Dr. John's New Orleans Swamp - Soundstage 1974

On a nondescript evening in 1974, a few New Orleans musicians gathered at the WTTW studio in Chicago to film the season finale of Soundstage, a new live concert television series that aired on PBS.
Yet these were no ordinary New Orleans musicians. Rather, they were some of the finest players and songwriters this town has ever produced. Dr. John, Professor Longhair, The Meters and Earl King—all of them pioneers in their own right.
The night’s grand finale, an all hands on deck rendition of “Big Chief,” has been a minor hit on the interwebs for some time. It’s a fantastic number, to be sure, but the hourlong episode is worth viewing in its entirety.
Billed as “New Orleans Swamp,” the program finds Fess and King backed by The Meters, who also get in a couple tunes of their own. Dr. John emcees the whole thing, in full Nite Tripper regalia of course, before taking the stage with his own band. Despite being filmed in Chicago, the episode captures New Orleans’ funk and R&B heyday as well as anything you’ll find on YouTube.  From: https://www.offbeat.com/news/video-new-orleans-swamp-dr-john-professor-longhair-meters-earl-king/

Ferris & Sylvester - Mother

Where are you, and how’s the tour going?

Issy Ferris (IF): We are on tour but we have managed to come home for two nights.

Archie Sylvester (AS): It’s going well, thanks, we are three dates in and it feels like we’ve kicked off now. You always feel a bit nervous in the build-up to the first one because we are playing some new songs and some new arrangements of older songs, thinking about the set order and stuff like that. The first gig of a tour is really nerve-racking, and then you get into the swing of it and you feel a lot more comfortable, we feel we’ve got the ball rolling now and we are ready to keep going.
Your second album, ‘Otherness’ is coming out. Were you aware of the difficult second album syndrome?

IF: I wouldn’t say there was any kind of writer’s block or anything. We spent years writing our first album, and that was us finding out who we were and what we were about, and writing this album it felt like we knew who we were so it was just a matter of us being ourselves and writing the album. It came pretty naturally, and I hope people enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed writing it.
What are the songwriting dynamics between the pair of you?

AS: Our rule, if you like, is that we don’t really have a rule, we like to vary it up to make it interesting. Sometimes Issy will come with some lyrics and we just go from there, sometimes I might come with a chorus and we go from there, and on this album, there are a couple of songs we started with drums. We have a drum set and I just pieced together something, and we wrote a song from the drum groove I came up with. That was a new thing for us and it felt interesting. Some times we will sit at the piano and play something, we both know a little bit of piano but we are not virtuosos, mind you I can only speak for myself.

IF: Absolutely not.

AS: It feels interesting because we might play C G D and if it isn’t on an instrument you feel familiar with like guitar, it feels interesting and you can then be inspired for that song.
As is the norm these days, you released six tracks before the full album release, what’s the response been like?

IF: It’s been great, and we are very proud because we are releasing it through Archtop Records, which is the label that we set up years ago when we were releasing our first EPs, but we’ve just started talking about it publicly and we’ve been signing some new stuff. We are proud to be an independent band, we’ve always released independently, and when we know people are listening and reacting, buying a ticket and coming to our shows and pre-ordering, and adding our song to their own playlist, that’s a big deal for us.

AS: What’s great is that people are coming to our shows and they are familiar with our older stuff, but they’ve also been asking to hear some of the newer stuff, which is nice. ‘Mother’ has been a popular choice and it’s great because you always have that second album syndrome thing that they may not like it.
You are releasing the album on your own label and on a range of media covering CD, various coloured vinyls and streaming. How much of a challenge is format for independent artists?

LF: It is hard work, you have to put a lot of hours into running a label, making those decisions, and making the best product. The first thing you do is make the album, and Archie produces the records we are involved in, all aspects of it, and when it’s all done the next question is what sort of experience do we want for someone who buys it on vinyl, and that was really important to us from early on in the process. We focused on what song we wanted to close side-A and open side-B, and we had the listening experience on vinyl in mind for the first recording session. So, it goes on a journey and then you finally make these decisions and implement them with our distribution team, who are amazing, at Play It Again Sam. It is hard, but then it is also really satisfying, the moment they come through the post and you open the box and see it for the first time. That moment is amazing, especially if you’ve put every little detail you’ve been involved in, every single email, all of that stuff, it is really rewarding, for sure.
What is special about Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios?

AS: Well, it’s our nearest one, and it’s certainly worth travelling to as well. It is a beautiful place set in the countryside near Bath, and it is a residential studio but as we only live half an hour away we come home. It is a really inspiring place to be, and all of the rooms there sound great, the equipment they have is great, and it is just a nice place to be. For this album, actually, we were trying to book a few days at Real World Studios and the the time we wanted to be there they said a band had booked it for three months and nobody could get in, the whole thing, all the studios. It was really annoying because we needed to record the strings that are on the album, but we know them fairly well and they said, OK, we are going to email Peter Gabriel to see if he will let you use his writing room, which wasn’t being used by the band, who we found out later was The 1975. Fortunately, Peter Gabriel got back and said he wasn’t using it so we could use his writing room, which is another amazing studio at Real World Studios. We felt really privileged to use that room because nobody uses that room other than Peter. So that’s where the strings on the album were recorded, Peter Gabriel’s writing room, thanks to The 1975.
How important is the sound of a Ferris and Sylvester record and how do you achieve the sense of timelessness in your sound?

AS: With this album the first thing we started with after we’d got the songs was the artwork, we got in touch with an artist from Leaf and Petal Design, Karen Lynch, she makes collages from 1950s and 1960s magazines and she makes these otherworldly environments, which we’ve always thought were really cool. When we realised the album was going to be called ‘Otherness’ we had the idea to ask her to do the artwork having sent her some song lyrics and song ideas. She came up with the album artwork that you’ve seen, and we looked at it and thought that’s amazing, that image is how we want the album to sound. We printed it off really big and hung it up in whatever studio we were in, we even took it to Real World Studios and hung it in front of the desk. Every sound that we recorded had to fit into that landscape of the artwork, and that was a really nice way of doing it. What we realised in the end was that because she’d used images taken from the ‘50s and ‘60s magazines which were all taken on old film cameras, they all had a warmth and saturation, and that’s why we decided to use tape machines.
We used a tape machine from a similar era, which was actually a Swiss tape machine called a Nagra which is a portable quarter-inch tape machine. It is a beautiful machine and it runs at 15 inch, so it’s small but high quality. So, to get that sound we could see in the artwork we recorded digitally and edited it digitally, to make the most of modern production techniques. We recorded a lot of stuff live with overdubs and everything, we used all the techniques that have been invented over time, we edited digitally because it is way faster than on a tape machine, and once the edit’s been done you put it on the tape machine. It then comes back into the digital world and then there is a modern in-the-box mix that it’s mixed into. Hopefully, that answers your question. We were trying to make the most of the analogue world, but because it was 2023 and hip hop exists and people want to hear real low-end now. We love that as well, we want to hear punchy drums, we want to hear amazing stereo effects and stuff, so it’s analogue from the tape machine, it is all tube pre-amp stuff, tube microphones and tube compressors, as much tube as possible into an analogue tape machine, back into the digital world and finally a modern in the box mix.

UK Album Of The Year at the UK Americana Awards 2023 and your debut album hit #1 on the Official Jazz And Blues Album Chart. That’s covering quite a lot of bases, how do you define your music?

LF: All those genres are representative of what we do, for sure. Americana for sure, blues, folk, soul, there’s a bit of country in there as well, we tap into all those genres but we think of ourselves as songwriters, we want to do the best by the song. So, if we’re writing a song and we feel it requires that blues grit, like ‘Dark Side’ for instance, we will lean into that and go for it, or if we’ve got something like our latest single ‘Headache’ which by its nature is a dark, intimate song, and I was like, I want Dolly Parton to love this song so we need to make it like a 1970s country song. It’s always been important for us not to think we are this band and we going to write within these walls, we like to make sure we are writing the best songs we can really.

Who are your go to influences?

LF: I would say I’ve been most heavily influenced by the women who sing like angels, so Dolly Parton, Joni Mitchell, Susan Tedeschi from Tedeschi Trucks, Brittney Howard who basically taught me how to sing, her expression is unbelievable, Madison Cunningham who’s vocals are amazing. Also, I’d have to put Nick Cave in there, I know he’s not a woman, but Nick Cave just because of his songwriting.

AS: I agree totally with Issy and the ones I go back to would probably be my earliest influences which were stolen from my dad’s CD collection. I remember hearing Peter Green, early Fleetwood Mac, and back then his voice was stunning and he had great songs as well,  and the way he played guitar wasn’t fancy with loads of notes it was just the tone. I didn’t know what I was feeling when I was listening to Peter Green playing guitar, it made me feel sad or happy, and he made you feel emotion. That’s the kind of thing I go back to even now, Peter Green’s ‘I Need Your Love So Bad’ with the string arrangement, I just love that. Also, bands like Free were a big inspiration for me early on, Paul Kossoff and Paul Rodgers, that’s why I play the Les Paul because of Peter Green and Paul Kossoff. I’ve always tried to sound like Paul Rodgers but I don’t sound like any of them, actually.

LF: Also for this record, there’s Glen Campbell for instance, with his traditional country sound, and even Frank Sinatra with his string section, all of that made it into this record in quite a big way. We really wanted to make something slightly more classical.

I’m getting a feel for the interaction between you, but how do you work together as a band, rather than as man and wife?

AS: We sort of limp along, don’t we?

IF: It is interesting that you say not as man and wife but as a band because to us it’s all one.  We met eight years ago, and in those eight years we’ve probably only spent days apart, we’ve spent all our time together. I think you get into a pattern of working, living, and doing life together, not always easy for sure, but we have a rule that we are always friends at the end of the day. We both care about it so much, we do argue but it’s all for the right reasons because we want to make the best music we can. So, always be friends at the end of the day.

AS: We’re a good team as well, and maybe we don’t give each other enough credit for it. For example, we’re on tour at the moment and it’s great to have each other because we can share the responsibilities a little bit. Just naturally on tour, I’ll take a little bit more care of the techie stuff, while Issy’s doing the merch. We have our skills and we have our weaknesses.

IF: I would actually say we are the definition of co-dependent, in a good way because that word is always used in a bad way. Also, being together and working together for so long when you have to split the responsibilities there are some things about our careers I know nothing about, and the same with Archie, right, this is my job, this is your job. I think that is something to celebrate because it works, touch wood.

From: https://americana-uk.com/interview-ferris-sylvester-on-otherness 

 

Triptides - Invitation

Shapeshifter has this beautiful, hazy, yet fluid sense of movement, like it is guiding the listener through different dimensions of sound. Was there a particular moment in the recording process where you felt like you had fully unlocked the album’s identity? Or did it shapeshift (pun intended) throughout?

Glenn Brigman: I think I began to understand the identity of the record when I noticed the specific dimensions that each instrument was bringing to the equation. The way my Farfisa organ was combining with the Wurlitzer or Rhodes started pushing me deeper into a realm that I had begun to explore on the Starlight album. This album varies from Starlight in the way that I also added more synthesizer sounds to the palette, Korg MS20 and Roland Juno. I think in some ways the instrumentation created a new vibration, which then influenced the lyrics and attitudes behind each song. And thus, the Shapeshifter identity was created.

The album has a heavy emphasis on keys: Wurlitzer, Farfisa, all these warm, glowing textures. What drew you toward a more keyboard-forward approach this time around, and how do you think it reshaped the core of Triptides’ sound?

I have always played the piano. It was my first instrument as a kid. At some point in my teens I decided (as I am sure many young rock and rollers have) that the guitar was overall a cooler instrument to play in a band. So, I followed the guitar rock formula for a pretty long time after that, making albums based around guitar for about a decade. I began incorporating Farfisa organ around the Visitors album in an attempt to unlock the full Rick Wright, Floyd qualities that it brought to the recordings. Then I started adding electric piano when I was able to find a Wurlitzer 200. Eventually, I thought, why not just start crafting songs around the keys and not just adding them on later? And that was how Starlight was conceived, and to a greater extent the Shapeshifter album. I have always admired how groups like Stereolab and Air incorporated vintage keys into their sound while also bringing a totally fresh, modern perspective to what the keyboards are capable of. Klaus Johann Grobe is another group that does a great job of that. It is not all just “Light My Fire” and “The Logical Song” – you can really shape these instruments and create new and exciting combinations. I think that has given a different depth to the current Triptides sound.

You have mentioned recording in the San Bernardino Mountains, which sounds like an absolute dream. How much do you think the environment seeps into the sound of the record? Did the isolation and nature change how you approached songwriting or production?

I think there are certainly some elements of my environment that seep into the recordings: the lush pine and cedar trees, the blankets of fresh snow in the wintertime, the refreshing energy after jumping into a cool lake in the summertime. I imagine that there is a bit of that stuff melted into the tapes along with the music. I can also take my time with everything and turn up as loud as I need to because my house is built for cold winters with plenty of noise-canceling insulation. And then there is just something very satisfying about creating noise in the quiet of woods, bringing brand new music into the silent void.

There has always been this thread of time-traveling in Triptides’ music, whether it is ‘60s psych-pop, Laurel Canyon folk, or cosmic jazz-tinged moments. If Shapeshifter was a portal to a specific musical era or dreamlike world, where would it take listeners?

I think the Shapeshifter album is unique in the sense that I cannot really give it an exact time machine destination. I think it would lead more towards a dreamlike world or an alternate dimension. Maybe a different timeline where The Beatles continued into the 70s and got Stevie Wonder to play keys with them instead of Billy Preston. Or a world where all world conflicts have ended and love is the most important thing, but heartbreak can cause a nation to collapse.

You have spent over a decade building this incredibly rich and dynamic discography, yet each album feels like its own distinct universe. What keeps you excited about making new music? How do you push yourself to explore new creative territory without losing the essence of Triptides?

I think Triptides is such a sustainable musical world because it is not rooted in one particular genre or vibe. We have an entire garden of different inspirations and ideas that we water and grow. And sometimes you let the earth rest for a period and work on another garden or inspiration. We like so many diverse types of music that we need to keep exploring. That definitely keeps things exciting. But I think that the songwriting is what maintains the essence and provides the thread that ties everything together. And my vocals are pretty consistent as well, although I hope to have improved a little over the last 15 years.

So many of your songs feel like they exist outside of time, like they could be spinning on a dusty reel-to-reel in 1972 or floating through the airwaves in 2072. What is your relationship with nostalgia in your songwriting? Do you see it as an influence, a trap, or something else entirely?

Nostalgia can be a blessing and a curse creatively. You can get stuck in trying to capture it or you can let it happen when it happens and use it in a positive way. Recently I sent a new demo to a friend who replied, “this one makes me nostalgic, I am not sure why but maybe it is the chord progression.” I thought that was interesting because everyone defines nostalgia on their own terms. So, trying to use it as an influence can be dangerous because my definition of it could be vastly different than everybody else’s. But it is a powerful thing when you feel it. I had a music history teacher at Indiana University that would always say “never underestimate the power of nostalgia.” He was onto something.

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2025/06/triptides-unveil-shapeshifter-with-exclusive-premiere-and-in-depth-interview.html 

Sventoyar - Krashen Vechir

I've fallen in love with Soundage recently. This small-town Russian record label is consistently churning out quality folk/pagan/viking metal from the widest reaches of eastern Europe. Wolf Rahm, Beer Bear, Arkona...all have had their names made through this obscure group of metal enthusiasts. I'll admit, it's usually the album art that attracts me. I know the artwork shouldn't be anywhere near as important as the music within - but it really does make a difference when a band decides to have eye-catching or atmospherically appropriate album art. It was for this very reason I checked out a song by Sventoyar on YouTube - because the colourful and cultural packaging on "Unity", their 3rd full-length release, was so damn good! I mean...look at it! Gorgeous!
"Cultural" is the keyword here. After cautiously slipping this disc into your CD player (because you know how 'hit & miss' folk metal can be) you are instantly transported to the summery rape-fields of Ukraine, populated by the Slavic pagans who hold their ancient traditions in high regard. This atmosphere is achieved through various methods. Firstly, the use of traditional eastern instruments such as the sopilka and various types of whistles and flutes all contribute to the cultural timbre of "Unity". Secondly, the songs themselves are all traditional Russian/Ukrainian/Belorussian folk songs which have simply been 'metallized' - can't get more cultural than that! It may seem like a cop-out for a band, in terms of composition. But Sventoyar really make each song sound their own, smartly placing interesting time-signatures and familiar metal rhythms behind these ancient melodies.
However, the jewel in Sventoyar's crown is the hypnotic voice of Poloneya. The Ukrainian vocalist employs a traditional Slavic singing technique which comes across as brash and boisterous - but never loses that cultural flavour. At times she sounds slightly tuneless, but her performance is so bold and confident that it sweeps you away in a flood of atmospheric beauty. Just take a listen to the opening of 4th track "A Za Lesom-lesom" for a true taste of her ability as not just a singer, but a real expert of her craft. It's sincerely beautiful and gives me shivers every time
As previously mentioned, the songs themselves are all historic Slavic folk songs that have had the metal added to them. The metal in question bears strong resemblance to melodic death metal of the Gothenburg variety. In hard-hitting tracks such as "Na Gore Kalina", or opener "Travushka", it almost sounds as if Amon Amarth are providing accompaniment. This similarity is down to guitarist Yarognev's monstrous guitar tone, which really is the heaviest thing I've ever heard from a folk metal band. I'm not even kidding. It makes for an interesting and appealing contrast between the two styles, as opposed to being juxtaposed beyond common sense.  From: https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/%D0%A1%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%8F%D1%80/%D0%84%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%96%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C/395363/ 

The First Edition - Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)

Kenny Rogers was already almost a decade into his music career when he joined the First Edition. The band formed when several members of the New Christy Minstrels split away because they wanted to play music with a bit of a harder edge to it.
Although the band was later known as Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, in the early stages of the group, he was just the bassist and not exactly the lead. In fact, producer Mike Post, who would later go on to fame as the composer of many television themes, didn’t think Rogers brought much to the table as a vocalist.
Rogers also wasn’t really a songwriter, which is why fellow First Edition member Mike Settle wrote most of the songs on the band’s 1967 debut album. The band divvied up the lead vocals for their tracks. And Rogers just happened to draw the lead for the song that would help the band break through.
In 1967, Mickey Newbury was starting to establish himself as a songwriter of note, someone who tended to color outside the lines of traditional country and western tropes. With “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In),” Newbury was doing a somewhat satirical take on the tune in, turn on, drop out vibes of the time.
Rogers was an old buddy of Newbury’s, which might be why he was chosen to sing lead on the song. Post made sure to dress the track up in as much psychedelia as he could. This approach included some backward guitar contributed by none other than Glen Campbell, as well a scorching guitar solo by First Edition member Terry Williams.
The First Edition didn’t really intend themselves to be a psychedelic rock band. Nonetheless, “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” gave them immediate status among the rock heavyweights of the day, making it all the way to No. 5 on the pop charts in 1967.
The song comes from the perspective of a narrator whose efforts to heighten his consciousness have gone comically awry. Check out the first couplet, where Newbury’s sly wordplay sets the tone: I woke up this morning with the sundown shinin’ in / I found my mind in a brown paper bag within.
Newbury references The Byrds’ classic “Eight Miles High” in the first verse. As the song progresses, this guy gets deeper and deeper into the nether regions of his brain: I watched myself crawlin’ out as I was crawlin’ in. I broke my mind, he laments, and his return to the physical world leaves him somewhat perplexed: Eight miles outta Memphis and I got no spare / Eight miles straight up downtown somewhere.
Amidst the wild lyrics and the trippy music, Kenny Rogers holds down the center with his gruff lead vocal. It wouldn’t be too long before that voice would be heard on a wide variety of hits. “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” gave him a somewhat idiosyncratic start on that path.  From: https://americansongwriter.com/the-story-and-meaning-behind-just-dropped-in-to-see-what-condition-my-condition-was-in-the-trippy-first-edition-hit-that-introduced-kenny-rogers-to-the-world/

The Wilderness Yet - The Parting Glass

The Wilderness Yet are an impressive and original trio. The line-up may seem straightforward enough – a female singer backed by acoustic fiddle and guitar and violin –  but there’s nothing straightforward about their subtle, gently rhythmic but thoughtful and emotional songs or the sheer quality of their playing and singing. Their new album shows them to be a band steeped in both the English and Irish folk traditions, but with a fresh, confident edge and a clear idea of what they want to achieve.
Rosie Hodgson, who takes the lead on most songs, is a BBC Young Folk Award finalist with a cool, unforced voice and the ability to switch from quiet intensity to no-nonsense story-telling. She is backed by her partner Rowan Piggott, another strong singer and impressive fiddle player (he’s the son of Charlie Piggott, one of the founders of that great Irish band De Danaan), and by Philippe Barnes, who studied Irish Music Performance at the University of Limerick, and plays the flute as well as guitar. They are all great musicians, but what gives The Wilderness Yet an extra edge is their ability to add glorious a capella harmony singing to the mix.
The songs are an interesting mixture. There’s one traditional track alongside new songs by writers they admire, their own compositions,  and a set of tunes. Their debut album two years ago included Queen and Country, that great praise song to bees, and the emphasis is again often on the importance of the natural world and wildlife: foxes, badgers, nightjars, barn owls, nightingales, snipe and curlew all feature. But there is also a strong sense of the personal and importance of family. There’s a love song that Rosie wrote for Rowan as a Valentine’s present, a charming lullaby waltz written for their son Wilf, and a tribute to Rowan’s great great grandfather. He was a shanachie, an Irish teller of old stories and legends, and The Last Shanachie starts with a brief recording of his voice – a fragment retrieved from an old wax cylinder.  From: https://klofmag.com/2022/08/the-wilderness-yet-what-holds-the-world-together/

Plantoid - Dozer

Tell you what – we love hearing from artists when things go right. We equally love hearing from artists when things go dreadfully wrong. A song that was a piece of piss, written in 20 minutes? Or years in the making and a bastard to write?
Whether it’s a song that came together through great duress or one that was smashed out in a short amount of time, we’re getting the lowdown from some of our favourites on the one song that they can’t stop thinking about – in their own words.
Ahead of releasing latest album ‘Flare‘, Chloe Spence of Brighton trio Plantoid talks us through the creation of recent single ‘Dozer‘. Take it away, Chloe…
“Writing ‘Dozer‘ in the studio was a memorable experience for us, it was super fun to write and we were all in high spirits.  It began with Louis having a long rhythmic sequence that he’d been wanting to try for a while, but didn’t yet have any melody or chords as such. In fact, all he had was a piece of creased paper with a pattern written down. We all sat in the live room on our writing retreat in Wales, and learnt Louis’ rhythm together.
We went round and round on it for ages, clapping and tapping, cementing it in our brains. Louis initially presented the idea on bass, so when we nailed the part and he brought the kit in, along with the guitars, it turned the whole thing into a relentless, motoric groove, which was so fun to play. The pattern started on a singular note which then gradually developed into the full sequence of ‘Dozer’. We must have jammed that rhythm section by section going A B A B C for hours. Then came the overlapping guitar line melody out of nowhere which was perfect for the hypnotic feel we were going for.
We then thought the song could do with an opposing section so we wrote a weird circus style, blues-esque bridge, loose and strange to add contrast to the high energy of the rest of the song. During this time, Nathan was fiddling with a tape machine he’d just purchased, going through the tapes that came with it. He found some strange classical violin and string sounds and we knew we had to use it in some way. We then decided to reverse it all and add it to the middle section for an extra layer of freakiness! Like you’ve stumbled from the dodgems into a fun house at a fairground.
The rest of the song came together piece by piece over the time of finalising the record, but the initial rhythm we’d learned together stuck as the backbone of the song and set the tone.“  From: https://birthdaycakebreakfast.wordpress.com/2026/01/29/this-one-song-plantoid-on-dozer/

Phantogram - Fall In Love

Phantogram is an American music duo from Greenwich, New York, formed in 2007 and consisting of multi-instrumentalists and vocalists Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter. Friends since preschool, the pair went separate ways after high school, meeting again in mid-2007. Together they worked on finishing some of Carter’s earlier songwriting ideas finally forming the band Charlie Everywhere, later changed to Phantogram, a word describing an optical illusion in which two-dimensional images appear to be three-dimensional, noting parallels between this meaning and the duo’s band and music.
“When a stranger asks us what kind of music we make, we refer to it as ‘street-beat psyche-pop.” According to Carter, their music has “lots of rhythms, swirling guitars, spacey keyboards, echoes, [and] airy vocals.” Carter and Barthel are inspired by numerous artists including The Beatles, David Bowie, Cocteau Twins, The Flaming Lips, and Prince. They write and record in a family-owned remote barn in Upstate New York they named Harmonie Lodge, often in the dead of night.
“I think the production on [second album] Voices brings out the darkness a little bit more, and you can really get that loud-heavy-screaming–but-nobody–can-hear-me kind of feel. That is also what we were going for, which could be described as ‘Darkadelic’ songs with undertones of psychedelic sounds.” “We also like to keep our lyrics quite open, so people can have their own ideas about them. We don’t really write happy songs. [Barthel laughs]“
The album’s first single “Fall In Love” wasn’t supposed to be a Phantogram single at all, but a track laid down for an epic rapper to rhyme over. “It’s actually an old idea, an old beat that Josh made five years ago,” Sarah says of the song. “When we were waiting to release [initial album] Eyelid Movies, we had a space of time to work on music, and Josh made the beat. It was intended to just be for an instrumental or for an MC to rap over, but that never ended up happening. I always remembered how much I loved it, so I grabbed it from him. I had a bass synth in mind for it, and it kind of just evolved from there.”
The reworked track explores a toxic, dysfunctional relationship with both partners suffering to an inconclusive resolution. The waxing and waning synths are cleverly infused with a borrowed violin sample from the 60s Barbara Mason hit “I’m Ready“, an ironic juxtaposition against the song’s lyrically oppositional nature. It is an emotionally laden wash of surf over a metaphorical riptide of poignant regret. Falling for someone who is much more desirable than oneself — whether because of physical beauty or high levels of charm, intelligence, wit, or status is a mismatch “prone to find their love unrequited” in an unfortunate attempt perhaps at falling upward.  From: https://godhatesgoth.com/2023/09/30/phantogram-fall-in-love-2%E2%8A%9813/

Cornelius - Drop

In today’s tech-dominated world, musicians have a lot of sounds and samples at their disposal that musicians of previous generations could never even dream of. Tokyo’s Keigo Oyamada, better known by his stage name, Cornelius, prefers, instead, to use the simplest, most elemental sample known to man: water. His song “Drop” is centered entirely around the sound of calmly rippling and splashing water. Starting with nothing but the unmistakable sound of a pool of water being perturbed, the song slowly gathers steam (pun intended) with the addition of kick drums and hi-hat, cheerful acoustic guitar strums, and layers of simple harmonious vocals. At about the midpoint of the track, the sounds become muffled and the music peters out briefly, followed by the sound of a cough and the resurgence of the music; a very interesting and creative way of sonically putting the listener’s head under the water that is ever-present throughout.
When you listen to it for the first time, “Drop” sounds like it has a lot going on – it seems like a very complicated track with lots of moving parts, but after hearing it repeatedly, you are able to notice that it is a combination of several very simple elements. The guitar patterns, percussion rhythms, and vocals are all very straightforward, bare-bones, and repetitive, perhaps another nod to the subject matter of the live-giving liquid that is simple at its core, but serves so many purposes and has innumerable functions. The music video for “Drop,” shown below, will give you an idea of Cornelius’ passion for simplicity and his ability to make something ordinary into something magical and full of wonder.  From: https://www.discovervibes.com/notes/drop/cornelius

 

Lovebyrd - Prologue / Leave Me Blind

Lovebyrd‘s new self-titled EP is a sunny, psychedelic feast with all the fixins. I had heard and fallen in love with “Shot From The Sun” awhile back. But, it wasn’t until today that I was able to really sink my teeth into this fantastic EP. A lot of really great psychedelic music has been coming from Germany over the past few years and these wistful tunes from Lovebyrd are no exception. Yearning vocals slip and slide through billowing layers of warbling guitar to create expansive psychedelic soundscapes that beckon with radiating warmth. Reflecting much of the 60’s psychedelic themes, each track explores a lush landscape of instrumentation, circulating around a distant melody that drifts from voice to guitar and back again. “Shot From The Sun,” the poppiest of the bunch, balances the collection’s most straightforward melody and protruding riffs with a rollicking freeform solo. Inversely, the culminating track, “Prologue & Leave Me Blind,” gracefully wades through the murky, reverb-saturated waters of an indistinguishable wash of pleasant sound. As the vocals linger listlessly in ‘na’s, it almost begins to sound a bit like a very modern and heavy version of Oasis at their most psychedelic.  From: https://swelltonemusic.com/2015/03/ep-lovebyrd-lovebyrd/ 

Foetus - Time Marches On

My formidable great-aunt believed that age was some kind of impertinent insult. It’s probably the best way to look at it. Take Jim “Foetus” Thirlwell, for instance.
Despite hanging out with Marc Almond, Nick Cave, and Jim’s then-girlfriend Lydia Lunch, young Thirlwell didn’t fit into any particular scene. Calling himself “Clint Ruin”, he spent the mid-1980s being broadly lumped into the post-punk no-wave group of experimental musicians with whom he occasionally collaborated – though mostly Thirlwell would bash his own tracks out on a synth, tape them and sing over the top – making for an odd kind of karaoke for early live performances.
There’s a fine point between catchy and chaos where all the best songs lie – think: Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like A Hole, Bowie’s Scary Monsters, or even Radiohead’s Climbing The Walls. Nail walked that tightrope all the way to the other side. Foetus was an odd kind of rebellion – the sort of equal-opportunities misanthropy that hates absolutely everyone in equal measure: all crooned in a beautiful, snarling sub-Elvis baritone and topped off with a caustic swing-jazz electronica.
Through remix work and collaborations, Thirlwell developed a reputation as a “pioneer of industrial music” – though only one other act, Raymond Watts’ group Pig, combined those sounds in roughly the same way.
In 1995, Foetus released Gash, which was yet again an album released at the wrong time. Had Nail come out in 1989, Foetus would have been as big as Ministry. Had Gash come out in 1999, the band mightn’t have been much bigger, but the music would have made a lot more sense. As densely-layered and genre-mashing as NIN’s later The Fragile, 15 years on it still sounds fresh as a daisy. Hammer Falls, for example, starts off with a slow bhangra beat and then lurches into the heaviest rock this side of Soulfly – and that’s before you get to the trumpet solo!
Still, it all went a bit wrong after that, and that’s when I lost interest. Thirlwell fell into a spiral of addictions and writer’s block, and having presumed him as tired and irrelevant as his industrial comrades, the last couple of albums passed me by.
Everyone’s allowed to be old at 50. “Dorian Gray in reverse”, he sings – perhaps as an allusion to wearing his past addictions on his face. It’s fair to say that the years have not been kind to him – and equally fair to say that he’s not been kind to the years. The tragedy is if you sound it, too. Some bands should just have given up years ago. Others, like Ministry, are making records as good as they ever did that just sound the same as they ever did. The pioneers have stopped … pioneering.
I’m not really surprised I was so un-curious about new Foetus material, however much I loved them back in the day. I wasn’t just failing to check it out; I was actively ignoring it. Too many disappointments from other bands had fuelled my lack of interest. Please, just let me remember them the way they were. When they were new and exciting and made music that mattered. Let me remember when they weren’t catering to a demographic or just plain out of ideas. Let me remember them as they were – wild, sexy and brave – and not sad, tired, frail old men.
Trouble is, Thirlwell has a habit of defying expectations. A random tweet reminded me of Nail, and I remembered my Foetus collection was on vinyl, and so considered which tracks to replace cheaply through Amazon’s excellent downloads service. I found the familiar names quickly enough, but Flow and Love weren’t names I knew before. I googled them and was surprised to see how well-received they’d been. The phrase “his best album in 16 years” was enough to make me check out Flow, and I wasn’t disappointed.
The colossal Mandelay would be the stand out track on most albums, but it’s just an album filler here. It sounds a bit like what would happen if Cardiacs were possessed by Can and Velvet Underground and then turned really evil.  The twitchy orchestral syncopation of Suspect is both classic Foetus, and something that little bit different. It’s clearer, bolder, brighter-sounding; but darker and dingier than ever.
If Thirlwell had suffered the indignity of growing old, the passing years had at least conferred on him the gravitas of maturity. He could write rich, orchestral-laden “soundtrack” albums without sounding like a ridiculous art student. Something had happened to industrial music in 2000: while most of the bands went down the road of bland, dancefloor-friendly techno-pop, a few started throwing in breakbeats and rich, organic sounds behind stark, untreated vocals. This was the route Thirlwell took, though as usual, he couldn’t be pinned down to any one genre.
The last proper Foetus album, Love, from 2005 was even more of an oddity. Too much to take in through even two or three listens, it’s the aural equivalent of a David Lynch film. Not the rubbish ones, either. Sure, the singing-in-French might be a bit much – as is the apparently deliberate atonality on some tracks: it’s just not easy on the ear – but at the same time it’s compelling and compulsive enough to make you want to go back for more.
Remember My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, and how you couldn’t hear the vocals, and the guitars made it sound like the record was broken? Yet, somehow, in spite of its difficulty you just wanted to listen to it over and over? Love is a lot like that, but almost the opposite: startling in its clarity. Elements of math-rock, breakbeats and broad electronica vie with the more familiar sounds that you’d expect from a Foetus record. It’s at once poppy and catchy and disquieting and uncomfortable.
If I had one wish in the last few years, it was to hear something – anything – that was new and different, to make me feel like music was alive again. Jim Thirlwell still has that absurd self-belief that made him sing karaoke to his own songs back in ’85, because he is completely convinced that what he’s doing is important. He’s quite right. It’s certainly the freshest, most exciting thing I’ve heard since Radiohead’s In Rainbows – if not the whole decade.
Thirlwell’s manifest refusal to play by the rules makes the meanderings of a middle-aged man seem more current and relevant than ever. He’s not desperate to stay popular – or even to be liked – but is driven by the remorseless need to create. He can’t defy time, but that doesn’t mean he has to suck. In that rebellion, at least, he’s afforded a dignity that has escaped his peers, and is still making the most beautiful, most extraordinary music.  From: https://reinspired.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/foetus/

 

Folknery - Vyplyvalo Utenia

Folknery describe themselves as 'Ukrainian free folk,' which sounds as if the band from Kiev, Ukraine, are about to blow your head off Albert Ayler-style. On Folknery's album Useful Things, the band does expand the palette of Ukrainian folk music: there's plenty of structure to their music, but a gleeful kitchen-sink abandon so that experimentation and genre-clash unite in soulful grooves. The story of Folknery mirrors the music's off-kilter approach: this is a band whose name emerged as a mash-up between William Faulkner and folk music, the idea for which came straight out of a dream.
Volodymyr Muliar and Yaryna Kvitka founded Folknery in 2009. Muliar was fresh out of his experiences drumming for various Ukrainian rock bands, and he was delving into folk singing with another Ukrainian group called "Rozhanytsia." The two enjoyed not only music, but also bicycling – and in fact, they continue to conduct wide-ranging cycling trips that have evolved into excursions across Ukraine, and other countries, in order to find folk music and record living singers. Augmented by another member of Rozhanytsia, vocalist Yulia Sovershenna, the group continued to incorporate world music influences and diverse instrumentation. Together with percussionist Roman Sharkevych and guitarist Dmytro Sorokin, Folknery also utilizes accordions, African djembe, field-recorded sound effects, and hurdy-gurdy.
Useful Things is a blast, with Folknery providing surprises from one track to the next. Ukrainian music is the foundation, but in true post-modern style, it is not the focus so much as what the other musical elements bring as commentary to the tunes. There is some continuity in sound: the dual vocals of Kvitka and Sovershenna carry the band's repertoire, sounding both traditionally Ukrainian, but also as if they were chanting spells in the style of the Finnish folk group Varttina.  From: https://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/folknery-16.shtml

 

Alice Cooper - Hallowed Be My Name

The Alice Cooper band had been through a couple of names, including the Earwigs and the Spiders, before settling on the Nazz when it moved from Phoenix to Los Angeles. But during the fall of 1968, another Nazz out of Philadelphia, led by Todd Rundgren, released its first album and had a hit with “Open My Eyes,” nixing the name for Cooper (then still Vincent Furnier) and company. Discussions were soon under way about a new moniker.
During this time, some of the band members joined then-manager Dick Phillips at his mother’s house. She was reputed to be a medium and pulled out a Ouija board to have a little fun. When Furnier asked the spirits whom he’d been in a previous life, the board led him toward the spelling of A-L-I-C-E-C-O-O-P-E-R. A great story. But not a true one.
That actual adoption of the Alice Cooper name was more mundane. “I just kind of said, ‘Alice Cooper.’ It just came out of my mouth. That was it,” he said. “It had a quality to it—a little deranged, a little wholesome, a little spooky maybe. And . . . I felt like it would make people go, ‘Wait . . . what?! Alice Cooper? They’re all guys. Who’s Alice Cooper?’”
In Alice Cooper: Golf Addict he elaborated, “There was something about it. I conjured up an image of a little girl with a lollipop in one hand and a butcher knife in the other. Lizzie Borden. Alice Cooper. They had a similar ring.”
The moniker opened a wealth of conceptual possibilities for a group of long-haired rock ’n’ rollers who were already exercising their theatrical creativity on stage. They got help from friends in the groupie-cum-band GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously) and turned to the movies for inspiration. Tapping Bette Davis’s disturbing look in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Cooper began applying black mascara to roughly circle his eyes. “I had absolutely no qualms about it,” Cooper told Behind the Music. “I had to build a reputation somehow in this city.” Barbarella’s Great Tyrant (played by Anita Pallenberg) and The Avengers’ Emma Peel, meanwhile, were sources for futuristic leather and glam costuming that was both flashy and foreboding. It all struck a not-so-delicate balance between a soft femininity that complemented the band’s brand of counterculture vaudeville and the more aggressive aspects of its performance art.
“A guy, not a girl,” Cooper wrote. “A group not a solo act. A villain, not a hero or an idol. A woman killer. Weird. Eerie. Twisted. Ambiguous. It all came together—and nobody was doing anything remotely similar. On top of it all, everyone in the band was straight.”
Alice Cooper was never supposed to be one person, however. It was conceived solely as the band’s name, with Vince Furnier as a member of the band. But the singer’s name became Alice, as the song says—perhaps inevitably. “I was Vince,” said Cooper, who would change his legal name before the band’s first album. “But when we became Alice Cooper, everyone was like, ‘You’re Alice . . .Hey, Alice!’ ‘Oh . . . you mean me?’ It just stuck, and pretty soon I was Alice.”
The Ouija board myth hung around, however. And the original band would continue to reference it throughout its time together, including in guitarist Mike Bruce’s memoir No More Mr. Nice Guy. “It gave us a myth, a great story,” Cooper said. “People loved it even better than the truth.”  From: https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/alice-cooper-75-book-origin-name-1235208057/

 

The Pillbugs - Alluring Martha

I’ve always been aware of the Pillbugs, as a good retro band and in the past I’ve heard a few songs here and there. Shame on me that I never really gave this band a proper listen. After hearing “Monclovia” I have become an instant raving fanboy. Other than The Oohs, I can think of no other group that melds every pysch-pop influence into each song with the expertise of a gourmet chef. This album is a perfect introduction to the band, by selecting some of the best tracks from previous releases and a few new ones. Similar to Outrageous Cherry or The Resonars, The Pillbugs bring you a pristine psychedelic experience in sound.  Only these guys don’t just use one set of influences from the era. They use all of them. The opener “Here’s to The End of Time” revives Beatles Magical Mystery Tour era pop. Followed by “Faceless Wonder,” a mix of classic Moody Blues and The Zombies.  Gorgeous hooks are all over each song. The production techniques are absolutely flawless here as well. The Sitar lead “Good To Be Alive” blows away George Harrison’s “Within You Without You” from Sgt. Pepper. “All in Good Time” is a perfect single, like The Left Banke meets Brad Jones. The whimsical “Make Like Arthur Lee” even has a touch of Jethro Tull. “Charlie Blue Car” has a rousing Moodies meets Monkees vibe. Then “Hold Me So Near” brings us a gentle Gene Clarke meets Beau Brummels sound. Other influences include, Traffic, Cotton Mather and early Pink Floyd. I could go on forever, as this is the best retro sounding album since XTC’s “Dukes of The Stratosphere.” If you like any sixites psyche-pop, this is essential listening.  From: https://www.powerpopaholic.com/2007/11/pillbugs-monclovia.html 

 

Kristeen Young - The Monster in the Moon

LTW: You describe yourself as ‘no-genre, no label, no agent, no manager, completely DIY’. Is this an approach born of necessity or design?

Kristeen Young: I’ve naturally been this way from the beginning. I’ve always listened to/liked all kinds of music and it all somehow makes it’s way into what I write. I can’t help it. I’ve tried.

You directed, shot and edited the videos for The Beauty Shop yourself. You also wrote, arranged and produced the album, as well as playing multiple instruments on it. Is it important to you to have artistic control?

Ummm. I guess so. But, that’s not really the reason I do all of it. I do it for a couple of reasons; maybe more than a couple. I’m a bad communicator, or I’ve been one. And I often have a hard time explaining what I want or what I’m hearing and seeing. Another reason is because if there is a man present in the room when I’m making something, everything I do will be attributed to him even if he just switched on the light and left. Another reason is I have no money.

The Beauty Shop is described as a series of musical snapshots in the life of a serial killer. Is it based on anyone in particular or is this a fictional character of your own invention?

It’s an amalgamation. It’s a metaphor for this culture in the Divided States of America. It’s my mom. It’s me. The serial killer and the victim is often the same. If you look closely, from a certain angle, they might look similar. I like to watch murder documentary series on the ID channel like Evil Lives Here, or Family Massacre (these are real shows) and it feels like therapy to me. I feel at home in them. Yes, from the years of abuse I lived through, but simultaneously when I was a child I thought I might be a serial killer myself because I had no feelings. I had had to cut them off.

The idea of creating multiple videos to illustrate the album fits perfectly with the narrative concept. Was this something you always intended to do when writing it or did the visuals come later?

When I was recording the album I would get a core visual for a song, something I knew I wanted to centre everything else around. With Life Kills I kept seeing heads falling back into shampoo bowls like in a guillotine. With Your Mouth is Going to Get you In All Kinds of Trouble it was the vomiting up curlers and other beauty shop accoutrements. With Sue Veneer I knew I wanted to fly. With Sara Get the Baby, it was babies coming out of ovens between my legs. Just basic things like that. Then they get fleshed out, in often surprising ways when I’m making them. I’m going to make two more videos for the album. Almost finished with the next one and it started the same way: one core idea that is spinning into other ideas.

I remember seeing pro-choice protest art using the coat hanger as an iconKristeen Young in the mid ’90s, imagery you evoke now in your song Life Kills. Does it feel incomprehensible that we are in a position where this is still politically relevant?

Absolutely, my whole life… probably your whole life… we’ve heard the Roe v. Wade argument surface every few years… like a threat? Like a weapon? I mean, I always think “we’ve discussed this more than fully, can we move on PLEASE? There are other important things to get done.” And now they finally did it. And of course it’s really just a situation of not having SAFE abortion for working class and poor people. Rich people and middle class will be able to go somewhere, in a medically secure environment where a professional doctor performs the abortion. It will just be the rest of us who suffer. Typical. SO UN-civilised. SO backwards. SO 19th Century.

In a similar vein, Sara Get the Baby deals with the subject of commercial surrogacy. This remains something of a taboo subject in contemporary feminism, in part due to how it intersects with gay adoption. Do you believe surrogacy is unethical in all scenarios, or is it something that can be legislated around to prevent exploitation?

I heard people in the media, or tv shows, or podcasts, whatever, I observe and listen. But, I heard people, all kinds of people, talking about “their surrogates” never the person’s name. And they’d talk about all their reasons for using a surrogate (usually a rich woman or person talking) and I just started writing them down. So almost all of the lyrics for Sara Get the Baby were REAL things I heard people who were using surrogates say. I’m not presenting an opinion. I’m presenting you with phrases people said and you can decide what they mean to you. It’s that kind of song: a reflection. I’m not involved. But we COULD maybe grow other things inside of you. It’s scientific.

You have an impressive back catalogue including collaborations with artists like Bowie, Morrissey and Tony Visconti, yet you still have the raw energy of a new artist. How do you keep your passion for performing and recording at full speed?

I love NOW. It’s important to be cognisant of now and what is going on. I don’t look back very much. I hate nostalgia. I love ideas, I want to grow. I want to learn something new with everything I do. I never think anything is good enough or I’ve arrived at anything. In fact I hate everything I’ve done. Fuck Bowie. Fuck Morrissey. Who needs TV when you’ve got yourself? Do you know what I mean?

You sing into a literal hairbrush in your video, what was your favourite ‘hairbrush song’ as a kid?

I never sang into a hairbrush as a kid. But, I did grow up singing to Teena Marie, and an old Renaissance record (Live at Carnegie Hall) because both of the singers had high voices like me. Annie Haslam was the singer in Renaissance. I always regard these two singers as being my teachers. I hate to even narrow it down to two artists because I’m really influenced by so many people and so much music. But, I used these singers songs as vocal exercises – and Prince records. And this was when I was very young, that time period. 12?

From: https://louderthanwar.com/kristeen-young-interview/