The Body & Dis Fig - Audiotree Live 2025

Back in October of 2021 I had the absolute honour of reviewing the The Body and BIG|BRAVE collaborative album Leaving None But Small Birds for The Sleeping Shaman. Back then I didn’t have any knowledge of who either band were, beyond having seen the names on various advertising and promotional platforms.
Knowing that The Body has a reputation as an experimental metal outfit, I was intrigued as to what the album would be like and was absolutely surprised with what I found. Not at all what I was expecting, I loved the album, and the review conveyed that without any doubts at all. Since then I have become quite the fan of BIG|BRAVE, but The Body has somewhat eluded me, until now.
Jumping forward to 2024, and the 23rd of February sees the release of the newest The Body collaboration, this time with Berlin based experimental DJ Dis Fig. It’s a very different experience to my last The Body outing, and through the course of this review, I will endeavour to explain why, and leave you with a need to explore deeper, and truly give yourselves to not only The Body, but to Dis Fig too.
The album itself is entitled Orchards Of A Futile Heaven and after experiencing the work, it does conjure up ideas of an apocalyptic future, and the notion of a futile heaven too. Over the course of the seven tracks, if you are brave enough to engage with the album, you will be subjected to an absolute mind melting sonic journey, the likes of which is pretty nightmare inducing let me tell you that.
Never overly death metal heavy, the intensity through the expertise in sonic noise scapes will infect your every pore, and leave you begging for it to stop, such is the power of the aural assault. This isn’t to say that its unlistenable, quite the opposite in fact, but what I am trying to express is the fact that the density of the sound will be, at times, utterly overwhelming, with a power which will give you the want to press pause on it all for a second. It will leave your heart racing, and your head pounding, and if that all sounds pretty exciting, then you’ve definitely come to the right place.
Opening with Eternal Hours, you would be very wrong to expect the first minute of uncomfortable fuzzy feedback and disjointed industrial noise to continue throughout the five minutes. By the end of the first couple of minutes everything has evolved, and the disjointed parallel of pained screeching and softer shoegazy vocal is coursing deeply within the sonic baseline.
I draw comparison to Portishead, but not so much for anything from the early incarnation of the band, more so for the album Third, when Portishead really go deep into exploring soundscapes and angst driven rhythms. It is painful to ingest, but such is the point of this sort of musical exploration.
This closeness and vibe doesn’t ever let up throughout the whole album, and while The Body create these post-apocalyptic scenarios sonically, Dis Fig effortlessly flits between moments of utter lunacy, and softer, almost serene beauty vocally, all the while bouncing off of the foreboding background. Its utterly awkward, at times jarring, and completely compelling.
For me it’s a weird one, because there are times when I can point at Portishead for a near comparison, and at others it’s as if Dis Fig has been looking towards Björk as a figurehead to look to for abrasive and unique vocal stylings. This is very true on tracks such as To Walk A Higher Path and Dissent, Shame, when that lean nudges me towards Björk especially, and yet, at other times, such as Coils Of Kaa it has a touch of Fever Ray in the mix. Such is the dynamic of Dis Figs voice, on track seven, Back To The Water, I would even go as far as adding Chelsea Wolfe vibes to that list too.
All the while, The Body throw absolutely everything at the recording, and no two minutes seem to have the same elements of sound. It saves the work from becoming stagnant, and at the same time gives the listener no chance to sit back and enjoy the ambience either.
As an exercise in experimental music goes, I have to say that not since Trent Reznor at his most vibrant have I been captivated like I have with this Mad Max desolate future soundtrack music, and this is a true testament to all the musicians involved.
Well, I say musicians, I think innovators is probably a more appropriate word, as this is truly visionary, and for the new generation of music, this should be the benchmark for groundbreaking and anxiety inducing terror. And that, my friends, is the real mark of art in its purest form.  From: https://thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/t/body-dis-fig-orchards-futile-heaven/

The Lazy Eyes - Starting Over

What led to the formation of The Lazy Eyes?

Harvey Geraghty: High school brought us together thank goodness! Itay, Noah and I met at the start of high school and started jamming at lunch times. That progressed to busking around the city with an acoustic set up to make some cash. With that cash we bought many many guitar pedals. It came to a point where we weren’t making much money busking (we lost the cute factor as we got older) so we ditched playing Katy Perry songs for cash and started a “real band”. Leon came to the school in year 11 and we instantly bonded over the same types of music. And here we are today, about releasing our first album and playing shows all around the place!

You’re a fairly new band… tell us what are some of the main influences when it comes to music making?

We are a fairly new band to the public eye but we have actually been playing together for like 6 years now. Nowadays we are influenced by all types of music whether it be rave music or finger style Americana guitar music. Back in high school we were influenced by the psych giants (Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, Unknown Mortal Orchestra). These are the main types of influences you can hear on ‘SongBook’.

After releasing two EP’s, are you excited to finally release an album that will be also available on physical format?

It’s been such a long time coming that it kind of just feels surreal that all these songs will be out in the world and no longer in our control. We are very excited of course, especially to get out and play the album live in different places around the world!

What’s the story behind the ‘SongBook’?

‘SongBook’ is our debut album and boy has it been a long time coming. We started recording the very first pieces of this album in the middle of high school, before we even knew it would turn into an album. During the making of the album we learnt so many things from scratch; how to record, mix audio, make album art, the list goes on! And here we are years later with our first project fully realised. ‘SongBook’ is our first baby and it encapsulates the first era of The Lazy Eyes. Here’s to many more!

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2022/06/the-lazy-eyes-interview-new-album-songbook.html 

Solstice - Frippa

I am convinced that if someone had approached Andy Glass a while back and told him that all his work and trials over the last 40+ years would be finally worth it, that his band, himself and one of the singers would all be voted #1 in the latest Prog Reader's Polls, with three others also getting in the Top Ten, while their latest albums would be highly acclaimed by both fans and critics he would have had a very good laugh indeed, as what has happened with Solstice in the last decade has been nothing short of remarkable, and highly deserved.
The debut came out in 1984, the second in 1992 and the third five years later before they went into hiatus. It wasn't until 2010 that the fourth album was released, and Solstice was by now gaining some continuity with the first appearance of Jenny Newman (violin), Pete Hemsley (drums), Robin Phillips (bass) and Steven McDaniel (keyboards, vocals). This was followed up with 'Prophecy' in 2013 with the same line-up (Emma Brown singing on both), but then there was a gap until 2020 and 'Sia'. Emma had been with the band since 1997's 'Circles', but for 'Sia' they now introduced singer Jess Holland, and the world finally stood up and paid attention. The second album of the 'Sia' trilogy, 'Light Up', was released in 2022 and now we come to the final part, 'Clann'. The harmony layered vocals have by now become an incredibly important part of the band's live performance, so much so that they have now become one of the very few prog bands who hit the road with three singers, with Jess now joined by Ebony Buckle and Dyanne Crutcher (plus Nick Burns also guests on vocals on one track).
Solstice were always associated with the Neo Prog scene; they were one of the most important bands keeping the prog light alive back in the Eighties, but their heavy use of violin always gave them a different sound, and now they are far more into crossover, both the sub-genre itself and the way they approach music. There is the strong sensation that here is a band who are finding their own way, and it is exciting and new, even though they have history going back aeons. They even recognise that as there is a bonus on the CD which is a rearranged take on "Earthsong" which was originally on the debut. Here is a band who are mixing folk, rock, prog and even dance into something which always feels light, airy, and simply remarkable. The harmony vocals alone gives them a very different take on prog, while Andy often sits in the background (with a very big smile on his face), rarely taking the lead role (although he can be dynamic and punchy when the need arises). Jenny has a wonderfully delicate touch on violin, knowing when to lead the melody, when to slow it down and when to make it sing, while Steven either provides banks of sound for the others to play against or take the lead himself. As for Pete Hemsley and Robin Philipps, here they provide a masterclass in rhythm section, knowing when to provide plenty of space and also when to come back in and hold down the foundation, even providing counter melodies.
Then there is Jess. She has one of those voices which is effortless, and she can do whatever she likes with it, but here she is fronting one of the most impressive and relentless prog bands around. There is little doubt in my mind that Solstice have produced the most remarkable, intriguing and delightful album of their career to date, and it is great to see how everyone else has finally recognised what an amazing band they are. I first reviewed them some 30 years ago and have always been a fan, but this is next level and very special indeed.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=89810

The Fernweh - Is This Man Bothering You

PS: I know this music has been sitting around for awhile, so I’m glad to see that it’s going to see the light of day. But I also know that the idea of this band dates back more than just a couple of years. Can you tell me how this whole thing came together?

Jamie Backhouse: It was at Glastonbury during a Candie Payne show we did. I’d only known Ned probably a matter of days, but immediately we were forming a band. We spoke about music in the same way.

Ned Crowther: I love American music, but there’s this other side where I’ve always had an interest in British psychedelia, British folk music, and Jamie and I really connected on that level. At the time, it was before the folk revival—the Mumford and Sons-type thing—we thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to bring some of that back?” To write in a very British folk style, but keep it rock and not twee with ukuleles and such. A few artists have been doing that in America for awhile – Devendra Banhart, Fleet Foxes. We just wanted to do a British version of that.

Backhouse: That band never happened. Every time we’d meet, we’d always say, “We’ve got to make that band happen.” It almost became a bit of a running joke. Four years go by, we’d meet up. “Oh yeah, we should still do that band.” There was kind of a sense it wasn’t going to happen, which felt like a bit of a shame. Myself and Ozzy got a bit sick of sessions—we were driving to rehearsals, and the music was fine, but we were just thinking, “You know what? I just want to play my own stuff.” I mentioned to him I’d been writing quite a lot and recording and Ozzy said, “Yeah, me too.” So we started to get together and come up with ideas.

Austin “Oz” Murphy: Life was catching up with us and it was a matter of: “We better do something before it’s too late.”

Crowther: I think we were often frustrated by the session life, where you’re very much at the mercy of changing whims and changing schedules. You’ve got no real creative outlet—you just do what you’re told. If you’re lucky, you get paid for it.

Murphy: Jamie and myself started playing in my loft trying to get some stuff together. We had a couple of bits. The first thing we got together in a demo form was “The Liar”—Jamie had this kind of folk guitar riff, but it didn’t have that bass behind it. We got a beat going behind it and a bit of synthesizer. He put down the guitar solo and I put down the bass, and then we thought, “This is quite interesting now.”

Backhouse: Ozzy and I realized that these ideas were just becoming songs. Three, four minutes and verse/chorus structures. They needed words, so we thought, “Well let’s get someone in to write with us who can sing.” The first person we thought of was Ned, which was quite a strange choice because he lives 300 miles away. [Laughter]

Murphy: We’d kind of lost touch with Ned after the Candie Payne thing, but we were always kind of thinking, “Do you think Ned will be into doing stuff? Is he busy?”

Backhouse: I don’t even think Ned fronted a band as a singer before, and I don’t know that I’d heard him sing prior to that. But I had a strong sense—and Ozzy did too—that Ned would be just a great fit.
 
PS: What effect did being separated by hundreds of miles have on the creative process?

Backhouse: The first thing we did was “Is This Man Bothering You?” Ned had a lyrical concept and it just fit straightaway. From there on, he’d come up every two months and we’d have a manic weekend of “Gotta finish a song! Gotta record a song!” Every session was just magic. He’d go away back home and we’d work on it in our own little sort of insular way. It was two processes, really: These mad weekends of intense creative group energy and then two months of me taking it away to do mixing and editing. Ozzy would whack a sax part down here and there.

Crowther: It was a really wonderful process. I would come up, we’d write or record a song, go away and live with it for a bit.

Murphy: A lot of the record was done over email. We never would’ve got it done otherwise, but it’s quite a hard way to work. The songs were all written as they were being recorded. Ned wrote all the lyrics with little tweaks from us—“Change this,” “Lose that verse,” etc.

Backhouse: We were never like the Beatles going, “This is the song—record it, finish it.” These things were growing over a period of three or four years. It was quite a weird creative process, but we had a sense early on we could come up with something quite special.

Crowther: When you make an album and there’s no expectations, you can say exactly what you want. It’s empowering.
 
PS: How long was the music around before Ned started adding lyrics to them?

Backhouse: Lots of the songs I brought in I’d tried with different writers. I’d tried the backing chords and picking for “Next Time Around,” “The Liar” and “New Brighton Sigh” with other writers and they didn’t quite work. I think it’s because I’m not a wordy person and I’m not a singer, so for me, it’s all about the initial feel of the music and where it comes from. “Fernweh” translates to trying to get to a specific place rather than general wanderlust. I think when I write, that initial feel takes me to a specific place. If I’m writing with someone who’s going to try to put words into that place, it has to fit. Whenever I tried to bring these ideas to other people, it was incongruous. The joy of working with Ned is that I’ll play him something and the first thing he gives me back is just, “Yes, that’s it.” That place I had in mind was specific but quite abstract. Ned has made that place accessible to people. He puts people into it. He has context and a story, whereas when I tried to write with other people it just has not fit. That’s why I held the ideas back so long. I thought, “Well, they’re quite special to me, so they have to be right when I do something with them.” Myself and Rob Stringer wrote the melody and chords to what became “New Brighton Sigh.” We gave it to Candie [Payne], who wrote a lovely thing with it, but we didn’t do anything at the time. Like lots of songs, it went by the by. I told her she should keep it cos it’s a nice piece of music, but I gave it to Ned and he went straight in there with this thing about this lovely old seaside town in the Wirral called New Brighton. As soon as he showed me what he was thinking lyrically, I said, “That is it. That’s perfect.” It was like it had always been like that. I just know that piece of music now as “New Brighton Sigh,” which is all you want from the songwriting process, I suppose.

From: https://transatlanticmodern.com/2018/11/12/interview-the-fernweh/

English Teacher - The World’s Biggest Paving Slab

English Teacher only realized they might be becoming famous when someone recently recognized them in a pub. Coming out of Leeds—an industrial city in the north of England and a place renowned for its DIY indie scene—the band is made up of Lily Fontaine (vocals, rhythm guitar, synth), Douglas Frost (drums, vocals), Nicholas Eden (bass) and Lewis Whiting (lead guitar).
Making a swirly mix of awkward indie post-punk rock, they managed just one live show before the pandemic but spent their lockdown busy building up a substantial following both with music fans and the UK music press. Releasing music on the specialist independent label Nice Swan Records, they’ve now found their music. In particular, standout tracks “R&B” and “A55” repeatedly played on BBC’s Radio 1 and Radio 6. Reflecting the anger and mundanity of the past two years, there’s an urgency to their music that’s striking a chord across the country.
Born from the ashes of a dream pop outfit called Frank, English Teacher’s drift to something with a bit more edge has been gradual but organic. “I was listening to a lot of psych like Tame Impala, Melody’s Echo Chamber and Brian Jonestown Massacre, as well as lo-fi artists like Clairo and Mac DeMarco,” Lily explains. “In my third year of university, I started getting into bands like Shame, and I think that’s when I realized I wanted to move away from the dreamier side of things.”
A product of the evergreen Leeds DIY community, (whose alumni includes Yard Act, Pulled Apart By Horses, alt-J and Wild Beasts) the members of English Teacher played in more than one band. Like most of the musicians around the scene’s epicenter, at the legendary live music venue Brudenell Social Club.
“I think having a lot of friends who are also musicians makes the lifestyle easier to cope with. There’s definitely strength in numbers. You can use the wisdom of the crowds when big decisions or tricky situations come along. We’ve all recently left our external music projects to focus on English Teacher. Personally, I struggled to cope with being in multiple projects – being in [my other band] Eades was one of the greatest experiences of my life but trying to work along- side recording and touring with two bands meant that my time and passion was divided between and that’s not fair on anyone. Brudenell Social Club is a second home for us, like barnacles to a ship’s hull. It will be a wrenching experience for us to depart Leeds for the “Big Smoke” [aka London]. I think it will happen though, we’re all keen to explore new cities, scenes and people.”
Whenever there was a relaxing of Covid measures, English Teacher managed to play a decent amount of live shows and festival slots. “It felt like we were touring constantly last year; I saw our managers and the band more times than my Mum,” Fontaine laughs.
“I think it was kind of playing catch-up as we hadn’t played live as English Teacher before the pandemic. We were learning our live set while playing some of the biggest shows of our lives and we became so close as a group of mates that go- ing home for Christmas and not playing or seeing each other for a few weeks felt wrong. It was hard though. I was personally ill from August and kept losing my voice. I think the lack of rest combined with a traveler’s diet meant my immune system couldn’t fight any cold. It was an intense learning experience and I’ve introduced rest, vegetables and exercise into my life so it doesn’t happen again. All I want is to be back touring with the band, It’s my favorite thing to do.”
Now, as they put it, they’re “shitting themselves” about what the next year will bring. Debut EP Polyawkward comes out in April and sees them heading out on their debut headline tour to support it. “Three very special headline sets in some very special cities with songs we never usually play live; a bigger sound and some very special guests. We’re currently writing our debut album as well.” They’re also coy about naming the label they’re signing to, only saying that it’s “produced some of the most iconic faces in music over the last decade. That kind of platform is terrifying to four considerably weak and introverted individuals.”  From: https://marvin.la/young-but-ready-indie-post-punk-rock-group-english-teacher-gaim-major-mometum-post-pandemic/

Custard Flux - The Floating Chamber

Q: How did your musical journey start in Kalamazoo, Michigan?

A: My grandmother had a piano, and there are pictures of me as a toddler by the piano. My dad had a [Lowrey] Genie organ in the ‘70s, and I played that all the time. When I was 16, I begged for my first guitar, and it grew from there. When I was 17, I bought a drum set, and then I started. I wasn’t in band in school, and so during my junior year, a lot of my friends were in band, and they said, “Curvey, you should try playing drums in band,” so I did. I ended up playing in the band for the last two years of school. It was good because it taught me discipline in rehearsals.

Q: What artists influenced you while you were growing up?

A: When my aunt moved to college, my grandmother said she was getting rid of her stuff, and I took all the records. I had records by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The McCoys, and The Monkees. That was in kindergarten, and then I went through the KISS thing. By the time high school happened, when FM was FM radio before there were commercials, I would hear the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yes, Genesis, and those types of bands, so I got into prog. Then the ‘80s hit, and punk rock happened, and I was totally into that. I was also into XTC, The Pretenders, and The Psychedelic Furs.

Q: What brought you to Chicago in 1983?

A: After high school I went to Kendall College of Art and Design [in Grand Rapids, Michigan]. It was an awesome school, but I only did one semester because I got an offer from some friends in Chicago who had an all-keyboard band and were opening for [artists] like Lene Lovich, Kraftwerk, and The Human League. And it was the time of the standup drummer, so in 1983, I moved to Chicago to play rock ‘n’ roll.

Q: How did that lead to pursuing music in Detroit and forming Custard Flux?

A: When I was living in Chicago, every time a Detroit band would come [there], or when we would play here in Detroit, the Detroit bands would blow me away. Every band we’d play with in Detroit, I’d think, “Holy shit, these guys are a few steps ahead of what we’re doing.” I always wanted to play with some Detroit musicians, and moving here [in 2017] gave me that. That was my idea, and I thought, “I’m gonna put together a band of Detroit guys with these awesome musicians.”
Of course, I was already in my 50s by then and it’s harder to meet people. One of my friends in Chicago was working at an estate sale, and at the estate sale was an old pump organ. He said, “Curvey, you gotta come and see this pump organ. You’re gonna want it.” And I said, “OK,” and of course I drove down there and fell in love with it.

Q: How did the pump organ spark writing and recording Helium?

A: I bought this pump organ, but the cool thing I thought immediately was, “This thing sounds a lot like a Hammond B-3 [organ].” And then I thought, “Well, that’s probably where the Hammond B-3 was the next step of the electric version of a pump organ.” It has this little paper thing that flips around in the wood and gives it a slight vibrato to the sound. I fell in love with this pump organ, and then my idea was to do an acoustic version of prog.
At the time, I wasn’t thinking about the Canterbury scene with Jethro Tull and these acoustic bands. I was thinking of it from a green perspective without electricity. I thought, “Let’s see what we can accomplish with this,” but nobody was really into it. So I said, “I’m gonna make my first record,” and eight years ago was when I made Helium. It ended up being a double album, and I played everything on there, which wasn’t my intention, but that’s what happened. And it did great.

Q: How did you choose the name Custard Flux for the band?

A: It’s literally cluster fuck—it’s punk rock. The funny thing is the English took it differently. They loved the name [of my former band], The Luck of Eden Hall, because it was named after a goblet and has connections to English folklore. But for the name Custard Flux, they equate it with phlegm or a bad stomach ache. I often hear [English] people saying, “Oh, I’ve just had a bad case of Custard Flux.” There was a Custer Flux [name] out there, but no one had used Custard Flux.

Q: Custard Flux soon evolved from a solo project to a band. How did you bring different musicians into the fold?

A: By the time the second one [2019’s Echo] came out, I grabbed Tim [Prettyman] because he was playing bass and he could play standup bass, which fit into my acoustic [sound]. Tim’s son Walt plays violin, and he’s a really good violin player. I had those two guys, and then I met Vito [Greco], who was back in Chicago. I knew him from the old days, but I’d talked to him about the project, and he was really into it. That’s when it all started to come together. On the second record, I still played a lot of the stuff because I couldn’t find a drummer, but I was starting to bring the band together.
I had a previous band, The Luck of Eden Hall, in Chicago. We toured the U.K. a few times and were on labels in Italy, The Netherlands, and England. The label we were on in England, Fruits de Mer [Records], I met a lot of people through that label. Jay [Tausig] is a guy out in California who plays everything, and I needed a flutist for a song, so I contacted Jay for that.
Mars Williams was the saxophonist in The Psychedelic Furs, and I had met him in Chicago when he played on a couple of Eden Hall records. I thought, “This is acoustic, this is gonna be perfect,” and so Mars was into it and played on two of the records, Oxygen and Phosphorous. And then he passed away from cancer [in 2023].
When The Luck of Eden Hall would go to England, we had a Mellotron player named Andy Thompson. We would bring our guitars, but we needed to find gear over there because we couldn’t afford to ship drums and everything. We found Andy, who had a Mellotron, and we would rent his Mellotron when Eden Hall would go on tour over there. And then I did a solo gig there, and Andy played Mellotron with me. When Custard Flux went over there last summer, he played Mellotron with us, and because of that, I’ve had him play on the records.

Q: Tell me about your creative process for Enter Xenon and how the album came together at Rabbithole Studio in Detroit.

A: I always write the music first, so I’m a guy who sits around either on a piano or with a guitar, and I come up with riffs. My phone is filled with riffs. I will finish a song, and then I will write the lyrics. For recording, it’s several months simply because we’re all busy. For my parts, I throw them down because they’re scratch tracks, and I throw my vocals down. Sometimes I’ll go back in … and double-track the vocals just for effect.
Tim [Prettyman] came here and recorded his basslines. Vito [Greco] came here a couple of times to record his guitar parts, but Tim and Vito both have recording capabilities at home, so they’ll do their stuff and send me the tracks. Nick [Pruett] is very into his drums and has a beautiful drum set. He has microphones, and I have microphones, and between his microphones and my microphones, we have a nice setup to record the drums here in my studio.

Q: Enter Xenon features Vito Greco on guitar, Timothy Prettyman on bass, Nick Pruett on drums, and Andy Thompson on Mellotron. How did they help shape the album’s overall sound?

A: I’ll say, “Here’s the track, so put your bass part on it.” If one of them comes from it at a bizarre angle that doesn’t work with my initial idea, then I’ll say, “No, it has to be more along these lines.” With the drums especially, when I compose, I hear it all in my head, and since I can play everything, I’ve had to tell myself, “Don’t think of a bassline.” Because once I start to think of it it’s there in my head. It’s already become part of the art, so I’ve been very disciplined in not writing anything except my vocal parts and guitar parts.
When Nick comes over, and if he doesn’t feel it right [away], I’ll say, “Oh no, this one has to be a fast-tempo song.” When I write it, it’s not dictating any of those things of what the drums should be doing or what the bass should be doing. And a lot of times, he’ll hear something slower, like a half-tempo, and I’ll say, “No, no, no, that’s double speed.” And then, it changes his whole perception of the song because the music is very detailed. I’m giving people riffs, and they can’t [always] tell what the rhythm is [from those]. And Vito is the one who takes it somewhere else, and he has a Portuguese guitar—he’s really good.

Q: What’s up next for Custard Flux?

A: When we played in England last year, our gig in London, Kavus Torabi opened for us, and he’s the singer in the current incarnation of Gong. When Gong came over and played last year [at The Token Lounge in Westland, Michigan], we opened for them in Detroit, and the whole band loved it. They said, “We want you to open for us when we come back.” They’re doing a West Coast tour now, and we’re doing some shows with them.

From: https://strattonsetlist.com/2025/06/15/custard-flux-enter-xenon-article/

Belleruche - Fuzz Face

Belleruche is a band consisting of Kathrin DeBoer, Ricky Fabulous, and DJ Modest. Formed in the lesser bars and pubs of North London in 2005, the band now record for the Brighton based Tru Thoughts label. Influenced by vintage blues records, punk girl drummers, obscure 60's cover bands and experimental west coast turntablists, they describe their sound as 'Turntable Soul Music'. Belleruche released a series of three extremely limited 7" records on their own Hippoflex Recording Industries label before signing with Tru Thoughts. These individually numbered 45's (with hand screen-printed sleeves) quickly sold out in the UK's independent record stores and attracted a cult following in the UK and Europe, having been hand-distributed by the band at gigs. In 2007 Belleruche signed to Tru Thoughts and their debut album Turntable Soul Music was released in July of the same year, gaining admiring reviews both at home and abroad and becoming the fastest-selling debut album in the label's history. The songs on 'Turntable Soul Music' were written in train carriages, dubious minicabs and pub backrooms around the UK whilst the trio gigged everywhere they could. The songs were then forged and reworked in the band's electrifying live shows. From their initial Sunday residency in the Salmon and Compass in Angel, London to gigs all over Europe, Australia and Asia. 'Turntable Soul Music' is like a weird trawl through a dusty basement full of the best records you've never heard of, whilst a voice you can't quite pin down sings hooks you can't forget. Their live show marks them apart, using only a turntable, sampler, guitar and microphone, they combine to produce something markedly different. Sounding at once both weird and distinctive, but at the same time musical and compelling, they have played at venues as diverse as Montreux Jazz Festival, The Dance arena at Glastonbury, and many underground nightclubs. In October 2008 Tru Thoughts released The Express, the bands second album. Following on from the live songwriting and broken leads ethic of Belleruche's debut, 'The Express' has maybe a tougher sound. Their latest album 270 Stories - including the singles Clockwatching, Fuzz Face and 3 Amp Fuse - was released in October 2010. The band will be playing festival dates this summer and touring the new album in autumn. Kathrin DeBoer raised on a pirate boat sailing the South Pacific Ocean, with only Billie Holiday and Spanky Wilson records for company, Kathrins voice carries the soul of the wind off the cape mixed with the grit of illegal Polynesian rum bars. Lyrics written in bottles cast into the sea found their way into three continents; Kathrin jumped ship and found London. Ricky Fabulous Leo. Baby. Following an adolescence chasing girls and heavy rock bands, Fabulous found himself trapped working for a Maltese gangster in a frozen northern town. Whilst keeping warm locked in a damp basement, he found a stack of quarter inch tapes and discovered the work of Grant Green and Django Reinhardt, which gave him the energy to slip out of town, heading south on a freight car clutching a false identity and a forty-year-old guitar. DJ Modest Growing up in the deep south, in engine oil and mud, Modest discovered hiphop on a stolen radio, sneaking into clubs through broken windows to hear more. Building turntables and mixers from scavenged electronic gear and two stroke engines, he created a soundsystem and played unlawful hiphop parties in strange woodlands to farmers. He coaxes twisted Bluenote solos and broken drums from Shure m44-7s whilst drunk on moonshine.  From: https://www.theaudiodb.com/artist/131555-Belleruche 

Collapsing Scenery - Magic Button

The co-founder of experimental electronic team Collapsing Scenery would prefer people to not dwell on who’s behind the mask. He would like his identity to not become a thing.
But you’ve most certainly heard the erstwhile Reggie Debris’ music with his other band. It’s markedly different than the rhythm-based aggro-skronk the artist builds from vintage electronic gear with collaborator Don Devore as Collapsing Scenery.
The pair just added another few works to their continually fascinating oeuvre, a set of cover songs: Randy Newman’s “Let’s Burn Down the Cornfields,” featuring a wild solo by New York no wave saxophonist James Chance, as well as a take on the proto-punk band the Modern Lovers’ “Modern World.” As is already the norm, Collapsing Scenery issued wild videos to accompany the release — often jarring clips that explore dark themes.
This story will honor the artist’s request not to focus on his work as Mickey Madden, bassist for Maroon 5, even though when performing as Collapsing Scenery he seldom hides his face and doesn’t wear KISS makeup — and despite that, the revelation might add a beguiling new dimension to a prominent act often ignored when contemplating contemporary L.A. music.
“The decision was made before we even started that we wouldn’t go there,” Devore says after Debris politely declines to speak on the subject. They’re sitting next to each other at Cacao Mexicatessen in Eagle Rock. Devore explains that the music they make “is so its own thing that you don’t question anything” regarding the connection. If Debris had his way, it wouldn’t be mentioned at all.
Too late, but the request is admirable. It’s also understandable, considering the act’s rough-hewn, noisy and experimental leanings.
On Monday, Collapsing Scenery will conclude its May residency at Zebulon in Frogtown, the last in a series of immersive gigs that features both visual and audio workouts. The show follows a series of singles, remixes and EPs dating back to the group’s establishment in 2013, each more curious than the next.
The two met in Los Angeles but reconnected in London while each was touring. New York-based Devore had witnessed a lot during his time on the Los Angeles music scene, having played with highflying early ’00s punk band the Icarus Line, indie guitar band the Lilys and rockers Amazing Baby. Most recently, he co-founded the New York-based electronic group Historics.
“It started as a kind of concept,” says Debris, “of just doing something where we were away from our main instruments — actually digging into new gear.” The goal he adds, was “to play electronic music without the computer.”
“Only hardwire,” Devore interjects, saying that it took them “a few years to learn the gear without lying about it.” For warmth, they connect their machines to amplifiers normally reserved for guitars, and when recording they make sure to mike the room as a way to texture the music with natural acoustics.
Visually, they texture their videos with shock and awe. For “Let’s Burn Down the Cornfields,” they enlisted the young director Kansas Bowling, says Debris between bites of a duck taco. Best known for “B.C. Butcher,” a comedic horror film for Troma Entertainment that stars, among others, Kato Kaelin and Rodney Bingenheimer, Bowling harnesses B-movie energy in service of gore.
An all-female reimagining of “Lord of the Flies,” the campy “Let’s Burn Down the Cornfield” video stars a cluster of marooned girls, a pig’s head, blood and buzzing flies. Debris and Devore play war-scarred soldier-observers.
For “Modern World,” also directed by Bowling, Collapsing Scenery plays two uniformed high-schoolers who encounter a knife-wielding, black-robed assassin. He attacks them and slashes their throats. Devil-girl cheerleaders arrive to drag their bodies into a cave, where Satan awaits.
As all this happens, “Modern World” rolls along, its synth-driven rhythm propelling the chorus: “I’m in love with the U.S.A./I’m in love with the modern world/Put down your cigarettes/And drop out of high school.”
Last year the team hired noted photographer and experimental filmmaker Richard Kern to make a typically titillating video. It features Collapsing Scenery standing in an apartment and blankly observing its scantily clad tenant and her lover. It’s disconcerting on any number of levels.
Says Debris, whose identity is easily discoverable with a few minutes of internet sleuthing, “The visual component of the band has been something we’ve been pretty zeroed in since the get-go.” He adds, “We don’t want anything to look haphazard by accident.”  From: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-collapsing-scenery-20180525-story.html

Dead Venus - Lily of the Valley

1. How did you get started as a band?

(Seraina) I formed Dead Venus in early 2015. First I was on the road as a solo artist with Piano and Acoustic Guitar. But then I decided that I need a team to develop my ideas. Dead Venus was never supposed to be a “Singer-Songwriter-Thing” so I started looking for the right people to play my music with. Mike Malloth (drums) answered my call and recommended bassist Andre Gaertner to complete the trio. I still play the keyboards or guitars besides the singing of course.

2. How would you describe your sound?

We have many influences but the important thing for us is to be authentic so we always try to create our very own sound. That’s why we use the term “progressive-rock” for our music. You can’t exactly describe what “progressive-rock” is – it’s just music without any genre specific limits and that’s what we like.

3. What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?

As already written before we are listening to many different styles of music … Bands like Opeth, Pain of Salvation, Rush, Screaming Headless Torsos, Living Color, Pink Floyd, Dave Matthews Band, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Muse and many more… but also artists like Marilyn Manson, Björk and Christina Aguilera were somehow influencing the song writing.

4. Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?

At the state of our career we currently are, it’s actually helpful. It’s much easier to get your music heard nowadays because of these platforms and we just use it as a free promotion tool.

5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?

I love to run or do sports in general or riding a motorbike.

6. What are your future plans musically? Tours?

We’re just finished with the mix of our next album "Flowers & Pain" and can’t wait to release another single of the upcoming album on October 15th! We will also release TWO visualizers for the song which will be online on YouTube on October 22nd. Furthermore we got a very special offer for our fans: Until the new album will be released, a four-piece-EP Package including four new songs as well as four special tracks is available and can be ordered (only) through the band now! We’re also very much looking forward to the Europe tour with Orphaned Land, which hopefully finally can take place in March/April 2022.

From: https://www.gbhbl.com/band-interview-dead-venus/ 

Bhopal's Flowers - Joy Of The 4th

Ok, so Montreal’s Bhopal’s Flowers is another psychedelic indie rock band leaning heavy on the sitar for atmosphere, but wait! Don’t walk away yet, there is a little bit more to it that might meet the eyes and ears at first. Quite different from every Brian Jonestown Massacre clone out there Bhopal’s brings their psych with a delightfully fresh and positive outlook, corresponding with the baby booklet artwork.
And then again, when you really look at that album cover you’ll see exactly what this band is about. There is a deeper connection with hindustani pop culture hidden there, references to ancient mythology, and the joy of newborn life (singer Lionel Pezzano recently became a father). The music is multi layered and harder to pigeonhole than -again- a first glance might tell. There are pure pop songs, dramatic choirs, hazy psych janglers, atmospheric jams, and a subtle influence of “French” pop music that pops up every now and then. Enough to enjoy for open minded music fans therefore. Just don’t be fooled by first impressions. Let’s be honest though, you are reading Weirdo Shrine, you must be ready to walk a little further to take a peak at what is around that corner…

I connected with Lionel Pezzano over the internet, and we luckily we hit it off quite well! We get some new insights about the band, their home town Montreal, and the ephemeral inspiration when making music.

How are you? How has the pandemic period been for Bhopal’s Flowers?

I’m fine, thank you. I really love this time of the year, when fall and winter are spreading their mystic vibes in our lives, meanwhile turning down our daily scenery to a lovely painting.
The pandemic has affected Bhopal’s Flowers regarding our live team, as our former drummer, Jeremy Thoma, has left Canada for good at the very first stage of the pandemic. As many shows were planned and never booked back, it has affected our shows and touring development. Now that I am a bit more free as Joy Of The 4th has been released, I’ll try to focus a bit more on the live aspect of Bhopal’s Flowers music. I’ve always been a lonely boy, so the Covid effect has totally emphasized this tendency to enjoy loneliness, in my personal and music life.  

Can you introduce the band, and how did you meet?

Bhopal’s Flowers was born in France in 2013, with Jeremy Thoma on drums (I used to play with his father actually, who was introduced to me by my uncle, ”Cap”, my musical mentor), Eric Steiger on guitar, Lorenzo Vespa on drums, Marlène B. on keyboards. The line up has changed when Jeremy and I moved to Canada, we hired Blandine on backing vocals / percussions and Jonathan St Laurent on bass. Since Jeremy has left Canada, he has been replaced by Sergio d’Isanto (from ”Bye Parula”), and Antoine Marquet (who drives ”Antoine Aspirine”) on guitar / keyboard.

What can you tell me about your musical backgrounds?

I’ve been learning the guitar at the age of 11 with a country musician, Jo Luthringer, supervised by my uncle, who taught me an eclectic repertoire. I quickly composed my own music and drove a band entitled ”Friends Of P.” from 1997 to 2006. We used to play  new-wave indie rock, between Radiohead and The Cure. I then studied classical music, meanwhile composing electro rock and Indo-Persian electronica for a while. I went deep into Persian classical music (on the târ and the sétâr) and Hindustani classical music (on the sitar).
Just before leaving France to Canada, I started a trio named Youngstown, a country band with the classical rock structure (as Nirvana or The Police) guitar / bass/  drums. We developed a very unique sound due to our influences and the fact that we were very few on stage in contrary to usual country formation with fiddle, pedal steel, two guitars etc …
On the side, Album after album, I developed the skills of a music engineer and later, at the Mandragore studio in Montréal, 5 years as an employee, and nowadays as a happy partner.
During all this time, I never stopped composing and recording my own music, but many albums were never released for multiple reasons. A dozen albums, produced and recorded are sleeping on my desktop, waiting to be released one of these days.

What does a regular day in your life look like?

I am teaching music during the daytime, and recording music at the studio during the night time, which leaves very few spots for sleeping and getting rest. In the middle of these two activities, I am having fun with my little 21 months boy, and practicing the sitar, which requires a lot of discipline.  I try to read as much as I can, sometimes on the lunch break, sometimes at night, mainly anthroposophic readings by Rudolf Steiner. During the weekends, I can focus deeply on hindustani music, as the ragas we learn are linked with a specific daytime, I grab the opportunity to practice ragas that I don’t have the chance to play during the busy week (mostly early morning & mid afternoon ragas). My life is fulfilled with music and all my daily thoughts are heading to this art, whether they are philosophical or practical.

What is the story about the band name? Did the Bhopal disaster play a role in choosing it?

It is indeed related with the Bhopal disaster. I didn’t know about it when I was young. I was 20,  when I concretized my interest into hindustani music. At that time, my music was a bit much happier than when I was younger, but still with a melancholic spleen at its bottom. Bhopal’s Flowers reflected to me this tendency, beauty that grows on the pain.

Where do you live and what is the environment like for musicians like you?

I live in Montreal since 2016. Before that, I used to live in the East of France, a province called Alsace (the most beautiful !! haha). I am sorry for that boring answer but I have no idea about musician’s environment as I am not connected to this community. I know some people, some musicians, but we’re not very close. That is not a will from me to be disconnected to the musicians community, just a simple fact. The fact that I have a regular job on the side, keeps my away from musicians who generally have more free time to hangout together during the daytime. But artistic life is very developed here in Montreal.

What is your main aim with your music, is it complete artistic expression, or an escape from the every day world? (or something else ;))

Both I think ! The every day world is an illusion, the real world is made out of vibration and spirit. I try to reach the invisible through music. It then hits the material world, and gives me back everything I have: my wife, my family, my friends, my job, my skills, all of this happen because of my music effort. Regarding my bank account or my popularity, it looks like I am not making music for fame or money, and it is fine like this, even though it is tough to deal with my daily job and artistic ambitions. To me, music is a permanent quest and perpetual enjoyment.

Can you tell me about how you go about composing and recording songs?

For Bhopal’s Flowers, I always compose with a 12 strings guitar, or with the sitar. It can be a riff on the 12 strings, as well as an harmonic chord progression that hits my mind. Once I get one of these elements, I go pretty fast in general. I then spend more time to hire a drummer to play the parts I programmed and mixing properly the whole stuff. When I compose on the sitar, I try to find a good melody or concept from a specific raga (as raga are based on scales). Believe me or not, I compose a lot of songs meanwhile teaching music to my students: when you play very simple things and really pay attention to the beauty of simplicity, you have a much better accurate vision of beauty then when you play loud at 140 bpm.

What is “the dream” when it comes to being an artist?

As music doesn’t come from Earth but from the spiritual region of the Devachan, and is translated by musicians and composers for our physical world (even if they do it unconsciously). My dream is to write music that is the closest from the Devachan’s one. I always heard that Devachanic music could be represented by a giant gong, and that our Earthly music is just the shadow of its magnificence. My dream is that my music looks the closest as possible from the Devachanic one. It takes at least one life !

What should the Weirdo Shrine reader do after reading this interview?

They should ask to themselves: ”Why can’t I remember the Devachanic music whereas my astral body and my self spend all their nights there, and that I have resided there between each reincarnation?”

From: https://weirdoshrine.wordpress.com/2022/11/09/review-qa-bhopals-flowers-joy-of-the-4th-2022-sound-effect-records/

The Buttshakers - Les Disquerie Sessions 2025

The Buttshakers are a US/French soul and funk band who peddle a sound inspired by James Brown, Gil Scott Heron, Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield. The band are making noises (literally!) with this, their fifth album with critics making comparison between the Butts and the Daptone sound – more specifically, the sound of Sharon Jones. That’s chiefly down to leather-lunged lead singer, Ciara Thompson. Ms T is an American but relocated to Lyons, France in 2008 where she eventually teamed up with the musicians who would become the Buttshakers.
‘Arcadia’ was heralded by a summer single, ‘Not In My Name’… a tough and gritty funk tune featuring full on horns and a take-no-prisoners vocal from Ciara. In essence that’s the signature sound of the 10 tracker. But, maybe more important  than that sound, is the message in the music. The title of that single actually sums up where it’s coming from. You see, here Thompson and her team have taken the opportunity to take a look/swipe at what’s going on politically and socially in America. Ciara says in France she’s found a freer mode of expression …. “untethered from the idealistic veil of my childhood, my America now appears in its crudest reality; disfigured by violence and racism, the streets transformed into makeshift shelters for those without a home”!
That said, you’d expect ‘Arcadia’ to be po-faced and heavily didactic, but it’s not. Sure much of the music is tough – that’s the essence of the funk that the band peddle but in places there’s a pleasing lightness of touch that somehow makes the message more relevant. Case in point is ‘Keep On Pushing’. No, this isn’t the Impressions’ classic (but possibly a nod to dear old Curtis?); rather it’s a pacey, frantic Northern-flavoured workout that sweeps you along. The sonic reference is Daptone. Hear that too on the slower ‘Gone For Good’, the brassy ‘Never Enough’, the loose and funky ‘Daddy Issues’ and  the moody ‘Night Crawl’. Elsewhere, (try ‘Go On’ and ‘Back In America’) on which Ms T is maybe more Janis Joplin than Sharon Jones – but by now, I’m sure, you’re getting the sonic picture and from the song titles you can work out where the album’s coming from.  From: https://www.soulandjazzandfunk.com/reviews/the-buttshakers-arcadia-maxime/

Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy - Side 1

01 - Johnny Strikes Up the Band
02 - Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
03 - Excitable Boy
04 - Werewolves of London
05 - Accidentally Like a Martyr

My friend Jason and I, both English majors in college, have an ongoing debate about Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” the last track on Excitable Boy. Specifically, the line “I went home with the waitress / The way I always do / How was I to know / She was with the Russians too?” We’re endlessly trying to figure out whether Zevon meant “How was I to know she was a KGB spy?” or “How was I to know she was also sleeping with a whole bunch of Russian mobsters, in addition to me?” or “How was I to know that she, like me, was also with the Russians?”
We’re never going to solve this riddle, but it’s one of about a thousand we’ll never get an answer to. It’s part of a summer ritual, a return to our college town for 24 hours to drink wine and catch up in a sort of simulacrum of our twenties. We are older now, the hopeless romance that defined us at 22 is a wistful memory. But there will always be Zevon to play; his music has been a part of us for as long as I can remember. We’ve passed his music back and forth between us; mixtapes, road trip sing-a-longs, text message quotes on our way to work.
But even before Jason, Excitable Boy was always part of my DNA. My earliest memory is watching the door on the Asylum Records label spinning around and around on my dad’s turntable in our living room. This story probably explains more about who I grew up to be than any psychiatrist or hypnotist could ever diagnose—early exposure to “Roland The Thompson Gunner” + Raymond Chandler = crime writer. This album was the first play when I created #RecordSaturday, and “Accidentally Like a Martyr” is one of the major chapter titles in my novel The Big Rewind.
“Johnny Strikes Up the Band” is my favorite Zevon tune. It’s a warm way to ease into the album and best listened to with the soft crackle of vinyl behind it.  The album will get darker from here on out, but there is no way to listen to this and not feel as though it is instantly summer in the park, waiting for the local bandleader to start his set.
And then it gets weird. More than a few writers I know have expressed that they’ve always wanted to write a whole novel around “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.” It would be tough to beat the original, a moody, muted tale of betrayal, murder and mercenary ghosts, all in under four minutes.  But of all the bastards who populate Zevon’s music, perhaps there is no sonofabitch more dastardly than Van Owen, who turns on our titular gunner, only to find himself stalked across continents before being done in with a shot to the back of the skull.
In addition to being the last song Zevon played live, on The Late Show With David Letterman in October 2002, it’s a favorite of screenwriter David Koepp, who named Pete Postlewaite’s and Vince Vaughn’s characters in Jurassic Park: The Lost World for the song’s two main characters.
Oppositely upbeat, the titular “Excitable Boy” is nevertheless in the same storytelling mode, gradually amping up the tension—all casually brushed off by the adults in the song—before the inevitable rape/murder of “Little Susie.” Pillowed by Jim Horn’s bright Springsteen-esque saxophone, the sardonic number separated Zevon from the pack of bland singer-songwriter contemporaries like Billy Joel and the Eagles.
“Werewolves of London” is, of course, Zevon’s most recognizable tune, to considerable detriment. It’s pulled out every Halloween, it’s ripped off by Kid Rock (in what should be considered a war crime) and it was inexplicably covered by Kids Bop, where a chorus of cheerful tots bleat about how “a little lady got mutilated late last night.” But it’s much more clever than your average novelty song, with an inescapable piano riff and a killer guitar solo by Waddy Watchell. (I have been to Lee Ho Fook's. It’s closed now, but when my now-husband and I went to London in 2005, I insisted we have dinner there. They did not, nor have they ever, had Beef Chow Mein on the menu.)
But closing out the A-side is “Accidentally Like a Martyr,” which showcases Zevon as an intimate romantic, a side that remained mostly hidden in his story-songs. The ambling, stair-climb piano that underscores, and later, closes out “Martyr” is his most beautiful, most heart-wrenching, and one that has always been hovering in the spaces between Jason and I.  From: https://albumism.com/features/warren-zevon-excitable-boy-album-anniversary

The Last Dinner Party - Woman is a Tree

Let’s take a moment to give it up for The Last Dinner Party, the alleged ‘industry plants’ whose debut was so good that it near enough vindicated them entirely in one fell swoop. Looking back on Prelude To Ecstasy now, you notice an added wrinkle it brought to the whole tiresome discourse—how much does it really matter? It can matter in a case of galling, flagrant insincerity, but The Last Dinner Party were never like that. For a band with a private-school background among their ranks, luxe, feminine-coded classic-rock and baroque-pop is far easier to swallow than if they were cosplaying as punks. Even everyone’s favourite smoking gun, “they opened for The Rolling Stones before they’d released any music”, feels old hat now, when there’s tangible evidence of who The Last Dinner Party are and what they can do.
On top of that, this is a difficult sound to expect to perform inherently well, even in a post-Running–Up–That–Hill-on-Stranger-Things world. The mainstream quotient of Florence + The Machine’s audience will only take you so far; there has to be more going on. Obviously, The Last Dinner Party know that. It’s likely why From The Pyre has come so soon after its predecessor—the creative energy of Prelude To Ecstasy was just that fertile, potent and singleminded. And if there were still any lingering doubts that The Last Dinner Party do deserve their ever-expanding status, From The Pyre is hopefully going to be what quells them.
The demeanour on show is the first big indicator of whatever the opposite of a flash in the pan is. The cheat code of embracing Queen, Kate Bush, David Bowie et al only goes so far when there’s no additional application, which The Last Dinner Party have always brought. Fundamentally, From The Pyre is no different in its artistry than Prelude To Ecstasy was, except for the subtleties and reimaginings that definitely add up. Second Best might be the band’s most devout bit of Kate Bush worship to date thanks to Abigail Morris going hard on the vocal histrionics, though its instrumental homage to ‘70s glam-rock leaves it entirely as its own thing. Later on, Woman Is A Tree comes closer to folk-horror in its conflation of the divine feminine with the natural world, and coating it with howling backing harmonies.
What’s always struck most about The Last Dinner Party is their sophistication, though From The Pyre puts more effort into mapping onto their ideas instead of the other way around. It makes them feel more like a rock band, at the end of the day, rather than the prim, perfected visage that’s long been applied. Thus, it’s nice to have a single embody that as This Is The Killer Speaking does, all ragged edges and fronts of instability reaching a simultaneous head. Compare that to how Nothing Matters introduced The Last Dinner Party to the world, and while a chorus that roots itself with such zeal ultimately deems it the better song, you can’t build an entire career through neverending rehashes of your very first song.
From The Pyre, then, performs an exceptional balance between iteration and growth. You would never doubt this to come from The Last Dinner Party, not when so many of their hallmarks carry over. The production is basically faultless, as are the performances and the vibe of classicism that’s their inalienable bedrock. But there’s a lot that’s new, too, and the fact it’s so tightly integrated (almost to the point of being unrecognisable as truly ‘new’) is a testament to the headway that The Last Dinner Party have had picked up. The baritone guitar sawing across the back of Rifle is a tiny but brilliant addition, after its more full-force introduction earlier on with Count The Ways’ opening scorch. It doesn’t even have to go that far, though; so much as a tempo shift or rejigging of progression feels like a fresh new step here. It’s why the regality of I Hold Your Anger (combined with its more imperious vocal) appears so novel, as does the multi-layered shuffle of The Scythe that’s almost recreating a synthpop groove.
What speaks volumes to an eardrum-rupturing degree, however, is, despite From The Pyre clearly being a product of creative subsidy by an industry who’ve been nothing but kind to The Last Dinner Party since the beginning, it doesn’t feel like it. If it did, it’d either, a) have nowhere near the same richness and flavour, or b) be a blatant rehash of their proven success of a debut. Straying from the former has never been an issue; the latter, however, comes with some sizable implications. It bestows upon The Last Dinner Party the agency that they’d crumble without, and exercising it to such an extent as on From The Pyre is truly a wonderful sign. Bear in mind that there hasn’t even been two years between this album and the previous one, and yet there’s already marked evolution and reshaping without losing even the tiniest morsel of identity. Regardless of what industry plant accusations you still wish to level, The Last Dinner Party continue to rise above them like no one else.  From: https://thesoundboardreviews.com/2025/10/20/album-review-the-last-dinner-party-from-the-pyre/

Uriah Heep - I'll Keep On Trying

Even though this was Uriah Heep in their embryonic stage, they were light years ahead of their peers. ...Very 'Eavy...Very 'Umble was their very first album released back in 1970, when metal giants such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were pounding their way into our consciousness, or making us unconscious, as many adults would be complaining about on a regular basis. This is one group that wasn't the critics' darlings. They had as much to do with the formation of metal and progressive rock as any of the groups that were on more favorable terms with the press.
In 2001 Sanctuary Records, with the cooperation of Castle Music UK, remastered and released several of the albums from the UH catalog. For a freshman release this album stands firm as an original rock classic to this day. It was a strong showing for the group. The rocker "Gypsy" kick starts the proceedings as Ken Hensley's swirling and driving organ sets the pace. Hensley was originally a guitar player and he plays some slide on this cut. He also provides the insightful liner notes (that are written so small one needs a magnifying glass to read them).
David Bryon (vocals) and Mick Box (guitar), Paul Newton (bass), and Ollie Olsson (drums) are the rest of the impressive performers in a lineup that was destined to change. Box's guitar was always right out front wailing away to compliment Hensley's powerful and sweeping organ playing. Box was no doubt one of the premier lead guitar players of the day, and he would carry the torch for many years to come. "Dreammare" is an extraordinary prog-rocker that serves as a wake up call that this band meant business. The fans knew how great they were, although the critics foolishly gave them the brush off.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=5893

The Honey Dewdrops - Amaranth

The Honey Dewdrops, husband and wife duo of Kagey Parrish and Laura Wortman, have been consistently putting out captivating, innovative, and original roots music since they burst on the scene on March 15, 2008. Remember where you were that day?
If you were listening to the radio, you probably do because you would have heard The Honey Dewdrops win Prairie Home Companion’s “People in their Twenties Talent Contest.” But it was no contest. Their performance that night absolutely floored the audience at The Fitzgerald Theater and left Garrison Keillor almost tongue-tied when he presented them with the Wobegon Idol Trophy.
Parrish and Wortman describe The Honey Dewdrops’ sound as “experimental folk.” That’s probably as good of a two-word description of their music as any, but it doesn’t come close to capturing what makes this band so exceptional. Both Parrish and Wortman are first-rate musicians who play multiple instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, and banjo. But it’s their real-life harmonies that first catch your attention, and their compelling original songs that keep drawing you back.
The Honey Dewdrops’ last album, Light Behind Light, received widespread acclaim upon its release. It was dubbed an “instant classic” by Maryland Roots Music.com. No Depression Magazine said of it, “The core of The Honey Dewdrops’ sound remains their perfectly paired playing and harmonies that can raise chills and warm hearts, sometimes in the same song.” Light Behind Light, which was recorded at Clean Cuts Studios in Baltimore, includes nine outstanding originals including Holy Hymn, Moonpies, and Weep, which all have become fan favorites and mainstays of their live shows.
I sat down recently with The Honey Dewdrops to talk about Here in the Mountains and the Maryland music scene. Parrish and Wortman have been active in the Baltimore music and arts community since moving to Charm City from Virginia over a dozen years ago.
I asked them if they felt pressure to top Light Behind Light when they were contemplating its follow up. “No,” Wortman said. “We are never trying to top an album. We’re just moving through our evolution as musicians and each album is just a reflection of where we are at the time.”  From: https://marylandrootsmusic.com/2025/01/06/silver-lining-in-goodbye-the-honey-dewdrops-find-a-home-here-in-the-mountains/

Pilcrowe - North Rim

Over a decade ago, Flagstaff’s own southwestern Americana rock band, Pilcrowe, was formed by guitarist Ryan Heinsius and drummer Andrew Lauher. The two had collaborated on other projects together locally, such as the Voluntary String Band and Crow Wing, but Pilcrowe was a project that became something special to the musicians. What started as a new opportunity to play the music they love together, evolved into a project reflective of a long-standing friendship, growth and meditations on life in the modern mountain West. 
Pilcrowe’s sound is truly their own: a balance of woodsy wanderlust and rebel on the run, psychedelic and cinematic, western, indie, alternative and rock. The songs reflect images of a harsh but beautiful West and the music is often just as beautiful yet surprising. Lauher said that in other musical configurations, he may not take as many risks with his drumming as he does with Pilcrowe, but in that space, he has the courage and freedom to make the music his own, to make it as creative or "risky" as possible. He said that approach can be heard on Pilcrowe’s latest album, an Oct. 27 release entitled, "West of Center."
"It’s something that is just this pure artistic thing," Lauher said. "Just as a drummer I took chances that if I was trying to make a popular record, I wouldn’t have done."
"West of Center" is a full-length follow-up to the band’s 2022 EP, "The Big Burn". And "West of Center" is about as DIY and locally-made as it gets. The album was recorded and produced entirely by the band in their own Woody Mountain Studio. Written and performed in Flagstaff, Heinsius said that recording and producing the songs was challenging, but that it was a labor of love Pilcrowe was ready to take on.
"When we had nine songs and it was 43 minutes, we were like, ‘Yeah, let’s just put that out,"’ Heinsius said. "It’s really a wonderful process and one that we can control and it's very gratifying."
Heinsius also said the band has more tracks in the works and that Pilcrowe is excited, not only to share their music with the world, but to really have a collection of the music that he and Lauher created together.
"For a long time, we've been creating this sound, and it's really fun to be able to form this long-term artistic partnership that isn't really based on how many people you can pack into a club or a theater or how many albums you can sell, how many streams on Spotify," Heinsius said. "None of it's based on that. It's based purely on creating what we're creating. It's based purely on the songs and the feeling that we get playing together and the process of recording and the process of just creation. And that's it. It's one of the more pure experiences I've ever had in my life. Certainly artistically. We're not in it for anything. No, that's the hilarity. I don't care if we're popular or if we sell stuff or what; it doesn't matter."  From: https://azdailysun.com/flaglive/features/music/flagstaff-band-pilcrowe-puts-the-west-to-the-test-with-new-album-west-of-center/article_9fa7f15e-7e72-11ee-b153-cbb5876abbdd.html

The Civil Wars - Devil's Backbone

The first thing you should know about Joy Williams and John Paul White, better known as The Civil Wars, is that they’re not a couple. The duo, who were both happily married well before they met at a Nashville songwriting session in 2008, do banter playfully in conversation, but it’s more the sarcastic-sweet ribbings of a brother-sister bond than the stuff of tension-soaked romance novels.The music, on the other hand, is a different story. The band’s debut, Barton Hollow, is filled with hushed conversations between lovers, lyrical forget-me-nots, and the kind of sparse arrangements that beg to be played in dim lighting. It’s an impressive debut, to be sure, and a surprising pairing considering Williams is a former contemporary Christian artist and White a self-described whiskey drinker from Alabama who was raised on Southern rock and Johnny Cash.Curious as to how these seemingly polar opposites came to produce such harmonious tunes, we caught up with The Civil Wars as they prepared for an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman.

JEFF OLOIZIA: You’re playing a couple of shows over the weekend. Any plans to perform in costume?

JOY WILLIAMS: [laughs] We already do!

JOHN PAUL WHITE: In costume? It depends on how you look at it. That’s pretty much what we do with donning the suit and bow tie and little black dress; we kind of step into character any time we do that. 

WILLIAMS: Maybe we should switch.

WHITE: I’ll wear the dress. [laughs] Honestly, I’m going to be flying home for Halloween. I’ll watch the kids trick or treat, and then fly straight back to Toronto. So no rest for Dad.

OLOIZIA: I understand you were both dealing with some vocal issues recently. Is everything all better now?

WHITE: Yeah, we’re pretty much back to normal. We’ve still got some taking care of ourselves to do, but we luckily both kind of ran down at the same time, so the hiatus worked out for both of us. We’re probably doing a little bit better job of taking care of ourselves now.

OLOIZIA: No wild nights in New York, then?

WHITE: No, sadly, this will be the tamest trip to New York we’ve ever made.

OLOIZIA: [laughs] Do you feel like it puts additional strain on you because it’s just the two of you onstage every night?

WILLIAMS: I don’t know if I would say that it puts a strain on us. I love the fact that it’s just the two of us onstage. It requires over 100% from both of us, and to do that night after night—it’s something that we love to do, but it also takes a bit of a toll. It’s just the nature of touring; it’s always an experiment in learning how to pace yourself. And we love working hard, but, you know, we’re not bionic, so every once in a while we have to recalibrate and heal up a little bit and figure out how to do it a little better next time.

OLOIZIA: I think your music lends itself to that kind of intimate experience.

WHITE: Well, thank you. That’s where it grew from in the beginning, just [Joy] and I on guitar writing all these songs. So once we went out and played them, you know, financially it made the most sense. And since they were created that way, they kind of translated live the same way. By the time we went into the studio to record them, we pretty much had the arrangements down the way we wanted, and when we’d add other instrumentation, most things that we added would just get in the way. It ended up being a really minimal record, without us really intending to do that. It just kind of worked out that way.

OLOIZIA: Do you think that’s something will continue as you guys continue to tour and you get a little leeway in your budget?

WHITE: I think, luckily, at the moment, we’re not held back financially to do it anymore. It’s just totally our choice. But we’ve said many times, we’re not going to draw a line in the sand about whether it’s just us two or not. We’re just going to follow our nose, as we have so far. If it feels like the rooms are getting big enough that we need a little bit extra, then so be it. But at the moment it’s working well, and we love being able to control every bit of sound that comes off the stage. It gives you a lot of power.

OLOIZIA: That makes a lot of sense. I think expanding your band can really enhance your sound, but I also remember watching Guns N’ Roses in the ’90s after they had sort of blown up, and they had a horn section and backup singers, and you kind of think, “I’m not sure how rock-‘n’-roll this is anymore.”

WILLIAMS: Yeah, we thought about that. We thought about incorporating Spandex, and backup dancers and maybe a little pyrotechnics, but it seemed a little early in the career. John Paul prefers the spandex now, but underneath. [laughs]

OLOIZIA: Your career as a duo has been full of these sort of matchstick moments, perhaps none bigger than “Poison and Wine” appearing on Grey’s Anatomy. Did you have a pretty good idea of what that might do for you?

WILLIAMS: No, I don’t think we had any concept of the magnitude of that placement. We were shocked and flabbergasted when we got the call that it was even being placed. Truth is, we didn’t even have the song up on iTunes, nor did we have a music video. So we scrambled within a week’s time to get everything squared away, and when it played on the show, it was a very surreal moment. I think one thing that was also helpful with creating a little bit of a ripple effect, was the fact that we put out a live record, Live at Eddie’s Attic, which we gave out for free. So by the time “Poison and Wine” got placed on Grey’s, people could Google the lyric, “I don’t love you, but I always will,” and our song would pop up. I’m thankful for the fact that there have been breadcrumb moments along the way, on top of the big matchstick moments that you just mentioned. Everything felt like small hinges on a very large door that we just continue to pry open one day at a time.

OLOIZIA: I’m glad you brought up that line from the song, because it’s something that I think really stays with you. Can you expound on that a little bit more—where that lyric came from and what it means to you?

WHITE: Well, we wrote the song back in Nashville with a good friend of ours, Chris Lindsey, and it’s the only song that we had an outside collaborator on. We all sat over the course of the day and talked about—you know, we’ve all been married to other people for a decent amount of time and know the good, the band, and the ugly. And we talked about those things, and the compromise that it takes, and how there are times you want to hold somebody and there’s time that you want to strangle them. And it’s perfectly human and it’s perfectly natural. Those little battles that you have—you can’t just run away from it the first time you have any sort of conflict. It’s just part of what makes the relationship great. So we talked about all those little nooks and crannies of a real relationship, and we ultimately started noticing all the little contradictions that seem to go with [them]. It’s a song we’re always going to hold high, because it was, for a lot of people, the first thing they heard from us.

From: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/civil-wars-barton-hollow 

Hey Geronimo - Crashing Into the Sun

Hey Geronimo‘s Crashing Into the Sun may be one of the great mis-timed album releases. When it’s 10 degrees, you don’t long for an album full of summer jams and Beach Boys harmonies. Crashing Into the Sun denotes fun and heat, from the glorious beach-body album cover to the Sgt Pepper’s psychedelia. While it may stand in stark contrast to the reality of the weather, this album is so hot and makes you feel so warm inside that you won’t mind the fact that it’s freezing outside.
Hey Geronimo are very 60’s in their makeup – their four songwriters and multitude of singers reflect the somewhat democratic processes of The Beatles and The Byrds, while their style encompasses everything from baroque pop to psychedelia to surf rock.
Another way Hey Geronimo draw from the 60’s is in their focus on melody and hooks. Right from “Lazer Gun Show”, the second track, we are taken on an exhilirating tour de force of hooks. Every tune has moments of melodic perfection worthy of The Beach Boys. The standout for me is “The Girl Who Likes Me”, a sparkling tune with multilayered harmonies that sounds like Revolver-era Beatles, but more scuzzy. Other highlights include the faux-naive “Bake a Cake”, and the sombre acoustic closer, “Garble Arch”.
The most impressive thing about this creation of this album, where so many songwriters are jostling for credit, (apart from the fact that the band didn’t break up and none of them murdered each other) is that there is a remarkable consistency of style and vision. This is made all the more impressive by the fact that Crashing Into the Sun is a debut effort –  most bands with a sole creative dictator can’t muster up this good an LP on first effort. The only other totally democratic band I can think of that were this good this early in their careers is Hunters and Collectors.
This is not an album that is trying to be deep. You won’t be playing any of these songs at your nana’s funeral, or the opening of the Olympic ceremony. But good bands play to their strengths, something Hey Geronimo have done here in spades. It’s the perfect album for your summer barbeque, meaning Crashing Into the Sun has been released a good four months before it can reach its full potential but as a preview to beachside frolics yet to come, it is perfect.  From: https://www.theaureview.com/music/album-review-hey-geronimo-crashing-into-the-sun-2016-lp/