Visionary director, photographer and producer, Robert Ascroft unveils a captivating musical odyssey akin to the cinematic allure of Wim Wenders’ “Until The End Of The World” and evoking the ethereal resonance found in 4AD’s This Mortal Coil.
His upcoming album Echo Still Remains is now set for a February 14th release date (moved from its original January 31st release date due to complications from the Los Angeles fires) on Hand Drawn Dracula. Drawing from a diverse array of talented friends, Ascroft curates a mesmerizing ensemble of vocal performances featuring luminaries such as Christopher Owens (Girls), Britta Phillips (Luna, Dean & Britta), Tess Parks, Ruth Radelet (Chromatics), Guy Blakeslee (The Entrance Band), Ora Cogan and Zumi Rosow (Black Lips).
Kid Congo Powers (The Cramps, Gun Club) is featured on his latest single “Devil Opens The Door,” out today.
On the track, Kid Congo Powers shares, “”Devil Opens The Door” is a swampy, gritty groove courtesy of my friend Robert Ascroft’s wicked songwriting and guitar playing. For my vocal I let loose with Devilish screams that would make even the underworld blush, while Roger Brogan’s primal drumbeat keeps your hips moving underneath. In the video directed by Robert, I channel my inner televangelist, preaching fire and brimstone about the dangers lurking on your TV screen. It’s loud, raw, and just naughty enough—exactly how rock ’n’ roll is meant to be.”
Check out the video on YouTube, and pre-save the album here.
The album takes on a further rich and dynamic sound with the recording contributions of Grammy Award winning audio engineer Ted Young (Rolling Stones, Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth), the mixing of Larry Crane (Elliott Smith, The Shins, She & Him), additional production by Manny Nieto (Kim Deal, The Breeders) and mastering by Josh Bonati (Mac DeMarco, Wild Nothing, Slowdive).
Echo Still Remains transcends traditional musical boundaries, beckoning listeners into a world crafted from Ascroft’s vivid imagination. Each track unfolds like a technicolor scene in a cinematic narrative, with each melody and lyric evoking a sense of profound introspection and wonder. Accompanied by stylized music videos in Ascroft’s distinct visual world, Echo Still Remains” emerges as a multifaceted work of art, inviting listeners to stir the soul and lose themselves in a world of sound and sensation.
Emerging as a prominent photographer in the 2000s, Ascroft forged his path through collaborations with luminaries of the Oscars, Grammys, Tonys, and Emmys from Cate Blanchett, Ryan Gosling, to The Killers, Mark Ronson and A$AP Rocky. With an innate ability to capture the essence of his subjects through his camera lens, he redefines photography, infusing it with depth, emotion, and narrative. A classically trained guitarist turned music producer, Ascroft weaves intricate melodies and evocative songwriting with cinematic narratives.
Jaco Jaco — the project of Philadelphia-based musician, visual artist, and former member of beloved indie-rock trio Sports,Jacob Theriot — announces his new album, Gremlin, out March 21st, and shares its lead single, “Woman.” The music Theriot makes as Jaco Jaco straddles genre: a little funk, a little psych, a little dreamy 70s AM rock. The follow up to Jaco Jaco’s 2024 debut Splat, Gremlin is a playful, elegant record that isn’t directly inspired by the movie Gremlins, but honors the movie’s use of kitsch and camp to explore a prevailing mood of irreverence and introspection. “This record came from a somewhat confused and lonely state of mind,” says Theriot, “It’s a journey through reflection and longing for something real—an inner dialogue giving me advice on navigating life when it feels like it’s working against you.”
Following last year’s Brazilian Jazz-funk-inspired “Favorite Kind of People,” “Woman” is anchored by slick, wet bass, bright guitars, and light distortion. The lyrics are abstract, but behind that abstraction, there’s something deeper: an exploration of the complexities and nuances of relationships. It is a meditation on honesty and acceptance, being real with yourself, and being real with your partner.
Recalling the song’s creation Theierot says “‘Woman’ was one of those rare, serendipitous type songs that just kinda happened. Everything fell into place pretty quick, lyrics and all. I played guitar along to some random breakbeat and out came the guitar riff(s). I was big into Black Messiah (D’Angelo) at the time, so that influence may have seeped in a bit, maybe? No comparison though, of course. I just wanna be like Pino Palladino when I grow up.”
Hailing from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Theriot began writing and recording music in grade school with his brother and childhood friend. The musical relationship eventually resulted in the band Sports. After three successful albums and international tours with Sports, Theriot then decided to venture out on his own, using all of the skills he learned as a producer and composer to breathe life into something new.
Gremlin, above all else, is a mature work from an artist who has been perfecting his craft for his entire life. It’s also a visual marvel that is aesthetically inspired by the early ‘90s sitcom “Dinosaurs,” Les Blank docs, and the world of alternative comic books. Theriot is thoroughly enthralled by the extremes of both “absurd cartoons and animatronic puppets,” lending even more of the prevailing feeling of playfulness throughout the artwork. Gremlin is a seductive record, beautiful and meticulously arranged. “It’s written in the third person,” Theriot says, “but really it’s in the first person. It’s a form of therapy. It’s like journaling.”
I don’t know what’s in the water in Belgium and France as of late, but both countries are churning out good doom and stoner metal bands seemingly every month. Belgium’s trio of Mind Wolf is a good example, and their new EP, Chalet, is a great way to be introduced to them.
The opening riff of “Love without a Home” crushes you right away, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they named the EP Chalet, start off the record with this track, and featured a pixelated image of a burning house on the cover. The song burns everything around it to the ground, bringing to mind some early Alice in Chains tracks.
The bass on “Like a Song” reminds me of some Royal Blood tunes as Mind Wolf speeds down the road and sings about how music can change the feel of anything around you. The short guitar solo on it is pretty slick, and the breakdown after is is pretty sick.
No, your ears aren’t deceiving you, the only lyrics of “Hanne Desmet” are, “She can do it. She can really, really, really ice skate.” That’s because it’s about Hanne Desmet – the Belgian short track skater who won a Bronze medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in the Women’s 1000-meter event. She was the first Belgian woman to win a medal in any Winter Olympics event. Mind Wolf are apparently big fans of her and I hope she cranks this on her earbuds during practice.
“Just Don’t” is a brutal takedown of perhaps an ex-lover or some jerk the band met who tried to show them up at something, but they quickly figured out it was all “just a show.” The EP ends with “Seduction,” which has some of the wickedest beats on the record and grungy guitars from end to end.
Go visit this Chalet, but be careful it doesn’t scorch you.
Before Electroclash and the wave of 00’s Dance-rock there was The Faint, emerging in the late 1990s in Omaha, Nebraska—a place known more for stoic practicality than synth-punk. In that unlikely setting of beige restraint, they pioneered a sound that combined the melodic essence of new wave, the raw edge of post-punk, and the robotic futurism of Detroit electro. Breaking free from indie rock’s humble comfort, they arrived armed with synths, dark eyeliner, and a raw, frenetic energy that dared audiences to actually feel something real, somethingprimal. The late ’90s and early 2000s indie scene was overdue for a shock, and The Faint delivered—not just as a band, but as an invitation to cast off coolness, to sweat, to move, and to live fully in the moment.
Onstage, the band turned every show into a raucous dance party. In a time of understated guitar rock, flannel shirts and torn blue jeans, their DIY foot-controlled lighting rig and all-black wardrobe was eyebrow raising. Behind unironic smoke machine clouds, keyboardist Jacob Thiele’s priest collar lent an eerie vibe while frontman Todd Fink delivered a fractured vision of a hyper-sexed cyber dystopia. The electro-punk beats of his brother Clark Baechle supplied the pulse and energy, and later, death metal guitarist Dapose infused a raw tension with his howling atonal guitar work. It was clear that this was more than a nostalgic nod to the 80’s. It was a spark from theunderground, foreshadowing an era of dance-oriented indie music that is still reverberating in the work of some of today’s most vital emerging artists.
The distinctive, synth-driven sound that brought The Faint to wide acclaim first surfaced on 1999’s Blank-Wave Arcade. The album was raw and daring, striking its own chord between early synth-pop pioneers (The Human League, New Order) and more recent heroes like Fugazi and Sonic Youth. The band’s blend of new wave, and DIY post-punk was trailblazing, and when the new millennium dawned that sound took hold of the zeitgeist, launching the band to new critical commercial peaks. 2001’s now classic Danse Macabre found itself scratching an itch that many indie rockers didn’t know they had. Wet From Birth followed in 2004 with its unusual electro-orchestral arrangements, cementing The Faint’s reputation as pioneers of the indie synth scene.
Today, 25 years removed from its release, The Faint are returning to announce a reissue of Blank-Wave Arcade, and Wet From Birth, which just celebrated its own 20th anniversary. Both reissues will arrive on the band’s longtime label home Saddle Creek on March 14th. This will be the first time that The Faint’s full catalog has been available on vinyl. To mark the announcement the band are sharing an unreleased Wet From Birth-era track entitled “Zealots,” and and accompanying remaster of Wet From Birth track “I Disappear.”
Fink says of “Zealots”:
“This song came from a dream Jacob had (our late keyboard player). In the dream, people were chanting, “You will know we are zealots by our guns,” . The lyrics are about the paradox between Christianity’s core message of love and the obsession with guns among some of its followers.”
In celebration of these reissues, The Faint will be embarking on extensive touring throughout 2025. Full details of those dates can be found below.
Tour Dates
Mar-21 – Santa Barbara, CA @ SoHo
Mar-22 – Las Vegas, NV @ Backstage Bar & Billiards
Mar-24 – Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole
Mar-25 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
Mar-27 – Tulsa, OK @ The Vanguard
Mar-28 – Kansas City, MO @ Warehouse on Broadway
Mar-29 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall
Mar-31 – Cincinnati, OH @ The Ballroom at The Taft
Iconic post-punk band Pink Turns Blue present their new single ‘Stay For The Night’, a celebration of the post-punk / goth rock / darkwave community and the second single from their new ‘Black Swan’ album, to be released on limited edition vinyl, CD and digitally via Orden Records.
Today made up of Mic Jogwer (vocals, guitar), Paul Richter (drums) and Luca Sammuri (bass), Pink Turns Blue – named after a Hüsker Dü song – emerged in 1985 in the first generation of gothic rock.
This new single follows the lead track ‘Black Swan (But I Know There Is More to Life)’, the album’s only ballad, offering ample fruit for thought. Delving into profound questions about existence, it reflects on life’s purpose and the beauty of the world.
‘Stay for the Night’ is meant for the dance floor. While we are an alternative rock band, founded in the post-punk era of the 80s, many of our fans wear black or dress as goths. And we often play in clubs that play darkwave music or goth rock at the after show party. The key message of the song is about unequal love, with one person wanting to leave the relationship or the group or going home instead of staying in the club with their (black-clad) friends and the other person asking to stay to sort things out, to give the relationship or the evening another chance,” explains Mic Jogwer.
“This is also a love song to the post-punk / goth rock community for being with all these years. Very often, we stay for the after-show party and immerse ourselves in the very open-minded and diverse dancing crowd. This is home. After the show, we can just close our eyes and float with the music and our friends… All we need is love. All we need is friends. Thank you so much for being with us. See you on the dance floor.”
After 2021’s widely acclaimed ‘Tainted’ album, the companion ‘Tainted Tour 2022’ EP and successful American and European tours with often-sold-out concerts, the Berliners’ new studio album will be followed by their ‘Black Swan’ tour, which sees them visit clubs through Germany in April.
This new collection is aptly named ‘Black Swan’, a term used for an unexpected event that, in retrospect, is rationalized as if one could have prepared for it.
Pink Turn Blue’s debut album‘If Two Worlds Kiss’ advanced the darkwave sub-genre while becoming a seminal post-punk album. Emerging from the fear and uncertainty of a divided Cold War Germany and inspired by Joy Division, The Sound and The Chameleons, they have since released a dozen full-length LPs and have become known for their trademark blend of post-punk, alternative rock and new wave.
Pink Turns Blue has achieved pretty much everything an indie band could wish for – Album of the Year (Byte FM), Best Album of 2021 (Post-Punk.com), singles reaching number 1 in the German Alternative Charts and Indie Disco Top 40, excellent reviews in worldwide music press, well attended and sold-out club concerts spanning from Los Angeles to Yerevan.
As of January 10, ‘Stay For The Night’ is available everywhere, including Apple Music, Spotify, and Bandcamp. February 28 brings the release of the full ‘Black Swan’ album – digitally on all streaming platforms with limited-edition vinyl and CD editions now available for pre-order. Tickets for 2025 concerts can already be ordered at https://pinkturnsblue.com/live-dates.
Gus Baldwin is one of the hardest working dudes in the Austin, Texas music scene. When he’s not cranking out solo material, he’s often working with The Black Angels, or Christian Bland and The Revelators, or collaborating with Danny Blackwell of Night Beats, or he’s teaming up with his pals in The Sketch to create The Sketch album, and, since he’s so busy, he and his pals recorded it in one day.
Opening with “Part I,” “Part II,” and “Part III,” the album is raucous right out of the gate with guitars that sound like a battleship groaning as it collides with an iceberg. The album moves back and forth between garage punk and trash rock. The fourth track, “Itch,” is a wild punk barn-burner. “Steady on It” lands somewhere between Frankie and The Witch Fingers and Ty Segall, but with extra-funky bass for good measure.
“Luxury Television” teems with Osees-like intensity and mania as Baldwin sings “I got a strange addiction. Your hate is my prescription.” You don’t get much more punk than that. “Slacker’s Prom” and “(She’s Gone) Arigato” continue the punk fun, and the latter even brings in a bit of 50s-ish doo-wop on the backing vocals.
“What the Freaks Say” could fit right in on any college radio playlist, and by the end, “Sympathy for Sunday,” they go all-in on heavy psych-rock.
It’s a wild ride, and over before you know it. It’s also a good launch for Baldwin and The Sketch. They’ll be ones to watch in 2025.
Lord Huron returns with “Who Laughs Last?,” a new single featuring Academy Award nominated actress Kristen Stewart and an accompanying music video directed by Tony Wilson and starring Stewart. The band also announces a 2025 world tour, taking place after the upcoming Strange Trails 10th Anniversary run “Who Laughs Last?” marks the multiplatinum Los Angeles band’s first original release in two years, and also serves as the debut recording by Kristen Stewart [Spencer, Love Lies Bleeding]. “Who Laughs Last?” represents just the first piece of a sonic, aesthetic, and sensory puzzle meant to be assembled with care.
“Who Laughs Last?” finds Lord Huron evolving at lightspeed. With Stewart in the driver’s seat, they traverse a lonely and lost highway soundtracked by a rumbling palm-muted bass riff and a high octane beat. The groove picks up as samples of garbled news broadcasts echo in waves over strings. While she grips the wheel, Stewart’s poetic spoken word chills. At one point, she confesses that staring at an oncoming storm “made me feel something I never felt before…something between awestruck and horrified…I kept my eyes on the long white lines.” Turning on a dime, the momentum picks up and frontman Ben Schneider’s vocals take hold around a hard-hitting hook, “You don’t remember what I said, but you’ll remember what I did.” Starring Stewart,the accompanying visual evokes a Lynchian film noir on screen.
About the single, Schneider commented “I didn’t know Kristen previously but I’d been a big fan since seeing her work with Olivier Assayas, which my wife introduced me to. I kept hearing her voice when I was writing this song and just thought “what the hell, I’ll reach out and see,” thinking it was a long shot. But she said she was interested so we met up and hit it off talking about books, movies and music. She immediately got what I was going for and had great ideas to boot. She’s just a great person and so creative and open. She added a lot to the video concept as well. It was the kind of collaboration you dream of, honestly.”
“I’ve always loved the band and immediately sparked to the manic drift of the song and to the mood,” says Stewart. “I love when a song is something you can kind of seep into and imagine. Ben is the nicest, I was so into reading his words… there’s nothing like making new friends through projects like these that just crop up. Lucky stuff.”
Lord Huron’s 2025 world tour is the band’s biggest North American headline tour to date. The trek commences on July 18th and visits legendary venues, including Madison Square Garden in New York City, Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, and the Moody Center in Austin before concluding at Kia Forum in Los Angeles. Select dates will feature support from artists including Waxahatchee, Feist, Kevin Morby and more.
Prior, Lord Huron embarks on the previously announced Strange Trails 10thAnniversary Tour, beginning this May in Reno, NV, and includes their annual Red Rocks Amphitheatre dates. This very special run commemorates the 10th anniversary of the release of their album, Strange Trails, which featured the multi-platinum single “The Night We Met.” Artist presale tickets for newly announced dates begin Tuesday, January 28th at 1PM local time. General on-sale launches on Friday, January 31st at 10am local time. A full list of dates can be found below.
There will be more news from Lord Huron in the coming months.
Lord Huron Tour Dates (new dates in bold) Sat. April 26 – Charleston, NC @ Highwater Festival Thu. May 22 – Reno, NV @ The Grand Theatre at Grand Sierra Resort – SOLD OUT * Fri. May 23 – Boise, ID @ Outlaw Field at the Idaho Botanical Garden – SOLD OUT * Sun. May 25 – Missoula, MT @ KettleHouse Amphitheater – SOLD OUT * Mon. May 26 – Missoula, MT @ KettleHouse Amphitheater – SOLD OUT * Wed. May 28 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre – SOLD OUT * Thu. May 29 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre – SOLD OUT * Sat. May 31 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Sandy Amphitheater – SOLD OUT * Sun. June 1 – Denver, CO @ Outside Festival Fri. July 18 – Indianapolis, IN @ Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park ^ Sat. July 19 – Chicago, IL @ Fairgrounds at Salt Shed ^ Sun. July 20 – Chicago, IL @ Fairgrounds at Salt Shed ^ Tue. July 22 – Minneapolis, MN @ Armory % Wed. July 23 @ Milwaukee, WI Miller High Life Theatre % Fri. July 25 – Nashville, TN @ The Pinnacle % Sat. July 26 – Nashville, TN @ The Pinnacle % Sun. July 27 – Atlanta, GA @ Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park % Tue. July 29 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion # Wed. July 30 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden # Fri. Aug. 1- Philadelphia, PA @ TD Pavillion at The Mann % Sun. Aug. 3 – Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway % Tue. Aug. 5 – Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek % Thu. Aug. 7 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE Outdoors) @ Fri. Aug. 8 – Columbus, OH @ KEMBA Live! Outdoor @ Sat. Aug. 9 – Rochester Hills, MI @ Meadow Brook Amphitheatre @ Thu. Sept. 4 – Oslo, NO @ Sentrum Scene Fri. Sept. 5 – Stockholm, SE @ Annexet Sat. Sept. 6 – Copenhagen, DK @ Poolen Mon. Sept. 8 – Berlin, DE @ Tempodrom Tue. Sept. 9 – Warsaw, PL @ Stodola Wed. Sept. 10 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer Thu. Sept. 11 – Zurich, CH @ Halle 622 Sat. Sept. 13 – Paris, FR @ L’Olympia Sun. Sept. 14 – Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg – Ronda Mon. Sept. 15 – Cologne, DE @ E-Werk Tue. Sept. 16 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique Thu. Sept. 18 – Bristol, UK @ Bristol Beacon Fri. Sept. 19 – London, UK @ Eventim Apollo Sat. Sept. 20 – Glasgow, UK @ O2 Academy Glasgow Sun. Sept. 21 – Manchester, UK @ O2 Apollo Manchester Wed. Oct. 15 – Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley ! Fri. Oct. 17 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center ! Sat. Oct. 18 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena ! Sun. Oct. 19 – Spokane, WA @ Spokane Pavilion ! Tue. Oct. 21 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union Event Center ! Thu. Oct. 23 – Omaha, NE @ Steelhouse Omaha ! Fri. Oct. 24 – St. Louis, MO @ Chaifetz Arena ! Sat. Oct. 15 – Independence, MO @ Cable Dahmer Arena ! Mon. Oct. 27 – Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory ! Wed. Oct. 29 – Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall ! Thu. Oct. 30 – Austin, TX @ Moody Center $ Sat. Nov. 1 – Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre $ Sun. Nov. 2 – Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum $
* with Molly Lewis ^ with Indigo De Souza % with Lee Fields # with Waxahatchee @ with S.G. Goodman ! with Kevin Morby $ with Feist
Today Guelph, Ontario hell-raisers Bonnie Trash share a new single and video, taken from their forthcoming new album, Mourning You, which is set for release on February 28th on Hand Drawn Dracula.
Mourning You finds Bonnie Trash, twins Emmalia & Sarafina Bortolon-Vettor, embracing a newfound sense of urgency. The album is, put bluntly, an album about death. Not death in the macabre, violent, or outrageous sense, but death as you or I might know it. A spectre lurking around the corner. Capricious, indiscriminate, and unexpected. Ordinary and all the more terrifying for it. Real. Fear in the eyes of a loved one about to die, and the fear in your eyes – staring back. This is sorrow not as a lingering bruise, but a gushing wound.
Following previous single, “Veil of Greed”, today they share the howling, urgent new track “Hellmouth“ – a song that evokes the gnarled claw of remorse gripping you in twilight’s terror. “I see you in my dreams every night,” Sarafina intones. Were it not for Emmalia’s blown-out Stratocaster, you might mistake those words for the chorus of an old doo-wop standard. The track launches off as a woozy siren song, before pummeling you with anthemic power chords for Sarafina’s self lacerating chorus: “Drag me to hell and back I go.”
“Every reminder of what once was, feels like a sharp sword” the band comment. “But, even in the darkest moments, there’s always a path towards love. Remembering the warmth of their smile, as you scrape your nails towards the surface…”
A lifelong project christened in 2017 with the release of Ezzelini’s Dead, the band’s debut EP which found the pair mining the Trevisan dialect and archaic Italian folklore of their heritage to grisly effect. Where their first full length, Malocchio (2022), shrouded Bonnie Trash’s nightmares in dusky dreamlike reverb, ‘Mourning You’ is vivid and immediate. Emboldened by the addition of Emma Howarth-Withers on bass and Dana Bellamy on drums – whose thunderous rhythms sharpened 2024’s My Love Remains the Same EP into a fine-edged blade – Mourning You is less a post-mortem fantasia than a sudden, swift dagger to the heart.
Sarafina, the band’s singer and lyricist, has described the album as being about “losing someone you love. It’s about the horrors of grief, haunting you every day.” Inspired, largely, by the passing of Nonna Maria – who provided interstitial narration across the band’s early work – it’s these intimate details which render the songs on Mourning You so devastating. The record explores love and grief as kindred spirits. Grief as love with nowhere to go. Love determined by the fear of its loss. A blood pact. A life for a life. The gnarled claw of remorse gripping you in twilight’s terror.
Though inspired by the shocking iconography of horror shows, slasher flicks, and psychological thrillers, Bonnie Trash turns cinematic tropes on their head. Rather than fashioning nightmares into reality, the band paints reality as a nightmare, rife with pain, suffering, and gothic theatre. Bonnie Trash understands that everyday atrocities haunt the periphery of our lives. A black cloud looming on the edge of our vision. Curses abound. You can’t ward them off. You’d best make an unholy racket.
Mourning You is out February 28, 2025 on Hand Drawn Dracula. In mourning, all is lost.
Bonnie Trash live dates: Feb 27 – Toronto, ON – Wavelength Winter Fest w/ The OBGMs, pHoenix Pagliacci, Cadence Weapon Mar 01 – Guelph, ON – ArtBar Mar 08 – Kitchener, ON – The Union
Slowdive‘s second album, Souvlaki (originally released in 1993), didn’t make much of a splash at first, but everyone pretty much now agrees that it was, and still is, a shoegaze classic.
“Alison” starts off the album in one of the best ways you can start a shoegaze record – with a song about a pretty girl and getting high. You’d think a song called “Machine Gun” would roll out the heavy walls of guitar feedback, but instead they up the hypnotic synths and let Rachel Goswell‘s morning mist vocals about succumbing to a flood come to the front.
It’s no secret that Goswell and Neil Halstead broke up not long before the band started the writing sessions for this album, and Halstead’s heartbreak is all over the album in his vocals, lyrics, and guitar work. He wrote “40 Days” while on a two-week break in Wales to come to terms with it. The song is a bit loose and jangly with Simon Scott‘s drums doing a little shuffle here and there.
“Sing” and “Here She Comes” were cowritten and produced by none other than Brian Eno. The band, and especially Halstead, wanted Eno to produce the whole record, but he declined. He contributes synths to “Sing,” a song about loneliness with Goswell’s vocals making you wonder if she was reconsidering the breakup. “Here She Comes” is about the hope of finding warmth in the arms of a lover, but knowing it could be a long winter before that happens.
“Souvlaki Space Station” is more psychedelia than shoegaze, and goes to show Slowdive can pull off either genre at will. Despite being one of their biggest hits among fans, bassist Nick Chaplin and guitarist ChristianSavill, didn’t think “When the Sun Hits” should be on the album. It hits all the “wall of sound” notes you want in a shoegaze track, and they’ve changed their mind on it since.
“Altogether” has Halstead watching Goswell from a distance, knowing things probably aren’t going much further between them, and the sad guitar work on it only emphasizes that belief. “Melon Yellow” continues this distancing (“So long. So long. It’s just a way to love you.”), with Halstead’s voice sounding far away and Scott’s drums almost mournful. The closing track, “Dagger,” is about, as Halstead put it, “a fucked-up relationship.” It, like many songs on the album, refer to Halstead watching Goswell as she sleeps, perhaps telling her what he couldn’t bring himself to say while she was awake and admitting “You know I am your dagger. You know I am your wound.”
It’s a heavy record, and not just from the sound. It’s gorgeous and sad, so, yeah, a shoegaze classic.
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory release “Trouble,” the final pre-release single from their forthcoming self-titled debut album Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, out February 7th via Jagjaguwar. On the heels of the “ripping” and “mesmerizing” (FLOOD) “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like),” “Trouble” is a cascading, almost euphoric track characteristic of the mystical mix of electronics and analog textures found throughout the album. “Trouble” features Van Etten’s unmistakable vocals alongside melancholic synths by Teeny Lieberson and driving and melodic bass lines by Devra Hoff.
Van Etten explains, “’Trouble’ is about the idea of having to coexist with people you love who have opposing views, and not being able to share deep parts of yourself and your narrative based on someone else’s beliefs. It’s about when there’s that big part of you that someone who loves you can’t know because it’s not something they want to hear or are willing to learn about or understand, and those painful realizations when you choose to love and respect someone else’s needs over your own to salvage a relationship.”
The video for “Trouble” was shot and directed by Susu Laroche during the album’s recording sessions at Eurythmics’ former London studio, The Church.
From the off, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is sonically different from Van Etten’s previous work. Writing and recording in total collaboration with her band – Jorge Balbi, Hoff, and Lieberson – for the first time, Van Etten finds the freedom that comes by letting go. It’s somewhat terrifying, but also liberating. The result of that liberation is an exhilarating new dimension of sound and songwriting. The themes are timeless, classic Sharon – life and living, love and being loved – but the sounds are new, wholly realized and sharp as glass.
Reflecting on this new artistic frame of mind, Van Etten muses, “Sometimes it’s exciting, sometimes it’s scary, sometimes you feel stuck. It’s like every day feels a little different – just being at peace with whatever you’re feeling and whoever you are and how you relate to people in that moment. If I can just keep a sense of openness while knowing that my feelings change every day, that is all I can do right now. That and try to be the best person I can be while letting other people be who they are and not taking it personally and just being.”
Next month, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory will play three special shows leading into release week, including her first ever hometown headline show at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey on February 4th. Following a UK and European tour, the band will pick back up for a month of shows across North America in April and May. A full list of dates can be found below, and tickets are available here.
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory Tour Dates Sat. Feb. 1 – Westerly, RI @ The United # Mon. Feb. 3 – Woodstock, NY @ Bearsville Theater # – SOLD OUT Tue. Feb. 4 – Asbury Park, NJ @ The Stone Pony – First Home State Headline Show # Fri. Feb. 28 – Oslo, NO @ Rockefeller * Sat. Mar. 1 – Stockholm, SE @ Fållan * Sun. Mar. 2 – Copenhagen, DK @ Vega * Tue. Mar. 4 – Berlin, DE @ Astra Kulturhaus * Thu. Mar. 6 – Paris, FR @ Le Trianon * Fri. Mar. 7 – Antwerp, BE @ De Roma * Sat. Mar. 8 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso * Mon. Mar. 10 – London, UK @ Royal Albert Hall * Tue. Mar. 11 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall * Wed. Mar. 12 – Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland Ballroom * Thu. Apr. 24 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern ^ Fri. Apr. 25 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl ^ Sat. Apr. 26 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel ^ Mon. Apr. 28 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club ^ Wed. Apr. 30 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer ^ Thu. May 1 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner ^ Fri. May 2 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel ^ Mon. May 5 – Detroit, MI @ Saint Andrew’s Hall ^ Tue. May 6 – Toronto, ON @ History ^ Thu. May 8 – Madison, WI @ The Sylvee ^ Fri. May 9 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed ^ Sat. May 10 – St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre ^ Mon. May 12 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre ^ Tue. May 13 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall ^ Thu. May 15 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile ^ Fri. May 16 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile ^ – SOLD OUT Sat. May 17 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre ^ Sun. May 18 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall ^ Wed. May 21 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern ^
# with She Keeps Bees * with special guest Nabihah Iqbal ^ with Love Spells
Keep your mind open.
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