Australian psych-rock workhorses King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have pledged to release five albums in 2017. The band is already prolific and this feat, if they can do it, will make them legendary.
The first album is Flying Microtonal Banana. It’s named after a guitar made for lead singer / guitarist Stu Mackenzie by a friend. The guitar has extra frets on it so he and the other band members (who also have customized guitars) can play 24 notes per octave rather than 12. Sounds crazy? Wait until you hear it on the first single – “Rattlesnake.”
Ride Your Heart from Bleached (Jennifer Clavin – vocals, guitar, piano, percussion, Jennifer Clavin – guitar, bass, vocals, percussion, lap steel, Dan Allaire – drums) is a great, California sun-soaked pop-punk record about looking for love. The lead track, “Looking for a Fight,” has Jennifer Clavin warning a potential suitor to back off, but the following track, “Next Stop,” is about tearful goodbyes at the train station. Both have excellent guitar work by Jennifer and her sister, Jessica.
“Outta My Mind” has lovely vocals from both Clavins and instrumentation taking the album briefly into psychedelic territory. Jennifer Clavin goes back to wishing love would stay away from her and stop complicating everything, but it’s too good to avoid. However, when we get to “Dead in Your Head,” she roasts her ex for screwing up the great thing they had. She apologizes for her own bad behavior on “Dreaming without You,” in which she sings, “…I won’t hold you back. I know I’m a heart attack. You’ll be fine without me.”
“Waiting by the Telephone” could be their tribute to Blondie’s “Hanging on the Telephone,” because both songs have the same theme – anxiously awaiting the call of a lover. Bleached’s version rocks as much as Blondie’s, by the way. “Love Spells” has Jennifer Clavin first spurning love (“I don’t wanna see you no more. You keep on running back to my door. Told you once, yeah I told you before. Your love spells don’t work anymore.”), then hoping it returns (“Will I see you tonight when I open up my heart?”). It’s a clever song about the confusing nature of love.
“Searching through the Past” is a fine power pop song about missing a lover and hoping for a return to good times. It has great guitar solos by the Clavin sisters as well. The title track is not unlike a Pixies song with quiet verses backed with rock riffs that crank up during the chrous. “Dead Boy” is good, solid fuzz rock that builds to a sweet guitar fade-out. “Guy Like You” is about a guy who keeps breaking Jennifer Clavin’s heart, but she “can’t get enough” of him. It’s a sweet, sad song with lap steel guitar by Jessica Clavin that takes the song to a great, lonely place. The closer, “When I Was Yours,” builds to a wall of psych-fuzz bliss and leaves you hoping the track would go on for another five minutes or more.
The Clavin sisters thank, among others, “ex boyfriends,” in the liner notes to the album. The entire record is about them and the mindboggling nature of love, and it’s a fine salute to both.
Keep your mind open.
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PRIESTS SHARE VIDEO FOR “PINK WHITE HOUSE” AND ANNOUNCE TOUR DATES
NOTHING FEELS NATURAL OUT 1/27 ON SISTER POLYGON
Today, Priests share the video for their new song, the presciently titled “Pink White House,” and announce an extensive tour in 2017. The song comes off their forthcoming debut full-length, Nothing Feels Natural, out 1/27 on Sister Polygon Records. Singer Katie Alice Greer had this to say of the song and video:
Lyrically, this is a Priests song I am maybe most proud of to date. I am very inspired by the filmmaker Adam Curtis, the first time I saw “It Felt Like A Kiss” I thought, man, I want to start a band where I can write lyrics the way this guy makes films, like these politically pointed surreal avant-garde narratives, and then I met Daniele and we started Priests. So for me, “Pink White House” is a step towards achieving this style of lyricism. I’m excited about that. Musically we wrote the first half and then were like, “where do we go from here?” We wanted the second half of the song to feel like you’re in a new scene of the story, where “come on palm trees” starts. It was very fun and adventurous for us, writing this way! For the video, I wanted to do something playing on the notion that pop culture repackages your identity and sells it back to you for “entertainment.”
Priests have also announced and extensive tour in 2017 in support of the new record. Don’t miss a chance to see one of the most dynamic and exhilarating bands in the country.
PRIESTS TOUR DATES: Thu. Nov. 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Broad w/ Rhys Chatham Sat. Jan. 28 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Night Bazaar Fri. Feb. 3 – Philadelphia, PA @ Everybody Hits Sat. Feb. 4 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott Mon. Feb. 6 – Montreal, QC @ Casa del Popolo Tue. Feb. 7 – Toronto ON @ Silver Dollar Room Wed. Feb. 8 – Detroit, MI @ UFO Factory Thu. Feb. 9 – Chicago, IL @ Beat Kitchen Fri. Feb. 10 – Madison, WI @ Rathskeller Sat. Feb. 11 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry Wed. Feb. 15 – Vancouver, BC @ 333
Thu. Feb. 16 – Seattle, WA @ Vera Project Fri. Feb. 17 – Portland, OR @ Disjecta Sat. Feb. 18 – Eugene, OR @ The Boreal Sun. Feb. 19 – Oakland, CA @ Starline Social Club Mon. Feb. 20 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echoplex Wed. Feb. 22 – San Diego, CA @ Che Cafe Thu. Feb. 23 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar Fri. Feb. 24 – Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole Sat. Feb. 25 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf Mon. Feb. 27 – Austin, TX @ Barracuda Tue. Feb. 28 – McAllen, TX @ Yerberia Cultura Wed. Mar. 1 – Houston TX @ Walter’s Thu. Mar. 2 – New Orleans LA @ Siberia Fri. Mar. 3 – Tallahasee, FL @ Wolf’s Den Sat. Mar. 4 – Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn Sun. Mar. 5 – Durham, NC @ Pinhook Sat. Mar. 11 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
PRAISE FOR “JJ”
“‘JJ,’ the new song from the excellent Washington punk band Priests…begins with flickers of surf rock, the sort that inspired and also began to suffocate indie-punk circa 2009. But in the hands of this band, the sound gets harsher and less lithe. When the frontwoman Katie Alice Greer begins to sing, it eradicates any ease that style connotes: “I thought I was a cowboy/because I/Smoked Reds! Smoked Reds! Smoked Reds!” And in the video, the band members are filmed up close as their faces are aggressively poked and prodded. It is a siege — surf’s down.” – The New York Times
“Over surfy, shimmying guitars and a twinkling piano, Greer and her elastic growl reflect on bygone self-assurance, days when cigarette brands could work like masks.” Pitchfork [BEST NEW TRACK]
“If 2014’s Bodies And Control And Money And Power EP explored how politics informed the band’s personal lives, then “JJ” dives into the weirdness of the interpersonal — not offering solutions, just asking more questions, which has long been Priests’ M.O. In the melodic mayhem, a “rich kid, low life in a very big jacket” becomes a stream-of-consciousness portrait of human relationships, particularly from a woman’s point of view. Greer doesn’t so much howl and scream but rather growls and coos like Eartha Kitt wound up and snapped into a surrealist punk rage.” – NPR Music [Songs We Love]
“Priests veer hard here into groovy ’50s sock-hop sounds without losing the immediacy that marks them as one of the greatest young DIY bands of this moment.” – Stereogum [5 Best Songs of the Week]
Born from late night jam sessions in singer/guitarist Fran Keaney’s bedroom and honed in the thrumming confines of Melbourne’s live music venues, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever began to take shape as audiences got moving. Sharing tastes and songwriting duties, cousins Joe White and Fran Keaney, brothers Tom and Joe Russo, and drummer Marcel Tussie started out with softer, melody-focused songs. The more shows they played, the more those driving rhythms that now trademark their songs emerged. Since then, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever rode that wave from strength to strength. Touring around the country on headline bills and festival slots, they entrenched themselves with their thrilling live shows.
In early 2016, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever released Talk Tight, their first EP. That effort put the group on the map with glowing support from SPIN, Stereogum, and Pitchfork, praising them as standouts even among the fertile landscape of Melbourne music. Chock full of snappy riffs, spritely drumming and quick-witted wordplay, Talk Tight was praised by Pitchfork “for the precision of their melodies, the streamlined sophistication of their arrangements, and the undercurrent of melancholy that motivates every note.”
“Julie’s Place,” the first single off Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s forthcoming EP for Sub Pop (due in 2017), levels up on everything that made Talk Tight such an immediate draw. It’s about being young and dumb but full of bravado. Sprinting guitars mimic singer Keaney’s pangs of heartache, his awkwardly sensual lyrics calling to mind the chaos and confusion of being around someone you can’t get off your mind.
Foxygen, the duo of Sam France and Jonathan Rado, announce their new album Hang, out January 20th on Jagjaguwar, its lead single, “Follow The Leader” and accompanying video, and a North American tour.
On their first proper studio record, the Los Angeles pair once again present their uncanny knack for pulling together myriad strands of influences to an elaborate, uncompromising vision. And this time, they’ve gone true big band! Every song on Hang features a 40-plus-piece symphony orchestra arranged and conducted by Trey Pollard with additional arranging from Matthew E. White. Additionally, Hang was recorded with the brother rhythm section duo of Brian and Michael D’Addario, also known as the Lemon Twigs, and features Steven Drozd of the Flaming Lips on select tracks. Written and produced entirely by Foxygen, Hang was recorded on 2” tape at Electro Vox Studios in Los Angeles.
Lead single, “Follow The Leader,” is one of the album’s most upbeat songs. As described by the band, “it was a blast to make! It’s a positive anthem, with some lyrical scenarios we don’t quite understand.” The song’s video was directed Cameron Dutra (who directed Foxygen’s “San Francisco” video).
Foxygen’s Hang is available for pre-order now. All digital pre-orders come with instant grat downloads of “America” and “Follow The Leader.” The Jagjaguwar album bundle will include Hang Demos flexi disc with “Follow The Leader (demo)” and “On Lankershim (demo)”. The first 50 preorders will also receive an autographed piece of sheet music from the Hang recording sessions.
Hang Tracklisting:
1. Follow The Leader
2. Avalon
3. Mrs. Adams
4. America
5. On Lankershim
6. Upon A Hill
7. Trauma
8. Rise Up
Foxygen Tour Dates: Wed. Nov. 9 – London, UK @ Oslo – SOLD OUT Thu. Dec. 1 – Brooklyn, NY @ Rough Trade – SOLD OUT Tue. Mar. 21 – Richmond, VA @ The National Wed. Mar. 22 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club Fri. Mar. 24 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
Sat. Mar. 25 – Boston, MA @ The Paradise Sun. Mar. 26 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer Tue. Mar. 28 – Toronto, ON @ Opera House Thu. Mar. 30 – Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall Fri. Mar. 31 – Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre Sat. Apr. 1 – Madison, WI @ Majestic Theatre Sun. Apr. 2 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Ave Tue. Apr. 4 – Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre Wed. Apr. 5 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The State Room Fri. Apr. 7 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent Sat. Apr. 8 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda Sun. Apr. 9 – Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory Tue. Apr. 11 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom Thu. Apr. 13 – Dallas, TX @ Trees Fri. Apr. 14 – Austin, TX @ The Mohawk Sat. Apr. 15 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall Mon. Apr. 17 – New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks Tue. Apr. 18 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West Wed. Apr. 19 – Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel Thu. Apr. 20 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
I’m hard pressed to remember an album I’ve recently heard that starts off as well as The Kills’ (Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart) Blood Pressures.
“Future Starts Slow” is one of their biggest hits, and it’s for good reason. Hince’s guitar is like a haunting alarm and Mosshart’s pleading vocals (“…don’t ever give me up. I could never get back up when the future starts so slow.”) have both rock swagger and blues desperation. “Satellite” is another song pleading for more time to love as the Kills’ phone calls to respective lovers are cut off by bad satellite transmissions beyond their control.
“The Heart Is a Beating Drum” is a reminder to keep passion burning in a relationship. Mosshart sums up a hundred thousand sex life columns as she sings, “And you feel like you been here so many times before. It’s not the door you’re using, but the way you’re walking through it.” Hince’s guitar has this cool low fuzz to it well-suited for late night dalliances. There also this cool percussion that sounds like a sped-up Ping-Pong game throughout it that I love.
For having such sad lyrics (i.e., “I’ve made mistakes I can’t take back home. I love you just not the way you want.”), “Nail in My Coffin” has one of the best grooves and some of the heaviest guitar on the record. “Wild Charms,” with Hince on lead vocals, is a nice introduction to “DNA,” in which Mosshart references them (“True, I had those wild charms for you, but oh how my fire burnt them out.”) as she oozes sexual power and attitude.
“Baby Says” has a slick bass line throughout it and sounds like an early Blondie track. “The Last Goodbye” is a heartbreaking break-up song as Mosshart swears this will be the last time she returns to “half hearted love.” “Damned If She Do” has hints of heavy fuzz rock but the lyrics are pure blues. “You Don’t Own the Road” has Mosshart telling her ex that he doesn’t have a monopoly on loneliness and misery, but she’s willing to make him feel better (“Come on over if that’s the way you feel when you’re lonesome. Steal it back when you’re lonely.”). I love the way her vocals get slightly distorted in the chorus. They match the great crunch of Hince’s guitar work. The closer is “Pots and Pans,” in which Mosshart tells her lover that she’s done caring (“Ain’t enough salt in the ocean that care enough to keep you floating.”), and Hince’s fuzzy acoustic guitar draws a line in the sand.
Blood Pressures is solid rock about heartbreak and passion. Both subjects are easy to make sappy or over the top, but the Kills make it look easy. It’s not, because the road you have to walk to write songs like these isn’t easy. Most can’t handle it. The Kills did.
Keep your mind open.
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Wolf People have shared the next single, “Night Witch,” from their forthcoming album, Ruins, out November 11th on Jagjaguwar. The single is accompanied by an eerie visual with direction from Marsha Balaeva and drone footage from Ivan Makarov which premieres today via CLRVYNT.
On the video, Balaeva explains, “I was born in the Soviet Union, and growing up, one of the streets in our neighbourhood was named after one of the pilots from the all-female 558th Night Bomber Regiment that operated during WWII. These women flew old biplanes under the cover of darkness and bombed the invading Germans. The planes were too slow and would have been easy targets in daylight, but at night they could cut out their engines and glide silently to their target and drop their cargo. Germans gave them the name of Nachthexen (Night Witches).”
She continues, “For this video I wanted to use stop-motion animation to depict the time when eerie shadows and flashes of light in the night brought fear into the hearts of those on the ground. The time when the setting dusk spelt the beginning of a night of terrors and vulnerability. Much of the video was filmed at night in the Lake District in the UK, but the drone footage was made in Russia, where the Night Witches flew all these years ago.”
Recorded in Devon, Isle Of Wight and London, Ruins is Wolf People’s most direct and instinctive work yet, simultaneously reaching back into a fecund past to tell us who we are today, while harnessing the power of modern technology and ideas to ponder unknown futures. Lyrically Ruins imagines how the planet might appear when society has finally fallen to dust and ash, and the creeping vines and nettles have reclaimed the land. It is the product of letting go of conceit, contrivance and, indeed, a career plan.
Influences upon Ruins come in all shapes, size, contours and hues: the discovery of proto Sabbath/Zeppelin Scottish band Iron Claw, the lesser known landscapes of rural Bedfordshire, backstage Taekwondo stretches, Scandinavian psychedelia, fleeting rural epiphanies, Dungen, Trees, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, a group holiday on a remote Finnish island, and Jagjaguwar flipping out after seeing them play in Bloomington, Indiana and insisting it was time they made their Back In Black…
WOLF PEOPLE TOUR DATES (new dates in bold): Thu. Nov. 17 – Bedford, UK @ Esquires Fri. Nov. 18 – Leeds, UK @ Headrow House Sat. Nov. 19 – Glasgow, UK @ Sleazys Sun. Nov. 20 – Manchester, UK @ Deaf Institute Tue. Nov. 22 – London, UK @ Oslo Thu. Nov. 24 – Birmingham, UK @ The Sunflower Fri. Nov. 25 – Sheffield, UK @ Picture House Social Sun. Nov. 27 – Bristol, UK @ Louisiana Sat. Feb. 14 – Hamburg, DE @ Hafenklang Sun. Feb. 15 – Leipzig, DE @ UT Connewitz Mon. Feb. 16 – Berlin, DE @ Cassiopeia Tue. Feb. 17 – Koln, DE @ King Georg
Temples — James Bagshaw (vocals, guitar), Tom Warmsley (bass, backing vocals), Sam Toms (drums) and Adam Smith (keys) — are set to release their new album, Volcano, on March 3rd via Fat Possum. The band’s announcement comes on the heels of a sold out North American tour and a performance last week on Last Call with Carson Daly, where the English four-piece presented debut single, “Certainty,” to viewers across the nation. Today, they also share the single’s video, directed by Alden Volney. He describes it below.
“This is based on a recurring dream I have been having since childhood about getting into a sea of plastic. So when the band approached me about doing something inspired by those JPOP videos that ooze quirkiness and eccentricity, I thought injecting the color palettes and aesthetics of Japan into this idea could be a good fit. It’s designed to feel like a fever dream you’d have after spending too much time in a Japanese dollar store.”
All the elements people loved with Temples’ debut, Sun Structures, remain intact, but with Volcano, there is a noticeable evolution presented from the outset. It’s clear Volcano is the sound of Temples squaring up to their potential, immediately evident with “Certainty.” Its beefed-up beats reveal an expanded sonic firmament, one in which bright synth hooks and insistent choruses circle around each other over chord sequences that strike just the right balance between nice and queasy. “If there’s a sense of scale,” says frontman James Bagshaw, “It was really just a result of implementing a load of things that we didn’t know about the first time around. We didn’t even have a subwoofer to listen back to things that we did on Sun Structures, so there was nothing below 50Hz on that record. We didn’t even know those frequencies were there!”
Entirely self-produced and written by all four members of the band, Temples’ melodies seem to come effortlessly. There are sun-dazed numbers and lysergic dream-pop songs and those where synth and mellotron interweave to beguiling effect. One thing is certain; it’s harder to spot the influences this time around. Mystical language has been supplanted by something more direct. They’ve been broken down and blended together – fossilized into a single source of creative fuel, resulting in a sound that is undoubtedly Temples. As described by co-founding member Warmsley, “we discovered a lot as we went along, and the excitement at having done so radiates outwards.”
Temples Tour Dates: Sat. Dec. 3 – Paris, FR @ Point Ephémère, Rough Trade 40th Anniversary Weekend Sun. Jan. 22 – Hebden Bridge, UK @ The Trades Club, Heavenly Weekend Thu. March 30 – London, UK @ The Electric
The Occult Architecture of Moon Duo’s fourth album – a psychedelic opus in two separate volumes – is an intricately woven hymn to the invisible structures found in the cycle of seasons and the journey of day into night, dark into light. Occult Architecture Vol. 1 will be released February 3rd on Sacred Bones with tours throughoutNorth America and Europe to follow (all dates are below). Details of Vol. 2 will be announced in the coming months. Today, the band, led by guitarist Ripley Johnson and keyboardist Sanae Yamada, share “haunting, exhilirating” (FADER) debut single, “Cold Fear.”
Offering a cosmic glimpse into the hidden patterning embedded in everything, Occult Architecture reflects the harmonious duality of these light and dark energies through the Chinese theory of Yin and Yang. In Chinese, Yin means “the shady side of the hill” and is associated with the feminine, darkness, night, earth. Following this logic, Vol. 1 embraces and embodies Moon Duo’s darker qualities — released appropriately in the heart of winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
Written and recorded in their hometown of Portland, Oregon, the two-part epic reflects the hidden energies of rainclouds and sunshine and the deep creep of Northwest forests along with their effect on the psyche, inspired by the occult and esoteric literature of Mary Anne Atwood, Aleister Crowley, Colin Wilson, and Manly P. Hall.
Sonically the new records represent a dimensional shift in perspective for the band. Just as the season of autumn represents letting go in the form of trees shedding leaves, so Occult Architecture is a shedding of genre tropes, and an inviting in of new textures and soundscapes reflective of the album’s shimmering Yin/Yang qualities.
Stream Moon Duo’s “Cold Fear” — https://soundcloud.com/sacredbones/moon-duo-cold-fear/s-0k477Occult Architecture Vol. 1 Tracklisting:
1. The Death Set
2. Cold Fear
3. Creepin’
4. Cross-Town Fade
5. Cult of Moloch
6. Will of the Devil
7. White Rose
Moon Duo Tour Dates: Wed. Feb. 22 – Santa Cruz, CA @ Don Quixote’s Fri. Feb. 24 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo Sat. Feb. 25 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah Fri. Mar. 3 – Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern Sat. Mar. 4 – Vancouver, BC @ Cobalt Wed. Mar. 15 – Newcastle, UK @ Northumbria University Thu. Mar. 16 – Manchester, UK @ Band On The Wall Fri. Mar. 17 – London, UK @ Heaven Sat. Mar. 18 – Paris, FR @ Le Trabendo Sun. Mar. 19 – Nancy, FR @ L’Autre Canal Mon. Mar. 20 – Zurich, CH @ Mascotte Thu. Mar. 23 – Budapest, HU @ A38
Fri. Mar. 24 – Graz, AT @ Orpheum Extra Sat. Mar. 25 – Vienna, AT @ Chelsea Mon. Mar. 27 – Leipzig, DE @ UT Connewitz Tue. Mar. 28 – Berlin, DE @ Bi Nuu Wed. Mar. 29 – Copenhagen, DK @ Pumphuset Thu. Mar. 30 – Oslo, NO @ Bla Fri. Mar. 31 – Stockholm, SE @ Kagelbanan Sat. Apr. 1 – Gothenburg, SE @ Pusterviks Mon. Apr. 3 – Groningen, NL @ Vera Club Tue. Apr. 4 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Noord Wed. Apr. 5 – Eindhoven, NL @ Effenaar Thu. Apr. 6 – Brighton, UK @ The Haunt Fri. Apr. 7 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club Sat. Apr. 8 – Glasgow, UK @ Stereo Fri. Apr. 21 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle Sat. Apr. 22 – Detroit, MI @ El Club Sun. Apr. 23 – Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern Tue. Apr. 25 – Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rossa Wed. Apr. 26 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott Thu. Apr. 27 – Brooklyn, NY @ Rough Trade Fri. Apr. 28 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s Sat. Apr. 29 – Washington, DC @ DC9
Sun. Apr. 30 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern
Rock / industrial / new wave / no wave / electro legend Gary Numanis putting together his 21st record. He’s chronicling the entire writing and recording process through a PledgeMusic campaign, and he’s asking for fans to help him through the creative process.
Numan plans to keep contributors updated through videos, music clips, and campaign updates. He admits he has no preconceptions for the record, according to the campaign’s page: “I have no idea how I want it to sound, or who will work on it with me, if anyone. It doesn’t even have a working title as yet. It’s as blank a canvas as I’ve ever had and everything that happens will happen with you as part of it.”
Most of the perks are already sold out, and there are still over 200 days until the album’s scheduled release date. It will be worth the price of the download alone to watch his creative process…or pitch in a grand for a private listening party!
