News – Page 17 – 7th Level Music

Will Butler + Sister Squares frolic in the “Long Grass” with their debut single.

Will Butler + Sister Squares announce their new self-titled album out September 22nd on Merge and present its lead single/video, “Long Grass.” Sister Squares are Miles Francis, Julie Shore, Jenny Shore, and Sara Dobbs; what made them a musical unit was working with Grammy winner and Oscar nominee Will Butler. The resulting Will Butler + Sister Squares is a record with a warm, humane soul.

“I met Jenny—my wife!—in college, the year before I joined Arcade Fire,” says Will. “When I needed a band to tour Policy [Merge, 2015], I asked [Jenny’s sister] Julie to join because I trusted her musically. And I asked Sara, Jenny and Julie’s childhood friend, because I knew she was super talented,” says Will. “Antibalas (who I was drumming for) opened some Arcade Fire shows,” says Miles, who offered to play drums anytime Will needed. Will, Julie, Sara, and Miles jelled on tour and everyone worked on vocal arrangements. All along, Jenny contributed to recordings and general performance ideas, and she joined onstage in 2019.

“After Generations [Merge, 2020], I considered making a weird solo record. Me alone in the basement, etc., etc. Mostly I realized that what I wanted was the opposite,” says Will. He increasingly turned to the band for feedback on lyrics and song structures. He asked Miles if they’d produce the record.

“Will and I organically discovered our relationship as a production duo through making this album. We didn’t have to talk too much about things as they happened, because the music just flowed,” says Miles. “As a producer, working with Jenny, Julie, and Sara is the dream. They connect so innately. In one motion they can conjure a mood, or get at the root of a feeling.”

The band played a run of shows in August 2022, airing out studio ideas in live rooms. After coming home, the band regrouped at Figure 8 Studios in Brooklyn. The album, broadly, is equal parts from Figure 8, group experiments from Will’s basement, and sessions in Miles’ Synthia Studio.

“I had quit my band Arcade Fire very recently, after 20 years—maybe the most complex decision of my life. I had spent the preceding two years at home with my three children. I was 39 years old. I was waking up every morning and reading Emily Dickinson, until I had read every Emily Dickinson poem. I was listening to Morrissey, to Shostakovich, to the Spotify top 50. I had unformed questions with inchoate answers,” says Will. “But, honestly, I was feeling great about the record.”

The album projects widescreen emotional landscapes. Lead-off single “Long Grass” is like a Harry Styles song with 20 more years of life behind it. “I had read this novella called Jamila by a Soviet/Kyrgyz author named Chingiz Aitmatov from the ’50s,” says Will. “It’s about an artist looking back on his childhood in a small town in Kyrgyzstan in WWII. It’s about love, and becoming an artist, and melancholy, and vast landscapes with a single train track running through them. And it reminded me of young adulthood, of wandering moodily down the train tracks. Maybe the song is also about leaving behind the things that formed us, but trying to remember the world as it used to be?”

Will Butler + Sister Squares will tour in support of their new album this fall.

Watch the video for “Long Grass”

Pre-order Will Butler + Sister Squares

Will Butler + Sister Squares Tour Dates:

July 29-30 – Guelph, ON @ Hillside Festival

Sept. 23 – Brooklyn, NY @ Zone One

Oct. 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon

Oct. 4 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent

Oct. 6 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios

Oct. 7 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza

Oct. 8 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret

Oct. 17 – Boston, MA @ Deep Cuts

Oct. 18 – Montreal, QC @ Bar le Ritz

Oct. 19 – Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace

Oct. 20 – Detroit, MI @ Loving Touch

Oct. 21 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village

Oct. 22 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop

Nov. 7 – Riga, LV @ Palladium

Nov. 10 – Berlin, DE @ Privatclub

Nov. 12 – Aarhus, DK @ VoxHall

Nov. 14 – Rotterdam, NL @ Rotown

Nov. 15 – Paris, FR @ Café de la Danse

Nov. 16 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique

Nov. 17 – London, UK @ ICA

Nov. 18 – Dublin, IE @ Whelan’s

Nov. 30 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA

Dec. 1 – Washington, DC @ DC9

Dec. 2 – Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

George T sends us a “Love Letter” with his new single.

Edinburgh-based producer George T announces the release of his latest single, “Love Letter,” which is set to drop on Paradise Palms Records. The track, a beautiful mind buffet of left-field and dubby influences, marching hypnotic lead synth, pads, syncopation, and an enchanting, haunting vocal. “Love Letter” marks a new chapter in George T’s rich and ever blossoming career, showcasing his talent for crafting genre-bending tracks that blur the lines between electronic and experimental music. With its intricate production, mesmerizing melodies, and captivating rhythms, the single transports the listener to a warped pleasure planet. In addition to the original version of the track, George T also offers up a hypnotic dub version “Dub Letter.” Doused in acid and featuring an instrumental-only arrangement that emphasizes the song’s rhythmic and atmospheric qualities.

The single and accompanying dub is releasing digitally with Paradise Palms Records and being distributed globally through EPM on the 14th of July.

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[Thanks to Aaron at Paradise Palms Records.]

Teddy Thompson embraces classic country on his upcoming album.

Teddy Thompson has announced his eighth studio album, My Love Of Country, will be released August 18. True to its title, Thompson offers deeply personal and heartfelt readings of ten classic country songs by songwriters like Buck Owens, Hank Cochran, Eddy Arnold, Cindy Walker and even his own father, Richard Thompson. The collection’s first single “A Picture Of Me Without You” (listen/share here), a top ten hit for George Jones in 1972, and its accompanying video (watch/share here), directed by Ethan Covey, is out today

The simplicity and emotional intensity of classic country has been a big part of Thompson’s own sound as an artist, which The New York Times called “beautifully finessed” and NPR hailed as “the musical equivalent of an arrow to the heart.” Back in 2007, he explored his roots with Up Front and Down Low, an album of Nashville golden era favorites. And now he’s picked up the thread again.

“The goal was to do it in the way that country records I love – mostly from the ’60s – were made,” says Thompson. “Everything was mapped out, with charts and string parts in place. The musicians came in, and we cut the songs the way they did back then. We just blazed through them.”

The results are riveting. Thompson’s rich, honeyed voice responds beautifully to “A Picture Of Me Without You,” “Cryin’ Time,” and other songs of poetic despondence, throwing off both sparks and tears without ever seeming showy. You can hear how he’s listened deeply to the genre’s masters, absorbing the finer stylistic points of their influence. But rather than imitate, he does something more nuanced and profound. He makes the material his own, and makes the familiar sound new.

Helping Thompson realize his vision for My Love Of Country was multi-instrumentalist producer David Mansfield, whose resume includes touring with Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, scoring Oscar-nominated films like The Apostle and years of high-profile session work with the likes of Johnny Cash, Lucinda Williams and Dwight Yoakam. Mansfield and Thompson assembled a list of twenty titles, then whittled it down to ten. There are well-known standards, old and new, such as Hank Cochran & Harland Howard’s “I Fall To Pieces” (a signature hit for Patsy Cline in 1961), Randy Travis’s 1989 western swing-flavored chart-topper “Is It Still Over?” and Cindy Walker’s portrait of unrequited love, “You Don’t Know Me” (a hit for both Eddy Arnold and Ray Charles). Adding balance are lesser-known gems such as Dolly Parton’s 1968 album track “Love and Learn,” Don Everly’s “Oh, What A Feeling” and a finely-etched drinking song, “I’ll Regret It All In The Morning,” penned by Thompson’s father Richard Thompson. Recorded at Mansfield’s studio Hobo Sound in Hoboken, NJ, the album balances elegant, wrap-around arrangements with one-take energy. A star-studded group of harmony vocalists, including Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, Logan Ledger and Aoife O’Donovan, added final touches.

“These are all songs that I’ve known and loved for years. That’s the real key, having them in your body for a long time, decades really. I didn’t really have to think at all about how to sing them. I just honored the originals,” explains Thompson. “In my favorite eras of music, it was all about the song. Most of the classics that I know and love were recorded by dozens and dozens of people. And it was all in the service of the song. I grew up with that being the most important thing. For this record, that was a huge part of it. I just want people to hear these songs.”

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Kevin at Calabro Music Media.]

Current Affairs release new single, “Reactor,” ahead of debut album album due July 14, 2023.

Today Glasgow & Berlin-based band Current Affairs have shared another new single from their forthcoming debut album ‘Off the Tongue’, which is set for release on July 14th via Tough Love Records.

Written from within the world of crumbling services, broken bonds and wounded spirits, their debut album ‘Off the Tongue’ rolls off an ecstatic rage, filled with hope for you, them and everyone else.

Following the raw and biting love song, “No Fuss“, and the call to arms against the fragmentation of the left, “Right Time“ today they share third new track entitled “Reactor“.

“We wrote Reactor in that fizzy space of the will-you, won’t-you” explains front-woman Joan Sweeney. “It’s a love song more for the feeling than the person, if you’re really honest.” The track comes accompanied by a karaoke-style visual – online now.

“Reactor” video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Em3_bjVU4FY
‘Off the Tongue’ pre-order/pre-save links:https://linktr.ee/currentaffairsoffthetongue

To call Current Affairs a Glasgow band may initially seem misdirection. Though Joan Sweeney (ex-Rose McDowall’s Band, Aggi Doom, The Royal We) is a lifer, Sebastian Ymai (Comidillo Tapes, Pissy, Anxiety)came from Chile via York, recently relocating to Berlin in 2021, and new member Gemma Fleet (The Wharves, Order of the Toad, Dancer) alongside Andrew Milk (Shopping, Pink Pound) were persuaded to leave London for the ‘second city’ after touring through with previous bands. However, Glasgow is the heart and hub of the band’s music, musical life and the place where ‘Off the Tongue’ was solidified and produced.

Current Affairs’ presentline up formed in 2020, but the four have been circling each other for years, touring and playing with their previous bands within the close UK network of DIY music. Stalwarts of their respective scenes they finally began working together through the creation of the Spitehouse collective – a project designed to promote Queer and female-fronted music through events mainly held at Transmission Gallery and Glasgow Autonomous Space, putting on many local and international acts (Sneaks, Sacred Paws, Still House Plants and Comfort amongst others). When an opening for a new bassist arrived, Gemma was the obvious compliment, the slogan of Spitehouse being the language of Current Affairs – “Everyone’s welcome, but don’t get it twisted.”

Following on from 2019’s EP singles collection, ‘Object & Subject’, the wait for their debut full-length may belie the urgency of its sound, but as the album’s lead single emphasises, “it’s the right time!”

‘Off The Tongue’ is ten short, sharp bursts, written in pieces over a long time and distance, but fully formed in the instant of the recording room across just a few days by producer Ross McGowan at Chime Studio. Current Affairs’ song-writing process has always been collaborative. Songs are developed responsively, with each of the band’s members sending/bringing elements or hooks to each other, but practices being the place where the songs flesh out, structure and are fully realised. These new songs feel a little brighter than their previous offerings, yet still hold true to their propulsive and caterwauling sound. Still embryonic in the most exciting way that that can be. Current Affairs’ music straddles new-wave pop and gothic post-punk in the way that you should expect a Glasgow-Berlin band to do so: with grit and panache.

Flowing through the many different layers of relationships, moving from romance to friendship, community and socio-politics before coming back to a personal conversation at the end, Sweeney sees her songwriting on ‘Off the Tongue’ as a way to inhabit the different parts of herself and let them speak with unfettered clarity. “Current Affairs is where I can burn the world down one minute and then push for brighter things the next” she explains. “I wanted to show that there’s a place for all your feelings and personalities and that we should sometimes let the negative thought ring out honestly and then show it a little compassion, give it a purpose. It’s not always bad to rage, cry or be a Pollyanna.”

Current Affairs tour dates:
July 20th – Glasgow, Stereo
July 21st – Birkenhead, Future Yard
July 22nd – Sheffield, Delicious Clam/Clamlines
July 23rd – Cardiff, The Moon
July 24th – Nottingham, JT Soar
July 25th – Bristol, Crofter’s Rights
July 26th – London, The Lexington
July 27th – Oxford, Divine Schism
July 28th – Leeds, Wharf Chambers
July 29th – Newcastle, Lubber Fiend
July 30th – Edinburgh, The Wee Red Bar

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Kate at Stereo Sanctity.]

Mort Garson takes us to “Zoos of the World” from an upcoming release of some of his classical material.

A master of playful sonic whimsy, electronic pioneer Mort Garson spent a lifetime quietly pushing the boundaries of synthesis. The latest track to his name, “Zoos of The World,” is baroque and unpredictable. Centered on warm keyboard patches that come together to replicate the tonalities of a retro-futuristic orchestra, the springy cut was taken from a 1970 National Geographic special. The track follows “Moon Journey,”the soundtrack to the live broadcast of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, as first heard on CBS News. Nearly in tandem with the release date, July 20th will mark Garson’s 99th birthday, and the anniversary of the moon landing. Both taken from the forthcoming archival release Journey to the Moon and Beyond, out July 21 via Sacred Bones.

Journey to the Moon and Beyond advanced listening parties have been announced at the following locations for July 20, 2023:

Amoeba, San Francisco, US

Balades Sonores, Paris, FR

End Of An Ear, Austin, US

Family Store, Brighton, UK

Monorail, Glasgow, UK

Newbury Comics, Boston, US

Rough Trade, New York, US

Seasick Records, Birmingham, US

Stranger Than Paradise, London, UK

It’s hard not to use plant terminology when discussing the long, strange career –and subsequent renaissance– of Mort Garson. Like a seed buried deep and left to germinate for months (or in this instance, decades), his great body of work was scattered in record bins and tape closets and all but forgotten in pop culture. A classically trained musician and electronic researcher with a tireless work ethos that led to nearly over a thousand writing and arranging credits, Mort Garson’s music got buried in the topsoil of time.

When Sacred Bones first began their Mort Garson reissue project in 2019 with a proper reissue of Plantasia, the Garson-naissance began in earnest. Soon after, you could hear Mort Garson and his Moogs bubbling up on TV shows, documentaries, podcasts, hip-hop tracks, or anywhere else, the man a cultural phenomenon once more. (And naturally, just playing the vinyl reissue of Plantasia at home made every single plant in your house thrive.)
Like a perennial that returns with each new spring, the Mort Garson archives have brought to bear yet another awe-inspiring bloom. Journey to the Moon and Beyond finds even more new facets to the man’s sound. There’s the soundtrack to the 1974 blaxploitation film Black Eye (starring Fred Williamson), some previously unreleased and newly unearthed music for advertising. Just as regal is “Zoos of the World,” where Garson soundtracks the wild, preening, slumbering animals from a 1970 National Geographic special of the same name. The mind reels at just what project would have yielded a scintillating title like “Western Dragon,” but these three selections were found on tapes in the archive with no further information.

The crown jewel of the set is no doubt Garson’s soundtrack to the live broadcast of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, as first heard on CBS News. That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for Moogkind. But for decades, this audio was presumed lost, the only trace of it appearing to be from an old YouTube clip. Thankfully, diligent audio archivist Andy Zax came across a copy of the master tape while going through the massive Rod McKuen archive. So now we get to hear it in all its glory. Across six minutes, Garson conjures broad fantasias, whirring mooncraft sounds, zero-gravity squelches, and twinkling études. It showcases Mort’s many moods: sweet, exploratory, whimsical, a little bit corny, weaving it all together in a glorious whole.

Maybe at the time it scanned as crass and opportunistic for Garson to apply his keyboards to subjects like astrological signs, the occult, hippiedom, houseplants, or the moon landing. But more than most other electronic music pioneers of his ilk, Garson foresaw the integration of such electronics into our daily lives, how they would allow us to engage with the world –in small daily things, popular trends, and big historical events– with our tweets, posts, reaction videos, and the like. In that way, Garson lived such history and then added his own little spin on things.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Alex and Andi at Terrorbird Media.]

Tantrum Zentrum have simple advice for us all – “Don’t Be a Fascist.”

British / North American post-punk outfit Tantrum Zentrum present their new single ‘Don’t Be A Fascist‘, which is both well-timed and thematic given the crazy state of affairs in the world at the moment. The most unlikely love story ever – this song is about falling head over heals… with a fascist!

Based in London, Tantrum Zentrum’s members draw from the UK, Canada and the USA, music having brought them together like a magnet while living in London. Inspired by early 70s krautrock and late 70s New York no-wave bands, they deliver sonic dissonance and poppy hooks with great energy and style… imagine Killing Joke on happy pills.

This is the second of three songs recently recorded with renowned producer Steve Evans (Robert Plant, Siousxie Sioux, Goldfrapp). The earlier-released single ‘Der Leiermann’ is performed in German. And while the new single is performed in English, it contains a few Bosnian and corrupted German words for emphasis.

Made up of Vaat Dafuq (vocals, guitar), Sabine de Rousseau (guitar, vocals), Valhalla Schimmer (bass guitar) and Kur Putchnik (drums). Tantrum Zentrum makes hi-energy post punk interlaced with funk, goth and krautrock influences.

“‘Don’t Be A Fascist’ is a wartime love story. Inspired by the 80s Yugoslavian pop hit ‘Fa Fa Fašista’ (performed by Sarajevo’s Plavi Orkestar), the song tells a story as old as time itself: boy meets girl, and they fall in love. Then their country gets occupied by the German forces of the Third Reich, and the girl falls for the tall, handsome enemy soldier in a magnificent uniform. Needless to say, the boy is furious!” says Vaat Dafuq.

“We chose a bombastic title that may resonate with many even now. The release is accompanied by a humorous ‘explainer’-style video that shouldn’t be taken too seriously.”

With analogue synths, distortion and hypnotic drums played with Devo-esque precision, the band’s music shares elements of Krautrock pioneers Neu! and Faust, along with goth and no-wave experimentalists such as Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca and Theoretical Girls.

Tantrum Zentrum creates memorable live performances loaded with good energy, humour, excellent musicianship and in several languages. Always happy to play for their audience, they aim to get people moving, while fostering genuine connections and a sense of community. The band will be playing a number of club shows in the UK in support of this release.

“Don’t Be a Fascist” is available from fine music platforms, including Apple Music, Spotify and Bandcamp.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Shauna at Shameless Promotion.]

Holy Wave release “Bog Song” ahead of their new album due August 04, 2023.

Today, Austin, Texas band Holy Wave continue to push their historically psychedelic sound in an airy, ‘90s-indebted direction on the single “Bog Song”. The dream-poppy track is accompanied by a retro futuristic visual, put together by band member Ryan Fuson and animator Joshua Kirk Ryan. It follows psych-tinged single “Happier” which features Mint Field’s Estrella del Sol. Both songs taken from their upcoming new album Five of Cups, out August 4, 2023 on Suicide Squeeze Records. The band also have select upcoming US tour dates this summer.

On the track, Fuson offers: “Bog Song is a recounting of a trip I took with my dad in Idaho while he was guiding some elk hunters. I was both in awe of the landscape and wildlife while also feeling conflicted about our reasons for being in the mountains. I would sit in the dark, before the sun would come up, and look into the mountains and hills for elk. Sometimes seeing headlights cruising along some mountain road and I would wonder what their drivers intentions were and if the animals in those mountains ever watched headlights like those and wondered the same.”

In Tarot readings, the Five of Cups card signifies loss and grief. Depicting a cloaked figure with a bowed head looming over three spilled chalices while ignoring two remaining vessels, the Five of Cups is generally interpreted as representing a forlorn dwelling on the past and an inability to appreciate the positive things in the present. It was this card that struck a chord with vocalist/guitarist Ryan Fuson, member of the Austin TX subversive subterranean pop outfit Holy Wave, during a Tarot reading at the height of the pandemic. “I was really sure that the music world was finished and it seemed like internet aggression and, well, aggression in general was at an all-time high, so I was ready to stop playing music,” Fuson says. “It could be so easy to become jaded and pessimistic and I had to really decide what perspective I was going to take.”Rather than abandon music, Fuson and his compatriots chose to immerse themselves in their work. Fittingly, the Tarot card became the muse for Holy Wave’s sixth full-length album—Five of Cups.

Back at the beginning of their fifteen-year career, Holy Wave leaned into a tranquil realm of psychedelia, eschewing long-form jams and guitar heroics for a dreamy pop-oriented approach. As the band evolved, the early Sgt. Peppers-meets-the-Velvets sound yielded to more sophisticated melodies and tripped-out instrumentation, effectively steering their music away from sun-bleached nostalgia to a color-saturated dimension where sounds of the past, present, and future intermingled.

The childhood friends of Fuson, Joey Cook, Kyle Hager, and Julian Ruiz grew up in El Paso, where they cut their teeth in the local DIY scene. Hungry for more music and broader perspectives, the members made frequent road trips across the Southwest to catch touring bands who opted to skip West Texas markets. That wanderlust eventually prompted their relocation to Austin, but it also permeated in their adventurous songwriting and love for touring. No small surprise then that these aural explorers felt that a whole way of life was taken from them with the onset of the pandemic. But on Five of Cups, it sounds as if the physical limitations of quarantine life prompted Holy Wave to wander even deeper into new sonic territories.

Five of Cups opens with the title track, establishing the album’s auditory and thematic modus operandi from the get-go. Holy Wave’s lysergic textural palette is immediately apparent in the song’s woozy synth lead and anti-gravity guitar jangle, but the atypical chord progressions and vocal melody steers the music away from anodyne escapism into a pensive grappling between self-determination and defeatism. Holy Wave continue to ride the wistful and phantasmic train on “Bog Song,” where the members vacillate between swells of austere minor chords and layered electric orchestration. From there, the previously released digital single “Chaparral” plays with the band’s own sense of nostalgia, weaving references of their El Paso past into a tapestry of transcendental triumph.

Like so much classic album-oriented rock music, the real magic begins to unfold in the latter half of Five of Cups. On “The Darkest Timeline,” Holy Wave recruits their friends Lorena Quintanilla and Alberto Gonzalez from the Baja California, Mexico psych duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete to add additional ethereal layers to their intoxicating after-midnight grooves. “Nothing in the Dark” functions on a similar principle, using a steady propulsive drum pattern as the bedrock to tape-warbled synths, arpeggiated guitar chords, jet streams of fuzz, and serene vocals. Five of Cups’ ruminations on combating defeat and disappointment are directly confronted on album closer “Happier.” Once again straddling the melodic line between melancholy and breezy sophistication, Holy Wave examines the synthetic construct of happiness in our modern age and how so often the attainment of comfort lacks any true sense of joy. Yet this isn’t some nihilistic dirge. Rather, it translates as a buoyant reminder that the bandwidth of human experience inherently requires peaks and valleys, and that euphoria is often found in the search outside of the familiar.

As with the Tarot card from which it got its name, Five of Cups is an acknowledgement of hardship and a reminder to embrace the joys available to us. And like early ‘70s Pink Floyd, Holy Wave have figured out how to conjure a sense of profound exhilaration out of pathos, filtering dark elements through a lens and bending them into a kaleidoscope of light.

Suicide Squeeze is proud to present Holy Wave’s Five of Cups on CD/LP/DSP on August 4, 2023.

Live Dates
Aug 8 – Andy’s – Denton, TX
Aug 9 – Opolis – Norman, OK
Aug 11 – Back Alley Ballyhoo – Indianapolis, IN
Aug 12 – JJs Bohemia – Chattanooga, TN
Aug 13 – Upstairs at Avondale – Birmingham, AL
Aug 15 – Alabama Music Box – Mobile, AL
Aug 16 – Continental Club – Houston, TX
Aug 17 – Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Andi at Terrorbird Media.]

Kali Horse embrace warmer weather with “New Spring.”

“The ice melts and reveals the New Spring. The neon forest comes alive, a lush environment with a mind of its own. This bubbly psych-bop has hypnotic layers of acoustic and electric guitars that guide you deeper into the dense atmosphere. Instruments like bugs, scatter and shimmer panning through your sonic spectrum. Harp sparkles with whimsy while crystal singing bowls+tongue drum is the moss. Explorative and playful drums+auxiliary percussion have you skipping deeper into the mind-mending journey, while saxophone wails in the distance. Only a few words are understood, like overgrown ideologies that you run into the ground. The Few who walk here are explorers of the known and unknown.” – Kali Horse

YouTube || Streaming

Kali Horse (formerly Kaleidoscope Horse) is a psychedelic art-rock band from Toronto, ON. Their sound is theatrical and dreamy – bouncing between highly melodic and rhythmic, groovy sections. Driven both by strong song-writing and abstract sound-play, the band creates dimensions that are often jarring in comparison to one another, playing on tension and release. The contrast between Desiree Das Gupta’s (*Das Gupta all one last name) powerful alto, and Sam Maloney’s feathery vocal timbre creates a balance of light and heavy, backed by full band harmonies.

Kali Horse’s world is an immersive world that they invite the audience into. Kali Horse are storytellers, their music is about telling a story with sound rather than a specific genre. The band are queer, multi-instrumentalist performers whose friendship is the bond of the band.

Sam and Des have been best friends for a decade and have been making music together for 7 years under different names, they are a huge part of the Toronto music community. In the live band, Sam and Des are joined by Cassandra Ellen (Synth/ Vocals/Percussion), Cameron Kirk (bass) and Brandon Bak (drums).

Guest players on New Spring include Luna Li (Hannah Bussiere-Kim) on harp.

TOUR DATES 2023
June 30 – Maud’s Variety, Sarnia ON
July 01 – Cole’s Bar, Chicago IL
July 03 – Raccoon Motel, Davenport IW
July 14 – Entrepot 77, Montreal QC
July 21 – Pinball House, Guelph ON

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Mar Sellars!]

Skeleten celebrates “Territory Day” with his new single.

Sydney producer / vocalist Skeleten has unveiled “Territory Day”, the latest preview of his long-awaited debut full-length album, Under Utopia, coming July 28 via 2MR (NA) / Astral People Recordings (ROW).

A sprawling, vibe-heavy track that unfurls with truncated beats, gently insistent congas, hypnotic pleading and twinkling, Four Tet-esque chimes, Russell Fitzgibbon shares the origins of “Territory Day”: “I made the main idea one night back before I was even thinking of Skeleten as a real project. It was Territory Day, a holiday in the Northern Territory where everyone lets off fireworks for one night, and I was distinctly thousands of kms away from there. I always wanted to revisit the idea and after a few years and a pandemic I came back to it and felt it all new. Felt that expression of simple longing travelling through time and space, and thought about the power of all the desire and struggles crossing the globe like radio waves. I wanted to shout out to everyone trying at anything.”

Pieced together using fan-shot footage from a recent studio party, edited and processed through the album’s distinctive cover art, the visuals for ‘Territory Day’ tap into the ideals of connectivity and community at heart of Under Utopia – a homage to Skeleten’s ethos of finding transcendence in the everyday.

WATCH / SHARE “TERRITORY DAY” HERE
LISTEN / PLAYLIST HERE

On his thrilling and immersive debut album, Skeleten dares to imagine new ways of being that are not characterised by doom or despair – a challenge in an era defined more by feelings of futility, isolation and precarity. Across eleven tracks of free-flowing, transcendent, and often euphoric electronic music, he plays spiritual guide to a musical journey which is wonderfully in touch with realms beyond our own. Praising the power of comradery and community, dreaming of a future that is joyously boundless, Skeleten’s singular debut LP is, to borrow from one of his own lines, music for dancing “any way your body turns.”

Threading together previous singles “Walking On Your Name”, “Mirrored”, “No Drones In The Afterlife” and the recently released “Sharing The Fire”, Under Utopia is a record that prioritises immediate pleasures without forgoing intimacy, reaching outward with inviting choruses and mantra-like melodies. “I think the album came out of the experience of feeling this great desire to reconnect and dreaming of the power of community,” says the musician. Tied together by Fitzgibbon’s spacious, airy production, the record finds an antidote for the ever-pervasive gloom of contemporary life in the transformative power of love, community and an enduring, determined optimism that gestures toward a better and brighter future just over the horizon.

PRE-ORDER / PRE-SAVE UNDER UTOPIA HERE

Russell Fitzgibbon cut his teeth in Sydney’s tight-knit electronic community just as the city itself was forging its own identity. Debuting under his solo moniker in late 2020, Skeleten is Fitzgibbon’s most personal project to date, the sound of him unfiltered for the first time as both a vocalist and producer. At once intimate and otherworldly, at the core of the project lies a strong sense of uncomplicated openness and a deeply rhythmic, meditative ambience. Strikingly unplaceable, the result is a curious yet alluring amalgam of far-flung influences and emotive atmospheres that invites you to get repeatedly lost in. In between his debut and the long-awaited release of Under Utopia, Skeleten’s consistent output has seen him accrue rotation and early praise from Double J, XLR8R, NME, Dummy Magazine, BBC Radio 6 Music’s Recommends Spotlight Artist and receive the official remix treatment from the likes of Logic1000, Moktar, Jennifer Loveless and Rings Around Saturn.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Bailey at Another Side.]

Ratboys announce new album, “The Window,” with a new single – “It’s Alive!”

Chicago’s beloved Ratboys announce their fourth studio album, The Window, out August 25th via Topshelf Records with lead single/video “It’s Alive!” and a North American tour. After more than ten years and four studio albums, The Window finally captures Ratboys as they were always meant to be heard—expansive while still intimate, audacious while still tender—the sound of four friends operating as a single, cohesive unit. The album is sonically diverse, shifting wildly from track to track and flexing everything from fuzzy power pop choruses to warm country twang to mournful folk.

Lyrically, The Window sees Julia Steiner at her most personal, reflecting on love and grief with occasional humor and levity. She frequently leans on windows as a theme—the idea of an interrupted connection, the feeling of being near someone without being fully present—like on the pounding lead single, “It’s Alive!” Opening with Steiner’s honeyed vocals, “Outside my window the birds dance alone // I sit back and take it in // Like some sort of medicine,” it’s a bright and vivacious track that, in Steiner’s words, captures “the overarching feeling of the world spinning on beneath you while you’re stuck in one place.” In the video, directed by John TerEick, Ratboys play in an empty house, as its owners slowly start to move in.

Pre-order The Window from Ratboys & Topshelf Records

The Window marks a number of firsts for the band. Throughout the last few years, Sean Neumann (bass) and Marcus Nuccio (drums) became full-time members alongside Julia Steiner (vocals, guitar) and Dave Sagan (guitars), making The Window the first album Ratboys have written collaboratively from start to finish. It was also the first time they’d ever traveled outside their home base of Chicago to record an album, journeying to Seattle to work with producer Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie, Tegan and Sara, Foxing) for three weeks. The group worked on the arrangements together over the course of a year and half, so by the time the band showed up to the Hall of Justice Recording Studio in February 2022, The Window’s songs were well rehearsed and airtight. “We spent 2020 demoing the songs, and spent 2021 practicing them,” says Steiner. “We practiced twice a week for six months, exploring the songs and developing them. We’d send early versions to Chris and he’d give us notes. It went like that for weeks. It was such a dedicated and intentional process.”

But while The Window was nearly fully formed going into the studio, the band also left some space for experimentation with Walla. The sessions struck the perfect balance between preparation and experimentation. Walla’s studio sensibilities pushed Ratboys to stretch and expand their vision, adding unexpected elements and instruments like rototoms, talkboxes, and fiddles. Hunting for sonic inspiration, Walla and the band sometimes spent hours just listening to their favorite albums, spinning everything from Sloan to Brainiac to The Roches. “The language Chris uses when speaking about music comes from a very emotionally centered place, and that’s something that resonated with us. He would say things like, ‘This cymbal hurts my feelings,’ or ‘This song is like a cat,’” says Nuccio. “It was such a disarming thing,” adds Neumann. “We didn’t get bogged down in technical terms, and he never placed pressure on us in that way. With Chris steering the ship, we were free to go off on little creative expeditions and come up with parts and ideas we’d never imagined.”

As Paste lauds, “Ratboys has had all of our hearts for 10 years…[and] a live chemistry that remains unparalleled and irreplaceable.” This fall, they’ll bring their incredible live show across North America. A list of dates can be found below and tickets will be on sale this Friday, June 9th at 10am local at the band’s website.

Pre-order The Window

Watch the “Black Earth, WI” Video

Ratboys Tour Dates
Fri. Aug. 25 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern
Thu. Sep. 21 – Champaign-Urbana, IL @ Pygmalion Festival
Fri. Sep. 22 – Columbus, OH @ Rumba Cafe
Sat. Sep. 23 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd
Tue. Sep. 26 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
Wed. Sep. 27 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Thu. Sep. 28 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
Fri. Sep. 29 – Montreal, QC @ POP Montreal
Sat. Sep. 30 – Toronto, ON @ Monarch Tavern
Mon. Oct. 2 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Bottlerocket Social Hall
Tue. Oct. 3 – Cleveland, OH @ No Class
Wed. Oct. 4 – Ferndale, MI @ Magic Bag
Fri. Oct. 6 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
Sat. Oct. 7 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Back Room at Colectivo Coffee
Thu. Oct. 19 – Omaha, NE @ Reverb
Sat. Oct. 21 – Denver, CO @ Globe Hall
Sun. Oct. 22 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
Tue. Oct. 24 – Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s
Wed. Oct. 25 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Fri. Oct. 27 – San Francisco, CA @ Cafe du Nord
Sat. Oct. 28 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room Highland Park
Sun. Oct. 29 – San Diego, CA @ The Loft at UC San Diego
Mon. Oct. 30 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
Tue. Oct. 31 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
Thu. Nov. 2 – San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
Fri. Nov. 3 – Austin, TX @ Empire Control Room & Garage
Sat. Nov. 4 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]