Amanda Palmer - Leeds United

According to Palmer, this song was inspired by a real-life incident. “I had been dating this guy from Leeds, Ricky Wilson from the Kaiser Chiefs, and we had a totally brief flash-in-the-pan fling. We had a really great time together. I really liked him, and I went up to his house in Leeds for a week. He gave me this great Leeds United jersey, which I prized. And then when I got back on tour a couple of days later I wore it on stage. I had a bra underneath, so I took off the jersey and finished the encore all sweaty and stuff. I went back to look for it, the stage was being cleaned, and it was like, ‘Fuck! Where’s my shirt!?’ I had that shirt for all of about 5 days. I’d already gotten all excited and sentimental about it, and then it vanished.”  From: https://genius.com/Amanda-palmer-leeds-united-lyrics

Tone Deaf:  You had your new album come out last year — how has the response been since it’s came out? You also had 15,000 supporters for it. It must have been amazing to have so many people put their faith, their money, and their trust in you for a record.

AP: It’s been amazing. It’s actually less hectic than having major label. You know, with your creativity and your soul and time and own vice-grip, I think it’s a lot easier, but then again I’ve played on both sides of that field and it’s a cost benefit in both departments. Being crowd funded by 15,000 people has its own set of tasks, responsibilities, drawbacks, but I would choose every single one of them one hundred times over the drawbacks of being at the mercy of profit driven major labels.

Tone Deaf: When you do release an album in that sense, is it hard to gauge how successful it’s been?

AP: That’s a really good and complicated question. What I have found is that it’s hard to gauge success, period. Even in the heyday of the Dresden Dolls, success was so slippery and impossible to define. The label defined it one way, we defined it a completely different way. If 20 years of releasing music and touring has taught me anything, it’s that I have to creatively manufacture my own definition of success. It’s definitely not streaming number. It’s definitely not money. It definitely isn’t whether or not magazine X gave me a five-star review, because all of those things have and haven’t been true in certain parts of my career, and have actually no bearing on whether or not a project was successful. I have to say that my ultimate definition of success has a lot more to do with the concrete emotional impact I can see the work having on people when I tour it and when I put it out than it does with whether or not the media weighs in or whether or not something is in the charts.

Tone Deaf: If you look at chart positions, there’s so many variations between so many artists. But then when you see you play live, your fans are so dedicated, and clearly that’s a good gauge of success if it resonates with the people, and you see that they’re enjoying it.

AP: Well that in itself is a slippery slope, because how many people need to be in that room for you to be able to call it successful? I mean, I have gotten to the point as an artist where I think I’ve fine-tuned my ability to the point to where I could bust out that ukulele, and I could play a song for you that would move you, and that’s the only thing I did this year, and I could still call it a successful endeavour, because I connected with, and affected somebody. I think we’ve just been fed the Kool-Aid for so long that scale is everything and blockbuster hits are everything, and success is upsized that we forget as artists that our role doesn’t have to do with size and scale. And we need to start flushing that Kool-Aid out of our system.

From: https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/amanda-palmer-interview-2020/list/check-out-amanda-palmers-do-it-with-a-rockstar/

Amanda MacKinnon Gaiman Palmer (also known as Amanda Fucking Palmer, born April 30, 1976) is an American singer, songwriter, pianist, storyteller, writer and ukulele player. She's most famous for her work as part of the Brechtian punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls, along with drummer Brian Viglione. They released three studio albums and toured as openers for Panic! at the Disco, until they went on hiatus in 2008. Although Viglione and her have done shows together since then, the band has officially broken up, even though Palmer has announced plans for them to produce music again.
In 2012, Palmer famously released an album with her at-the-time band The Grand Theft Orchestra called Theatre is Evil, which was funded entirely over Kickstarter - a groundbreaking artistic decision at the time, which was worth it, as the Kickstarter far overpassed its goal. She released the album for free through her website, and then debuted on the Billboard top 100 Album list at number 10 due to the immense number of Kickstarter pre-orders.
Her songs vary wildly in style and topics, with many featuring dark humor and subject material. She's fond of recontextualizing children's songs in a more mature, adult way, and of making puns. Amanda's also known for performing covers of whatever she feels like, ranging from an entire EP of Radiohead covers on the ukulele, to classic musicals, to Black Sabbath, to Britney Spears, to a reimagining of Rebecca Black's song "Friday" from the perspective of a truck-stop prostitute.
In 2019, seven years after her last studio record, Palmer released There Will Be No Intermission, a far more serious, stripped-down album mostly just featuring her on a piano. It tackles subjects like abortion, death, depression, loss, and the climate crisis, and was released to massive critical acclaim. The world tour accompanying it featured only her at a piano, telling the most intimate and human stories of her life. Concerts often went for up to four hours.  From: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/AmandaPalmer

 

Triptides - Hole in Your Mind

Let’s talk about your new album, Alter Echoes. When did you make it?

GB: We recorded it in the fall of 2019; long before the word Covid was part of our lexicon.

It was recorded and mixed at Clay Blair’s Boulevard Recording studio in Hollywood. How was that? What were the set-up and the vibes like? How were the sessions? 

GB: Clay is a great guy. We had a blast working with him at such a legendary studio. The set-up was fantastic – a beautiful live room that looks like it’s straight out of the ‘70s. There’s a comfortable control room and a little lounge area. Everything one could need to rock.
The vibes were very good. Brendan has known Clay for years, but they sort of reconnected when Brendan moved out to L.A, so it was sort of like working with an old friend. Also, the fact that Clay is from North Carolina and Stephen and I are from Georgia made us feel even more at home. The sessions were great – we had rehearsed the material beforehand, but it still had a very spontaneous vibe to it.

The studio was formerly Producer’s Workshop, where Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan made, or mixed, records. Did any of that history rub off on you?  Liberace also recorded in the studio. Is his piano still there?

GB: Liberace’s piano is unfortunately no longer there! I think some of the energy from those groups still lingers. Whether it rubbed off on us… well, you be the judge!

The new record definitely has a sun-soaked, psychedelic sound. What influenced it musically, or otherwise?

GB: There’s such a wide range of influences it can be hard to pin them all down – from Coltrane to Hawkwind. So many different groups. But I think being in L.A, working together as a band, touring together – it all influenced how the record came together. We knew each other’s strengths and made sure that we played to them.

The single, It Won’t Hurt You, is one of my favourite songs of the year so far. What can you tell me about it? It’s very Byrdsy. Where did it come from? 

GB: I wrote that one in the summer of 2018. It sat around as a drum machine apartment demo for a year or so. When I presented it to the group it worked perfectly with the three-piece arrangement and we decided to record it.

Hand of Time is another of my favourite songs on the record. I think it has a slight Stonesy feel – a swagger, like Street Fighting Man, but crossed with English ’60s psychedelia. Is that a fair description?

GB: I can see that. I think Brendan was thinking about the stripped-down drum patterns from McCartney II. I was probably drawing on Hawkwind or Can. It was just one of those songs that came out of a jam. We were doing a sort of stream of consciousness demo night where we were recording everything to the Tascam 488 tape machine. Suddenly we just started playing it. Listening back afterwards we thought, well that’s going to have to be a song, isn’t it?

Was the spacey track Shining influenced by Pink Floyd? There’s a definite Dark Side of the Moon feel to it. I’m thinking Breathe…

GB: Of course! Shining is a bit of our love letter to our favorite Floyd moments. The lyrics are supposed to be from a disoriented perspective – another realm where things aren’t what they seem. There’s a line where I say, “Relax, you weren’t meant to live,” which was sort of a reference to Nightmare of Percussion, the first track on the second Strawberry Alarm Clock album, where the narrator says: “Don’t worry about dying – you were meant not to live.” I always thought that was really weird and I wanted to include some of that weirdness in the song.

Having A Laugh is one of the lighter songs on the album. It’s poppy and has a McCartney / Beatles feel. Would you agree?

GB: It is and it isn’t. I was trying to comment on how much terrible news people see and hear everyday (“If you really believed half the things they said/wouldn’t be any need to get out of bed”). And this was before the pandemic! At the same time, I was thinking how we need to start taking care of the earth, of each other before it’s too late.

Another lighter, poppier song is She Doesn’t Want To Know – it’s a kind of a bossa nova/ lounge/ Easy Listening tune. Laidback and quite ’60s…

GB: We were going for a sort of A Hard Day’s Night meets João Gilberto thing. Something you could listen to on the beach while the sun is setting. The first evening wind after a warm, summer day.

The last song, Now and Then, is very ’60s. It reminds me of The Zombies and also Cream’s I Feel Free. What can you tell me about it?

GB: For that tune we wanted to go all out ‘60s. We were already in the studio with Clay, who is a huge Beatles fan and an authority on their recording techniques.
Paired with Brendan, who is an authority on Ringo’s gear, in particular, we couldn’t help but do our own Help-inspired UK beat song. We actually meant to use a Hohner Pianet on the track, like The Night Before, but it was giving us issues that day, so we settled on the Wurlitzer 200 electric piano.

From: https://sayitwithgarageflowers.com/2021/02/23/we-have-such-a-wide-range-of-influences-it-can-be-hard-to-pin-them-all-down-from-coltrane-to-hawkwind/

The Wilderness Yet - A Bruton Farmer

Their name inspired by the poem Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Wilderness Yet are an exciting and skilful new trio with Anglo/Irish roots with a sideline in Scandi folk tunes.
It may be a strange time to release a debut record with no gigs or festivals to showcase your chops in public, but this self-titled album has undoubtedly hit a zeitgeist with its subject matter, as many of us are re-learning (or lamenting the loss of) our connection to the natural world. According to the publicity notes it is, ‘a pastoral paean to trees, birds and bees but never far from sounding the warning bells about humankind’s often devastating impact on the environment.’
But as much as it takes on current concerns, the sound is more timeless: a heady mix of traditions with distinctly English-sounding vocals from former BBC Young Folk Award finalist Rosie Hodgson. She commands every song she leads and enhances the Swedish Polska instrumental Hjaltedyrkan with some ‘diddling’ (tune singing).
Rowan Piggott‘s melodious violin sweeps gorgeously across the album, and – as well as being a talented singer – he also contributes double bass. Also performing solo and in a duo with Rosie, Rowan is a past winner of Bromyard’s ‘Future of Young Folk’ Award. And that he may well be, with at least one foot in the past.
Rowan contributes tunes, songs and lyrics to seven of the thirteen tracks. He even seamlessly adds three extra verses to Hopkins’ Inversnaid (set to music and renamed The Wilderness Yet as the penultimate track). It’s a haunting and heartfelt reading with delectable harmony singing from the trio.
Finishing off the trio is Irish music scholar Philippe Barnes, whose skilful guitar playing anchors the tracks, but he also adds colour with his flute, whistle playing and vocals. Alongside his instrumental prowess, Philippe has penned three tunes, starting with the flute-led Chalice Well (paired with Rowan’s The Welcome).
A music video was released for "A Bruton Farmer" – Shadow puppets by Frances Marriott, Shot/edited by Rowan Piggott. Rowan says:
“We loved this perfectly formed traditional murder ballad which we first heard from James Patterson. Apart from the ultimate attraction of it being in 5/4, it’s a human tale which seemed to fit with the general feel of the album – two brothers who seek to control and oppress their sister through the destruction of her innocent lover, sitting alongside songs about man’s desire to treat our environment similarly. 
“When we were trying to decide on which track to make a video for, it seemed like this long narrative would benefit most from illustration. We think Frances’ shadow play compliments the arrangement perfectly…”. From: https://klofmag.com/2020/07/the-wilderness-yet-album-review-video-premiere/

Pauw - Shambhala

The Dutch town of Twente isn’t really known for its music. If anything it's known for its football club FC Twente, and mainly then for an interview in which ex-England manager Steve McClaren adopted a Dutch ‘accent’ for a pre-Champions League interview. But things are changing, as a psych-prog-pop quartet Pauw, are making waves home and abroad. Consisting of Rens Ottink on drums, Brian Pots on guitar and vocals, Eszl Du Voiis on bass and Kees Braam on keyboards, they are gaining a reputation in their native Holland and anywhere they play for incendiary live shoes and beautifully crafted EPs. Now they’ve released their debut album, Macrocosm Microcosm.
‘Shambhala’ is the standout track. Throughout its duration faux-shoegazing, reverb drenched vocal verses rub shoulders with full on psych-outs, chocked with jangling bells, chimes, sitar sounding guitars and a rhythm section that sounds likes it’s been lifted from Richard Rush’s Psych-Out soundtrack. This is more than revivalism. Instead of trying to create the sound of a scene that never existed, Pauw have made a track full of their collective loves, and what’s more it sounds all the more authentic for it.  From: https://drownedinsound.com/releases/19195/reviews/4149719 

Möng - Ohilen

"Finnen" is the first self-produced album by Möng Project. The duo surrounded themselves with musicians to create an album with diverse ethnic sounds. The long, evolving tracks, giving equal space to each instrument and to the vocals, invite the listener on a timeless and borderless journey. 
Lily Noroozi: accordion, vocals, percussion 
Isao Bredel: nyckelharpa, vocals 
Arnaud Bibonne: flutes 
Mickael Fernandez: world percussion 
Adrien Perron: finger cymbals, zarb 
Julien Maillet: cello, backing vocals
Translated from: https://www.mong-project.fr/musique/  

 

Prince & The Revolution - Raspberry Beret

A remarkably innocent song from the man who gave us lascivious tunes like "Dirty Mind" and "Soft and Wet," "Raspberry Beret" tells the story of a young man captivated by a lady who comes into the store where he is a lowly employee with a rocky relationship with his boss. This girl is a little crazy - she goes in through the out door - very fashionable, and just a touch rebellious.
Prince originally recorded "Raspberry Beret" in 1982, but re-worked it with his newly re-formed Revolution backing band, which had just crystalized into what would become the fan favorite lineup: Brown Mark on bass, Bobby Z on drums, Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman and Doctor Fink on keyboard, backing guitar, and backing vocals. If you blinked in the mid-'80s, you missed it, because this incarnation of the Revolution broke up by 1986, with Prince firing everybody but Doctor Fink.
This stands as one of the finest examples of the "Minneapolis sound," blending in finger-cymbals, a string section, and a harmonica as a strategy to create a well-rounded groove. This style is sometimes called "The Prince Sound," but there were a lot of other folks making it as well, many of them working with Prince at some point.
At the time this was released, Prince was under fire from Tipper Gore during the notorious PMRC witch hunt, which placed two of his songs on the list of the "filthy 15" - "Darling Nikki" was the original song that got Tipper's goat. So this is one of the songs where Prince started making his lyrics more family friendly. Nevertheless, you can't miss "Old Man Johnson" as a reference to his you-know-what. Normally we'd stay clear of looking for euphemisms in lyrics, but come on, this is Prince we're talking about.
The video is an odd mashup of performance footage and animation. Simon Fields, who was one of the top music video producers at the time, said in the book I Want My MTV: "We filmed a whole video, then Prince got a Japanese animator to do a completely different video and we mashed the two up. He would mess with directors. He would give them the impression that they'd be in charge of the video, then halfway through he'd go 'Thank you,' take what he liked, and edit it himself."
Prince is notorious for planting hidden messages in his songs, like the backmasking sequence in "Darling Nikki," so fans were confounded when the video included a coughing jag before Prince started singing. What could it possibly mean? The answer is simple: "I just did it to be sick, to do something no one else would do," he told Rolling Stone in 1985.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/prince/raspberry-beret

 

Messa - Fire on the Roof

The Italian doom metal alchemists in Messa are pleased to unveil their new video for “Fire On The Roof.” The track comes off the band‘s outstanding new album, The Spin, released on April 11th through Metal Blade Records.
Messa’s majestic, critically-lauded fourth full-length opus, The Spin takes its listeners on a breathtaking journey across the wide-open skies of their creative imagination and over a compelling landscape of moods, twists, and styles. Based in the band’s eclectic, self-defined “scarlet doom” sound, The Spin rises, falls, broods, bites, comforts, and destroys, all the while resounding with both instinctive magic and obsessive, concerted hard work. After lighting up the underground with a triptych of increasingly distinctive and wondrous records – 2016’s Belfry, 2018’s Feast For Water, and 2022’s Close – with The Spin, Messa is audibly equipped for the proverbial big leagues.
Metal Injection accurately crowns Messa “purveyors of the catchiest doom.” Of The Spin, Decibel Magazine champions “… a sweeping statement that draws equally from doom and goth rock, with hefty doses of classic heavy metal and jazz thrown in.” Deaf Forever concurs lauding “their strongest album to date,” that, “definitively establishes Messa as one of the most exciting and creative bands of the modern era.” Adds Metal Hammer Germany, “Anyone who appreciates the free-spirited combination of an exceptional voice with plenty of quiet moments and some blaring riffs will find Messa to be the perfect band.”
Comments the band on their “Fire On The Roof” single, “Some have experienced forbidden and impossible love. The curse, the fear, the flames that guide you to hell. Magnetism between two humans is hard to ignore – but what gets in the way with those interactions? This song‘s a testament to trusting your own guts and vulnerability.”  From: https://mcgigmusic.com/messa-are-pleased-to-unveil-their-new-video-for-fire-on-the-roof/

Moon Letters - Those Dark Eyes

The genre you propose is a Progressive Rock with different contaminations and 70s reminiscences, where does your passion for these sounds come from?

Dave: We are definitely big fans of music from “classic rock” period in the 60s and 70s but our influences are actually pretty diverse. It seems like the “prog” term gets added to any band that plays longer songs with multiple time signatures but we aren’t trying to do that stuff to sound like anyone in particular, its just what happens when we write.

The band members come from different backgrounds and groups. How was this project born?

Dave: I had been playing in metal bands for a few years but was read to return to a more rock oriented project. I put an ad in classified looking for a drummer and got a reply from Michael Trew. Once I heard his vocals I knew immediately that he was special and we began cooking up the beginnings of what would become Moon Letters. Michael brought in Mike Murphy and John Allday. I knew that we needed a really special “x-factor” drummer and I asked Kelly Mynes, an old friend who I’d always wanted to start a band with, if he was free. It turned out the the timing was right and he was into the project. Everyone really brought their own unique voice and the band was born.

Your album “Thank You From the Future” was released on August 08, 2022. How would you describe this work?

Dave: Thank You From the Future is our 2nd album. We released “Until They Feel the Sun” in 2019. I think the new album represents big steps forward in terms of song writing and production. We had time throughout the pandemic to demo the songs, sometimes multiple times, and keep tweaking them and adding layers. That seems to have paid off as we are super proud of the album. The new album is much more of a headphone listen, with lots of fun little overdubs and some really bizarre and weird stuff deep in the mix. There are a couple things I keep hoping a reviewer will mention but no one has yet so we’ll see!

Long-lasting tracks and sophisticated musical textures in addition to the lyrics, what are the themes of the album?

Michael: We were going for a few new sounds on this record. Robert Cheek, our producer, really captured Kelly’s powerhouse drumming, and Mike’s very articulate bass work. Lyrically, one listener said this album seems a bit more stream of consciousness than linear storytelling.

Your music is full of tempo changes and elaborate textures. How does the compositional process take place?

Dave: For the new album most of the songs started as demos that one individual member wrote. During the peak of the pandemic we had to send tracks back and forth via email but once we were able to get together in a room, then we were able to really workshop things. While the initial demos were complete songs, the final versions often sound pretty different because of all the bits that each member brings to the table. Sometimes additional riffs or sections were even added to the song. So while each song usually started with one band member, its safe to say that we all contribute and that each member is an important part of the songwriting process. If one person were missing it would sound quite different.

In addition to the music, the lyrics are also refined. What themes do they deal with?

Michael: I suppose the present, and future of humans. Things like climate change events and the pandemic have brought many thoughts of “how will we carry on/ where are we going?”. So various stories of end of the world/into the new world, be it space travel or inner evolution.

From: https://progrockjournal.com/interview-exclusive-interview-with-moon-letters/

Tristen - Paste Studios, New York, NY 2017

After more than a decade of delivering delicately blended folk, pop, and rock, Tristen returns with her fourth full-length, Aquatic Flowers. Released on June 4 via Mama Bird Recording Co., each of the 11 tracks beholds a distinctive strength that coalesces into a congruent reflection of her personal and professional milestones. Following her breakthrough 2017 record, Sneaker Waves, she began work on the new album when she was pregnant with her son, Julian, who was born in January of 2019.
“I guess it has been a while since my last one, but it doesn’t feel like it,” Tristen tells American Songwriter over the phone. Sitting on a bench at the Nashville Zoo, a brief hiatus from her day trip with her husband and two-year-old son, Julien, she adds “But I always take about two or three years to make a record.”
Partly due to label timing, the process is also extended by her own creative approach. She explains, “After I put out a record, I like to do something else for a year.” In the past, that’s been to play with Jenny Lewis’s band or just take time to breathe and think about what I want to write about. Making music at this point, for me, I want to make sure I’m making things that are worthy of taking up space.”
While filling in her new role of mother, what seemed deserving of her time—and listeners’ attention—transformed. Somewhere within the political and social upheaval amidst a global pandemic and the chaos of rearing a toddler, Aquatic Flowers bloomed in her mind.
“One thing that happens when you become a parent is you no longer have time to lament over the way you feel,” the artist explains. “Your number one priority is somebody else. Not having time to get stuck in your head with the things that don’t matter allows for so much growth.”
With nearly 16 road-worn years under her belt, the only thing she can attribute to her sonic evolution and prolific songwriting status is time. Though Julian is undoubtedly the muse here, Tristen suggests motherhood is not the only path to self-actualization.
“Whether you have children or not, getting older, you start to have more awareness of your own existence. And then, if you can get it straight in your head, you find gratitude,” she shares. “And I think that I just have more of an appreciation for things like how amazing some of my friends are that are creating and appreciating things my privilege and surviving Covid-19. You just kind of get a little bit more focused on taking care of everybody else, and less so on defining who you are.”
In losing herself, unshackled from ego, she surrendered to those moments that re-shaped her mind. This severance allowed ideas to enter and expand without overthinking. Writing and self-producing with her husband and musical collaborator Buddy Hughen in their home studio dubbed “Tight Squeeze,” Tristen played a part in each branch of creating this album. Yet, there was a fluidity to it all that prevented her from destructive rumination over details.
The artist isn’t even sure where the title Aquatic Flowers came from, but it has been stuck in her head for years. Around the same time she began work on the record, she selected a Megan Kimber painting for her cover art. 
“I just couldn’t get away from that image of the girl in the bathtub,” she says. There’s just so much emotion.” While writing demos, she maintained the emotive portrait in her mind. “I just kept that image and I kept that name, and I threw songs on it as I was writing them to get a working record. By the time it was finished, it really didn’t need to be changed.”
“One thing I’ve always done is felt confident in what I was doing, whether it measured up or not,” she admits. “These songs are just like all the songs that I’ve written, a reflection of what ideas I think are important. But it’s not just about me. It’s got to be something that other people can relate to. In my opinion, I like to write songs that make people think, ‘did she write this about me?’”  From: https://americansongwriter.com/tristen-learns-to-surrender-perfects-her-popcraft-on-new-lp-aquatic-flowers/

The Allman Brothers Band - S/T - Side 1

01. Don't Want You No More
02. It's Not My Cross To Bear
03. Black Hearted Woman
04. Trouble No More

The Allman Brothers Band was formed in March 1969, during large jam sessions with various musicians in Jacksonville, Florida. Duane Allman and Jai Johanny Johanson (Jaimoe) had recently moved from Muscle Shoals, where Duane participated in session work at FAME Studios for artists such as Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, and Wilson Pickett, with whom he recorded a cover of the Beatles' "Hey Jude" that went to number 23 on the national charts. Duane began to put together a new band, and invited bassist Berry Oakley to jam with the new group; the pair had met in a Jacksonville, Florida club some time earlier, and became quick friends. The group had immediate chemistry, and Duane's vision for a "different" band — one with two lead guitarists and two drummers — began evolving. Meanwhile, Phil Walden, the manager of the late Otis Redding and several other R&B acts, was looking to expand into rock acts. Rick Hall became frustrated with the group's recording methods, and offered the tracks recorded and their contract to Walden and Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records, who purchased them for $10,000. Walden intended the upcoming group to be the centerpiece of his new Atlantic-distributed label, Capricorn.
After the duo moved to Jacksonville, they began to put together large jam sessions. Dickey Betts had played in Oakley's previous band, the Second Coming, and became the group's second lead guitarist, while Butch Trucks, with whom Duane and Gregg had cut a demo less than a year prior, fulfilled the role of the second drummer. The Second Coming's Reese Wynans played keyboards, and Duane, Oakley and Betts all shared vocal duties. The unnamed group began to perform free shows in Willow Branch Park in Jacksonville, with an ever-changing, rotating cast of musicians. Duane felt strongly that his brother should be the vocalist of the new group (which effectively eliminated Wynans' position, as Gregg also played keyboards). Gregg accepted the invitation and entered rehearsal on March 26, 1969, when the group was rehearsing "Trouble No More" by Muddy Waters. Although initially intimidated by the musicians, Gregg was pressured by Duane "into singing [his] guts out". Four days later, the group made their début at the Jacksonville Armory. Although many names were suggested including Beelzebub, the six-piece eventually decided on the Allman Brothers Band.
The group moved to Macon, Georgia by May 1, where Walden was establishing Capricorn Records. The band performed locally, as well as eighty miles north in Atlanta's Piedmont Park, and practiced at the newly minted Capricorn nearly every day. The group forged a strong brotherhood, spending countless hours rehearsing, consuming psychedelic drugs, and hanging out in Rose Hill Cemetery, where they would write songs. Their first performances outside the South came on May 30 and 31 in Boston, opening for the Velvet Underground. In need of more material, the group remade old blues numbers like "Trouble No More" and "One Way Out", in addition to improvised jams such as "Mountain Jam". Gregg, who had struggled to write in the past, became the band's sole songwriter, composing songs such as "Whipping Post" and "Black-Hearted Woman". Much of the material collected on The Allman Brothers Band was written between May and August 1969, and premiered live. According to Johanson, the group gauged crowd reaction to the numbers and adjusted the songs accordingly. "Before we went into the studio, we had a very clear idea of what we were all trying to do musically and that it was unique, totally different from anything else that anyone was playing," said Betts. "From the earliest rehearsals, we all had the same mindset."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Allman_Brothers_Band_(album)

Fucked Up - Looking For Heaven and Not Finding It

Our good-faith assumption that the slow placidity of part one of this ultimately 5-hour epic was a means of introduction turns out to have been wisely made. Year of the Monkey, the second part of Fucked Up‘s quintuple-album-length trilogy also comprising its second and third hours, takes the increased eventfulness of “Rivers and Lakes,” the closing track of Year of the Goat, and builds from there as the base. “Looking for Heaven and Not Finding It,” opens with the striking of a temple bowl, a common preface to Buddhist prayer, as all of the tracks of this cycle have thus far. The following half-hour is spent in the land of light charted by Yes, with major-key joy and brimming golden dewdrops sprinkled everywhere. This is fitting: the story at this point features Monkey, or Sun Wukong, attempting to find a way into heaven aside from the front gate, with the music acting as visions of the lakes and gardens and pavilions of that golden resplendence.
Fucked Up by this point have not just referenced prog but played it enough that it no longer comes across as a hardcore band spreading their wings but rather a prog band showing their comfort over a polyphony of styles, such that when Hüsker Dü-informed post-hardcore arrives as always, it feels like a well-cued musical shift rather than a retreat back to the known. The confidence the band displays here is awe-inspiring especially due to the already-apparent complexity of the work; no longer do they feel like a band playing at the ragged edge of their ability but now like a masterful group simply following the story as they may.
The next hour, comprised of the two songs “Before Us Tigers Stood” and “Monkey Meets the Dragon,” features musical callbacks to motifs established in those previous Zodiac releases, a fact that will please anyone who’s committed those many hours of material to wield against this 5-hour ultra-Wagnerian close. The impact of the songs however is not predicated on the understanding of the complex inner mythology of the Zodiac series; Fucked Up wisely deploy clear hooks and obvious drama, letting the mood of the piece arrive from itself rather than outside, leaving those little references as pleasing treats for the attentive rather than requisites to appreciate the work. These two pieces drama more obviously from heavy metal, sounding quite often like pastiches of Iron Maiden’s current prog metal triple-guitar era, especially with the intertwining lyrical guitar melodies. The band’s practice with explicitly metal performance on both the Oberon EP as well as on Year of the Horse provide a powerful bed for them to draw from.
What surprises is the wide-eyed use of synthesizers and sequencers, drawing from the same post-prog space as M83 and Metric, when bands that pushed the progressive edge began to resolve their work back toward clear pop composition. The band once dabbled in this form on Dose Your Dreams but here it feels less like an affect to sustain an album and more just another place for the camera eye to go. It’s hard not to get more than a whiff of Rush over the expanse, not just in the macroscale composition held together by approachable melodicism, but also in the particular hopefulness of the melodic sensibility. These songs seem to sparkle and gleam in their joy, even as Monkey finds himself enmeshed in greater and greater peril posed by, you guessed it, Tiger and Dragon, representing two of the four winds guarding heaven. Isolated to just these two pieces alone, the Grass Can Move Stones project would have proven its worth as an exercise in the limitlessness of prog and the endless inventiveness of hardcore and alternative musicians.
“Empty is the Hand,” the closing piece, repeats the swirling dramatics of Year of the Horse, gesturing finally to the alchemical and occult themes that have underpinned Fucked Up’s work since their earliest days. That the narrative here, as everywhere it seems in Fucked Up’s catalog, is an allegorical one analyzing archetype and function should be pretty obvious; otherwise the grabdiloquence of the whole thing falls apart under its own ludicrousness. But it is precisely Fucked Up’s commitment to the Wagnerian sweep of this project, comfortably putting away time scales that would sit nicely next to Der Ring des Nibelungen, that makes it so enthralling. The middle of this epic breaks into a nasty and violent mix of death metal and sludge metal, executed to such delightful perfection that it raises the question why the band doesn’t work in this style more often.
After an opening hour that felt like a mere prelude, they have committed the second and third hours to a hybrid of heavy metal, prog, space rock, psychedelia, hardcore, kosmiche, raga rock and alternative rock that feels effervescent and invigorating, delivering on the promise of a similar hybrid offered by The Mars Volta years ago to scattered success or that “Reoccurring Dreams” from Zen Arcade sketched out for the alternative crowd forty years ago now. That Year of the Monkey ends on a cliffhanger should be expected, given that there are two hours left to go, but it still hurts nonetheless.
Perhaps Year of the Monkey will be revealed to have benefited from the Empire Strikes Back effect, being the second in a trilogy neither has to set itself up or offer a coherent conclusion, freeing it to pursue the primacy of drama. It still remains difficult to judge this project as a totality given so much remains to be seen of it, four further tracks comprising the concluding two hours of this wild epic that itself is the close of a 12-album cycle produced over roughly 20 years. As it stands now, however, Year of the Monkey is not only an exceptional continuation of the Grass Can Move Stones meta-epic but also perhaps the best Fucked Up record yet, sitting next to Year of the Horse, The Chemistry of Common Life and David Comes to Life as a viable answer to that only ever-increasingly impossible question.  From: https://www.treblezine.com/fucked-up-year-of-the-monkey-review/

 

Pharaoh's Daughter - Yonati

I love the idea that our ancient tales and archetypal characters are still a root source for many of the stories we tell and the music we make. As if the music itself is an ever-evolving vessel for carrying the wisdom through the ages, and the music maker merely a custodian of sacred truths. And if this is true in a very general sense of much music made today, consciously or otherwise, Songs of Desire is a very deliberate exploration of such an idea.
Conceived nearly twenty years ago, the idea was brought to life by musician and Pharaoh’s Daughter band leader Basya Schechter, who studied with scholar and musician Yosef Goldman, to explore, uncover and fully understand the deeper meanings of the texts known as The Song of Songs. This, in turn, enabled her and the band to create a sonic vision of what, for thousands of years, had been merely words captured on parchment, the dry and dusty world of academia and canon, thereby breathing new life and relevance into the stories. Once lifted off the page, this important collection of poems, dreams, and metaphors pulses with tales of romance, yearning, and forbidden love, carefully reworked into something sensual, seductive, human, relatable, and, most importantly, alive. And these stories in particular, and the themes in general, are found as a very human heartbeat in the sacred tomes and texts of faiths across the globe.
And just as this vibrant re-presentation of this important and much-discussed story moves through Spanish, French, Arabic, Yiddish, English, as well as the original Hebrew, it is the language itself that adds to the mystery and melody; musically, sounds are drawn from all over the musical map, across genres and geographies, and where language might be a barrier, it becomes music in its own right.
“Asleep” sets the scene: lovers meet for a secret nighttime tryst in the City of Peace, but it also introduces us to the exotic sounds that carry the story being replayed here. Anchored by a busy beat, the surrounding space is filled with the sounds of the traditional and the modern: Oud and guitars, flutes and violins.
As soon as the opening bars of “Yonati” drift in, a sonic picture is painted, this is not here, this is not now, at least it seems so to those of us in the modern West, this blend of Middle Eastern folk traditions, of music that came to the us by another path, of what would centuries after these stories were written be termed “arabesque” is almost an act of spiritual and sonic time travel.  From: https://dancing-about-architecture.com/songs-of-desire-pharaohs-daughter-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/ 

 

The Grateful Dead - Box Of Rain / Brokedown Palace / Attics Of My Life / Ripple

American Beauty was the result of a prolific period of the songwriting partnership of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter – one that yielded two studio albums in one year for the Grateful Dead. This was the only time the band would return to the studio so quickly. However, unlike the previous effort, where almost all the songs were written solely by the pair, the album saw more input from the rest of the band. Included are Phil Lesh's "Box of Rain" and Bob Weir's "Sugar Magnolia", both written with Hunter, and "Operator", Ron "Pigpen" McKernan's only singing-songwriting effort on a Grateful Dead studio album.
The album was produced after the discovery that the band's manager, Lenny Hart (father of drummer Mickey Hart), had renewed their contract with Warner Brothers Records without their knowledge, and then skipped town with a sizable chunk of the band's wealth. In between near-constant touring and gigging, recording began only a few months after the release of Workingman's Dead – without their regular sound crew, who were out on the road as part of the Medicine Ball Caravan tour (which the Dead were originally scheduled to join). Instead, studio staff engineer Stephen Barncard replaced Bob Matthews as producer – "a move that irks Matthews to this day" (Matthews had co-produced the band's two previous albums). Barncard also mused "I had heard bad stories about engineers' interactions with the Dead but what I found were a bunch of hardworking guys".
Both Workingman's Dead and American Beauty were innovative at the time for their fusion of bluegrass, rock and roll, folk, and, especially, country music. Lyricist Hunter commented "We went back into American folk tradition but, being experimenters, nothing would do but that we try to reinvent that." Compared to Workingman's Dead, American Beauty had even less lead guitar work from Jerry Garcia, who increasingly filled the void with pedal steel guitar. It was also during the recording of this album that Garcia first collaborated with mandolinist David Grisman, a friend who had recently relocated to California following the dissolution of Earth Opera. "I just bumped into Jerry at a baseball game in Fairfax, and he said, 'Hey, you wanna play on this record we're doing?'" commented Grisman, whose playing is heard on "Friend of the Devil" and especially "Ripple". Howard Wales, another musician from outside of the band, added keyboards to three songs. Drummer Bill Kreutzmann commented, "Wales came to us through Jerry, who played with him in side projects. [He] had done session work with James Brown and the Four Tops before we brought him in for American Beauty." MIT student Ned Lagin, a jazz pianist who had corresponded with the band after attending their 1969 New Year's Eve concert at the Boston Tea Party, also contributed piano to "Candyman". Lagin subsequently sat in with the band on occasion from 1970 to 1975.
Phil Lesh, in his autobiography Searching for the Sound, commented "the magnetism of the scene at Wally Heider's recording studio made it a lot easier for me to deal with [the loss of my father] and my new responsibilities. Some of the best musicians around were hanging there during that period; with Paul Kantner and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, Santana, Crosby, Nash, and Neil Young working there, the studio became jammer heaven. Thank the Lord for music; it's a healing force beyond words to describe."
Though both albums focused on Americana songcraft, Workingman's Dead mixed the grittier Bakersfield sound with the band's psychedelic roots, whereas the mostly-acoustic American Beauty focused more on major-key melodies and folk harmonies, evincing the influence of Dylan and studio neighbors/friends Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. Kreutzmann later explained, "The singers in our band really learned a lot about harmonizing from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, who had just released their seminal album Déjà Vu. Jerry played pedal steel... on that record. Stephen Stills lived at Mickey's ranch... and David Crosby enjoyed partying as much as we did. So our circles overlapped."
Crosby has demurred on this point: "Sometimes they have given us credit for teaching them how to sing and that's not true. They knew how to sing; they had their own style and they had the most important quality of it down already, which is tale-telling". However, he has also stated "The idea is – when you hang out with other musicians – to sort of cross-pollinate your idea streams, and that naturally happened between us on a level that was very rare. We would listen to what they were doing with time signatures and with breaking the rules, and it appealed to us a lot."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Beauty_(album)

The Magpie Arc - Wassail

Creation stories are rarely straightforward, and even the apparently simple task of getting a talented bunch of musicians together to record some songs is often fraught with setbacks. In The Magpie Arc’s case, the major problem was unavoidable: the band began its journey just as the Covid pandemic reared its head. This made the timeworn trajectory of recording, releasing and touring obsolete, for a while at least, and might have contributed to the decision to release the first twelve songs as three separate EPs. Everyone had to find new ways of working, even folk-rock supergroups.
And The Magpie Arc have certainly earned the right to call themselves a supergroup (even if, through modesty or a wish not to be associated with the word’s more bombastic connotations, they eschew that particular descriptor). The current line-up consists of award-winning Nancy Kerr (Vocals, fiddle and strings), world-renowned Martin Simpson (Vocals and electric guitars), Findlay Napier (Vocals, electric and acoustic guitars), the former Albion Band member Tom A Wright (Vocals, drums, percussion, keyboards, programming, electric, acoustic and pedal steel guitars), and Alex Hunter (Electric bass guitar) who doubles as the band’s manager.
Glamour In The Grey is their first full-length and the first chance the band has had to function as a band in the more traditional sense. The result is an album that goes beyond the excellence of those first EPs: the edges are sharper, the interplay between musicians is understandably more well-honed, and the whole thing feels more condensed. There is a mixture of material from the band’s three songwriters and a sprinkling of traditional songs, but the overall sound is impressively coherent.  From: https://klofmag.com/2022/11/the-magpie-arc-glamour-in-the-grey/

 

Masheena - Been Waiting

The history of Masheena dates back to the early 2000s, when Luis, Tarjei and Ole agreed to start a Thin Lizzy coverband after more than a few beers one night. That band never materialized, but the guys kept active over the years in other projects like Abbath, Royal Rooster, Lost At Last, Ilti Milta, Meelodi, Odisea, 4Tet and St. Satan.
After reigniting a smoldering fire, mellowed by time and sober expectations after spending half a lifetime in rehearsal rooms, and against better judgment, in 2021 Luis sent a few demos to Tarjei who literally had to dig out his bass from the basement after having sworn to never play in an original band again.
The legend Amagedda, known from Immortal’s debut album, the Abbath-fronted “I” and Demonaz’s solo album joined together with string virtuoso Ole rehearsing the songs in a barn in the outskirts of town transformed into a rehearsal cave.
Rather than re-inventing music itself, the purpose of Masheena is to share the joy and love of hard rock. The intended EP with songs from the demos quickly grew to a full album.
Musically, Masheena are inspired by both the sunny and shady grooves of the 70s, the shameless hedonism of 80s hard rock and heavy metal, as well as the jagged riffs and darker vibes of the 90s alternative rock and metal scenes.  From: https://www.masheena.rocks/bio

Mitsoura - Kelushka

The magical voice of a singer who will conclude the tenth year's festival resonated from several Slovenian stages in 1994 as part of the then nomad, excuse me, travelling ethno-festival Okarina, including the rain-washed Ljubljana castle. Mónika Juhász Miczura - to friends and fans simply Mitsou - was back then the singer of surely the most precious of Hungarian Roma bands Ando Drom. Mitsou learned traditional songs from her mother. She says her mother was about to embark on a wonderful career following numerous awards, if only she had been prepared to move to a bigger city. But she was too poor, she couldn't even afford to buy shoes, and was ashamed to leave her home village on the Romanian border and leave for Budapest barefoot. If we have been deprived of 'Mitsou Senior's' singing, we can rejoice even more at the chance to delight in the evocative and magical singing of her daughter, whose talent was discovered by Jenö Zsigó, the leader of Ando Drom band, at a children's workshop.
Although she is no longer a member of that group, Mitsou continues to carry out its mission in a unique fashion, in her new band Mitsoura. Ando Drom translates as 'On the Road' and the owner of such a penetrating, sonorous voice went on a risky adventure in search of variation and innovation which could surpass traditional Roma music. Risky, because many have been burnt before her as they combined traditional and electronic music. Nevertheless, our heroine came out battle-hardened and fresh, with a clear vision of what she wants (and what she wants to achieve from it) from the currently trendy blending of the traditional and the super-modern.
The fusion of her stunning voice with electronic music is never a one-way street, it never has one meaning only; her voice is not merely compulsory decor for the stoned ambience atmosphere. On the contrary, the prevailing feeling is of Mitsou electrifying Roma music, of her showing how much electricity there was in it from the very start. She has surrounded it with ambiental, atmospheric sounds to bring one's attention the spacious, extensive quality of this essentially nomadic people's music. There is, of course, the presence of trance, since she reminds us of the experience of trance itself - translocation, travelling - which is so effortlessly achieved by Roma musicians. The songs on her alluring debut album (Mitsoura, 2003) are - Roma and Indian as well - almost all traditional, as are most of the instruments playing with electronic instrumentation: the cimbal (mostly played by master Kálmán Balogh), kaval, zurna, viola, tabla etc. Old and new, yet never in conflict or confrontation, but in true harmony and co-existence. The trance will be even deeper in concert thanks to the accompanying visual animations inspired by Indian motifs and Roma art work.  From: https://mestozensk.org/en/artist-collaborator/mitsoura

 

BoDeans - Closer To Free / Save A Little / Texas Ride Song / Idaho

The BoDeans were formed in 1984 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, by high school friends Kurt Neumann and Sam Llanas, both serving as guitarists and vocalists. Initially, the duo performed under the pseudonyms Beau BoDean for Neumann and Sammy BoDean for Llanas, drawing from a playful nod to the character Jethro Bodine from The Beverly Hillbillies. They began playing local gigs around Milwaukee's East Side music scene, honing a raw roots rock style influenced by Midwestern heartland sounds. In 1984, the band expanded its lineup with the addition of bassist Bob Griffin and drummer Guy Hoffman, completing the core quartet that would define their early identity. Seeking broader opportunities, the group relocated to Minneapolis in 1985 to perform more frequently in the vibrant regional club circuit, including notable shows at venues like First Avenue. Their persistence paid off when demo tapes recorded during this period caught the attention of record executives, leading to a signing with Slash Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., later that year. The band's debut album, Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams, was released in October 1986 and produced by T Bone Burnett, whose minimalist approach captured their energetic, unpolished roots rock essence through live-in-the-studio sessions. The record featured the single "Good Things," a driving track that highlighted the duo's harmonious vocals and guitar interplay, establishing them as an authentic voice of Midwestern rock. Critics praised the album's raw conviction and fresh take on American rock themes, positioning the BoDeans as a promising act emerging from the heartland. To promote the album, the BoDeans embarked on extensive initial tours, including opening slots for major acts like U2 during the early legs of The Joshua Tree Tour in late 1987, which helped build their live reputation and fanbase across North America.
The BoDeans achieved a more polished sound on their 1991 album Black and White, produced by David Kahne and featuring contributions from session musicians including drummer Kenny Aronoff, which explored themes of everyday Midwestern struggles and relationships through roots rock arrangements. Released on Slash Records, the album marked a step toward broader commercial appeal with tracks like "Black, White and Blood Red" and "True Devotion" highlighting the band's evolving blend of folk-inflected pop and heartfelt lyricism. Despite critical mixed reception for its slicker production compared to their rawer early work, it solidified their reputation as heartland rock practitioners. The band's breakthrough came with the 1993 release of Go Slow Down, produced by T-Bone Burnett, which returned to a stripped-down, organic sound emphasizing acoustic guitars and narrative songs about personal freedom and resilience, drawing from their Midwestern roots. The album's lead single, "Closer to Free," initially modest upon release, gained massive exposure in 1994 as the theme song for the Fox television series Party of Five.  From: https://grokipedia.com/page/BoDeans 

 

Mamalarky - Broken Bones

What can you expect from an album called Hex Key? A bunch of songs about assembling flat-pack furniture and adjusting bike handlebars? Nothing Mamalarky do is predictable, so you can’t rule that out. The U.S. indie psych-rock four-piece – Livvy Bennett (vocals, guitar), Noor Khan (bass), Dylan Hill (drums), Michael Hunter (keyboard) – has a knack for leaving you puzzled. Their 2018 debut EP which they recorded as a trio – Khan joined later that year – is called Fundamental Thrive Hive. They played their first show as a quartet in a wristwatch factory. There is an instrumental on their debut album, with the title “Singalong”. Quirky?
Possibly, but the band never veers into gratuitous quirkiness. After all, they are consummate professionals who have played and/or toured with the likes of Cherry Glazerr, White Denim, and Faye Webster. It’s just that, like these artists, they resist being pigeonholed and relish flouting convention. Nothing is off limits as they relentlessly pursue the goal of creating songs that are so many perfect little worlds, each one with its own distinctive character. They take sounds, moods, and lyrics that, at first glance, do not seem compatible, then make that pastiche work.
Their own lyrics seldom provide an apt summary of an artist’s music, but Mamalarky are an exception. On “Dance Together”, a track on the band’s second LP, 2022’s Pocket Fantasy, Bennett sings “It’s so appealing / Glittering fractals moving across the roof / I belong in a state of constant motion.” Like fractals, Mamalarky’s songs are complex and reveal infinitely detailed patterns when you zoom in. And they’re never static – they swirl, cascade, ripple, and grow.
Given their approach to songwriting – or rather, songcrafting – the group do not strive for sonic consistency on their albums. On the contrary, they want the maximum amount of diversity. “The worst thing you can say about a Mamalarky song is ‘This sounds like another song of yours’”, Khan once said. Accordingly, the variety Hex Key offers throughout its 13 songs is bewildering.  From: https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/albums/mamalarky-hex-key-reach-peak-torque

The Byrds - I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better / The Bells of Rhymney / He Was A Friend of Mine / The World Turns All Around Her

"The Bells of Rhymney" is a song by the folk singer Pete Seeger, which consists of Seeger's own music accompanying words written by the Welsh poet Idris Davies. Seeger first released a recording of the song on a live album in 1958, but it is the American folk rock band the Byrds' 1965 recording that is the best known version of the song.
The lyrics to the song were drawn from part of Davies' poetic work Gwalia Deserta, which was first published in 1938. The work was inspired by a local coal mining disaster and by the failure of the 1926 General Strike, with the "Bells of Rhymney" stanzas following the pattern of the nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons". In addition to Rhymney, the poem also refers to the bells of a number of other places in South Wales, including Merthyr, Rhondda, Blaina, Caerphilly, Neath, Swansea, Newport, Cardiff, and the Wye Valley.
Two decades after Gwalia Deserta was published, Seeger used one part of the work as lyrics for his song after discovering them in a book by Dylan Thomas. The song was first released as part of a suite of songs, including "Sinking of the Reuben James" and "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly", on Seeger and Sonny Terry's 1958 live album, Pete Seeger and Sonny Terry. Another live version of the song was included on Seeger's 1967 compilation album, Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits.
Arguably the most famous rendition of the song is the version recorded by the American folk rock band the Byrds. The Byrds' recording of "The Bells of Rhymney" was committed to tape on April 14, 1965, and released as part of the band's debut album, Mr. Tambourine Man.
At the time of recording, the song was a relative newcomer to the Byrds' repertoire, having first been performed during the band's March 1965, pre-fame residency at Ciro's nightclub on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. Lead guitarist Roger McGuinn (at that time known as Jim McGuinn) had brought the song to the band after becoming familiar with it as an arranger on Judy Collins' third album, Judy Collins 3, which itself included a cover version of "The Bells of Rhymney". Although the Byrds were anxious to correctly pronounce the Welsh place-names in the song's lyrics on their recording, they, like Seeger, actually mispronounced the name Rhymney as "Rimney" (it should be pronounced as "Rumney").  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bells_of_Rhymney