Americana – 7th Level Music

Tim Heidecker announces new album due October 18th and releases its first single – “Well’s Running Dry.”

Tim Heidecker announces his new album, Slipping Away, out October 18th via Bloodshot Records, and releases its lead single/video “Well’s Running Dry.” After the breakthroughs of 2020’s wistfully lush Fear of Death, and 2022’s High School, whose tales of nostalgia were never quite as distant as they seemed, the multi-hyphenate comedian and songwriter Heidecker has reached a new peak with Slipping Away, his warmest and fullest record to date. While all of his albums are concept records to some degree, this one tells a story on a larger scale, offering an imagistic framework that allows for some of his brightest melodies, heaviest themes (the feeling of before the fall and after), and most direct and vulnerable lyrics.

While on his first combined comedy and music tour in 2022, and his first time performing his own material with a full band every night, Heidecker noticed a recurring response to his lyrics among his devoted fanbase. “Especially people my age, maybe a little younger,” he recalls, “They would come up to me and say, ‘That is how I feel. And it’s nice to know you feel that way, too.’” Where his celebrated work in film and television is often an act of complex, surrealist worldbuilding, the increasingly tender and expertly crafted singer-songwriter material Heidecker releases under his own name is built to encourage these person-to-person connections.

Working with The Very Good Band — Eliana Athayde on bass, vocals and additional production; Josh Adams on drums; Vic Berger on keys; and Connor “Catfish” Gallaher on guitar and pedal steel; alongside a contribution from Tim’s daughter Amelia — Heidecker wrote a series of songs that tap into universal anxieties, familiar settings, and, occasionally, a blast of apocalyptic unease. If he were to perform them solo acoustic, they might sound like folk songs, with their instantly hummable melodies, singalong choruses, and unexpected ability to zoom out far beyond their initial premises. Even the simple act of making music, as portrayed in the cleverly constructed writer’s block anthem “Well’s Running Dry,” can lead to an earnest reflection on insecurity and aging. “As soon as I wrote that, I worried that it’s not cool to talk about,” Heidecker says. “But a second later, I thought—well that’s challenging and exciting. Let’s push past that.”

Watch the Video for “Well’s Running Dry”

Slipping Away is crafted like a killer live set, building in emotional impact and intensity. Heidecker refers to the album as a true group project, a euphoric experience that helped turn his songs into living, breathing things. “My favorite records are the ones that were just recorded in a room with a band playing,” he says, citing classic-rock landmarks from Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and The Band. “And that’s what we did.” Across the album, Heidecker and Athayde often take the roles of duet partners, occasionally assuming a Gram-and-Emmylou dynamic with her quavering, empathetic harmony.

Heidecker describes working with the band on Slipping Away as a personal breakthrough in his career. “Having been doing quote-unquote ‘entertainment’ for 20 years now in different forms, it was a revitalizing experience to be out of my comfort zone a little bit. It was a learning opportunity.” After working with indie luminaries like Mac DeMarco, Weyes Blood, and Father John Misty, Heidecker is in a rarefied field of artists who refuse to grow complacent, and creative leaps like Slipping Away exemplify his devotion to the craft. Quoting Paul McCartney, Heidecker ascribes to the idea that “work begets inspiration” and each new project helps lead to the one just beyond it. “People ask me a lot about the difference between making music and comedy,” he says. “I finally got to a point where I was like, ‘Let’s stop thinking about these things as genres.’ It comes out in different formats but hopefully it all becomes one big thing that I’m making. I think it’s fairly united.”

This August and September, Tim Heidecker & The Very Good Band will support Waxahatchee with Snail Mail on a run of east coast dates, including a co-headlining show with Snail Mail at SummerStage in New York. A full list of shows can be found below, and tickets can be purchased here.

Pre-order Slipping Away

Slipping Away Tracklist
1. Well’s Running Dry
2. Trippin’ (Slippin’)
3. Like I Do
4. Dad Of The Year
5. Bottom of the 8th
6. Something Somewhere
7. Bows and Arrows
8. Hey, Would You Call My Mom For Me?
9. I Went Into Town
10. Bells Are Ringing

Tim Heidecker & The Very Good Band Tour Dates
Sun. Aug. 11 – Carnation, WA @ THING
Tue. Aug. 27 – New York, NY @ Central Park Summerstage ∞
Thu. Aug. 29 – South Deerfield, MA @ Tree House Summer Stage %
Fri. Aug. 30 – Portland, ME @ State Theater %
Sat. Aug. 31 – Accord, NY @ Arrowood Farms %
Sun. Sept. 1 – Asbury Park, NJ @ Stone Pony Summerstage %
Wed. Sept. 4 – Charlottesville, VA @ Ting Pavillion %
Thu. Sept. 5 – Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Music Festival
Fri. Sept. 6 – Vienna, VA @ Filene Center – Wolf Trap %
Sat. Sept 7 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore ^

∞ w/ Snail Mail & Fenne Lily
% w/ Waxahatchee & Snail Mail
^ w/ Waxahatchee & Gladie

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Bizhiki are “Unbound” with their new single.

Bizhiki — a made-in-Wisconsin collaboration between Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings, Joe Rainey Sr., and multi-instrumentalist S. Carey (Bon Iver) — shares the new single/video, “Unbound,” from their new album Unbound, out July 19th via Jagjaguwar. Following lead single “Gigawaabamin (Come Through)” featuring Mike Sullivan, the title track of the album is exemplary of Bizhiki’s unique cultural and musical intersection.

The song begins with an electronically modified hand drum accentuated by a plaintive piano chord, leading into a somber warning sung by Carey: “Be calm when she speaks/she speaks the truth, unbound.” The words were pulled by Carey from Rainey’s notebook, right in the studio. “I wrote those lines around a string of tornadoes and hurricanes — this wrath of mother nature that was hitting everybody,” Rainey says. “There was so much relief needed for people who were displaced, so many people out there hurting.” Carey’s warning is joined to an urgent topline sung by Bizhikiins Jennings, as arresting as it is beautiful.

The video for “Unbound” was directed by Finn Ryan and features dancer Indaanis Demain alongside the group. “Gichigami and Anishinaabeg have long been intertwined in a relationship rooted in reciprocity and respect, which continues to this day,” Ryan explains. “On her shores we continue to sing and make offerings, carrying out ancient responsibilities tied to culture and place. Be calm when she speaks, she speaks the truth out loud.”

Bizhiki has also announced their album release show at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, MN on Wednesday, July 24th, and will be joined by special guest Dosh. Tickets are on-sale now and are available here.

Watch the Video for “Unbound”

Unbound opens with a single, trembling chord that rises and descends before meeting a warm, beguiling voice, a voice singing in a tradition that’s been heard in Northern Wisconsin river country for millennia. The music that follows is a soulful dialogue between the ancient tradition of powwow singing and a contemporary musical palette. Unbound sees the powwow style entwined with synthesized voice modulation, and hand drumming accented with electronic samples and beats. The harmonies and resonances on this album are equal parts cultural and musical.

Many of the songs on this album go back to when the spirit of the Bizhiki was forged, nearly a decade ago, on the banks of Wisconsin’s Chippewa River at Eaux Claires festival in 2015, and came together over the course of years in between several projects from Bizhiki members, including two solo album releases. Both Joe Rainey’s Niineta and S. Carey’s Break Me Open were released in 2022, and the artists have been busy touring their projects. Bizhikiins Jennings has also been committed to a robust schedule of speaking and teaching engagements —he’s in the final stage of his pursuit of a PhD at UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies — in addition to his singing in powwow groups, both locally and internationally.

Bizhiki: Unbound is the recipient of an inaugural Wisconsin Special Projects Grant from Ruth Foundation for the Arts. The project is one of ten selected from a pool of over 80 applicants; selections were made by a national panel of jurors. Project collaborators will develop and tour a multidisciplinary music and video performance, engaging audiences throughout Wisconsin about contemporary Ojibwe culture at live shows in 2024 and 2025. The project will make great efforts to both support revitalization within Tribal communities and enhance understanding in non-Tribal communities.

Pre-order Unbound

Watch/Stream “Gigawaabamin (Come Through) (feat. Mike Sullivan)”

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Numero Group to release box set of Margo Guryan’s unreleased recordings.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Jonathan Rosner

Numero Group announce Margo Guryan’s Words and Music, a 3xLP box set compiling the work of the late singer and songwriter, out June 7th, and unveils the set’s first offering, the inquisitive and trippy “Moon Ride,” which is her first known recording (1956). Witness to revolutions in jazz and pop, Guryan earned her place in the songwriting pantheon and then some. That she was largely unknown for decades is not the stuff of crushed dreams, but a result of her own choices and priorities. From humble beginnings to the peaks of her 1968 baroque pop masterpiece Take a Picture and the collected Demosto the recent viral ubiquity of “Why Do I Cry,” Words and Music captures the entirety of Guryan’s career, including 16 previously unreleased recordings and a 32-page booklet telling her whole story. The box set is produced by her stepson Jonathan Rosner,friend and historian Geoffrey Weiss, and Numero Group’s Douglas Mcgowan,Rob Sevier,and Ken Shipley.All of the tracks have been remastered by Jessica Thompson.

Listen to “Moon Ride”

Guryan released just one album in her heyday: 1968’s Take A Picture. But, as she was disinterested in performing, touring, and promoting the work, the album went barely noticed at the time. Nevertheless, by the 1990s, the recordhad become a highly sought after cult favorite. Then, a new generation of listeners came to learn about her work when Take A Picture was reissued in 2000, followed shortly by the collected Demos, an incredible compilation of unearthed alternate takes and new-to-the-public songs that Margo supervised herself. Guryan’s life in the intervening years remained filled with music; she became a music teacher, kept writing songs, and cultivated friendships with a growing circle of acolytes.

Born in 1937 in New York City, Guryan began learning piano at age six before eventually enrolling at Boston University to study music. She spent much of her early career immersed in the jazz world, including working for Impulse! founder Creed Taylor, writing for jazz artists, and attending Lenox School of Jazz in Western Massachusetts, where she worked in an ensemble alongside fellow students Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. Her peers were, at that very moment, exploding the consciousness of jazz. Margo, a then-recent graduate in composition, had once been told that the highest mode of education is perception. So she mostly lingered and listened. It was at Lenox where Margo became friends with her teacher, Max Roach, who in 1961 even asked Margo to pen the liner notes for his first Impulse! album.

Her early tunes were recorded by bebop pioneer Dizzy Gillespie, bossa nova icon Astrud Gilberto, the famed South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba, and folk hero Harry Belafonte. Jazz singers Anita O’Day and Carmen McRae all released takes on her material, as did pop singer Claudine Longetand folk-rock icon Mama Cass Elliot. “Sunday Morning,” Margo’s biggest hit, was first popularized by soft-rockers Spanky & Our Gang, followed by recordings from torch singer Julie London and country royalty Glen Campbell and Bobbie Gentry. In 1967, Billboard called Margo “one of the most sought-after writing talents in the music business.”

Rosner, her stepson, says, “I was introduced to Margo as a very little boy. She became my step-mom when I was three to be exact. From the moment I stepped foot into the apartment on 16th street in NYC where my dad [David Rosner] and Margo lived, I saw Margo in action – writing songs, the songs that would become the “Demos” – and playing Bach – rinse and repeat. At first, this was on a Wurlitzer, and then on a Blüthner. I was there to watch “The Hum” and “Timothy Gone” take shape, and she’d play me (on record and on the pianos) songs she’d written earlier. I loved them, and they were part of my life as a young person. But this music was almost like a family secret never to see the light of day – until it finally did. It’s hard to express how wonderful it is – and was to Margo – to see people embrace these songs – sing and play these songs and celebrate her body of work.”

The story of Margo Guryan is one of a woman who dug deep from an early age and was never afraid to change. With her keen feel for tone, phrasings, tension, presence, and lyrics that cut, her name today is synonymous with sophisticated songcraft and inimitable 1960s cool.Her ingenuity and technique set her in the tradition of chamber-pop icons like Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach while the bittersweet candor in her depictions of womanhood suggest a middleground between Carole King’s pop-factory and singer-songwriter eras. But the understated rigor of Margo’s artistic voice is all her own.

There will also be a limited-edition variant of the box set that comes with a bonus 10″ of Margo’s Chopsticks Variations. This will be the first-ever vinyl pressing of that release.

Pre-order Words and Music

Words and Music Tracklist:
Side A
1. If I Lose (1956)
2. You Promised (1957)
3. The Wise Man Knows (1956)
4. The Morning Aer (1958)
5. Moon Ride (1956)
6. More Understanding Than a Man (1957)
7. More Understanding Than a Man (Instrumental) (1957)
8. There I Was (1957)

Side B
1. Kiss and Tell (1966)
2. Half-Way In Love (1966)
3. Goodbye July (1966)
4. Four Letter Words (1966)
5. Hurry on Home (1966)
6. I Ought to Stay Away From You (1966)
7. I Love (1967)
8. Under My Umbrella (1968)
9. I Don’t Intend to Spend Christmas Without You (1967)

Side C
1. Sunday Morning (1967)
2. Thoughts (1968)
3. Love Songs (1967)
4. Don’t Go Away (1967)
5. Take a Picture (1968)
6. Sun (1968)
7. What Can I Give You (1968)
8. Come to Me Slowly (1968)

Side D
1. The 8:17 Northbound Success Merry-Go-Round (1968)
2. Something’s Wrong with the Morning (1970)
3. Think of Rain (1967)
4. Can You Tell (1968)
5. Someone I Know (1968)
6. Love (1968)

Side E
1. Why Do I Cry (1968)
2. Spanky and Our Gang (1968)
3. Most of My Life (1971)
4. It’s Alright Now (1971)
5. Timothy Gone (1972)
6. The Hum (1974)
7. Please Believe Me (1974)
8. Yes I Am (1974)

Side F
1. I Think A lot About You (1972)
2. Iʼ’d Like to See the Bad Guys Win (1973)
3. Values (1974)
4. California Shake (1975)
5. Hold Me Dancin’ (1978)
6. Shine (1975)
7. Goodbye July (1966, recorded 2001)

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[Thanks to Yuri at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Alessandro “Asso” Stefana set to release his new self-titled album May 17th.

Alessandro Stefana (“Asso”), the Italian composer, musician, and producer who has contributed to album’s by PJ Harvey, Mike Patton, and Calexico, amongst others, releases his self-titled sophomore album on May 17 via Ipecac Recordings.

A preview of the nine-song collection arrives with today’s release of the song, “The House” (ipecac.lnk.to/asso).

Throughout the album, Asso performs an eclectic array of instruments (ukelin, Marxophone, organ, pedal steel and baritone guitars, and more) and in varying genres, borrowing from rootsy folk and primitive blues to soundtracks, psychedelia, desert ballads and ambient explorations. Asso merges the past and present courtesy of the Smithsonian Folkways archives, adding Appalachian folk icon Roscoe Holcomb‘s vocals to freshly re-imagined versions of the revered singer/banjo player’s songs.

“It is a powerful and moving testimony to a bygone era,” Asso says of his addition of Holcomb’s vocals. “I have always been fascinated by the idea of mixing folk, a music so intimately linked to the land, with something that goes beyond the boundaries of the genre.”

Asso’s debut solo release, Poste e Telegrafi (2013), was dubbed “one of the most striking works you’ll hear from a young composer all year” by Pitchfork, and AllMusic who deemed it “an impressive debut.”

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Dorthia Cottrell gets back to nature on “Harvester.”

Decorated with wind chimes and childhood nostalgia, Dorthia Cottrell’s new single “Harvester” longs for nature. She explains, “Where I’m from, and probably most rural places in the U.S., there is a strong Christian religious presence, whether you identify as being religious or not, and it was always my feeling that that has a lot to do with being surrounded and immersed in nature and every part of your life being at the mercy of it – even when it is merciless and brutal. When you’re surrounded by something so vast and beautiful, the presence of ‘god’ and whatever that might mean to anyone, is blatant and undeniable. To me, ‘god’ is nature and God is Mother Earth, so also to me, when I’m back home or anywhere like that I feel deeply the presence of my own idea of spirituality, the wonders of it and the feeling of being something small in the face of something totally out of your control.

That’s what ‘Harvester’ is about. Bad or good, in the patterns of nature you can see the patterns of all life, maybe even the patterns of the universe too, and that symmetry to me is god, and I’m grateful for it.”

Listen / Share / Playlist “Harvester”

Across both her solo work and as the vocalist of renowned doom band Windhand, Cottrell envisions her music as both a document of love and a reconciliation with death. On her new album, Death Folk Country, Cottrell wards off death through creation – the most distilled form of love. The spirit of love passed on through her words will be the ultimate reward for earthly suffering. Cottrell’s enigmatic presence guides listeners down a path of introspection – Death Folk Country‘s massive scope touches upon tales of love, loss, and so much more.

Cottrell was raised in rural King George, Virginia, a town with less than 5,000 inhabitants. Forests and tall-grass fields stretched before her. Beauty and boredom soared. That vague melancholy and memory of the American South is smudged all over Cottrell’s music. Cottrell grew up a goth, an outcast in a small town – a time and place she revisits throughout Death Folk Country.

“This album to me is about painting a picture of a place where my heart lives,” Cottrell explains. The title ‘Death Folk Country’ is partly me describing a genre that fits the sound – but it’s also meant to be taken as a Naming, a coronation of the world inside me. ‘Death Folk Country’ is the music and also the land where the music takes place, and the two have always been inextricable from each other.”

Cottrell’s voice, a soaring alto, fills the emptiest of canyons. Singing in echoing harmony with itself, her voice is a kind of prophecy, bringing home to the present thoughts and realizations from the future, even as Cottrell buries herself in remembrance of the past. Death Folk Country takes these nostalgic ideas of “home” and confronts them with their own imperfections and darkness.

The album sees its release April 21 via Relapse Records, her first for the label and follow up to her highly acclaimed, 2015 S/T solo debut. All songs on Death Folk Country were written / played by Dorthia Cottrell and recorded / produced by Jon K. and Cottrell at SANS Studios in Richmond, Virginia.

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Windhand’s Dorthia Cottrell to release solo album, “Death Folk Country,” April 21, 2023, but you can experience “Family Annihilator” now.

Dorthia Cottrell envisions her music as both a document of love and a reconciliation with death. On her new album, Death Folk Country, Cottrell wards off death through creation – the most distilled form of love. The spirit of love passed on through her words will be the ultimate reward for earthly suffering. Cottrell’s enigmatic presence guides listeners down a path of introspection – Death Folk Country‘s massive scope touches upon tales of love, loss, and so much more.

“This album to me is about painting a picture of a place where my heart lives,” Cottrell explains. The title Death Folk Country is partly me describing a genre that fits the sound – but it’s also meant to be taken as a Naming, a coronation of the world inside me. Death Folk Country is the music and also the land where the music takes place, and the two have always been inextricable from each other.”

The album’s lead single “Family Annihilator” directly speaks to the unease and tension of Cottrell’s surroundings. “Porch lights keep the demons at bay,” she sings over crashing cymbals and a field recording of birds. “I had never played it before, I kind of brought it out of the attic,” Cottrell says of the song. Despite being over a decade old, “Family Annihilator” spoke to the moment she was in. With the threat of another four years of conservative offices in power, Cottrell thought of family back in the South who would be voting, and remembered something her grandfather, a farmer, had told her years ago: “If a crop is diseased, you have to burn the whole crop.” “‘Family Annihilator’ is a result of me wondering if the whole field must burn today, to save the flowers of tomorrow,” Cottrell says.

Listen / Watch / Playlist “Family Annihilator”

Elsewhere, the sounds of Cottrell’s childhood can be heard all over the album, and no more so than on “Harvester” and “Black Canyon” – tracks decorated with chimes and monk’s bells; what Cottrell would have heard when sat out on her front porch in King George. These are sounds of nature longing. These are sounds Cottrell associates with both her upbringing and also the world of Death Folk Country.

Cottrell’s voice, a quavering alto, fills the emptiest of canyons. Singing in echoing harmony with itself, her voice is a kind of prophecy, bringing home to the present thoughts and realizations from the future, even as Cottrell buries herself in remembrance of the past.

“I grew up deep in a Virginia Pine forest in a house built entirely by my grandpa,” Cottrell recalls. “The only type of door I knew was made of plywood and had a hook instead of a knob. We were excited to have our washing machine and dryer on the porch so we didn’t have to hang clothes up to dry in the winter. Our heat came from burning wood. If you didn’t cut the wood you didn’t get warm. If you didn’t make a specific effort for something, you went without it. And I loved it. I still love it. The smell, the air, the way it looks, the way it sounds. The way it doesn’t sound. The feeling.”

Death Folk Country takes these nostalgic ideas of “home” and confronts them with their own imperfections and darkness.

“There are things I don’t love about it too. Dark things. Misguided ideas. Fear of things not understood. An altogether monstrous and violent evil that seeps unsuspecting and aloof (seemingly) into even the most (seemingly) innocent conversation. As I grow older, the things I love and hate about it only become more and more vivid and I often think about how to keep the two worlds apart–how to separate the divine from the evil and if it’s even possible.”

Death Folk Country sees its release April 21 via Relapse Records, her first for the label and follow up to her highly acclaimed, 2015 S/T solo debut. All songs on Death Folk Country were written / played by Dorthia Cottrell and recorded / produced by Jon K. and Cottrell at SANS Studios in Richmond, Virginia.

Pre-Order / Pre-Save Death Folk Country Here

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[Thanks to Bailey at Another Side.]

Eddie Chacon releases title track from upcoming album – “Sundown.”

Today, Eddie Chacon presents his new single/video, “Sundown,” from his forthcoming record Sundown, out March 31st via Stones Throw. The “Sundown” video, which documents the process of recording the album, was shot at 64 Sound Studios in Northeast LA by Brandon Bloom. Appearing in the video is John Carroll Kirby — who produced, co-wrote, and played keys on Sundown — as well as Logan Hone (flute and saxophones), Elizabeth Lea (trombone), Will Logan (drums), and David Leach (percussion). Following a string of previously shared singles — “Holy Hell,” “Step By Step” and “Comes And Goes” — “Sundown” is a song about “being humbled by how little time we have on this earth.” Only now, Chacon says, at his age (59) does he have the life experience and quiet confidence to sing about such a subject.

WATCH EDDIE CHACON’S “SUNDOWN” VIDEO

As one half of the duo Charles & Eddie, whose hit single “Would I Lie To You” was a chart-topper heard around the world, Eddie was a bona fide pop star. He deserted the music business following the band’s stratospheric success. Meeting John Carroll Kirby in 2019 was the catalyst for Eddie’s return to music, and together they made 2020’s Pleasure, Joy and Happiness. The album was intended as a swan song, but eddie felt reinvigorated by its word-of-mouth success. He says, “Sundown is the follow-up I never thought I would get to make.”

This month, Eddie Chacon heads out to Australia and New Zealand, followed by a headline show with John Carroll Kirby at Los Angeles’ Lodge Room and a series of shows in the UK and Europe. Full dates are listed below.

PRE-ORDER SUNDOWN

WATCH THE “HOLY HELL” VIDEO
WATCH THE “COMES AND GOES” VIDEO
WATCH THE “STEP BY STEP” VIDEO

EDDIE CHACON TOUR DATES
Sat. Mar. 18 – Auckland, NZ @ Beacon Festival *
Sat. Mar. 25 – Melbourne, AU @ Collingwood Yards *
Wed. Mar. 29 – Melbourne, AU @ Music Room (DJ Set)
Fri. Mar. 31 – Melbourne, AU @ The Night Cat (LP Launch) *
Sat. Apr. 1 – Sydney, AU @ The Ace Hotel *
Tue. Apr. 4 – Sydney, AU @ Phoenix Park *
Fri. Apr. 7 – Bali, ID @ Potato Head Beach Club *
Wed. Apr. 19 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room *
Tue. May 16 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
Wed. May 17 – London, UK @ KOKO
Thu. May 18 – Manchester, UK @ Band on the Wall
Sun. May 21 – Berlin, DE @ Frannz
Thu. May 25 – Dublin, IE @ Sugar Club
Sun. May 28 – London, UK @ Gala Festival *

* w/ John Carroll Kirby

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[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Black Belt Eagle Scout takes us into new “Spaces” with her latest single.

Black Belt Eagle Scout, the project of Swinomish musician Katherine Paul, presents a new single/video, “Spaces,” and announces a spring North American tour leading into the release of The Land, The Water, The Sky, out next Friday, February 10th via Saddle Creek. Rolling Stone hailed it as “fiery, brilliant,” stating, “with each song, you can feel the weight of an entire community behind her.”

“Spaces” is a song about healing that surges with electric guitar, violin, Paul’s hushed vocals, and features contributions from her parents. Her father is also in the very special accompanying video, directed by Evan Benally Atwood and Morningstar Angeline, and originally conceptualized by Quinn Christopherson.

“I wrote ‘Spaces’ for an audience as a way to sing melodies of healing and care for them,” says Paul. “Since starting Black Belt Eagle Scout, I have moved through many spaces, playing shows for crowds of people. I can’t always connect one on one with everyone and so this song is an attempt to bring my feelings of appreciation I have for everyone who supports my music to life. My parents lend their voices in the chorus melody, my dad with his strong pow wow voice and my mom with her wholesome tone that sounds so similar to mine you can barely notice the distinction between me and her. I want this song to be an offering for those who need to grasp onto something and feel because through feeling and being together, there is healing.”

Paul continues, “It was incredible to incorporate my family trade of carving within the music video. My dad has been carving Coast Salish style art for over 50 years. I grew up around it and learned how to carve and paint when I was a teenager. This video shows a creation process and the kind of intimacy we give to our art. In the video, we carve an eagle out of yellow cedar. The eagle is representative of strength and guidance.” To learn more about K Paul’s Carvings, click here.

Watch Black Belt Eagle Scout’s Video for “Spaces”

In Paul’s words, “I created The Land, The Water, The Sky to record and reflect upon my journey back to my homelands and the challenges and the happiness it brought.” Paul found herself far from her ancestral lands during a time of collective trauma, when the world was wounded and in need of healing. In 2020 she made the journey from Portland back to the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. There is a throughline of story in every song on The Land, The Water, The Sky, a remembrance of knowledge and teachings, a gratitude of wisdom passed down and carried. There are moments of frustration over a world wrought with colonial violence and pain, and the presence of joy, a fierce blissfulness that comes with walking the trails along the river, feeling the sand and the stones beneath her feet. It is the pride and the certainty that comes with knowing her ancestors walked along the same land, dipped their hands into the water, and ran their fingertips along the same bark of cedar trees. Even in its most melancholy moments it is never despairing. That is the beauty of returning home.

This month, Black Belt Eagle Scout will play select shows across the Pacific Northwest. Following, she’ll tour across Europe for the first time before returning stateside for a month of shows. Tickets for newly-announced dates will be available via pre-sale February 6th – 10th, with general on sale running congruent to album release day. A portion of presale ticket proceeds will go to Potlatch Fund, a Native-led nonprofit organization formed in 2002 that provides grants and leadership development to Tribal Nations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. A full list of dates can be found below.

Watch the “My Blood Runs Through This Land” Video

Watch the “Don’t Give Up” Visualizer

Watch the “Nobody” Video

Pre-order The Land, The Water, The Sky

Black Belt Eagle Scout Tour Dates:
(new dates in bold)
Wed. Feb. 15 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
Fri. Feb. 24 – Manchester, UK @ Night & Day
Sat. Feb. 25 – London, UK @ Moth Club
Mon. Feb. 27 – Paris, FR @ Le Pop Up
Tue. Feb. 28 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique – Witloof Bar
Wed. March 1 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Upstairs
Thu. March 2 – Copenhagen, DK @ Stengade
Sat. March 4 – Rotterdam, NL @ Rotown
Sun. March 5 – Berlin, DE @ Badehaus
Fri. Mar 31 – Eugene, OR @ Soreng Theater
Sat. Apr. 1 – Spokane, WA @ Lucky You Lounge*
Sun. Apr. 2 – Boise, ID @ Neurolux*
Mon. Apr. 3 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The DLC at Quarters*
Tue. Apr. 4 – Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge*
Thu. Apr. 6 – Iowa City, IA @ Mission Creek Festival
Fri. Apr. 7 – Minneapolis, MN @ Cedar Cultural Center*
Sat. Apr. 8 – Chicago, IL @ Subterranean*
April 11 – Toronto, ON @ The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern*
Wed. Apr. 12 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le “Ritz” P.D.B.*
Fri. Apr. 14 – Cambridge, MA @ Elk’s Club*
Sat. Apr. 15 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right*
Mon. Apr. 17 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s*
Tue. Apr. 18 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd*
Wed. Apr. 19 – Durham, NC @ The Pinhook*
Thu. Apr. 20 – Charlotte, NC @ Snug Harbor*
Fri. Apr. 21 – Atlanta, GA @ 529 Club*
Sat. Apr. 22 – New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa*
Mon. Apr. 24 – San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger*
Tue. Apr. 25 – Austin, TX @ The Parish*
Thu. Apr. 27 – Norman, OK @ Norman Music Festival
Fri. Apr. 28 – Albuquerque, NM @ Sister*
Mon. May 1 – Mesa, AZ @ The Underground at The Nile Theater
Tue. May 2 – San Diego, CA @ The Casbah*
Thu. May 4 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo*
Fri. May 5 – Fresno, CA @ Strummer’s*
Sat. May 6 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop*
Mon. May 8 – Tacoma, WA @ ALMA*

*with support from Claire Glass and Adobo

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Yuri at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Caleb Landry Jones scores a “Touchdown Yolk” with his new single.

“I’m aware of only half the picture. It comes down upon me like a heavy rain. The psycho Deli is out of mustard and all the Porn Stars won’t leave their homes. I’m out only to get myself, but don’t get in the way. The bugs which throw themselves at windows rarely get their say.” – Caleb Landry Jones

Award-winning actor and visual artist Caleb Landry Jones is a bonafide musical maverick, and today, announces his new album Gadzooks Vol. 2, out November 4th on Sacred Bones, with lead single/video, “Touchdown Yolk.” Following 2021’s Gadzooks Vol. 1, the “engaging affair of warped, carnivalesque psychedelia” (The AV Club), Jones’ third album is his most soothing and sublime collection to date. And while most artists don’t save some of the best music of their career for an album with Vol. 2 in the title, Jones is an artist for whom chronology is a slippery substance.

Watch Caleb Landry Jones’ “Touchdown Yolk” Video

Recorded with Nic Jodoin in the famed Valentine Recording Studios, Gadzooks Vol. 2 was made alongside Jones’ The Mother Stone, hailed by Billboard as “a remarkable beast of a debut album.” The team invited a slew of heavy hitting musicians, including producer Drew Erickson, to the studio to contribute to the magic, and the resulting album sounds a bit like pink elephants in cowboy hats making ASMR — at least for the first 20 seconds before it seamlessly changes entirely.

One of Jones’s greatest musical gifts is his ability to cover a vast energetic and sonic landscape in a way with a wide array of instrumentation and vocal stylings over a wholly unique song structure, in a way that feels cohesive and euphoric. A driving number, “Touchdown Yolk” is Jones, who plays nearly every instrument on the track, at his catchiest, while still maintaining his enthralling and distinct charm. The accompanying video, which was co-created by Jones, Patrick Jones, Katya Zvereva, Natalia Zvereva, Lera Moiseeva, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire, Jacqueline Castel and Mitch Horowitz, collages handheld camcorder footage recorded around New York City, an irresistibly unsettling foray into the ever-expanding Gadzooks universe.

Pre-order Gadzooks, Vol. 2

Gadzooks, Vol. 2 Tracklist
1. Croc Killers 2
2. Little Lion Blues
3. Touchdown Yolk
4. The Shanty Shine
4. Georgie Borge (The Termite)
6. Jeepers
7. Anyone But You
8. Slink On Fido
9. The Puppet Rush
10. Croc Killers 1

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Yuri at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Medicine Singers announce fall U.S. tour.

Medicine Singers announce a fall headlining tour and present a live video of “Sunrise (Rumble),” a standout track from Medicine Singers , their self-titled debut album out now on Stone Tapes/ Joyful Noise Recordings.

Recently highlighted in a New York Times article as a group on the forefront of Native experimental music, the Medicine Singers’ groundbreaking debut LP acts as a guided tour de force of decades of musical genres influenced by Native American music, and their live show remains the stuff of legend. The Medicine Singers often set up in-the-round, and go into a trance-inducing set where the walls between band and spectator – as well as between psychedelic rock and shamanic chants – are blurred. Full dates are listed below and tickets are on sale tomorrow, Friday August 19th.

The Medicine Singers’ tour kicks off with a very special “immersive” performance on September 24 at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works to celebrate the release of Medicine Singers and the launch of Stone Tapes, Yonatan Gat’s eclectic new label. The show will be opened by two site-specific duo performances from Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) & Hassan Ben Jafaar (Innov Gnawa) and Laraaji & Mamady Kouyate (Bembeya Jazz) performing inside the Charles Atlas video installation in Pioneer Works’ main hall, followed by a special Medicine Singers 10-piece band featuring jaimie branch, Thor Harris, Lee Ranaldo, Laraaji and Gat.

BUY TICKETS TO SEE THE MEDICINE SINGERS

WATCH “RUMBLE” LIVE VIDEO

Half a decade after the spur-of-the-moment story of how the musicians first met and unraveled their sound on an unsuspecting audience during SXSW 2017 when Gat saw Eastern Medicine Singers play on the street and invited the band to spontaneously join his show – the collaboration between the musicians reaches a climax with this breathtaking debut album as Medicine Singers, helping pave the way to this year’s rising wave of Native contributions to experimental music – shining a spotlight on guest vocalists representing indigenous nations from outside of the Northeastern Woodland tribal area. “Where else can you get all these different native people singing together on an album?” bandleader Daryl Back Eagle Jamieson asked. “On this album you have east, west, north and south all coming together. That’s why we say it’s medicine.”

For Jamieson, this album is more than a collection of songs, it’s a vessel of culture, history and language; a symbol of the strength and creativity of the Eastern Algonquin people in contemporary American society. “I want to show people not only that our Indian culture is just as good as the rest of the culture that’s out there, but also that the two can exist together, side by side.”

Medicine Singers Tour Dates
Sat. Sept. 24 – Brooklyn, NY @ Pioneer Works (RECORD RELEASE / STONE TAPES LABEL LAUNCH) *
Wed. Sept. 28 – Troy, NY @ No Fun
Thu. Sept. 29 – Montreal, QC @ Pop Montreal
Fri. Sept. 30 – Toronto, ON @ Vashe ZDorov’ye
Sat. Oct. 1 – Cleveland, OH @ Happy Dog West
Sun. Oct. 2 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
Mon. Oct. 3 – Indianapolis, IN @ Square Cat
Sat, Oct 8 – Washington, DC @ Down in the Reeds Festival

* w/ Lee Ranaldo & Hassan Ben Jafaar (Duo), Laraaji & Mamady Kourate (Duo)

Watch Medicine Singers’ “Hawk Song” Video

Watch The “Daybreak” Lyric Video

Watch The “Sunrise (Rumble)” Video

Listen to “Sanctuary”

Purchase Medicine Singers

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Yuri at Pitch Perfect PR.]