Recorded, no joke, in caves, gothic crypts, and shopping malls and next to construction sites and yoga classes, Mandy, Indiana‘s first full-length album, I’ve Seen a Way, expands on their sexy, creepy, synthy sound with a mix of heavier dance beats and stranger field recordings.
“Love Theme (4K VHS)” opens the album with synthwave bliss as you drive Charlie Sheen’s car from The Wraith down a street lit by solar-powered batteries embedded in the ground. It flows into “Drag [Crashed]” and turns the romantic lounge of the previous track into a slightly frightening industrial club floor-filler with Valentine Caulfield singing / shouting about toxic masculinity and the male gaze in French as her bandmates pound you into the ground. “Pinking Shears” is full of thick synth bass from Simon Catling and hip-hop drumming from Alex MacDougall while Caulfield’s vocals move around the room like a panther proclaiming, “This shitty world has exhausted me.” and verbally slapping us awake with lyrics like “…we elect bankers and big bourgeois and rentiers and we are surprised to get fucked.”
Her vocals on “Injury Detail” are only slightly subdued, which provide an interesting balance with the snappy drums and hissing, throbbing synths. “The Driving Rain (18)” layers the synths atop Caulfield’s vocals to make them almost robotic. On “2 Stripe,” she tells the tale of peasants serving a king, a queen, and their daughters while they sleep in cold cellars and nearly starve…until they realize they far outnumber the royals and take the castle and land by force. It’s a cautionary tale for the 1%, who are treacherously close to losing all of it all of the time.
Scott Fair‘s guitar wails and squeals through “Iron Maiden,” a mostly instrumental track with Caulfield sometimes crying out like she’s stuck in the titular device. “It’s not a revolt, it’s a revolution,” Caulfield sings on “Peach Fuzz.” “They take us for idiots,” she proclaims as the track builds into a synth war march.
“Crystal Aura Redux” is aptly named because it sounds like you’re walking through a hall of mirrors with crystals hanging from the ceiling that are light by a disco ball. The album ends with “Sensitivity Training” – a warning for all of us. The instrumentation brings alarm klaxons, protest chants, and marching beats to mind as Caulfield asks, “Do you hear the sound of the the boots clattering on the pavement? They’re coming for us.” She’s warning us of the rise of fascism, or perhaps to flip the script and make it a warning for those same fascists who will one day realize they’re vastly outnumbered.
I’ve Seen a Way (or i’ve seen a way, as it’s often written) is a stunning debut LP, one of the best of the year. It’s a dance record, a protest album, and a synthwave stunner all in one. Their creativity seems to have no bounds, as does their anger and passion for calls to action. Go visit them.
The inimitable King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announce their first 2024 North American tour dates, all 3-hour marathon sets. Following the release of PetroDragonic Apocalypse — their latest album and “end times thrash metal concept album” (The Needle Drop) — as well as this year’s recently-wrapped sold-out residency tour, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s newly announced dates will bring their acclaimed marathon sets back to North America, including stops in New York, Chicago, Austin, TX and Quincy, WA at the legendary Gorge Amphitheatre (which, at a capacity of 21,600 tickets, will be the band’s largest headline show to date). General on sale begins today Friday, September 15th at 12pm ET. A full list of dates is below. Tickets will be available at kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com
KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD TOUR DATES Sat. Aug. 17, 2024 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium Sun. Sept. 1, 2024 – Chicago, IL @ Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island Sat. Sept. 14, 2024 – Quincy, WA @ The Gorge Amphitheatre Fri. Nov. 15, 2024 – Austin, TX @ Germania Insurance Amphitheater
While you were busy doom scrolling, Lowell, Massachusetts rapper / DJ / MC / radio show host / actor / mack / all-around cool dude D-Tension taught himself how to play a guitar and made a rock record – Tales from the Pub. It’s an album entirely played and sung by him and made up of songs based on his life both as a teenager and as a grown man dealing with everything from existential ennui to calling out a possible murderer.
“No Name Song” is instantly relatable to everyone, as it’s about not being able to remember someone’s name within thirty seconds of meeting them. D’s guitar work is loud, sizzling, and echoes his frustration as he tries to remember the name of a hot girl. “Charlie” is the song about the aforementioned suspected murderer – a rich guy who seems above the law while women associated with him have been found in a local river. D, for one, isn’t standing for it any longer (“And when you see Charlie, tell him that I’m on my way. And when you see Charlie, tell him that I know where he lives.”).
D has mentioned in interviews how fellow east-coasters The Smithereens were an inspiration for some of the tracks on the album, and I can hear some of Pat DiNizio‘s vocal influence on “Alone.” “MAGAHAT” is a fun punk track about D discovering a girl he likes is a Trump supporter. Getting back to The Smithereens, Jim Babjak‘s guitar influence comes out on “Other Side of the Road” and in one of D’s best solos on the record.
“Ghost Me” covers one of D’s favorite songwriting subjects – girls who did him wrong. In this track, he professes that he still cares for a gal who ditched him and is willing to meet her again even after she’s been gone for ten years. His guitar work gets psychedelic on “Woodrose,” much to my delight. Crank that reverb!
“Tell me, how we gonna get that magic back?” D asks on “I Love You Anyway,” in which he ponders how to reignite the spark in his relationship but is willing to stick it out through the tough times. “(They Were) In Love” brings in some doo-wop for good measure for a funny song about how weird love is in modern times…yet it’s really as weird as it’s always been.
The White Stripes are another influence D-Tension has mentioned for Tales from the Pub, and that can be heard on “I Give In” with its jangly guitar riffs and simple, raw drum beats. The closer, “The Airport Song,” is one D wrote when we was fifteen-years-old. It’s a fun track about how the airport is a great place to meet girls from all over the world and all different sizes, shapes, races, and religions. It’s easy to picture a teenaged D-Tension standing wide-eyed in Boston airport as gorgeous women keep passing him.
It’s a fun look into D-Tension’s brain, and you can tell he had fun making this record. I’m sure he has more tales to tell, and I can’t wait to hear them.
Today, A. Savage, of the rock band Parquet Courts, announces his second solo album, Several Songs About Fire, out October 6th on Rough Trade Records. He also presents its lead single/video, “Elvis in the Army,” and expands his forthcoming tour. Produced by John Parish in Bristol, Several Songs About Fire is bolstered by the support of Jack Cooper (Modern Nature, Ultimate Painting) and Cate Le Bon, as well as members of Kamikaze Palm Tree & caroline. The end result is tantamount to psychic odyssey, with lead single “Elvis in the Army” placing us in asubterranean venue where the livid, ratifying cymbal raises the room’s blood pressure. “Elvis in the Army” follows the previously-shared “Thanksgiving Prayer” — “an intimate and intricate composition” (Consequence) — and is accompanied by a rousing music video shot in Paris and directed by Emile Moutaud.
Of the track, Savage adds: “We often describe ourselves in geographic terms. American, New Yorker — two terms that I’ve used to identify myself that have to do with being from or of a certain place. So ‘Elvis in the Army’ is a bit of an inventory of those labels. They have less to do with geography than we realize. Really we’re just talking about ourselves, then framing certain characteristics geographically. No matter where I live I’ll have an American psyche until the day I die, for better or for worse. I’ll always be of America. And I can’t imagine a time where New York doesn’t feel like home. But despite that, I’d rather not be associated with a place, at least for now.”
This fall, Savage will embark on a US tour, bringing his acclaimed live performance to a slew of cities, including Chicago, New York, Washington, DC and more, followed by a newly announced run of 2024 UK/EU dates, plus a string of West Coast dates next spring. A full list of dates is below, and tickets for newly announced dates are on sale Friday, August 25 @ 10am local time.
Novelist Kathleen Alcott on Several Songs About Fire ~ ~
“I imagine myself playing these songs in a small club that is slowly burning,” Savage says of his new record. After more than a decade in New York, Savage left the city and the United States, marking his exit with a masterpiece of maturity and a worthy corollary to his first solo venture, 2017’s Thawing Dawn. “Fire is something you have to escape from, and in a way this album is about escaping from something. This album is a burning building, and these songs are things I’d leave behind to save myself.”
In its recording, too, Several Songs about Fire became as urgent and intuitive as a response to disaster. Produced by Parish on a 1” 16-track, the album was partially sculpted in the bucolic, nocturnal hush of rural England, where Savage and Cooper worked deep into the night, trying not to wake Cooper’s sleeping daughter. The intimacy of these tracks are refracted by the presence of some of Savage’s closest friends — among them Cate Le Bon — who listened to Savage work on what would become the album during a US tour in 2022. Featuring additional contributions from saxophonist Euan Hinshelwood (Cate Le Bon’s band), drummer Dylan Hadley (Kamikaze Palm Tree, White Fence), and violinist Magdalena McLean (caroline), Several Songs about Fire is a devotional study in tradition — and something all Savage’s own. “It was really special to see them come into existence and to then be in the studio working on them with him,” explains Le Bon of working toward Savage’s vision, rather than within a band. “The beautiful friction of shoulder to shoulder was replaced by something else.”
The record’s singular irreverence is stitched together by Savage’s outsize gifts as a lyricist and observer, a quality Parish calls “anemotional openness guarded by a laconic wit.” Worrying questions of wealth and poverty, self and other, Savage displays the poet’s gift of knowing when to narrate and when to vanish, leaving the listener to their own emotional privacy rather than instructing them how to feel through vertiginous inversions of instrumentation and lyrics. Influenced by the disparate vantage points of Sybille Baier and Townes Van Zandt, Savage joins a canon of songwriters whose project is a constantly dilating aperture and perspective.
In rendering the signage of laundromats and threats of debt collectors as glistering and totemic as the scope of mountains, rivers, seas, and skies, Savage finds hopes and curses in equal measure — inviting thelistener to consider a life in which attention is a religion, and thebody is the divine text. Like the survivor of exodus, Savage says: “I don’t really remember the process of writing. I just see the evidence of it when I reopen a notebook.” Several Songs About Fire stands as an act of nearly libidinal rebellion against a moment when so much of life is the blue light of screens. This is an album whose topic is no less than the sublime: the moments in which a sensory experience becomes aholiness or possession of its own, and the self floats above it.
SEVERAL SONGS ABOUT FIRE TRACKLIST 1. Hurtin’ or Healed 2. Elvis in the Army 3. Le Grande Balloon 4. My my, My Dear 5. Riding Cobbles 6. Mountain Time 7. David’s Dead 8. Thanksgiving Prayer 9. My New Green Coat 10. Out Of Focus
A. SAVAGE TOUR DATES (NEW DATES IN BOLD) Sat. Sep. 30 – Newport, Essex, UK @ Murmuration Festival Fri. Oct. 20 – Portland, ME @ SPACE ^ Sat. Oct. 21 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom ^ Sun. Oct. 22 – Portsmouth, NH @ Press Room ^ Tue. Oct. 24 – Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground ^ Wed. Oct. 25 – Kalamazoo, MI @ Eccentric Cafe ^ Fri. Oct. 27 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle ^ Sat. Oct. 28 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club * Sun. Oct. 29 – Milwaukee, WI @ Colectivo # Mon. Oct. 30 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway % Wed. Nov. 1 – Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups % Thu. Nov. 2 – Louisville, KY @ Whirling Tiger % Fri. Nov. 3 – Nashville, TN @ Third Man % Sat. Nov. 4 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl % Sun. Nov. 5 – Asheville, NC @ Grey Eagle Tue. Nov. 7 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle % Thu. Nov. 9 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat % Fri. Nov. 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian % Sat. Nov. 11 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom % Thu. Feb 08, 2024 – Manchester, UK @ Pink Room Fri. Feb 09, 2024 – Dublin, Ireland @ Workmans Club Sun. Feb 11, 2024 – Glasgow, UK @ Broadcast Mon. Feb 12, 2024 – Bristol, UK @ Thekla Wed. Feb 14, 2024 – London, UK @ The Garage Thu. Feb 15, 2024 – Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie Fri. Feb 16, 2024 – Brussels, Belgium @ Botanique Rotonde Sun. Feb 18, 2024 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso Upstairs Mon. Feb 19, 2024 – Cologne, Germany @ MTC Club Wed. Feb 21, 2024 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Ideal Bar – Vega Thu. Feb 22, 2024 – Berlin, Germany @ Privat Club Fri. Apr 05, 2024 – Austin, TX @ The Far Out Sun. Apr 07, 2024 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf Tue. Apr 09, 2024 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress Wed. Apr 10, 2024 – Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet’s Thu. Apr 11, 2024 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room Fri. Apr 12, 2024 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Teragram Ballroom Sat. Apr 13, 2024 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop Mon. Apr 15, 2024 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios Tue. Apr 16, 2024 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
^ w/ Annie Hart * w/ Cha Cha # w/ Diet Lite % w/ Sluice
I had been trying to see The Beths for a couple years, but either I was always working when they were playing or their tour dates were nowhere near where I live, but lo and behold, they scheduled a date in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a mere one-and-half-hour drive from my house, at Bell’s Eccentric Café.
It turned out not only to be my first time seeing The Beths, but also the first show I saw at Bell’s beer garden stage. I’d been to multiple shows at Bell’s, but had never been in the garden and had no idea it was so spacious. I also didn’t realize that the town’s Metro train tracks ran behind the stage area, and neither did the band and a lot of other people, until two trains went past during The Beths’ set.
Not only was the size of the garden a delightful surprise, but so was the age range of the crowd. It was an all-ages show, and I saw people ranging from a boy who was barely thirteen to a man in his seventies there. A lot of people were sporting Beths t-shirts from previous tours, and the crowd clearly loved them and were happy they’d come all the way from New Zealand.
First up, however were Disq from Madison, Wisconsin. They played an energetic mix of noise rock, post punk, and no-wave and were having a great time. I didn’t get to see their whole set, thanks to road construction delaying me a bit, but what I saw and heard was loud and frantic.
Disq
The Beths came out in the dark, complete with a giant inflatable fish, and opened with the title track of their debut album Future Me Hates Me, and the crowd was instantly happy. The Beths are a fun band. Their love of playing, and their camaraderie, is immediately apparent, and that energy races through the audience.
They played a fun set, including fun hits like “Whatever” and “Dying to Believe,” secretly sad songs like “Expert in a Dying Field” and “Best Left,” and lovely love songs like “Your Side” and “When You Know You Know.”
“Whatever, yeah, whatever.”
“We love you!” was a common shout from the crowd, and The Beths returned the love for the whole set, and did a lot of shredding. It’s easy to focus on Elizabeth Stokes‘ lyrics and miss how well the whole band plays. They could easily cut a shoegaze album if they wanted – and I hope they do.
It was a fun night with nice late summer weather and good vibes all around thanks to The Beths bringing the love.
Cincinnati punks The Serfs, Trouble in Mind’s newest signing, announce their third album, Half Eaten By Dogs, out October 27th. It’s their best album yet, putting a decidedly Midwestern spin on the modernist twitch of future-forward bands like Total Control or Cold Beat, as well as the post-industrialist dance floor grime of Skinny Puppy, Dark Day, This Heat, and Factrix. Anyone paying attention can see that Cincinnati is a very real hotbed of musical creativity at the moment, and The Serfs – Dylan McCartney (vocals, percussion, guitar, bass, electronics), Dakota Carlyle (electronics, bass, guitar, vocals) and Andie Luman (vocals, synths) – are undeniably near the center of the city’s neu-underground scene. They are a deliberately nebulous and incidentally industrialist gang of dance-floor hymners – tranced-out troubadours whose sound and musical ideology seems to be a causal manifestation of their immediate environments.
Half Eaten By Dogs is a wide-eyed look through a scope into a heathenish vision, where ice-encrusted synth harmonies command oozing chemical rhythms and drilled-out elemental rock formations. There’s a psychedelic melancholy to it, in both the abstract lyrical sense, with doomed proclamations of natural and supernatural disasters, and the more tangible musical sense. It veers all over the map of tenebrous drum and synthesizers and stygian guitar, at times with a cautious paranoia and at times with tuneful defiance (and in some moments harmonica, saxophone or flute).
Today’s “Club Deuce” is a flat-out sexy floor filler. Its low-end sizzle is designed to make you move, and slither like a lurker at the threshold of the dance floor. “I thought of the idea for this song at first like a movie in my mind,” says Luman. “It was the story of a fated man and a modern day Venus with complete and unrelenting control. The set was a quiet corner in a thunderstruck city with endless commotion in the distance. The whole thing glowing like a neon sign. ‘Club Deuce’ churns unhurried until it billows all around you and you’re caught like a fly in the jaws of a venus fly trap.”
The Serfs, emerging like a missile from some surreptitious silo, were formed while McCartney and Carlyle were scraping the bottom of the barrel, tilling the soil for the baron (a.k.a. working the fryers at a pub) and generally wallowing in the puddles of despair. The two decided to express their grim outlook through self-hypnosis by way of drums and synthesizers. After a couple of bungled attempts to play live, Luman joined the band and the classic trio lineup was formed. Like their Ohio predecessors, The Serfs seem askew from the art that surrounds them, and they’re proud of it. Half Eaten By Dogs may be a step further down into the catacombs for the band, but if the principle of correspondence is correct, then they could be on their way to somewhere higher.
Today, Southern California-bred musician Zooey Celeste signs to ATO Records, announces his debut album, Restless Thoughts, out November 3rd, and presents the lead single/title track. Produced and recorded by acclaimed artist Nick Hakim at his Brooklyn studio, Restless Thoughts centers on Zooey’s hypnotic baritone vocals, often set against a strangely potent backdrop of sparse drum-machine beats and droney guitar tones. The result is a fully-realized soundscape, a darkly ethereal palette which Zooey classifies as astral-pop.
Restless Thoughts takes its title from a song inspired by a particularly dramatic scene in Zooey’s novel, a metaphysical thriller narrated by the character of Zooey Celeste. “It’s a scene where the father of the protagonist has destroyed his marriage and left his daughter behind, and he’s going to meet his mistress and driving in a very suicidal headspace,” he explains. “He gets into a car accident, and two-thirds of the way into the song he’s floating above his body and watching as they’re trying to resuscitate him.”
Like many of the album’s songs, the gorgeously chilling track took shape in the throes of the novel-writing process. “I’d write a chapter and pick up my guitar and start writing songs based off the scenes I’d just finished,” says Zooey. “It’s funny because it’s the first time I’ve ever allowed myself to write from the perspective of a character, but it’s also the most authentic thing I’ve ever made in my life.”
Restless Thoughts is the real-life manifestation of its creator’s alter ego — an astral shaman responsible for leading the newly departed into the great beyond. After dreaming up the character of Zooey Celeste in a feverishly written novel he refers to as “somewhere between Quentin Tarantino and the Bhagavad Gita,” Zooey began working with longtime friend Nick Hakim (whose production credits also include Lil Yachty and Lianne La Havas) to create this ideal soundtrack for nocturnal driving, an immediate conduit for lasting transcendence. Alongside Hakim, Zooey enlisted a wide array of guest musicians to flesh out the sound of Restless Thoughts, including Unknown Mortal OrchestrabassistJake Portrait, drummer Abe Rounds (Andrew Bird, Blake Mills, Devandra Banhart), and Columbian-Canadian singer/songwriter Tei Shi. Mastered by Heba Kadry (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk, Julianna Barwick), Restless Thoughts endlessly drifts between avant-punk and chamber-pop and lo-fi psychedelia, quickly drawing the listener into a sustained dream state.
Naming J.D. Salinger, Iggy Pop, and Tyler, the Creator among his inspirations, Zooey started writing songs at the age of eight after hearing The Beatles for the first time. Along with studying poetry and creative writing, he later took up guitar, piano, and harmonium and played in a series of indie-rock-leaning musical projects that ultimately proved unfulfilling. “We’d finish a show and it would be the best show we’d ever played, and I’d feel physically sick afterward,” he says. “People liking it made me feel bad, which is probably because I knew I wasn’t being my most authentic self.” After a seven-year stint in New York (where he first connected with Hakim), Zooey spent several years in Hawaii and devoted much of his time to surfing—an essential part of his life since early childhood. “I got addicted to surfing bigger waves at Sunset Beach on the North Shore and had a near-death experience where I went through a coral reef, and it changed my life in a lot of ways,” he says. “It took the air out of the wanderlust I’d felt for a long time, and brought me closer to the things I’d been running away from. Because of that, music went from being an escape to a base of reflection where I’m able to really sit with my emotions and process them and be totally honest with myself about what I want from life.”
With the release of Restless Thoughts, Zooey hopes to instill the audience with a similarly expanded sense of possibility. “Making this record showed me that if I’m not going beyond what the world has handed me as options, then I’m not being creative,” he says. “I went as far as I could with the process of self-exploration, and I felt fully supported in that—almost like everything was a little bit fated, or we were tapping into something in the ether. I’d love it if that inspired other people to go off and do whatever they feel compelled to do, and let themselves be completely entranced by it.”
Art Feynman — the eccentric alter ego of accomplished visual artist and producer Luke Temple — presents the new single, “Passed Over,” from his forthcoming album, Be Good The Crazy Boys, out November 10th on Western Vinyl. “Passed Over” explores struggling with FOMO — “I’m ok to be passed over // Let them have it // I don’t care” — a narrative that would be relatable if the song didn’t sound so completely unhinged. Across a vast psychedelic palette, “Passed Over” features a robotic instrumental breakdown and an out-of-this-world saxophone performance from Nicole McCabe. Following the “synth-pop jam” (FLOOD) “All I Can Do” and the “breezy” (Brooklyn Vegan) “Desperately Free” — “Passed Over” is another thrilling glimpse at the tropical contours of Be Good The Crazy Boys. “It can be refreshing to decide to eat last, it’s stressful if you’re always needing to be at the front of the line,” explains Feynman.
Until now, Art Feynman has strictly been a solo act, a way for Temple to explore surprising sonic landscapes without the burdens of identity. Slightly twisted takes on Kosmische musik, worldbeat, and art pop can all be found scattered across the Art Feynman discography, but with Be Good The Crazy Boys, Feynman fully immerses himself into pools of collective madness. Unlike the first two Art Feynman albums, Be Good The Crazy Boys was recorded live in-studio with a full band. The result captures a spirit of restless anxiety, and recalls the most frenetic work by Talking Heads, or Oingo Boingo at their darkest.
“To me,” Temple explains, “there was a lot of energy that needed to be released as the result of living in isolation for 6 years. It also seems to speak to a general anxiety we’re all holding, but it’s expressed in a cathartic way.” It’s this acknowledgement of general anxiety that separates Feynman from the other fictional personas that have been cropping up in the music world lately. Feynman doesn’t sound suave, confident, or even heartbroken in these songs; it sounds like he’s on the verge of a panic attack.
With Be Good The Crazy Boys, Art Feynman proves to be more than just a character. He represents the part of the modern, collective consciousness that’s struggling to maintain balance in a toxic, chaotic world. In less skilled hands, that concept could result in a very somber listen. Fortunately, when Art Feynman gets his hands on the chaos of the modern age, it simply makes you want to dance.
The New Yorker once dubbed Norwegian DJ and producer Lindstrøm as “the king of space disco.” That’s as good a description for him as any I could dream up, and it’s epitomized in his latest record, Everyone Else Is a Stranger, which is full of neat rhythms, pulsing synths, and a vibration to it that seems to defy gravity.
The first few seconds of “Syreen” alone are designed to fill dance floors with the synthwave beats and inspiring electric piano notes. “Nightswim” is perfect for just such an activity at your lake house or a Las Vegas rooftop pool. It instantly makes you feel cool and sexy, but not so much that you turn into a “trying too hard to be cool” d-bag. He finds that sweet spot of “Let’s have fun and be sexy and cool with each other. No bad vibes here, just love.” The whole record is like that, really.
I can’t help but think Lindstrøm was influenced by Giorgio Moroder (and who isn’t, really?) when I hear the opening synths of “The Rind” – a neat synthwave track that prepares you for dancing, sparring, or shagging with an android (possibly all three). The ending title track is like a ten-minute cool-down meditation after the dance fest that’s been happening for the previous three songs. Lindstrøm has always excelled at evoking dreamy imagery in his music, and the title track is a fine example of that craftsmanship.
I also like the title of Everyone Else Is a Stranger. Except whom? Well, you, of course. You know who you are. You’re whomever is touched and moved by this record in anyway. He made it for you. Don’t refuse the gift.
Venera, a newly formed experimental electronic outfit featuring James Shaffer (Korn) and Atlanta-based composer/filmmaker, Chris Hunt, release their self-titled, debut album on Oct. 13 via Ipecac Recordings.
Venera enigmatically launched their debut song “Swarm” (https://venera.lnk.to/swarm) late last month. No information, no pre-sale, simply the three-minute single released in tandem with a mysterious screed and a pulsating black-and-white video directed by EFFIXX.
Today, the pair step out from the shadows, revealing who and what Venera is, as well as releasing their first single, and video, for the track “Hologram” (https://venera.lnk.to/hologram). A song that features guest vocals/piano from Rizz of VOWWS.
In a joint statement from Shaffer and Hunt, they explain: “’Hologram’ emerged quickly from our first session together. A nearly unchanging drum machine pattern nested in warbling guitars. We don’t interact much with holograms but they seem to offer an image of an alluring emptiness and light, which resonates well with the universe we are driven to explore.”
Several guests join Hunt and Shaffer on Venera. Drummer Deantoni Parks (Mars Volta, John Cale) plays on “Erosion” and “Disintegration,” HEALTH’s Jacob Duzsik contributes vocals on “Ochre” and Alain Johannes lends his voice to “Triangle.” The album was self-produced.
Album pre-orders (https://venera.lnk.to/venera) are available now, with Venera available digitally, as well as physically on CD, and an assortment of vinyl, including limited-edition red, snowy white and skull gold variants.
