January 2025 – 7th Level Music

Pink Turns Blue asks us to “Stay for the Night” on their new single.

Iconic post-punk band Pink Turns Blue present their new single ‘Stay For The Night’, a celebration of the post-punk / goth rock / darkwave community and the second single from their new ‘Black Swan’ album, to be released on limited edition vinyl, CD and digitally via Orden Records.

Today made up of Mic Jogwer (vocals, guitar), Paul Richter (drums) and Luca Sammuri (bass), Pink Turns Blue – named after a Hüsker Dü song – emerged in 1985 in the first generation of gothic rock.

This new single follows the lead track ‘Black Swan (But I Know There Is More to Life)’, the album’s only ballad, offering ample fruit for thought. Delving into profound questions about existence, it reflects on life’s purpose and the beauty of the world.

‘Stay for the Night’ is meant for the dance floor. While we are an alternative rock band, founded in the post-punk era of the 80s, many of our fans wear black or dress as goths. And we often play in clubs that play darkwave music or goth rock at the after show party. The key message of the song is about unequal love, with one person wanting to leave the relationship or the group or going home instead of staying in the club with their (black-clad) friends and the other person asking to stay to sort things out, to give the relationship or the evening another chance,” explains Mic Jogwer.

“This is also a love song to the post-punk / goth rock community for being with all these years. Very often, we stay for the after-show party and immerse ourselves in the very open-minded and diverse dancing crowd. This is home. After the show, we can just close our eyes and float with the music and our friends… All we need is love. All we need is friends. Thank you so much for being with us. See you on the dance floor.”

After 2021’s widely acclaimed ‘Tainted’ album, the companion ‘Tainted Tour 2022’ EP and successful American and European tours with often-sold-out concerts, the Berliners’ new studio album will be followed by their ‘Black Swan’ tour, which sees them visit clubs through Germany in April.

This new collection is aptly named ‘Black Swan’, a term used for an unexpected event that, in retrospect, is rationalized as if one could have prepared for it.

Pink Turn Blue’s debut album ‘If Two Worlds Kiss’ advanced the darkwave sub-genre while becoming a seminal post-punk album. Emerging from the fear and uncertainty of a divided Cold War Germany and inspired by Joy Division, The Sound and The Chameleons, they have since released a dozen full-length LPs and have become known for their trademark blend of post-punk, alternative rock and new wave.

Pink Turns Blue has achieved pretty much everything an indie band could wish for – Album of the Year (Byte FM), Best Album of 2021 (Post-Punk.com), singles reaching number 1 in the German Alternative Charts and Indie Disco Top 40, excellent reviews in worldwide music press, well attended and sold-out club concerts spanning from Los Angeles to Yerevan.

As of January 10, ‘Stay For The Night’ is available everywhere, including Apple Music, Spotify, and Bandcamp. February 28 brings the release of the full ‘Black Swan’ album – digitally on all streaming platforms with limited-edition vinyl and CD editions now available for pre-order. Tickets for 2025 concerts can already be ordered at https://pinkturnsblue.com/live-dates.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Shauna at Shameless Promotion.]

Review: Gus Baldwin & The Sketch – The Sketch

Gus Baldwin is one of the hardest working dudes in the Austin, Texas music scene. When he’s not cranking out solo material, he’s often working with The Black Angels, or Christian Bland and The Revelators, or collaborating with Danny Blackwell of Night Beats, or he’s teaming up with his pals in The Sketch to create The Sketch album, and, since he’s so busy, he and his pals recorded it in one day.

Opening with “Part I,” “Part II,” and “Part III,” the album is raucous right out of the gate with guitars that sound like a battleship groaning as it collides with an iceberg. The album moves back and forth between garage punk and trash rock. The fourth track, “Itch,” is a wild punk barn-burner. “Steady on It” lands somewhere between Frankie and The Witch Fingers and Ty Segall, but with extra-funky bass for good measure.

“Luxury Television” teems with Osees-like intensity and mania as Baldwin sings “I got a strange addiction. Your hate is my prescription.” You don’t get much more punk than that. “Slacker’s Prom” and “(She’s Gone) Arigato” continue the punk fun, and the latter even brings in a bit of 50s-ish doo-wop on the backing vocals.

“What the Freaks Say” could fit right in on any college radio playlist, and by the end, “Sympathy for Sunday,” they go all-in on heavy psych-rock.

It’s a wild ride, and over before you know it. It’s also a good launch for Baldwin and The Sketch. They’ll be ones to watch in 2025.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]

Lord Huron teams up with Kristen Stewart to ask “Who Laughs Last?”

Lord Huron returns with “Who Laughs Last?,” a new single featuring Academy Award nominated actress Kristen Stewart and an accompanying music video directed by Tony Wilson and starring Stewart. The band also announces a 2025 world tour, taking place after the upcoming Strange Trails 10th Anniversary run “Who Laughs Last?” marks the multiplatinum Los Angeles band’s first original release in two years, and also serves as the debut recording by Kristen Stewart [Spencer, Love Lies Bleeding]. “Who Laughs Last?” represents just the first piece of a sonic, aesthetic, and sensory puzzle meant to be assembled with care.

Watch the Video for “Who Laughs Last? (feat. Kristen Stewart)”

Stream “Who Laughs Last? (feat. Kristen Stewart)”

“Who Laughs Last?” finds Lord Huron evolving at lightspeed. With Stewart in the driver’s seat, they traverse a lonely and lost highway soundtracked by a rumbling palm-muted bass riff and a high octane beat. The groove picks up as samples of garbled news broadcasts echo in waves over strings. While she grips the wheel, Stewart’s poetic spoken word chills. At one point, she confesses that staring at an oncoming storm “made me feel something I never felt before…something between awestruck and horrified…I kept my eyes on the long white lines.” Turning on a dime, the momentum picks up and frontman Ben Schneider’s vocals take hold around a hard-hitting hook, “You don’t remember what I said, but you’ll remember what I did.” Starring Stewart,the accompanying visual evokes a Lynchian film noir on screen.

About the single, Schneider commented “I didn’t know Kristen previously but I’d been a big fan since seeing her work with Olivier Assayas, which my wife introduced me to. I kept hearing her voice when I was writing this song and just thought “what the hell, I’ll reach out and see,” thinking it was a long shot. But she said she was interested so we met up and hit it off talking about books, movies and music. She immediately got what I was going for and had great ideas to boot. She’s just a great person and so creative and open. She added a lot to the video concept as well. It was the kind of collaboration you dream of, honestly.”

“I’ve always loved the band and immediately sparked to the manic drift of the song and to the mood,” says Stewart. “I love when a song is something you can kind of seep into and imagine. Ben is the nicest, I was so into reading his words… there’s nothing like making new friends through projects like these that just crop up. Lucky stuff.”

Lord Huron’s 2025 world tour is the band’s biggest North American headline tour to date. The trek commences on July 18th and visits legendary venues, including Madison Square Garden in New York City, Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, and the Moody Center in Austin before concluding at Kia Forum in Los Angeles. Select dates will feature support from artists including Waxahatchee, Feist, Kevin Morby and more.

Prior, Lord Huron embarks on the previously announced Strange Trails 10th Anniversary Tour, beginning this May in Reno, NV, and includes their annual Red Rocks Amphitheatre dates. This very special run commemorates the 10th anniversary of the release of their album, Strange Trails, which featured the multi-platinum single “The Night We Met.” Artist presale tickets for newly announced dates begin Tuesday, January 28th at 1PM local time. General on-sale launches on Friday, January 31st at 10am local time. A full list of dates can be found below.

There will be more news from Lord Huron in the coming months.

Lord Huron Tour Dates
(new dates in bold)
Sat. April 26 – Charleston, NC @ Highwater Festival
Thu. May 22 – Reno, NV @ The Grand Theatre at Grand Sierra Resort – SOLD OUT *
Fri. May 23 – Boise, ID @ Outlaw Field at the Idaho Botanical Garden – SOLD OUT *
Sun. May 25 – Missoula, MT @ KettleHouse Amphitheater – SOLD OUT *
Mon. May 26 – Missoula, MT @ KettleHouse Amphitheater – SOLD OUT *
Wed. May 28 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre – SOLD OUT *
Thu. May 29 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre – SOLD OUT *
Sat. May 31 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Sandy Amphitheater – SOLD OUT *
Sun. June 1 – Denver, CO @ Outside Festival
Fri. July 18 – Indianapolis, IN @ Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park ^
Sat. July 19 – Chicago, IL @ Fairgrounds at Salt Shed ^
Sun. July 20 – Chicago, IL @ Fairgrounds at Salt Shed ^
Tue. July 22 – Minneapolis, MN @ Armory %
Wed. July 23 @ Milwaukee, WI Miller High Life Theatre %
Fri. July 25 – Nashville, TN @ The Pinnacle %
Sat. July 26 – Nashville, TN @ The Pinnacle %
Sun. July 27 – Atlanta, GA @ Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park %
Tue. July 29 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion #
Wed. July 30 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden #
Fri. Aug. 1- Philadelphia, PA @ TD Pavillion at The Mann %
Sun. Aug. 3 – Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway %
Tue. Aug. 5 – Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek %
Thu. Aug. 7 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE Outdoors) @
Fri. Aug. 8 – Columbus, OH @ KEMBA Live! Outdoor @
Sat. Aug. 9 – Rochester Hills, MI @ Meadow Brook Amphitheatre @
Thu. Sept. 4 – Oslo, NO @ Sentrum Scene
Fri. Sept. 5 – Stockholm, SE @ Annexet
Sat. Sept. 6 – Copenhagen, DK @ Poolen
Mon. Sept. 8 – Berlin, DE @ Tempodrom
Tue. Sept. 9 – Warsaw, PL @ Stodola
Wed. Sept. 10 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer
Thu. Sept. 11 – Zurich, CH @ Halle 622
Sat. Sept. 13 – Paris, FR @ L’Olympia
Sun. Sept. 14 – Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg – Ronda
Mon. Sept. 15 – Cologne, DE @ E-Werk
Tue. Sept. 16 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
Thu. Sept. 18 – Bristol, UK @ Bristol Beacon
Fri. Sept. 19 – London, UK @ Eventim Apollo
Sat. Sept. 20 – Glasgow, UK @ O2 Academy Glasgow
Sun. Sept. 21 – Manchester, UK @ O2 Apollo Manchester
Wed. Oct. 15 – Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley !
Fri. Oct. 17 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center !
Sat. Oct. 18 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena !
Sun. Oct. 19 – Spokane, WA @ Spokane Pavilion !
Tue. Oct. 21 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union Event Center !
Thu. Oct. 23 – Omaha, NE @ Steelhouse Omaha !
Fri. Oct. 24 – St. Louis, MO @ Chaifetz Arena !
Sat. Oct. 15 – Independence, MO @ Cable Dahmer Arena !
Mon. Oct. 27 – Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory !
Wed. Oct. 29 – Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall !
Thu. Oct. 30 – Austin, TX @ Moody Center $
Sat. Nov. 1 – Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre $
Sun. Nov. 2 – Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum $

* with Molly Lewis
^ with Indigo De Souza
% with Lee Fields
# with Waxahatchee
@ with S.G. Goodman
! with Kevin Morby
$ with Feist

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Bonnie Trash unleash “Hellmouth” from their upcoming album due February 28, 2025.

Today Guelph, Ontario hell-raisers Bonnie Trash share a new single and video, taken from their forthcoming new album, Mourning You, which is set for release on February 28th on Hand Drawn Dracula.

Mourning You finds Bonnie Trash, twins Emmalia & Sarafina Bortolon-Vettor, embracing a newfound sense of urgency. The album is, put bluntly, an album about death. Not death in the macabre, violent, or outrageous sense, but death as you or I might know it. A spectre lurking around the corner. Capricious, indiscriminate, and unexpected. Ordinary and all the more terrifying for it. Real. Fear in the eyes of a loved one about to die, and the fear in your eyes – staring back. This is sorrow not as a lingering bruise, but a gushing wound.

Following previous single, “Veil of Greed”, today they share the howling, urgent new track “Hellmouth“ – a song that evokes the gnarled claw of remorse gripping you in twilight’s terror. “I see you in my dreams every night,” Sarafina intones. Were it not for Emmalia’s blown-out Stratocaster, you might mistake those words for the chorus of an old doo-wop standard. The track launches off as a woozy siren song, before pummeling you with anthemic power chords for Sarafina’s self lacerating chorus: “Drag me to hell and back I go.”

“Every reminder of what once was, feels like a sharp sword” the band comment. “But, even in the darkest moments, there’s always a path towards love. Remembering the warmth of their smile, as you scrape your nails towards the surface…”

“Hellmouth” video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEPFUHNzbrk
‘Mourning You’ album pre-order/pre-save links: https://ffm.to/mourningyou

A lifelong project christened in 2017 with the release of Ezzelini’s Dead, the band’s debut EP which found the pair mining the Trevisan dialect and archaic Italian folklore of their heritage to grisly effect. Where their first full length, Malocchio (2022), shrouded Bonnie Trash’s nightmares in dusky dreamlike reverb, ‘Mourning You’ is vivid and immediate. Emboldened by the addition of Emma Howarth-Withers on bass and Dana Bellamy on drums – whose thunderous rhythms sharpened 2024’s My Love Remains the Same EP into a fine-edged blade – Mourning You is less a post-mortem fantasia than a sudden, swift dagger to the heart.

Sarafina, the band’s singer and lyricist, has described the album as being about “losing someone you love. It’s about the horrors of grief, haunting you every day.” Inspired, largely, by the passing of Nonna Maria – who provided interstitial narration across the band’s early work – it’s these intimate details which render the songs on Mourning You so devastating. The record explores love and grief as kindred spirits. Grief as love with nowhere to go. Love determined by the fear of its loss. A blood pact. A life for a life. The gnarled claw of remorse gripping you in twilight’s terror.

Though inspired by the shocking iconography of horror shows, slasher flicks, and psychological thrillers, Bonnie Trash turns cinematic tropes on their head. Rather than fashioning nightmares into reality, the band paints reality as a nightmare, rife with pain, suffering, and gothic theatre. Bonnie Trash understands that everyday atrocities haunt the periphery of our lives. A black cloud looming on the edge of our vision. Curses abound. You can’t ward them off. You’d best make an unholy racket.

Mourning You is out February 28, 2025 on Hand Drawn Dracula. In mourning, all is lost.

Bonnie Trash live dates:
Feb 27 – Toronto, ON – Wavelength Winter Fest w/ The OBGMs, pHoenix Pagliacci, Cadence Weapon
Mar 01 – Guelph, ON – ArtBar
Mar 08 – Kitchener, ON – The Union

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[Thanks to Kate at Stereo Sanctity.]

Marlon Williams releases first single from his Māori language album out April 04, 2025.

New Zealand singer-songwriter Marlon Williams announces his first Māori language album, Te Whare Tīwekaweka, out April 4th, and releases the lead single, “Aua Atu Rā,” alongside a self-directed video. Additionally, he announces special release shows will take place in Los Angeles, New York City and London in April.

“Ko te reo Māori, he matapihi ki te ao Māori” goes the Māori whakatauki (proverb) that has guided Te Whare Tīwekaweka. Translated to “The Māori language is a window to the Māori world,” it expresses Marlon’s motivation behind this album. He comments, “Through the process of constructing these songs, I’ve found a means of expressing my joys, sorrows and humour in a way that feels both distinctly new, yet also connects me to my tīpuna (ancestors) and my whenua (land, home).”

Throughout the five years Marlon spent creating the album, he reconnected to family, friends and his home town of Lyttelton after a globe-trotting decade establishing his career. His journey developing his ancestral tongue unlocked both a newfound lyrical honesty and a grand sonic vision. Supported by long-time touring band The Yarra Benders, co-producer Mark Perkins, the He Waka Kōtuia singers and featuring a collaboration with Lorde, the album is a collection at once contemporary and timeless, traversing Marlon’s familiar folk-country-bluegrass territory, while continuing his exploration of poppier waters and the inherent rhythms of Māori music.

Inspired by 60s Māori showbands, the album’s lead single, “Aua Atu Rā,” is a mournful lament on isolation featuring lyrics co-written by Marlon and Lyttelton-based rapper Kommi. Responding to a famous Māori proverb expressing communal solidarity “he waka eke noa,” meaning “we’re all in this boat together,” Marlon sings “I am alone / in this boat / on the ocean / There is not a trace of wind / No, none at all.”

In Williams’ words, “‘Aua Atu Rā’ has existed as a song since May 2019. My stumbling around in flawed, simple Māori in my Lyttelton bedroom studio, spurned on by the thought of writing a depressively isolationist rebuttal to the above whakatauki, was the moment that kickstarted the record. It speaks to something universal, but especially pertinent to Te Ao Māori’s collectivist culture, that I’ve always found difficult to square. We ARE all in the same boat, and as the British literary pundit GK Chesterton added to the picture, ‘we owe each other a terrible loyalty,’ and yet are at once utterly alone.

“As a songwriter, I cherish simplicity, but as a speaker of Māori, I had a bucketload of whakamā (self-doubt) to push through before I could even approach my friend Kommi about helping me write songs in Māori. We took this song out on the road with us five years ago and it just felt so damn good to play. I’m proud of it for reasons deeper than I’ve felt as a songwriter before. This song acted as a guiding light for the rest of the album to follow.”

Watch the Video for “Aua Atu Rā”

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Four Seconds Ago releases “Bump the Lamp” from upcoming album due February 21, 2025.

Four Seconds Ago, the electronic duo featuring Periphery’s Jake Bowen and Misha Mansoor, return with 1000 Needles (February 21, 3DOT Recordings), a continued exploration of analog synths, spacey dynamics and otherworldly ambient melodies.

“Four Seconds Ago, aside from being a fulfilling outlet creatively, is also just a lot of fun,” Mansoor shares. “Jake and I have always had a blast writing together, and our explorations in electronic music are no exception. The sessions often feel like a good hang where songs magically materialize before our very eyes. To some degree we started Four Seconds Ago as an excuse to learn how to make this kind of music. Now I think we are able to use it as a genuine form of expression. We are very proud of this album, and we really hope you enjoy it.”

A preview of the album is available now with today’s release of a two-song digital single featuring “Bump The Lamp” and “Muse” (listen here).

“When we started ‘Bump The Lamp,’ we got momentum,” Bowen explains. “Every album needs a song to set the pace, determine the vibe, and kickstart the writing, ‘Bump The Lamp’ was this song for us.”

Album pre-orders, which include limited-edition vinyl and a 1000 Needles t-shirt, are available now: https://go.mhe.fm/FSA_1000needles.

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[Thanks to Monica at Speakeasy PR.]

Dez Dare shares his new single – “Brutalised Robotics.”

Dez Dare launches into 2025 with a new single, “Brutalised Robotics.” On this track, Dez draws parallels with how humanity exploits technology compared to howt hey treat all living beasts… What is consciousness? What is success for an organism?Dominance or longevity? One day all sentients will eventually pry the foot from their neck.

Dez Dare (AKA Darren Smallman of labels God Unknown, BATTLE WORLDWIDE, Low Transit Industries, and bands Thee Vinyl Creatures, The Sound Platform, Warped) grew up in Geelong, Australia, where he became involved in the local punk and rock scene in1990. Sharing stages with the likes of 5678s, Cosmic Psychos, Fugazi, The Dirty Three. and the Hard-ons, before shifting his focus to running record labels. In the 2020s, we see Dez Dare take form in a spare room in Brighton, UK, where Dez starts building his own studio and producing music and videos that have been described as “sounds like MONSTER MAGNET and DEVO caught in a drug bust… highly unique and highly recommended” by MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL [Nick Odorizzi] to The Wire’s Edwin Pouncey “dynamically armed with a ten-pronged set of lyrical barbs and musical hooks that, once heard, sink deep and hold fast” to Crossfire Metal “minimalistic, electronic, psychedelic, hippie poop, that is only bearable with a hell of a lot of acid, angel dust and LSD”. On this single, Dez is joined by Laura Loriga on backing vocals, expanding on the sound of previous records and adding a new dimension to his trademark weird-n-roll.

Keep an eye on dezdare.com for all the release and touring news for 2025.

‘Brutalised Robotics’ is out 24th January 2025 via God Unknown Records. Listen + pre-save the track + watch the video.

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[Thanks to Dez Dare!]

Rewind Review: Slowdive – Souvlaki (2011 reissue)

Slowdive‘s second album, Souvlaki (originally released in 1993), didn’t make much of a splash at first, but everyone pretty much now agrees that it was, and still is, a shoegaze classic.

“Alison” starts off the album in one of the best ways you can start a shoegaze record – with a song about a pretty girl and getting high. You’d think a song called “Machine Gun” would roll out the heavy walls of guitar feedback, but instead they up the hypnotic synths and let Rachel Goswell‘s morning mist vocals about succumbing to a flood come to the front.

It’s no secret that Goswell and Neil Halstead broke up not long before the band started the writing sessions for this album, and Halstead’s heartbreak is all over the album in his vocals, lyrics, and guitar work. He wrote “40 Days” while on a two-week break in Wales to come to terms with it. The song is a bit loose and jangly with Simon Scott‘s drums doing a little shuffle here and there.

“Sing” and “Here She Comes” were cowritten and produced by none other than Brian Eno. The band, and especially Halstead, wanted Eno to produce the whole record, but he declined. He contributes synths to “Sing,” a song about loneliness with Goswell’s vocals making you wonder if she was reconsidering the breakup. “Here She Comes” is about the hope of finding warmth in the arms of a lover, but knowing it could be a long winter before that happens.

“Souvlaki Space Station” is more psychedelia than shoegaze, and goes to show Slowdive can pull off either genre at will. Despite being one of their biggest hits among fans, bassist Nick Chaplin and guitarist Christian Savill, didn’t think “When the Sun Hits” should be on the album. It hits all the “wall of sound” notes you want in a shoegaze track, and they’ve changed their mind on it since.

“Altogether” has Halstead watching Goswell from a distance, knowing things probably aren’t going much further between them, and the sad guitar work on it only emphasizes that belief. “Melon Yellow” continues this distancing (“So long. So long. It’s just a way to love you.”), with Halstead’s voice sounding far away and Scott’s drums almost mournful. The closing track, “Dagger,” is about, as Halstead put it, “a fucked-up relationship.” It, like many songs on the album, refer to Halstead watching Goswell as she sleeps, perhaps telling her what he couldn’t bring himself to say while she was awake and admitting “You know I am your dagger. You know I am your wound.”

It’s a heavy record, and not just from the sound. It’s gorgeous and sad, so, yeah, a shoegaze classic.

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SUSS release a haunting cover of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”

SUSS has announced a slew of tour dates alongside Immersion, the electronic duo made up of Colin Newman from Wire and Malka Spigel from Minimal Compact. These dates include a major Across the Horizon themed curation effort as part of the legendary Big Ears festival. The band is also sharing a timely and intense cover of Woody Guthrie‘s classic, “This Land Is Your Land”.

The band speaks eloquently below about the concept and origin of their version of the piece, tied into the recent Presidential inauguration.

Jonathan Gregg: “Music more than almost anything else can evoke the emotions of a time and place. As we find ourselves again in a time of challenge and uncertainty, we reach for solace in the same places as those who came before. Whether it’s a hymn, a battle cry, or a simple folk song, music is at the ready to bring us together and remind us that we have been here before, we are still here, and always will be as long as we remember.”

“People has got to have more faith in one another, believe in each other. There’s a spirit of some kind we’ve all got. That’s got to draw us all together.” – Woody Guthrie

Great songs endure. The sentiments expressed by Woody Guthrie in his 1940 classic are no different today; the Dust Bowl and the social upheaval it caused may have faded from memory, but the truths of fairness and equality are timeless, like the songs they inhabit. Music exists to connect, and its lessons are deeply ingrained. You don’t need a lyric to feel it, you already know that truth will persist as long as there is someone to hear it.

It’s hard to know exactly where the idea for a song begins or how it progresses, but in the case of SUSS’s interpretation of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” the path was pretty clear. Bob recalls “I was playing my guitar and watching the news with the sound turned down. Before I knew it, I started strumming the patriotic standard. I slipped into a minor key which seemed to throw the whole song into a new direction, even though it didn’t change the melody that much. I pulled out my phone, and recorded the guitar, harmonica and whistling on the first take — right there in the living room.” The melody was haunting, the recording was raw, and it seemed to capture everything he was feeling at the time. He sent the track to Pat, who always has a way of pulling things a little left of center, which is just what it needed.

As Pat says, “We live in a big country. This land was made for all of us; it was made for you and me. SUSS music has always been about finding space and exploring the power of the unexpected. Woody Guthrie’s words resonate throughout the SUSS version of “This Land Is Your Land” so we don’t have to hear them literally.”

Once Pat had added keyboards to the track, Jonathan recorded his pedal steel, adding a strange mixture of hope and aching pain, taking the track to a whole new place. Jonathan goes on to say “Music more than almost anything else can evoke the emotions of a time and place. As we find ourselves again in a time of challenge and uncertainty, we reach for solace in the same places as those who came before. Whether it’s a hymn, a battle cry, or a simple folk song, music is at the ready to bring us together and remind us that we have been here before, we are still here, and always will be as long as we remember.”

Mastered by Chuck Johnson, SUSS’s adaptation of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” was released by Northern Spy Records on January 15th, 2025, just days before the Presidential Inauguration. SUSS is proud to release this music into a world that needs a timeless message of hope, resilience and community more than ever.

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[Thanks to Gabriel at Clandestine Label Services.]

Sharon Van Etten and The Attachments’ new single is full of “Trouble.”

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory release “Trouble,” the final pre-release single from their forthcoming self-titled debut album Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, out February 7th via Jagjaguwar. On the heels of the “ripping” and “mesmerizing” (FLOOD) “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like),” “Trouble” is a cascading, almost euphoric track characteristic of the mystical mix of electronics and analog textures found throughout the album. “Trouble” features Van Etten’s unmistakable vocals alongside melancholic synths by Teeny Lieberson and driving and melodic bass lines by Devra Hoff.

Van Etten explains, “’Trouble’ is about the idea of having to coexist with people you love who have opposing views, and not being able to share deep parts of yourself and your narrative based on someone else’s beliefs. It’s about when there’s that big part of you that someone who loves you can’t know because it’s not something they want to hear or are willing to learn about or understand, and those painful realizations when you choose to love and respect someone else’s needs over your own to salvage a relationship.”

The video for “Trouble” was shot and directed by Susu Laroche during the album’s recording sessions at Eurythmics’ former London studio, The Church.

Watch the Video for “Trouble”

From the off, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is sonically different from Van Etten’s previous work. Writing and recording in total collaboration with her band – Jorge Balbi, Hoff, and Lieberson – for the first time, Van Etten finds the freedom that comes by letting go. It’s somewhat terrifying, but also liberating. The result of that liberation is an exhilarating new dimension of sound and songwriting. The themes are timeless, classic Sharon – life and living, love and being loved – but the sounds are new, wholly realized and sharp as glass.

Reflecting on this new artistic frame of mind, Van Etten muses, “Sometimes it’s exciting, sometimes it’s scary, sometimes you feel stuck. It’s like every day feels a little different – just being at peace with whatever you’re feeling and whoever you are and how you relate to people in that moment. If I can just keep a sense of openness while knowing that my feelings change every day, that is all I can do right now. That and try to be the best person I can be while letting other people be who they are and not taking it personally and just being.”

Next month, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory will play three special shows leading into release week, including her first ever hometown headline show at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey on February 4th. Following a UK and European tour, the band will pick back up for a month of shows across North America in April and May. A full list of dates can be found below, and tickets are available here.

Pre-order Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory

Watch the Video for “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)”

Watch the Video for “Afterlife”

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory Tour Dates
Sat. Feb. 1 – Westerly, RI @ The United #
Mon. Feb. 3 – Woodstock, NY @ Bearsville Theater # – SOLD OUT
Tue. Feb. 4 – Asbury Park, NJ @ The Stone Pony – First Home State Headline Show #
Fri. Feb. 28 – Oslo, NO @ Rockefeller *
Sat. Mar. 1 – Stockholm, SE @ Fållan *
Sun. Mar. 2 – Copenhagen, DK @ Vega *
Tue. Mar. 4 – Berlin, DE @ Astra Kulturhaus *
Thu. Mar. 6 – Paris, FR @ Le Trianon *
Fri. Mar. 7 – Antwerp, BE @ De Roma *
Sat. Mar. 8 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso *
Mon. Mar. 10 – London, UK @ Royal Albert Hall *
Tue. Mar. 11 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall *
Wed. Mar. 12 – Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland Ballroom *
Thu. Apr. 24 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern ^
Fri. Apr. 25 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl ^
Sat. Apr. 26 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel ^
Mon. Apr. 28 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club ^
Wed. Apr. 30 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer ^
Thu. May 1 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner ^
Fri. May 2 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel ^
Mon. May 5 – Detroit, MI @ Saint Andrew’s Hall ^
Tue. May 6 – Toronto, ON @ History ^
Thu. May 8 – Madison, WI @ The Sylvee ^
Fri. May 9 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed ^
Sat. May 10 – St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre ^
Mon. May 12 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre ^
Tue. May 13 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall ^
Thu. May 15 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile ^
Fri. May 16 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile ^ – SOLD OUT
Sat. May 17 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre ^
Sun. May 18 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall ^
Wed. May 21 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern ^

# with She Keeps Bees
* with special guest Nabihah Iqbal
^ with Love Spells

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Yuri at Pitch Perfect PR.]