May 2023 – Page 3 – 7th Level Music

A Place to Bury Strangers to release “Live at Levitation” on June 30, 2023.

New York City’s loudest band A Place to Bury Strangers have had their intense live performance captured and immortalized directly to 12” wax. The post-punk legends are the 9th & latest entry in the Live at Levitation archival vinyl series. Live at Levitation ends with “Have You Ever Been In Love?” – a brand new song from APTBS only available on this record, written and performed by the current lineup.

“Levitation 2021 was our second show as a new band and I felt so psyched to bring the new band members to such an epic festival. It was like a homecoming for me. Bob Mustachio was doing lights and playing with Ringo Deathstarr, Kikagaku Moyo & the Black Angels all on the same bill had me so rev’d up and excited. I knew it had to be an epic show. I remember right when we started I was flailing around so much like a freak on speed that I almost flung my guitar off the stage. By the time we got out into the crowd I thought I was gonna pass out. I remember we rented this PA speaker from Rock N Roll Rentals and for some reason they trusted us with this top of the line like $5000 12” monitor that we rolled around in the crowd while I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I love Levitation and Austin Psych Fest shows, they are always a UFO of a good time.” – Oliver Ackermann (APTBS)

LEVITATION and the LIVE AT LEVITATION Vinyl Series

The first Austin Psych Fest was held in March 2008, and expanded to a 3 day event the following year. The event quickly developed into an international destination for psychedelic rock fans, with lineups spanning the fringes of indie rock, from up-and-comers to vintage legends, and capped off with headline performances from co-founders The Black Angels, along with Tame Impala, The Flaming Lips, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Thee Oh Sees (in various forms) and many more. LEVITATION helped spark a movement, inspiring the creation of similar events across the globe and a burgeoning psych scene that would soon ignite. The series captures key moments in psychedelic rock history, and live music in Austin, Texas, pressed on beautiful limited edition colorful vinyl pressings – each an eye popping visual representation of the music contained within.

The artists and sets showcased on Live at LEVITATION have been chosen from over a decade of recordings at the world-renowned event, and document key artists in the scene performing for a crowd of their peers and fans who gather at LEVITATION annually from all over the world.

This 9th release follows Live at Levitation releases from Kikagaku Moyo, The Black Angels, Primal Scream, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Moon Duo, Psychic Ills, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Thee Oh Sees.

A Place to Bury Strangers – Live at LEVITATION is out in stores on Friday, June 30, 2023.

Get a taste of the LP with a live cut of “Let’s See Each Other” filmed at LEVITATION 2021. Watch and share below.

“Let’s See Each Other”

Keep your mind open.

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Tinariwen release new single ahead of first U.S. tour since 2019.

Tinariwen, the pioneering, Grammy-winning Tuareg collective, unveil their enthralling new single, “Anemouhagh,” from their forthcoming album, Amatssou, out next Friday, May 19th on Wedge. “Anemouhagh” continues along Tinariwen’s electric trail of singles — the “anthemic” (Paste) “Kek Alghalm” and lead single “Tenere Den,” which was praised by The FADER as “a continuation of both the desert blues sound they pioneered and the revolutionary message they’ve always held close” — and offers another captivating glimpse into Amatssou.

Later this month, Tinariwen will embark on their first US tour since 2019, beginning on May 27th at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music and including stops in Los Angeles, New York and more. A list of full dates are below and tickets are on sale now.

Listen to “Anemouhagh”

For decades, Tinariwen have remained ambassadors for the Tuareg people, a way of life in tune with the natural world, which is under threat as never before. Throughout Amatssou — the legendary collective’s ninth studio album — Tinariwen set out to explore the shared sensibilities between their trademark desert blues and the vibrant country music of rural America. Recorded in Djanet, an oasis in the desert of southern Algeria located in Tassili N’Ajjer National Park, with additional production on two tracks by Daniel Lanois (Brian Eno, U2, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson), Amatssou finds Tinariwen’s signature snaking guitar lines and hypnotic grooves seamlessly co-existing alongside banjos, fiddles and pedal steel.

Though Tuareg culture is as old as that of ancient Greece or Rome, the songs of Amatssou speak to the current and often tough reality of Tuareg life today. Unsurprisingly, there are impassioned references to Mali’s ongoing political and social turmoil. Full of poetic allegory, the lyrics call for unity and freedom. There are songs of struggle and resistance with oblique references to the recent desperate political upheavals in Mali and the increasing power of the Salafists. Tinariwen’s message has never sounded more urgent and compelling than it does on Amatssou.

Pre-order Amatssou by Tinariwen

Watch “Tenere Den” Video

Watch “Kek Alghalm” Video

Tinariwen Tour Dates
Sat. May 27 – Chicago, IL @ Old Town School of Folk Music
Tue. May 30 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
Wed. May 31 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox
Fri. June 2 – Berkeley, CA @ UC Theater
Sat. June 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theater
Mon. June 5 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall
Tue. June 6 – Boston, MA @ Sinclair
Wed. June 7 – Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre
Sat. June 10 – Hilvarenbeek, NL @ Best Kept Secret Festival
Mon. June 12 – Rubigen, CH @ Muhle Hunziken
Wed. June 14 – Florence, IT @Ultravox
Thu. June 15 – Milan, IT @ Triennale Garden
Fri. June 16 – Turin, IT @ Hiroshima Mon Amour
Sun. June 18 – Dublin, IE @ Body & Soul Festival
Thu. June 22 – Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg
Sat. June 24 – Glastonbury, UK @ Glastonbury Festival
Mon. 26 – Lille, FR @ Splendid
Wed. June 28 – Paris, FR @ Salle Pleyel
Thu. June 29 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
Sat. July 1 – Roskilde, DK @ Roskilde Festival
Sun. July 2 – Stockholm, SE @ Slaktkyran
Tue. July 4 – Oslo, NO @ Rockefeller
Fri. July 7 – Bilbao, ES @ BBK Live Festival
Tue. July 11 – Arles, FR @ Les Suds Arles
Thu. July 13 – London, UK @ Somerset House
Sat. July 15 – Bristol, UK @ SWX
Mon. July 17 – Glasgow, UK @ St Lukes
Wed. July 19 – Bermingham, UK @ Institute 2
Sat. July 22 – Cheshire, UK @ Bluedot Festival
Tue. 25 – Vigo, SP @ Terraceo Festival
Sat. July 29 – Luxey, FR @ Musicalarue Festival

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Sam at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Charlotte Cornfield’s new single is “Gentle Like the Drugs” you’re probably doing.

Charlotte Cornfield presents her new single/video, “Gentle Like The Drugs,” from her forthcoming album, Could Have Done Anything, out this Friday, May 12 on Polyvinyl/Double Double Whammy. “Gentle Like the Drugs” draws on imagery from a spring tour in the American west. “I wrote this song after a particularly special and memorable tour opening for Pedro the Lion in the west of the US. Something strong clicked on that tour, and I was experiencing joy on the road in a way I really hadn’t before, feeling fully present and just revelling in the company of my bandmates and taking in the spectacular landscape in a way that felt like a deep breath.” Cornfield says, “I had never really been to the desert before, to Southern Utah and Arizona, and I was very moved by it. This is a drifting summer song to me, about letting grief and anxiety go and feeling light and buzzed and in love and joyful.”

You can hear it in the patient pleasure of these chords, or the way Cornfield narrates her first impressions of Arizona: “I watch the colors get real / the pink and the teal / I see a dust devil / I see an elevator.” Like riding across the desert with your friends; like smoking a joint at the end of a long day; but the song’s alternating verses orient themselves towards another sensation, too: that feeling of being home, and happy, when your lover’s not around. Not because they’re gone, but because you know they will return.

“Gentle Like The Drugs” is presented alongside a transportive video directed by Ali Vanderkruyk. Of the video, Vanderkruyk adds: “The video is a 16mm travelogue following the hand of a wanderer writing postcards to a loved one back home. Each vignette acts as vessel for the lyrics for the song, acknowledging the beauty of home while observing the unfamiliar. We see the kitsch in chosen images for a postcard, as well as the ways one can personalize an object that is available to the masses.”

WATCH CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD’S “GENTLE LIKE THE DRUGS” VIDEO

Could Have Done Anything, the follow-up to Cornfield’s break-out hit Highs in the Minuses, is a testament to this uncommon life and all its possibilities, an acknowledgment that the best musicians can turn fleeting moments into timeless songs. Throughout, Cornfield tried to channel the energy of her favorite classic records, from Tapestry to Blood On The Tracks to Car Wheels On A Gravel Road — albums where the listener is simply carried by the songs and the playing.

Whereas Cornfield’s preceding albums were made in familiar settings, with troupes of friends, this time she reached into the unknown, contacting producer Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman). The two convened in Upstate New York, first at the stained-glass-tinted Dreamland Recording Studios, then at the nearby Isokon Studio, run by engineer D. James Goodwin (Kevin Morby, Whitney) and assistant engineer Gillian Pelkonen. Four people, one album, six days; Kaufman and Cornfield (who went to school for jazz drums) played every instrument themselves, from ringing guitars to cozy piano, Hammond B3, pedal steel and synthesizers. That was the spirit of this record: connection, possibility, acceptance. “Don’t be afraid to take a left,” Kaufman would say.

After six days of recording, Cornfield went back to Canada, with a new album to mix and master. Another day-long drive; another homecoming; and one more thing, too, which would arise a little over nine months later: the singer’s first baby, who was born in mid-April. Anything can happen. Every year’s a kind of coming-of-age, and over these nine magnetic tracks, Cornfield begins yet another chapter as a mother.

PRE-ORDER COULD HAVE DONE ANYTHING

WATCH “CUT AND DRY” VIDEO

WATCH “YOU AND ME” VIDEO

CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD TOUR DATES
Thu. July 6 – Sun. July 9 – Winnipeg, MB @ Winnipeg Folk Fest
Fri. July 21 – Sun. July 23 – Nelsonville, OH @ Nelsonville Music Festival
Thu. Aug. 31 – Sun. Sept. 3 – Dorset, UK @ End of the Road Festival
Thu. Sept. 28 – Montreal, QC @ Rialto Rooftop – Pop Montreal

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jaycee and Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Caesar Spencer – Get Out into Yourself

There’s a lot happening on Cesar Spencer‘s debut album, Get Out into Yourself.

For one thing, the influences abound. Spencer, an Englishman, was born in Peru, also has Swedish roots, and now lives most of the time in France. I think he speaks at least four languages. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to learn French and stuttering through English half the time. As a result of his multi-cultural upbringing, Spencer’s album combines a lot of styles ranging from surf rock to torch songs, and he especially shows off his love of French music (Spencer calls the album “…a love letter to France”) from the 1960s through the 1980s by collaborating with famous French musicians on the record. The mix of influences and styles is one he pulls off with ease. I don’t know how he kept track of all of it, let alone made it sound effortless.

“Hail Caesar,” with guitar assists by French rock icons Gilles Tandy and Jean Felzine, launches the album with a wild surf guitar rocker before taking a turn down a dark cobblestone road in Angers, France for “Get Out into the Pigs” – which reminds me a lot of some of Julian Cope‘s work with Spencer’s vocal style and his rumination on things past that linger in his memory.

“Isn’t That What Jimi Said” is both a lovely look back on Spencer’s childhood days in Sweden (“Sometimes the breadth of my emotion’s not covered.”) and Jimi Hendrix‘s influence on him (and everyone else, really). As if Spencer wasn’t cool enough, the next thing you know he’s singing a duet, “When I Whisper in Your Ear,” with singer, actress, and former “Miss Tahiti,” Mareva Galenter. The two of them team up for a sultry, and somewhat spooky, song that even includes siren-like sounds from opera star Aurélie Ligerot.

The thick bass on “Jane Loves the Highway” will have you tearing away from the curb as you leave the bank in a hurry with a lovely lady in the back seat holding a heavy bag and a handgun. “Everything I ever did was bad,” he says on “Requiem,” making me wonder if he and Jane are to regret their roadtrip. It has a bit of a 1960s R&B girl group sound to it (particularly in the drum beat) that’s a nice touch. “Cult of Personality” is not a cover of Living Colour‘s classic hit (although it would be interesting to hear Spencer do this). It’s rather a song of hope (“There’s an angel passing over you.”) hidden among somber piano chords and lonely western guitars.

The uplifting messages, and his passion for so many different types of music, continue on “Broken By the Song,” with Spencer telling us, “You can be beautiful…There will come a day.” Things can always turn around and change. Sorrow, like joy, will pass away like everything else. “Waiting for Sorrow,” his first single from the album, features an intro from French pop icon Jacqueline Taïeb and has Spencer’s boldest vocals on the record. I mean, he absolutely belts the chorus and bounces it off the back of the concert hall to lodge deep in your chest, and the bright, jangling guitar riffs only help it settle there.

The title track has slithering snake-like guitar and percussion and Spencer’s witty lyrics (and David Vanian-like vocals) about his complicated relationship with an ex-lover, and perhaps even with England. The way the album fades out with sparkling synths on “Knew That One Day” is a neat way to send us out on a levitating note.

The album is multi-layered, like Spencer himself, and I suspect will reveal more of itself with multiple listens. Vous devriez l’entendre.

Gardez votre esprit ouvert.

[Grâce à Caesar!]

Get ready to meet The Courettes with their new compilation album – “Boom! Dynamite (An Introduction to the Fabulous Courettes).”

The Courettes (lead guitarist/singer Flavia Couri and drummer Martin Couri) are an explosive (husband and wife) rock duo from Denmark and Brazil who have been touring nonstop throughout Europe since 2015, bringing their perfect blend of garage rock, 60s Girl Groups, Wall of Sound, surf music and doo wop to the delight of any audience even remotely interested in rock ‘n’ roll. Now, the “hardest working band in showbiz” are thrilled to tour the USA for the first time. Expect excitement, danger, sweat, explosive performances, and most importantly, GREAT tunes!

To coincide with their first US shows, and as an introduction to the band, a special US/Canada-only compilation, Boom! Dynamite (An Introduction To The Fabulous Courettes), will be released May 12th.The duo has released four fantastic albums on the legendary label Damaged Goods Records, each one praised by magazines such as MOJO and Shindig!, most notably the Back In Mono album in 2021, a true milestone in their career and featured in countless Best Albums of 2021 lists.

Watch video for Misfits & Freaks

Watch video for Hop The Twig

This new compilation, released exclusively for the US, guides you through their albums from the very beginning, from the early raw power garage rock onto their present Spector/Levine Wall of Sound Gold Star sound, made using complex recording techniques at StarrSound Studios in Denmark with top producer Søren Christensen and mixing genius Seiki Sato from Japan.

From Here Are The Courettes, their debut album from 2015, you ́ll find ‘I’ve Been Walking’, ‘Push It Too Hard’ (a duet with Kim Kix of Powersolo), both raw and rocking, along with a 2021 re-recording of ‘The Boy I Love’, which heads deep down the ‘60s Girl Group alley. On We Are The Courettes, their second album, the duo began using overdubs in the studio. You can hear Flavia singing harmonies and playing piano and organ on the swinging tracks ‘Time is Ticking’ and ‘Strawberry Boy’. The album also contained the garage nerve of ‘Hoodoo Hop’ and ‘Voodoo Doll’, featuring legendary Brazilian Horror icon Coffin Joe on spells.

The brilliant Back in Mono album found the duo on top songwriting form and is represented on the compilation by ‘Hop The Twig’, ‘Want You! Like a Cigarette’, ‘Night Time (The Boy of Mine)’, ‘R.I.N.G.O’ and ‘Misfits & Freaks’. ‘Only Happy When You’re Gone’ is a hidden gem from Back in Mono (B-Sides & Outtakes), and the fantastic single ‘Christmas (I Can Hardly Wait)’ is included for the first time on an album.

The first pressing is on sunny orange vinyl and is limited to 1000 copies. The band hit the West Coast in May for select dates, as well as Gonerfest in the fall and will be announcing more US shows in the near future. The Courettes are pure dynamite! Turn up the volume and fuzz out! BOOM!

US DATES

May 8 The Sardine – San Pedro, CA *

May 9 Transplants Brewing Company – Lancaster, CA *

May 10 Cellar Door – Visalia, CA *

May 11 Moe’s Alley – Santa Cruz, CA *

May 12 Bottom of The Hill – San Francisco, CA *

May 13 The Wheelhouse – Nevada City, CA *

May 14 Cafe Colonial – Sacramento, CA *

September 30 Gonerfest – Memphis, TN

* w/ The Schizophonics

More dates to be announced

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jo Murray!]

Review: Ladytron – Time’s Arrow

Returning with their first full-length album in four years, Ladytron are back with their distinctive style of electro-pop music with Time’s Arrow – an album that, like most of their catalogue, hypnotizes you into an altered state and also makes you want to dance at the same time.

“City of Angels” might be about Los Angeles, but it seems more about a city inhabited by beings of light to which Ladytron can readily travel through their use of heavenly synths, electronic beats, and ghost-like vocals. “Faces come from yesterday and arrive tomorrow,” sing Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo on “Faces” – a song about how people drift in and out of our lives and how we struggle at times to remember them. “Misery Remember Me” is flat-out beautiful with soaring synths and vocals that sounds like they’re bouncing up from a canyon at sunset.

On “Flight from Ankor,” Aroyo sings above shimmering synths about waking from a dream and realizing that the life around her is just as incredible as the dream. “I hear whispers on the wire,” Marnie sings on “We Never Went Away,” a dreamy reassurance to their fans that is a little bittersweet now since one of the band’s founding members, Reuben Wu, left the band earlier this year to focus on his photography and fine art. “The Night” brings the pop to their electro-pop with snappy beats that melt into “The Dreamers,” a darker synthwave track that might have you folding up an origami unicorn.

“Sargasso Sea” sounds exactly like you think it should: Floating synths, seagull calls, bubbling bass, and siren vocals. “California” is possibly a callback to “City of Angels,” and is a song about how the state is a mix of luxury, mystery, and misery. The title track ends the album and has a bold, almost off-Broadway brashness to it with its thudding percussion and swaggering vocals.

Time’s Arrow is a nice return for Ladytron, whose synthwave seduction is always welcome.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Viagra Boys – Consistency of Energy (2016)

Viagra Boys‘ debut EP, Consistency of Energy, is a good blueprint of how you should come out of the gate with your new band: Bring all of the energy, all of the time.

The Swedish post / art-punk band love poking fun at “bro culture,” toxic masculinity, consumerism, fashion, perceptions of what is or isn’t beautiful, rich snobs, drug culture, pop culture, and more. Their name alone is a poke in the eye to dudes who willingly trade raging hard-ons now for chronic heart and blood pressure issues later.

The EP’s opening track, “Research Chemcials,” is a home run in their first at-bat. The heavy bass tone from Henrik Höckert builds and builds until the track breaks open like a freight train without breaks coming down a hill toward a bus of school kids stalled at a railroad crossing. In it, lead singer Sebastian Murphy both rails against and praises the drugs he’s taking (“Research chemicals got me bleeding from my ears. Research chemicals…They make ’em better every year.”). There are times in the track when you can’t tell if Oskar Carls‘ saxophone is broken or in proper working order, which means he’s either a master player or a madman (not unlike Captain Beefheart on saxophone), which means it’s great.

On “I Don’t Remember That,” Murphy tells a tale of him being so drunk and / or high, that he can’t remember, or refuses to admit, all the crazy stuff he’s done the last couple nights – despite multiple witnesses telling him he “peed on the carpet” and “broke your mother’s vase.” Meanwhile, Benjamin Vallé‘s guitar rips through the track like a power washer hose left unattended on full blast.

The perils of too much drug use continue on “Can’t Get It Up,” in which Murphy wants to have some sexy time with his lady friend, but is too burnt-out on snorted research chemicals to give it the ole college try. Tor Sjödén‘s drum beats are the sound of Murphy’s heart pounding from sexual excitement and performance anxiety (“I didn’t mean to ruin your night, girl. I truly do apologize, but since we’re lyin’ here doin’ nothin’, I might as well do another line.”).

The final track, “Liquids,” is about Murphy’s desire to have his lover give him a golden shower (as he admitted on stage when I saw them play it live in February 2023, “That’s a song about gettin’ peed on.”). Murphy is a slave to his desires and Höckert‘s thumping bass is both the throbbing in Murphy’s brain (“She makes me sick, my brain hurt. She’s got my weakness under her skirt.”) and Martin Ehrencron‘s subtle synths are the power of the woman he wants to dominate him (“She’s got me shaking down to my gizzard. She speaks just like some kind of lizard. She’s dressed in robes like some weird wizard. I fantasize until I get blisters. She ain’t no human, I ain’t no ape. I want her liquids all on my face.”).

It’s just four tracks, but they’re four tracks of raw power, and it was a great way for them to launch their assault on an unsuspecting world.

Keep your mind open.

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Mong Tong bring Taiwanese psych with “Forest Show.”

Mong Tong 夢東 is a Taiwanese psychedelic music band formed by brothers Hom Yu and Jiun Chi. The name “Mong Tong” is derived from the brothers’ childhood nickname, which can mean something totally different in different languages from Burmese, Cantonese to Chinese. Today they are announcing their new album ‘Tao Fire 道火‘ is set for release June 30th via Guruguru Brain and are sharing the first single from the record “Forest Show”.

Listen to “Forest Show” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ahXNBCnO2o

Mong Tong’s music is heavily influenced by Southeast Asian culture, including its mythology and folklore, as well as 60s and 70s psychedelic music. Their sound is characterized by hypnotic rhythms, dreamy melodies, and otherworldly atmospheres.

Their latest album, “Tao Fire 道火”, not only continues the idea behind their previous work, “Indies 印”, but also incorporates more local elements such as gamelan music, phin guitar, tabla drums, and Taiwan sisomi.

While sampling more sounds from the street of Southeast Asia, including weddings, funerals, and traditional celebrations, Mong Tong again explores different folk sounds around Austronesia.

Different their last Guruguru Brain release “Mystery 秘神”, “Tao Fire 道火” will take us to a land that is both familiar and fresh. Feel the hot, the crowd, humidity, and ecstasy. This time, welcome to Mong Tong’s subtropical world.

Mong Tong has been described as part of a new wave of Taiwanese music that draws on the country’s rich cultural heritage while pushing boundaries and exploring new sonic territory. They have also been noted for their visually striking album artwork, music videos and special outfits. Overall, Mong Tong is a unique and exciting addition to the global psychedelic music scene, offering a fresh perspective and a fascinating blend of musical and cultural influences.

Pre-order album here: https://snipfeed.co/gurugurubrainsalesxlh6og7ab

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Sorry Girls conjure up “Sorcery” on their new single.

With their new album ‘Bravo!‘ due June 2nd via Arbutus, Montreal duo Sorry Girls, made up of Heather Foster Kirkpatrick and Dylan Konrad Obront, are today sharing their new single “Sorcery“.

On the new track, the band said “‘Sorcery’ is a song that evokes the feeling of the absurdity of a chance encounter, the luck of love and mystery of this dance, the feeling of looking up at the stars with awe, wonder and fear with an awareness that amidst all the pain and fear in the world there is always the acorn of love from which everything is born. ‘Sorcery’ is like taking a shower in shimmering synths, pumped up drums, catchy melodies and stacked vocals/vocoders.”

Listen to “Sorcery” here: https://youtu.be/fgRhcNY48hM

Sorry Girls have danced out of the darkness into the light. Since forming in 2015, the Montreal duo of Heather Foster Kirkpatrick and Dylan Konrad Obront transformed an eerie, dreamlike sound into lush, pleasure seeking pop. Expanding upon their debut album, Deborah, which Pitchfork described as “more John Hughes than David Lynch,”the band’s deftly arranged sophomore LP, Bravo!, sings to the back rows of the stadium, drawing listeners inward with a newfound focus on personal lyrics.

“These songs are all about self-acceptance, self-affirmation, personal freedom, and letting go,” says Kirkpatrick. “There are a lot of lyrics about the creative process itself, identity shaping, and how those things intertwine.”

The duo first became friends while studying at Concordia and dipping their toes into the Montreal music scene, though neither had played in bands before Sorry Girls. Kirkpatrick says their first songs were guided by “a sense of discovery,” and that by “not trying to make something concrete,” they continue to thrive without goals. After working with TOPS’ David Carriere on their debut, Sorry Girls linked up with Braids drummer Austin Tufts, who played on the songs of Bravo! and pulled double duty as its mixing engineer.Another first-time collaborator was fellow Arbutus Records artist Mitch Davis, whose saxophone shimmers throughout the album.

Ironically, Obront and Kirkpatrick came together in the songwriting process by physically splitting themselves apart. After touring with Devon Welsh in 2019, the duo lived together during the beginning of the pandemic, yet only reignited a creative spark after moving into their own apartments. “We’ve always made our demos separately, with Dylan writing an instrumental and then me singing over it,” explains Kirkpatrick. “This time we made a conscious effort to write and record the album together from the ground up.” Despite the fact that each contributing musician was recorded on their lonesome – either in their homes, or at Braids’ Toute Garnie studio – Sorry Girls have never sounded more like a live band.

With each subsequent release, Sorry Girls’ influences have evolved alongside their music. The duo’s 2016 debut EP, Awesome Secrets, was inspired by classic artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Roy Orbison, or Twin Peakscomposer Angelo Badalamenti, obscuring timeless melodies in a hazy fog of synths. Bravo! builds upon these reference points and brings them into the present, with influences ranging from Carole King to Perfume Genius. The dramatic sound of “Sorcery” borrows a few tricks from Talk Talk, while “The Exiles” is Sorry Girls’ attempt at a Springsteen anthem, complete with their own Clarence Clemons.

For “Enough Is Enough”, Kirkpatrick cites an unlikely inspiration: Shania Twain. “We just wanted to make a country breakup song, and this is what came out,” she says. Propelled by a slinky disco groove, “Prettier Things” contains similarly empowering subject matter. “It’s another breakup song that’s about honesty, not lying to yourself, and hiding behind prettier truths,” says Kirkpatrick. “You can allow yourself to move onto better things, if that’s what you need.”

The album delves most directly into its theme of self-discovery on first single “Breathe,” a meditative song about slowing down in order to move forward. “That song is about the feeling of freedom and getting to know yourself on a deeper level,” concludes Kirkpatrick. “It’s about releasing limiting beliefs and how those chase you for your whole life before you can move onto a new path. In the end, Bravo! is an album about celebration and fun.”

Pre-order album here: https://found.ee/sorrygirls

See Sorry Girls live:
01-09 | Montreal, QC | L’escogriffe
02-09 | Brooklyn, NY | Baby’s All Right
08-09 | Detroit, MI | UFO Factory
09-09 | Chicago, IL | Golden Dagger
10-09 | Minneapolis, MN | Underground Music Venue
15-09 | Vancouver, BC | The Cobalt
18-09 | Seattle, WA | Madame Lou’s
22-09 | Los Angeles, CA | Moroccan Lounge
24-09 | San Diego, CA | Soda Bar
06-10 | Toronto, ON | Monarch Tavern
Tickets: https://arbutusrecords.com/pages/tour-dates

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Strange Ranger announce new album with new single, “She’s on Fire.”

Strange Ranger announce their transcendent new album, Pure Music, out July 21st via Fire Talk, and present a captivating new single/video, “She’s On Fire.” Strange Ranger’s music occupies a space best described as uncanny; on Pure Music, the band indulges an obsession with Loveless, but they infiltrate any comparison to shoegaze with overtures to disco, house, and experimental pop. “She’s On Fire” is only a rock song until just after the midway point, when the drums throb, the snare skitters then snaps, and suddenly, you’re in a sweaty pit of swaying bodies dancing as Isaac Eiger (vocals, guitar) and Fiona Woodman (vocals, synth) harmonize, “I would have thought the rhythm of the club might lead me somewhere.” It’s one of the best songs in their discography, with an accompanying video that presents their vivid, cinematic aesthetic to match.

“When you’re young, it feels like life has a kind of arc to it and up ahead in the future, there’s some point where all your experiences converge and this fog of confusion will lift and you will have arrived,” says Eiger, speaking on the inspiration behind the band’s new single. “This is definitely not true and increasingly, music is the steadying hand I lean on when looking for meaning. It provides a spiritualism that feels absent from much of life and I want to be as close to that feeling as possible.”

WATCH STRANGE RANGER’S VIDEO FOR “SHE’S ON FIRE”

Ever since Stranger Ranger hit the house show circuit many years ago, Eiger has returned to a Burial quote from one of his few recorded interviews: “Being on your own listening to headphones is not a million miles away from being in a club surrounded by people. Sometimes you get that feeling like a ghost touched your heart, like someone walks with you.” Though that Burial quote resonates, the songs that make up Pure Music have a pulse so strong they’re practically breathing; not touching your heart, but gripping it. Pure Music is easily the band’s most exciting and ambitious work to date.

Eiger, Woodman, Nathan Tucker and Fred Nixon recorded Pure Music at a cabin in upstate New York as a blizzard raged outside. The album elucidates the promise of No Light in Heaven, a mixtape that hinted the band was cocooned in a state of near total transformation. Pure Music emerged from the same sessions, and while No Light in Heaven resembles, in places, bygone iterations of Strange Ranger’s sound, Pure Music was made with so little concern for what anyone might expect of them, as if they were a band without history. It’s an album that feels out of this time, one that lives in a dimension running parallel to ours.

It’s been four years since Strange Ranger released the spirited Remembering the Rockets, and in the interim period, the band surveyed a range of electronic production techniques, determined to integrate them on Pure Music. That effort is apparent from the outset; opening track “Rain So Hard” is scaffolded upon layers of oceanic synths, the trill of a marimba, and a mournful guitar part that mirrors the lyrical content. Written while Eiger and Woodman were in the process of breaking up, “Rain So Hard” captures the romantic loneliness of a late subway ride home. Despite the breakup, Pure Music is Stranger Ranger’s most collaborative effort to date. “With a few exceptions, I can’t tell whose production ideas were whose, when I listen back to it,” says Nixon. “We were literally trapped in this cabin, manically working at all hours, and the energy was crazy, in a fun way.”

Pure Music embodies that manic state through interstitial interludes laced with YouTube samples that connect each track to the next so as to submerge the listener in its world, one that rewards catharsis. “Music makes us transcend the feeling of being alienated from or trapped by the world,” Woodman says. “I want the experience of listening to Pure Music to be euphoric.”

PRE-ORDER PURE MUSIC

WATCH STRANGE RANGER’S “RAIN SO HARD” VIDEO

PURE MUSIC TRACKLIST
1.Rain So Hard
2. She’s On Fire
3. Dream
4. Way Out
5. Blue Shade
6. Blush
7. Wide Awake
8. Ask Me About My Love Life
9. Fantasy
10. Dazed in the Shallows

STRANGE RANGER TOUR DATES
Sat. June 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ TBA w/ Blood & Zeke Ultra
Sat. June 17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Heaven w/Chanel Beads

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jacob and Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]