craft in the Skype Live Studio presented by Keep Oregon Well
“‘Cause what I want with you is none of your business,” Alicia Bognanno sings in a soft bedroom voice, layered above a repeating and driven guitar riff in the opening verse of “Kills to Be Resistant.”
This release off of Bully’s sophomore album, Losing, is not hard to identify with. The drums in this song lay down a foundation, perfectly mirroring Bognanno as she ebbs between gentle verses tip-toeing around the topic, and choruses riddled with gravel, grit and the pain that comes with accepting circumstances as they are. With just drums and bass to hold the words, Bognanno confesses, “When I’m alone, I stare at your picture,” a habit with which most of us are all too familiar. When the guitar riff comes back in for the bridge, it’s an embodiment of that cyclical, anxious thought process that’s attached to facing an end to or a shift in a relationship.
“It won’t stop / Do you feel nothing?” she asks in the chorus leading into an outro that matches the built-up frustration in the lyrics with dissonant chords and skillfully-played drum fills.
This is all anyone could have hoped for when anticipating new music from Bully. The sound is full, but nowhere near overly-complicated. Every necessary element is there, coming together to sound so effortless and raw. The only thing more to ask for is a ticket to a live performance.
The Fat Angel Sings 