June 2022 – 7th Level Music

Review: Vapors of Morphine – Fear and Fantasy

Starting with ambient sounds of bird songs, traffic, and other things you can’t quite identify, Vapors of Morphine‘s latest, Fear and Fantasy, is at times lush, other times haunting, and other times exotic.

“Blue Dream” certainly is dream-like, combining those ambient sounds with Dana Colley‘s signature smoky saxpohones, Jerome Deupree‘s subtle drumming, and Jeremy Lyons‘ sly vocals. Colley shares vocals with Lyons on “Golden Hour,” originally a Twinemen track (another band Colley was in after the death of Morphine lead singer Mark Sandman), and VOM’s version here is somehow trippier than the original. Listening to “Irene” is like slipping into a warm bath while surrounded by sage smoke. The sound that Colley produces with his saxophone on “No Sleep” is somewhere between angry bees and horny hummingbirds. It’s layered with so much reverb and distortion that it’s hard to describe…which means it’s great. Lyons’ love and influence of Appalachian blues comes through in his guitar work and vocals on “Special Rider,” exuding both sorrow and menace.

Tom Arey takes over on drums on the second side of the album, since Deupree left the band in 2019. Arey’s work can first be heard on “Lasidan,” an instrumental flavored with Middle Eastern flair (a sound VOM explored before on A New Low). “Drop Out Mambo” continues the band having fun with sounds and styles from around the world. A new version of Treat Her Right‘s “Doreen” is a fun treat for us long-time fans of Morphine and THR. It somehow seems sweatier and sultrier than the original.

“Ostrich” is a fun track with a honky tonk swagger that has Lyons wishing he could become different animals in order to avoid having to deal with the blues. “Baba Drame” is a blend of Middle Eastern and what sounds like Celtic styles with Lyons shredding on what sounds like a mandolin with riffs that sound like a callback to “Red Apple Juice” from A New Low. VOM get psychedelic on the instrumental “Phantasos & Phobetor,” because, why shouldn’t they? The name of the track refers to the Greek gods of surreal dreams and nightmares, respectively, and also to the name of the album. The closer is “Frankie & Johnny,” a fun floor-stomper that goes back to the band’s love of blues and bluegrass, with Ayers doing a fine job snapping out beats (with brushes, I think) and some of Lyon’s best guitar work on the album.

I love how Vapors of Morphine continue to salute their past and embrace new sounds in the present. Fear and Fantasy is more fine work from them.

Keep your mind open.

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WSND Nocturne DJ set list – June 26, 2022

Thanks to everyone who tuned in (or stuck around) for my late show on WSND on June 26th. It was a fun time as always. Here’s the set list:

!!! – All My Heroes Are Weirdos
The Joy Formidable – The Greatest Light Is the Greatest Shade
The Ettes – You Were There
Sleater-Kinney – God Is a Number
Dorothy – Wild Fire
The Dirtbombs – The Sharpest Claws
Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa – Black Coffee (requested)
Failure – The Nurse Who Loved Me
The Beths – Jump Rope Gazers (live)
Love and Rockets – Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven (live)
The D4 – Get Loose
Flasher – I’m Better
A Place to Bury Strangers – I Know I’ll See You
Julian Cope – I’ve Got Levitation
The Hives – Tick Tick Boom
The Hives – Abra Cadaver
The Hives – The Hives Declare Guerre Nucleaire
Helmet – In the Meantime
Reverend Horton Heat – The Prophet Stomp
Charlie Parker – Star Eyes
Glenn Miller – Danny Boy
Tears for Fears – Head Over Heels
Gary Wilson – Back to Where I Belong
Asobi Seksu – Gliss
American Royalty – Mariah
Blondie – Union City Blue
Santogold – L.E.S. Artistes
B.B. King – Beautician Blues (requested)
Daft Punk – Da Funk
Underworld – I Exhale

Thanks again, everyone. Catch you next week.

Keep your mind open.

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WSND set list – Deep Dive of Hank Williams

Thanks to all who tuned in for my salute to the Shakespeare of Country Music – Hank Williams. Here’s the set list:

Hank Williams – Hey Good Lookin’
Hank Williams – My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It
Jimmie Rodgers – In the Jailhouse Now
Moon Mullican – Seven Nights to Rock
Roy Acuff – Great Speckled Bird
Hank Williams – Settin’ the Woods on Fire (requested)
Audrey Williams – They’re Begging You to Stay
Hank and Audrey Williams – The Pale Horse and His Rider
Hank Williams – Honky Tonkin’
George Thorogood and the Destroyers – Move It on Over
Hank Williams – Lovesick Blues
Don Helms – Corn Crib
Hank Williams, Jr. – The Blues Man
Hank Williams – Mind Your Own Business
The Screaming Blue Messiahs – You’re Gonna Change
Luke the Drifter (Hank Williams) – Just Waitin’
Hank Williams – My Son Calls Another Man Daddy
Hank Williams – Nobody’s Lonesome for Me (live)
Hank Williams – Dear John
Tony Bennett – Cold, Cold Heart
Big Bill Lister – There’s a Tear in My Beer
Hank Williams and Anita Carter – I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You)
Jett Williams – Jambalaya (on the Bayou) (live)
Hank Williams, Hank Williams, Jr., and Hank III – I Won’t Be Home No More
Ray Charles – Take These Chains from My Heart
Johnny Cash – The Night Hank Williams Came to Town
Jack White – You Know That I Know
The The – Long Gone Daddy
Hank Williams – I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive

The next Deep Dive will be, by request, the music of Robert Palmer.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: My Delicious Spaghetti Western film score collection (1998)

This fun compilation released in the US by Runt Records (and originally in Italy by Abraxas) showcases the work of Francesco De Masi, Bruno Nicolai, Lallo Gori, Mario Migliari, and Vassil Kojucharov. The first three composers make up most of the compilation, with Migliari and Kojucharov only getting one track each on the album.

The sixteen tracks span films ranging from many of the Sartana franchise including Nicolai’s gorgeous title tracks to C’e’ Sartana…Vendi la Pistola e Comprati La Bara! (There is Sartana…Sell the Pistol and Buy a Coffin!) and Buon Funerale Amigos…Paga Sartana (part 1) (Have a Good Funeral, Friends…Sartana Will Pay). “Stranger,” with its bold vocals, is a fun track.

Many of the DeMasi pieces are collaborations with famous Italian guitarist and composter Alessandro Alessandroni, whose fine guitar work is all over tracks like “Monetero’s Plan” and “Vento e Whisky” (which has a great horn section that sounds like it wandered from the set of an Italian crime thriller to play on the score for Stranger).

Migliardi’s title track for Prega il Morto e Ammazza il Vivo (Pray for the Dead and Shoot the Living) sizzles like a rattlesnake on a warm rock. Nicolai’s title track for Gil Fumavano le Colt…Lo Chiamavano Campsanto (They Call Him Cemetery) is a classic with its expert whistling, symphonic strings, hollow-body guitar work, and vocal chorus all mixing together for a perfect blend. The vocals on DeMasi’s “Gold” are so bold they’re almost over the top and ridiculous, but they hold back just enough to make them amazing in their own right. His title track for 1963’s Il Segno del Coyote (The Sign of the Coyote) could fit on practically any John Ford film.

It’s a collection that’s over too soon, even with sixteen tracks on it, and a good reminder that Ennio Morricone (God rest his soul.) wasn’t the only formidable composer of spaghetti western soundtracks.

Keep your mind open.

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WSND set list – June 19, 2022

Thanks to all who listened to my latest Nocturne show. Here’s the set list in case you missed it:

LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends
Pixies – Where Is My Mind? (requested)
Ladytron – Cease2xist
The Rolling Stones and Buddy Guy – Champagne and Reefer (live) (requested)
The Besnard Lakes – Golden Lion
Hüsker Dü – Ain’t No Water in the Well (live)
Led Zeppelin – I Can’t Quit You Baby (live)
Failure – Another Space Song
Elastica – Waking Up
Devo – Please Please
D-Tension – Joanna Strikes Back
Robert Palmer – I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On
Helmet – Pure
Helmet – Wilma’s Rainbow
Miss Red – Fever
Miss Red – No Guns
Kinky – Tonos Rosa
Box Tops – Coca-Cola jingle
Faith No More – Stripsearch (requested)
Psych-Out movie promo ad
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Searching…
Thin Lizzy – Warriors
Dex Romweber Duo – Jungle Drums
Johnny Cash – A Boy Named Sue (requested)
James Brown – Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud (requested)
Morphine – Call Back

I’m back on air June 26, 2022 at 8pm EDT!

Keep your mind open.

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WSND set list – Deep Dive of Midnight Oil – June 19, 2022

I did a deep dive of the music of Midnight Oil in celebration of their final tour. Don’t miss them if they come close to you, or drive eight hours to see them if you must. Here’s the set list from the show:

Midnight Oil – Beds Are Burning
Cream – I Feel Free
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Fortunate Son
Focus – House of the King
Jimi Hendrix – The Burning of the Midnight Lamp
Midnight Oil – Run By Night
Midnight Oil – Powderworks
Supercharge – You’ve Gotta Get Up and Dance
Midnight Oil – Cold Cold Change (live)
Midnight Oil – Wedding Cake Island
Midnight Oil – Don’t Wanna Be the One
Midnight Oil – Power and the Passion
Midnight Oil – Read About It (live)
Midnight Oil – When the Generals Talk
Midnight Oil – Kosciuszko (live)
Midnight Oil – Hercules
The Swingers – One Good Reason
Midnight Oil – Dreamworld
Midnight Oil – Blue Sky Mine
Midnight Oil – King of the Mountain (live)
Midnight Oil – Renaissance Man
Midnight Oil – Underwater
Midnight Oil – Forgotten Years (live)
Midnight Oil – Rising Seas

Thanks for listening. The next Deep Dive will be of Hank Williams.

Keep your mind open.

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The Chats floor it on their new single, “6L GTR.”

Australian punks The Chats announce their new album, GET FUCKED, out August 19th on the band’s own label, Bargain Bin Records, and share a new single/video, “6L GTR.” The announcement arrives in the midst of their North American tour (tickets on sale now). Their debut full-length, High Risk Behaviour, dropped just as the pandemic struck, and The Chats have duly been through the same frustrating two years of broken dreams and shredded itineraries as every other combo. Undeterred and now stocked to overflowing with frustration and fury, they strike back with GET FUCKED, an incendiary, hyper-adrenalized blitz from punk heaven, showcasing a rockin’ new guitarist, and an electrifying all-killer-no-filler 13 tracks which perfectly capture the band’s explosive energy. It is, quite simply, another laugh-out-loud, pogo-through-the-floorboards stroke of motherfucking genius.

WATCH THE CHATS’ VIDEO FOR “6L GTR”

The Chats took lockdown as a chance to plan their next move, which is when they enlisted Josh Hardy after the departure of their last guitarist. Sometime in ’21, Eamon Sandwith, Matt Boggis and Hardy decamped to southern Queensland to write at their friend’s place, Vinny’s Dive Bar. Once they’d worked up a rollicking batch of new tunes, they had actually planned to record again near Melbourne, with Billy Gardner, who produced High Risk Behaviour, but due to pandemic border closures, they nailed it instead in six days at Brisbane’s Hunting Ground facility with Cody McWaters, who’d worked on a single for Eamon’s other band, Headlice.

“They weren’t like hardcore working days,” Eamon reveals, “we would start at 11 and finish at 4, and in the middle of that we’d go to the pub for lunch for two hours, and have a few beers. Then we’d go, ‘Oh shit, we better go back and do some recording!’ Our work etiquette wasn’t great.” Consequently, GET FUCKED, while tackling umpteen eminently relatable beefs ranging from surfer-dude racism to the usual dire impecunity, feels like a classic high-velocity punk-rock party album like they just don’t make ’em anymore – think early Ramones, think MDC’s debut, think invite your mates over and rock hard all weekend.

GET FUCKED opens with “6L GTR,” a swingeing takedown of a speed-crazed status-symbol driver – a critique piqued when Eamon spotted the titular licence plate in an airport carpark. “I don’t even know if the car itself was actually a six-liter GTR or anything,” he chuckles. “To be honest with you, I don’t even know what a car like that would look like! I can’t drive! That was the thing, we were just trying to get into this dude’s head.” The video was made by animator and illustrator Marco Imov who spent days creating the band in character form. “They hinted that it would be cool if instead of being directly about the car, it should be about the band wanting the car,” explains Marco. “From there it kind of wrote itself down.”

The more you listen to it, the more you realize that there was only one plausible title for this second Chats album. After all the incarceration and boredom, The Chats are in peak match fitness to deliver the excitement we all crave for the months ahead.

WATCH VIDEO FOR “STRUCK BY LIGHTNING”

GET FUCKED TRACKLIST
1. 6L GTR
2. Struck By Lightning
3. Boggo Road
4. Southport Superman
5. Panic Attack
6. Ticket Inspector
7. The Price of Smokes
8. Dead on Site
9. Paid Late
10. I’ve Been Drunk In Every Pub In Brisbane
11. Out On The Street
12. Emperor of the Beach
13. Getting Better

THE CHATS TOUR DATES
Mon. Jun. 27 – Paris, FR @ La Maroquinerie
Tue. Jun. 28 – Brussels, BE @ La Botanique
Fri. Jul. 1 – Werchter, BE @ Rock Werchter 2022
Mon. Jul. 4 – Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg
Tue. Jul. 5 – Berlin, DE @ SO36
Wed. Jul. 6 – Hamburg, DE @ Moltow Backyard
Thu. Jul. 7 – Cologne, DE @ Gebäude
Fri. Jul. 22 – Adelaide, AU @ Adelaide Showground
Fri. Jul. 29 – Luxembourg, LU @ Rotondes
Sat. Oct. 8 – Sacramento, CA @ Aftershock Festival

Keep your mind open.

[Zoom over to the subscription box while you’re here.]

[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Arp releases title track from his upcoming “New Pleasures” album due July 15, 2022.

Today, composer/producer Alexis Georgopoulos (Arp) has announced New Pleasures, a new album slated for release on July 15th. With the record,Arp sculpts angularities into fresh, alluring shapes, expanding and contracting song form into brain-teasing sound design. The sensation the music offers is almost rubbery; it makes you feel as if you could flex, bend and squeeze your body inside out – a vivid, deconstructed take on high-definition pop, avant-garde, and dance music forms. Drawing on the promise of futurism, New Pleasures reflects the slipperiness of time, the multidirectional, non-linearity of memory; how our minds shift millisecond to millisecond from past to present to future and back again.

Lead single “New Pleasures” comes alongside a striking video directed by acclaimed filmmaker Adinah Dancyger.

“That space between idea and reality, fact and fiction—which drives ‘New Pleasures’—is so often inhabited by commerce, which conjures our fantasies for us,” Georgopoulos explains. “And there we find desire. For connection, luxury, distinction. We think we’re immune to its psychology because we’re conscious of it, but in some ways, it drives everything.”

New Pleasures is the second chapter in Arp’s ZEBRA trilogy and advances the narrative begun with 2018’s acclaimed ZEBRA; pastoral in mood, expansive in style, the record acted as a dawn on a nascent, Edenic landscape, reminiscent of a beautiful, long-lost Fourth World album. In this world, the music approximated the patient cadence of geological time – the way time suspends when you watch a river in motion. There was, nonetheless, the presence of something alien on the horizon.

Now, Arp drops us deep into the grid of the city. New Pleasures fast-forwards a few centuries, locating listeners in a post-industrial Sprawl (to borrow an expression from William Gibson’s Neuromancer) of concrete and glass, imbuing the album with the flinty glow of commerce, the sleek rhythms of industrialization, and the cool finesse of brutalism. The result is a collection of futuristic pop interiors with glinted exteriors; a prismatic inquiry into machine sentience, the economy of desire, and myriad forms of possession.

“Sometimes the most alien thing is simply seeing what we take for granted from a slightly different angle.” – Arp

Keep your mind open.

[It would bring me new pleasures if you subscribe.]

[Thanks to Mexican Summer.]

Brijean announces new EP out August 05, 2022 and premieres new single – “Shy Guy.”

Brijean announces their new Angelo EP (out August 5th on Ghostly International) with lead single “Shy Guy” and new tour dates. Angelo, named after Brijean Murphy‘s 1981 Toyota Celica, features nine songs Brijean have crafted and carried with them through a period of profound change, loss, and relocation. It finds percussionist/singer Murphy and multi-instrumentalist / producer Doug Stuart processing the impossible the only way they know how: through rhythm and movement.

The months surrounding the acclaimed release of Feelings, their full-length Ghostly International debut in 2021 which celebrated tender self-reflection and new possibilities, rang bittersweet with the sudden passing of Murphy’s father and both of Stuart’s parents. In a haze of heartache, the duo left the Bay Area to be near family, resetting in four cities in under two years. Their to-go rig became their traveling studio and these tracks, along with Angelo, became their few constants. Whereas Feelings formed over collaborative jams with friends, Angelo’s sessions presented Murphy and Stuart a chance to record at their most intimate, “to get us out of our grief and into our bodies,” says Murphy.

Like much of Angelo, lead single “Shy Guy” offers levity and movement in spite of the sorrow, and is a motivational anthem for the wallflowers among us. Murphy sets up the daydream: “We are in junior high, we’re on the dance floor, what’s going down, who is dancing, who is not, how are we gonna make them dance?” The narrator, the MC, hypes up the room as conga-driven rhythms bounce between languid synth and guitar lines. “Show me how to move…I feel something…I know you feel it too,” Murphy sings sweetly, calling back to the opening lines of Feelings, and this time the audience chants it back.

Stream “Shy Guy”

On Angelo, Brijean explores new moods and styles, reaching for effervescent dance tempos and technicolor backdrops, vibrant hues in contrast to their more somber human experiences. Angelo beams with positivity and creative renewal — a resourceful, collective answer to “what happens now?”

In support of Angelo, Brijean will play their first headline shows in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Brooklyn, and make international appearances with Poolside in London, Berlin, and Mexico City.

Pre-order/pre-save Angelo EP

Brijean Tour Dates
Sat. June 25 – Denver, CO @ Color Field
Thu. Aug. 11 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
Sat. Aug. 13 – Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon
Wed. Aug. 17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere Rooftop
Fri. Aug. 19 – Sun. Aug. 22 – Long Pond, PA @ Elements Festival
Sat. Aug. 27 – Mexico City, MX @ Auditorio BlackBerry

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Live: Midnight Oil – Riviera Theatre – Chicago, IL – June 10, 2022

I got to Chicago’s Riviera Theatre too late to catch Leah Flanagan‘s solo acoustic set, but I did see that she had a good number of people paying rapt attention to her as she played her last song.

Midnight Oil, on their final tour, had packed the venue. The Riviera always seems to be about fifteen degrees warmer than outside of the building – and certainly more humid – and the night of June 10, 2022 was no exception. At least two people had to be helped from the main floor due to heat exhaustion during Midnight Oil’s set.

The Australian powerhouses put on a killer show that lasted over two hours and had two encores.

The first thing you notice when you see Midnight Oil is that lead singer Peter Garrett‘s voice has lost none of its power. He was hitting high notes and punk rage screams right out of the gate on “Nobody’s Child.” They thanked the Chicago crowd, stating that the city had always been good to them throughout their career.

There were a lot of great cuts, both new and classics. “Truganini” had everyone jumping. “Gadigal Land” and “The Dead Heart” had everyone singing along. It was also cool to hear “Kosciusko,” an oldie but goodie, and, of course, “Beds Are Burning” is still as powerful as it was when it was first released.

There was also, as to be expected at a Midnight Oil show, plenty of political talk and activism. The band highlighted the plights of Native Australians and Americans, the climate change crisis, the absurdity of the U.S. health care industry, and the circus of our political climate.

“King of the Mountain” and “Dreamworld,” each in its own encore, had everyone pumping their fists and getting charged up to change the world – which is always what Midnight Oil have wanted us to do.

Don’t miss them if they’re near you, or even if they’re a long drive away. Again, it’s their final tour. They’ve stated that they will continue to make music, but this is your last chance to see them live. They’re not the kind of band to do multiple “last tours” for a cash grab. They keep their word.

Keep your mind open.

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