If I had to pick one word to describe Spun Out‘s debut album, Touch the Sound, it might be “lush.”
Formed by former members of Chicago indie rockers NE-HI, Spun Out (the main trio being Alex Otake, James Weir, and Mikey Wells) are more of a musical community than a band. Spun Out is all about collaboration with friends and colleagues, or, as they describe it, “…a revolving door for our friends to come in and work with us.”
It produces great results. Opener “Another House” builds to a great mix of shoegaze and psych. “Such Are the Lonely” has power pop bounce but doesn’t lose its shoegaze roots, and that brief saxophone solo by Kevin Jacobi is a cool way to end it and leave you wanting more. Thankfully, Sean Page‘s keyboard work on “Dark Room,” backed with a wicked beat that Chicago hip hop DJ’s are probably sampling even now, more than satisfies.
The acoustic guitar chords of “Running It Backwards” bring early tracks by The Fall and The Church to mind. “Antioch” walks along the edge of synthwave at the beginning and then takes the plunge into a pool of lovely dream pop that instantly mellows you. “Off the Vine” brings in funky bass and keyboards to produce dance-psych (Did Spun Out just create a new genre?). “Don’t Act Down” implores us to rise above chaos and drama and not succumb to such distractions from the journey inward amid its groovy beats.
Speaking of groovy beats (full drum kit and plenty of hand percussion, I think I even heard a triangle in there), the opening ones on “Pretender” will get your toes tapping. “Cruel and Unusual” is as lovely as a warm breeze drifting across a Chicago balcony in late summer when either baseball team in town is doing well in their division’s standing. The closer, “Plastic Comet,” starts out with a tribute to Bob Dylan and “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” with its lyrics and then it melts into lava lamp psychedelia.
It’s a lush record that is suitable for lounging on the couch, the balcony, the beach, or the park…or the dance floor. A surprising number of songs on Touch the Sound will get you moving. It’s a good debut and a successful experiment that bodes well for future records.
Keep your mind open.
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Earlier this summer, Chicago-based hip-hop artistRicWilson and GRAMMY-nominated producer TerraceMartin released their collaborative EP, They Call Me Disco (via Free Disco/EMPIRE/Sounds of Crenshaw), “a breath of fresh air for anyone looking for a departure from the trap-focused beats and the boom bap-styled alternatives that dominate hip-hop’s modern landscape” (Uproxx). Today, Wilson and Martin are proud to share the official visual for its snappy lead single “Chicago Bae” which features BJ The Chicago Kid and production from Ted Chung, TerraceMartin, and J-Trx. The video, directed and animated by WinHomer and premiered by Afropunk this morning, features Wilson, Martin, and BJ and was filmed in quarantine in each of their respective homes. Slowly, bright animations are incorporated throughout the video eventually transforming into a cartoon-esque love story.
“We started making the video to ‘Chicago Bae’ around the time everyone was running into Walmarts taking all of the toilet papers,” says Wilson. “We couldn’t physically be together but wanted to make something that could bring people together more. I’m honored to be featured on a song with two incredible black musicians that I consider living legends. I don’t really know anyone who’s singing better than BJ The Chicago Kid right now and I don’t know who’s embodying and pushing the boundaries of all genres of black music right now as much as Terrace.”
Watch the video below and head over to Afropunk’s Instagram for a live interview with Wilson taking place today at 3pm eastern.
Watch “Chicago Bae” (Ft. BJ The Chicago Kid) (Prod. Ted Chung, Terrace Martin, J-Trx) – https://youtu.be/-rp7pDnR604
Producer/musician Kelly Lee Owens collaborates with John Cale on a foreboding new single, “Corner Of My Sky (feat. John Cale),” from her forthcoming album Inner Song, out August 28th on Smalltown Supersound. The two Welsh artists first met in London while working on a song for Cale, which prompted a future collaboration for Inner Song. In “Corner Of My Sky,” Cale sings in both English and Welsh over Owens’ droning, psychedelic lullaby. The track follows a string of previously released singles and videos – “On,” “Night,” and “Melt!”
Cale comments, “It’s not usually this immediate that a productive afternoon brings a satisfying conclusion to a task. Kelly sent me a track she’d written – an instrumental that was a gentle drift – something comfortably familiar to what I’d been working on myself. On the first listen, the lyrics came with ease and a chorus and melody grew out of it. Even the Welsh phrases seemed to develop from a place of reflective memory which was a surprise since I hadn’t written in Welsh for decades. Once finished, I realized there existed a built-in thread we’d created together and apart – and her kind spirit pulled it all together and in quick order.”
Owens elaborates, “I knew with this album I needed to connect with my roots and therefore having the Welsh language featured on the record felt very important to me. Once the music for the track was written and the sounds were formed, I sent the track straight to John and asked if he could perhaps delve into his Welsh heritage and tell the story of the land via spoken-word, poetry and song. What he sent back was nothing short of phenomenal. The arrangement was done during the mixing process and once I’d finished the track, I cried – firstly feeling incredibly lucky to have collaborated with John and his eternal talent and secondly for both of us to have been able to connect to our homeland in this way.”
Inner Song is the follow-up to Owens’ self-titled debut, which was recognized as one of the most critically praised albums of 2017. Inner Song finds Owens diving deep into her own psyche—working through the struggles she’s faced over the last several years while embracing the beauty of the natural world. Sonically, Inner Song’s hair-raising bass and tickling textures drive home that Owens is locked into delivering maximal aural pleasure, whether it be on a techno banger, a glimmering electro-pop number, or a Radiohead cover. Watch “On” Video
London punks Dream Nails have been buzzing in the UK for some time and last month announced their signing to Dine Alone for the release of their debut self-titled full length, which will be out August 28th on Dine Alone in North America and UK indie Alcopop! in the rest of World. Today, the band are sharing a new single from the LP entitled “Vagina Police,” along with it accompanying video.
Dream Nails’ drummer Lucy Katz describes the track as “our battle-cry against the persistent and pathetic-yet-insidious obsession of the state to police our bodies at any cost. It’s a song about reproductive rights and (in)justice in all its forms.” Bassist Mimi Jassson elaborates on the ways the establishment tries to police our bodies across the world: “From abortions being illegal, to forced sterilization of trans people. We stand in solidarity with our trans siblings in the face of the UK’s repression of trans rights.”
The track was originally released by London-based indie Everything Sucks Music but the new version, as will feature on Dream Nails’ forthcoming self-titled debut album, produced by Tarek Musa of Spring King, breathes new vigour into its intent. For the next month, 100% of Dream Nails’ Bandcamp proceeds will be split between Abortion Support Network and Mermaids.
Dream Nails self-titled LP is due out August 28th via Dine Alone and Alcopop! Pre-orders for ‘Dream Nails’ are live today and can be found HERE. Physical vinyl bundle includes a 40-page signed zine. In true punk DIY fashion, the zine is handmade by the band, featuring lyrics, articles and background to the songs on the album.
Colombia-born/raised and Brooklyn-based musician Ela Minus debuts her new single, “megapunk,” via Domino. It follows “they told us it was hard, but they were wrong,” an invigorating single Minus released this spring that was recently remixed by Fort Romeau, DJ Python and buttechno. “megapunk” is on the same motivating wavelength. It’s driven by an array of shifting instrumentation – blipping techno, a thumping drum beat, and Minus’ tempered vocals. Written last year and prescient given today’s progressive social movements, “megapunk” is defiant, and an encouraging reminder to surge forward, despite resistance: “you don’t want to understand // you’re choosing to lead us apart // but against all odds // you still won’t make us stop.”
Ela comments, “When I wrote this song last year, I was worried it would lose context if not released immediately. I could not have been more wrong. This is the perfect time to put this out. We have to keep going. Ánimo y fuerza.” Watch Ela Minus’ Video for “megapunk”
Preceding her path of making electronic music, Ela drummed in a teenage hardcore band. She joined the band when she was just 12 and played with them for almost a decade. Then, Ela moved to the United States, where she attended Berklee College of Music and double-majored in jazz drumming and synthesizer design. This expansive background instilled in Ela a belief that we all have the power to change things, and as she delved deeper into her work with synthesizers, she saw a clear connection between the freedom of the DIY scene she grew up in and club culture.
“I had gone through this breakup, but it was so much bigger than that—I’d lost friendships, too. When you get out of a relationship, you have to examine who you are or were in all the relationships. I wanted to record when I was still processing these feelings. These are the personal takes, encapsulated in a moment.” — Angel Olsen
Angel Olsen will release Whole New Mess, her first solo album since her 2012 debut, on August 28th via Jagjaguwar. A super intimate and vulnerable emotional portrait that shows her grappling with a period of personal tumult, Whole New Mess presents Olsen working through her open wounds and raw nerves with just a few guitars and some microphones, isolated in a century-old church in the Pacific Northwest. In conjunction, Olsen presents the lead single, “Whole New Mess,” with a video directed by longtime collaborator Ashley Connor. Additionally, she announces Cosmic Stream 3, the third in her livestream series, which will air on the album’s release date and stream from the Hazel Robinson Amphitheater in Asheville, NC.
Whole New Mess follows All Mirrors, Olsen’s grand 2019 masterpiece (and a top 10 critically acclaimed record). At least nine of the eleven songs on Whole New Mess should sound familiar to anyone who has heard All Mirrors. “Lark,” “Summer,” “Chance”—they are all here, at least in some skeletal form and with slightly different titles. But these are not the demos for All Mirrors. Instead, Whole New Mess is its own record with its own immovable mood. If the lavish orchestral arrangements and cinematic scope of All Mirrors are the sound of Olsen preparing her scars for the wider world to see, Whole New Mess is the sound of her first figuring out their shape, making sense for herself of these injuries.
To record Whole New Mess, Olsen asked for a studio recommendation from Electro-Vox head engineer and a deep kindred spirit Michael Harris. She wanted to find a space where, as she puts it, “vulnerability exists.” They settled on The Unknown, the Catholic church that Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum and producer Nicholas Wilbur converted into a recording studio in the small town of Anacortes, Washington. Anacortes would act as a kind of harbor for Olsen, limiting distractions as she tried to burrow inside of these songs. “I hadn’t been to The Unknown, but I knew about its energy. I wanted to go sit with the material and be with it in a way that felt like a residency,” Olsen says. “I didn’t need a lot, since it was just me and a guitar. But I wanted someone else there to hold me accountable for trying different things.” In late October 2018 prior to recording All Mirrors, Olsen and Harris lived for 10 days in a rental and built a daily ritual of getting coffee each morning in a nearby bookstore. They hiked Mount Erie, visited state parks, and strolled the empty streets of Anacortes beneath a full moon. But mostly, the sessions were casual, relaxed, and quiet, allowing Olsen the space to fully explore these feelings.
The results are staggering, somehow disarmingly candid and dauntingly personal at once. The opener and title track—one of two songs here that did not appear on All Mirrors—is a blunt appraisal of how low Olsen got and how hard the process of pulling herself back upright was, especially when being an artist can mean turning your emotions into someone else’s entertainment. “Oh, I’ll really do the change,” she repeats at the start and finish, her voice wavering as she tries to buy the mantra she’s selling. “The reality is that artists are often never home so health, clear mindedness and grounding is hard to come by,” says Olsen. “The song is a mental note to try and stay sane, keep healthy, remember to breathe wherever I happen to be, because there is no saving it for back home.”
Considered alongside All Mirrors, Whole New Mess is a poignant and pointed reminder that songs are more than mere collections of words, chords, and even melodies. They are webs of moods and moments and ideas, qualities that can change from one month to the next and can say just as much as the perfect progression or an exquisite chord. In that sense, these 11 songs—solitary, frank, and unflinching examinations of what it’s like to love, lose, and survive—are entirely new. This is the sound of Angel Olsen, sorting through the kind of trouble we’ve all known, as if just for herself and whoever else needs it. Watch Angel Olsen’s “Whole New Mess” Video
Whole New Mess Tracklist 1. Whole New Mess 2. Too Easy (Bigger Than Us) 3. (New Love) Cassette 4. (We Are All Mirrors) 5. (Summer Song) 6. Waving, Smiling 7. Tonight (Without You) 8. Lark Song 9. Impasse (Workin’ For The Name) 10. Chance (Forever Love) 11. What It Is (What It Is)
Christopher Schou of the Norwegian dream pop band Remington Super 60 recently asked me to check out his band, which he described as being “inspired by everything from the Beach Boys to New Order with a little dash of Stereolab and Velvet Underground in the middle.” How could I pass that up? I decided to check out their cheekily-named record, New EP.
It turned out to be a smart decision because it’s a lovely record. The opening track, “The Highway Again,” has those Velvet Underground synths and driving-around-at-3am drums that are always perfect for such endeavors. “I Don’t Wanna Wait” is perfect dream pop with subtle, sexy vocals from Elisabeth Thorsen. The psychedelic-tinged guitars of “Fake Crush” provide a bit of a hedonistic backdrop to lyrics about lust and erotic confusion.
The perfectly named “Tropical Drone Pop” is ideal for that space station Tiki bar you’ve been designing in your head since you began reading rediscovered issues of Omni magazine. “Dreaming of Summer” puts Schou’s love of The Beach Boys on full display with Thorsen’s vocal styling, mellow southern California guitar, and hypnotic synths. The closer, “Dina Hender” (“Your Hands”), pops and bubbles like a happy robot toddler.
Remington Super 60 plan for another record to be released this autumn, and having a record as bright and lovely as New EP land in the time of falling leaves, pumpkin spice, and further COVID-19 blues seems like a great idea. I’m eager to hear it.
Keep your mind open.
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Gordon Koang might be the biggest musical legend you’ve never heard. Born in South Sudan, Koang and his cousin, Paul Biel, began playing gospel music and historical tales and were soon selling self-produced indie CDs and tapes. Koang’s reputation grew and grew until he was in high demand everywhere in his homeland and became known as “The Michael Jackson of South Sudan.” While touring in Australia in 2013, violence erupted in South Sudan and both men applied for asylum in Australia – leaving families behind in hope of bringing them to Australia soon. Koang and Biel weren’t granted Australian citizenship for another six years after they hit it big with a couple sharp singles and their shows became rallying points for refugee charity efforts.
Koang’s newest album (his eleventh, mind you), Unity, is an uplifting tribute to both of Koang and Biel’s home countries and to hope, love, and faith.
Koang opens the album with “Aslyum Seeker” – a straight-up story of him finally receiving his Australian citizenship (“My dear asylum seeker, we know you’re waiting for your permanent protection visa. We know you’ve been waiting a long time.). He seems to be reciting one of many letters he received over the course of six years while dancehall beats thump behind him and he sings without holding a grudge.
“Stand Up (Clap Your Hands)” was the song that got the attention of Australian music aficionados everywhere and helped them realized Gordon’s music could be a new national treasure. It’s wonderfully catchy (and his first song with English lyrics) and will make you do exactly what the title suggests. The thumping beats of “Kone Ke Ran” provided by Biel and Gordon’s traditional thom (sort of a Sudanese lute) mix to provide a hypnotizing rhythm that’s impossible to ignore.
“South Sudan” is, of course, a song about his much-missed homeland and the wife and children (one of whom he has yet to meet) who await the day they can travel Down Under and meet up with him. The mix of handclap beats, hand percussion, and Koang’s intricate chords is delightful. The bright organ chords on “Mal Mi Goa” are a beautiful addition to Koang’s thom strumming.
The bouncy organ of “Tiel E Nywal Ke Ran (We Don’t Have a Problem with Anyone)” produces instant hip-shaking and grooving. It, like the entire album, is full of bright energy that cannot be ignored. Gordon’s thom is right out in front on the closer, “Te Ke Me Thile Ji Kuoth Nhial.” His Nuer language vocals skip along with his strumming and Biel’s hand drum beats.
I read a quote from Gordon about people listening to his music who might not understand Nuer. He said, more or less, “Don’t worry, God will translate it for you.” The themes of hope, love, longing, and unity are universal, and this record is a beautiful message from Gordon, Biel, and the Creator.
It’s stunning to realize that Riding Easy Records has released ten Brown Acid compilations of long forgotten and buried stoner rock / acid rock / metal cuts in just five years. How do they find this stuff? The stories of how they tracked down these obscure bands, some of whom never released even a full LP, must be fascinating.
“The Tenth Trip” is one of the best compilations to date. It starts with the squelchy, groovy “Tensions” by Flint, Michigan’s Sounds Synonymous from 1969. The fuzz on it is cranked to the max and the organ stabs push the track into psychedelic territory. Yreka, California’s Ralph Williams and the Wright Brothers‘ 1972 track, “Never Again,” lays down a Black Sabbath-like groove mixed with swampy blues, and the backing vocals / grunts mixed with the wicked bass line alone should’ve made this a big radio hit.
“Relax your mind,” suggests Louisville, Kentucky’s Conception on their 1969 cut “Babylon.” The snotty vocals remind me a bit of MC5and Thin Lizzy in their delivery, and man, that guitar breakdown is breath-taking. Atlanta, Georgia’s Bitter Creek proclaim, “I think I hear the sound of thunder.” on the 1970 heavy stoner metal cut “Plastic Thunder.” The drums certainly sound like a thunderstorm and it has enough guitar pedal effects for an entire record.
New Orleans’ Rubber Memory put down a serious psychedelic show with “All Together” from 1970. Dallas’ First State Bank might be the most cleverly named band on the whole compilation (as you would see their name in practically every town in the country), and their 1970 track “Mr. Sun” has a sweet groove that drifts along for a little over three minutes as the singer asks the sun (who appears to be the only thing around to give him the time of day) how to win back his girl.
The double entendre of Brothers and One‘s “Hard On Me” (New Waterford, Nova Scotia, 1974) is another criminally unheard rocker with a floor-stomping beat that should’ve made it a cult classic if nothing else. Naming your Tucson, Arizona band Frozen Band is a nice touch, and their 1969 track “Electric Soul” has serious Jimi Hendrix vibes in both the guitar chords (with a bit of Santana, too) and the vocal styling. Birmingham, Alabama’s Brood encourage you not to throw out your old weed on “The Roach” from 1969. I love how unapologetic they are about it. The anthology ends with Iowa City’s / West Minister, Colorado’s Tabernash and their 1969 track “Head Collect.” It’s a nice, trippy end cap to the record as they sing about death, the afterlife, and cosmic things seen while lounging under the stars.
This is definitely a trip worth taking and it makes you wonder how many more forgotten bands and singles are out there if Riding Easy Records has already found ten anthologies’ worth in just five years.
British producer / sound engineer / beat maker Alastair McNeill, also known as Yila, recently decided to stick it to The Man by going back to house music / rave music culture doing what it does best – energize people.
He linked up with French DJ (and sometimes Kasabian drummer) GIOM and drum and bass maestro Christian Croupa, also known as Alleged Witches, for Functional Collaborations and Combinations Vol. 1 – a double-sided single that accomplishes its mission. It will make you move.
“Scam Pan,” the team-up with GIOM, had such a wicked synth-bass beat that sneaks up on you and takes your groove to a different level. The Alleged Witches collaboration, “Murmurs,” has a great horror movie-like synth line running throughout it and that is highly suitable for futuristic disco dance floors.
It’s a sweet addition to any DJ’s set list or any playlist you have for house music.
Keep your mind open.
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