Edie Brickell & New Bohemians - Live Copley Square, Boston 2006

Edie Brickell has a dream. It's not to be rich, famous or even well-liked. Nor is it to save the whales, free political prisoners or feed the hungry.Surprise: She wants to be an old-fashioned mom. Although she says she'll probably always be a performer, or at least an artiste of some sort, she says she ultimately wants something "more important" out of life.
"What's important is creating a family basis," she said in a recent telephone interview. "Family relations are more important than relations with an audience. It's something you can go home to. Something you can trust. It's not something where they're going to love you one minute and not the next."
A convenient stance, the cynic might say, given that Brickell and her band, New Bohemians, are on deck for a Sunday night stop in Utah - arguably the homeland for traditional moms.
And yet, Brickell sounds utterly serious, if perhaps a bit naive, about her family goals. And even her naivete is mitigated largely by her acknowledgment that her view of families is an idealized one, likely born from the inadequacies of her own upbringing. "Sometimes people want to create the family they didn't have," she admits.
What kind of family did she have? She grew up in what press releases describe as a "lower-middle-class suburb" in Dallas. She lived mainly with her working mother who had divorced her father, a professional bowler, when Edie was very young. She attributes her shyness - which is evident on stage in her awkward, stiff-legged singing poses - to growing up in bowling alleys, moving frequently and being forced to attend many different schools.
Given her bashfulness, it's surprising she ever broke into a business where ostentation is a way of life. And, in fact, Brickell can only describe it as "inspiration" (fueled by a shot of Jack Daniels) that led her to make her impromptu singing debut at a Dallas night club early one morning in 1985. On a dare, she joined the British-influenced ska band called New Bohemians onstage And while she sang mainly improvised, sometimes nonsensical lyrics, the band members liked her so much they asked her to join.
Still, Brickell admits she's not entirely comfortable with the performance aspect of her chosen craft. She says she prefers writing songs to recording and touring. The main reason, she says, is that it's sometimes difficult to recapture onstage the emotion of a song she wrote years ago. "I'm more interested in new ideas and new songs," she said.
That urge to do something different is evident on their newest album, "Ghost of a Dog," which features songs that are more up-tempo and percussive than the band's 1988 debut album, "Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars," which spawned a top-10 single ("What I Am") and was ranked the 10th best album of the year by Rolling Stone magazine.
But being different, especially after a successful album, is a risky proposition. The "if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it" philosophy dominates the pop music industry, and many bands find that forging this year's rec-ord in the image of last year's blockbuster is an easy way to financial success. And being different has had a price for Brickell and New Bohemians. "Ghost of a Dog" peaked at 32 on Billboard's list of top 100 albums and has since disappeared from radar.
But Brickell is nonplussed. The less-stellar success of "Ghost" was not a surprise, she said, "because the first one really went on to sell more than anyone expected. It had more of a pop feel. But we felt like, `Let's not repeat ourselves.' And we knew whatever we did would sell a little." It's perhaps the desire not to repeat herself that urges Brickell to contemplate her future family.
"I don't want to be the same," she said. "I don't like it when I have same thoughts. If I found someone who I could agree with, maybe, I would hope, I would be married in some kind of dependent relationship. I want to be a woman who has a career, but who has enough time to focus on the kids and not send them away."  From: https://www.deseret.com/1991/4/12/18915011/brickell-wants-to-be-traditional-mom/

Counting Crows - Catapult - Live TV 1996

A Counting Crows show always features unique versions of your songs, as the band often follows your lead on stage, which always appears to be extemporaneous. You get into an emotional state and you take a song into different directions, which is remarkable when considering how many musicians you work with.

Adam Duritz: Oh, yeah. That’s exactly how it happens. The first time you try something it might not be all that good, but as you work it through more and more you get better at finding your way. But they’re good. It would be impossible if we weren’t. Listening is really everything for us. It’s a big thing in our band. It’s like they say about jazz and soul music, it’s more important what you don’t play than what you do play. I would probably phrase that more like, “It’s more important how you listen on stage than what you play on stage,” because no matter how good you are as a player, if you’re not listening to the other guys, it’s a train wreck, especially in a band like ours, where there’s so much improvisation. It’s not like solo improvisation, more like necessary group improvisation. You really have to listen and that’s the thing we really kind of beat into each other’s heads for a long time.

I always get the feeling that you are kind of leading the band down the proverbial rabbit hole, and once the song gets in there, now it can go anywhere.

Yes. It makes it a little dangerous to not listen for me too because people will do things and on top of it, it’s messy. That’s the one thing in our band that everyone will call you out on, just not paying attention. Also a lot of things that may seem like me leading down the rabbit hole, might have been me hearing something cool someone else did that was a small thing, maybe too simple for anyone else to have heard or for the audience to have noticed it, but that might have given me an idea. It’s not like I’m the one coming up with the ideas every time. It probably sounds like it is, but probably a lot of times; it’s someone else doing something kind of cool that I hear and then I start something different and then that’s the part you hear, or the audience hears because it’s a little more obvious when the vocal does it. I suppose I’m the one making the decisions to take everyone down the rabbit hole with me, but I’m often inspired by just something little someone else did—or not so little. Little is the wrong word. Just something cool that someone else did.

That reminds me of your putting “Thunder Road” in the middle of “Rain King,” and I remember you doing it back in ’97 in Jersey and I thought, “This is perfect. It’s a homage to Springsteen.” But then it became part of what you did with the song, and after we did our first interview in 2008 you played that Apple show downtown in SoHo and you did it again, but this time it was a different way of utilizing it. When you include a verse or even a chorus of one song, maybe yours, maybe another’s, how predetermined or organic is that idea?

Could be a little of both. It could be an idea that comes while I’m on stage. The “Thunder Road” thing is a perfect example. I just started doing it one day, and granted, “Thunder Road” is one of those songs that without thinking about it we kind of know it from start to finish. It’s so dynamic in the way it builds that you kind of know most of the words. Even if you didn’t bother to learn them, they’re in your head. I was never really in cover bands very much. I never played “Thunder Road” in a band, but I started singing it that day. The first time I did it I only got about a third of the way through. No matter how well you know “Thunder Road” I’m singing it to the music of “Rain King” and that can get confusing.

(Laughs) Right.

You know? The next night I got a little further through it and eventually I put almost the whole thing in there. But it took a few days to do that. And sometimes you just get an idea while you’re singing something, like just a melody from another song will seem really cool in there, but the first time you do it you might not have the focus or the wherewithal to think of that melody in the context of the different song and also remember the words. The funny thing is a lot of times when we remember songs we remember them because of their melodies too, so when you try to sing them over a different song it can make your head spin around a little bit. 

From: https://www.theaquarian.com/2016/07/27/views-from-the-road-the-adam-duritz-interview-counting-crows-frontman-reveals-the-bands-unique-performing-secrets-his-love-of-creative-spontaneity-and-remembers-david-bowie-and-prince/ 

Mamalarky - Mythical Bonds / Shining Armor

 Mamalarky - Mythical Bonds

 

 Mamalarky - Shining Armor

 

Mamalarky have shared new single ‘Mythical Bonds’. The band have been through some changes, using the pandemic to decamp from Los Angeles to their new base in Atlanta, Georgia. Constructing a home studio in the Southern city, work began on their new album, slated to land later this year.
Titled ‘Pocket Fantasy’, the album is out on September 30th via Fire Talk, a work of unified creativity driven forwards by mutual support. New single ‘Mythical Bonds’ is a twisting, turning indie rock stomper, complete with a killer chorus.
Ambar Navarro directs the visuals, a fun-filled dive into the world of Mamalarky. Lyrically, the song is about friendship, with vocalist Livvy Bennett saluting band mate – and original Atlanta resident – Noor Khan.
“I really needed to write something to accurately show Noor how much her friendship means to me, and our journey as musicians and friends,” Livvy reflects. “We need more songs about friendship. In peak album-making mode we were churning out songs, at times to the point of delirium. So we decided to shake ourselves loose and make this serotonin rock song about how much we love each other–to push past all those hunched-over studio hours and create this little summer memento.” 
“At the time we were having a lot of pond, lake and pool-side hangs, laughter under the beating heat. At the end of those days all we wanted to do was come home and synthesise those feelings in our studio.”  From: https://www.clashmusic.com/news/mamalarky-return-with-punchy-indie-rocker-mythical-bonds/

Mamalarky are continuing to make some of the more unique versions of indie rock out there today. The band's latest single, "Shining Armor," is this bizarro version of R&B mixed with indie rock. It has this light yet funky feel to it, and unlike most indie rock, this one is actually a fun song. It's very danceable, as long as you don't mind dancing awkwardly to a rapidly changing beat. "Shining Armor" is reminding me of a more laid back version of Guerilla Toss. It's a noisy and chaotic song that is oddly pleasant and almost soothing at times.
Singer Livvy Bennett says of the new song: "This song goes out to conveniently anonymous YouTube haters. 'Shining Armor' is an invitation for anyone who has shit to say about how I play guitar to go ahead and reveal themselves and play a little song for us! When I wrote this I was getting a bunch of comments about my gender and appearance and how that corresponds with how I play guitar. The only response was to covert that anger into something that's genuinely so fun to play."  From: https://www.ifitstooloud.com/2022/09/mamalarky-shining-armor.html

 

Clutch - Burning Beard

There’s a name for us Clutch fans: ‘Gearheads’. not so much fans, as disciples – devotees, believers, if you will. Obsessives, even. If Clutch had started a cult instead of a band in ’91 then make no mistake, there’d be an awful lot of crazies holed up in Maryland, West Virginia, waiting for the mothership to beam them up. They’re that good. Indeed, with two decades of music and nine studio albums, not including compilations and rarities, it’s no stretch to put them among the company of the greatest rock’n’roll bands of our time. Really, they’re that good.
Like all the true greats, whatever their influences, from hardcore to blues and beyond, there is something about Clutch that puts them in a genre of one, often copied, never bettered. Moreover, they’ve managed to retain that pre-internet mystique, the stuff that builds urban legend and fills websites: “What does that lyric mean? Where can I find that secret track?”
The geek element that draws record collectors like moths. It doesn’t hurt that frontman Neil Fallon, the son of a military father, is a lyrical genius. He’s what Bill Hicks would have called “a reader”; a lot of sci-fi, but keenly aware of politics, too smart for regular rock’n’roll and with the onstage aura of some snakehandling, backwoods, hellfire and damnation preacher. Oh yes, there would be a lot of us holed up in West Virginia, armed to the teeth and looking up at the night sky: “Tell us when, oh wise and heavily bearded one!” It’s probably a good thing they formed a band, though it may not have been wise to inflict an unrepentant Gearhead upon Mr Fallon for over an hour, with questions to spare.
“We were in grade school together, then we went to high school together,” begins Neil on the 20-year lineup that’s completed by guitarist Tim Sult, bass player Dan Maines and drummer Jean-Paul Gaster. “We had different manifestations of rock bands: one week we’d be into metal and the next it was hardcore, so we’d rename the band and redraw the logo. The music we were listening to was hard to get; you had to pursue bands like Minor Threat, even though we only lived 30 miles from DC. And that was not the popular music at our school – neither was Slayer! It was very much a minority of people into metal, punk rock and hardcore. In 1991 the band was called Glut Trip and they had a different singer, this guy named Roger, and he couldn’t make a show, so I got asked to fill in, only because I’d jammed with them a year prior in high school.” By October 1991, the band, thankfully having changed their name to Clutch, put out their first record, a barbarically heavy four-track EP, on 7-inch vinyl, titled Pitchfork, on Inner Journey Records. Immediately, they stood out from the pack.
“We wrote those four songs in a couple of days. That was the first time I’d ever been in a recording studio,” recalls Neil. “The sounds you hear on the 7-inch is a lot of Prong, Bad Brains, Cro-Mags, maybe not obviously, but that’s what we were listening to. We were very into noise bands, labels like Amphetamine Reptile, and we were huge fans of Swans.”
Another EP followed in ’92, the colossal Passive Restraints on Earache. They had been getting interest from several labels including ATCO, East/West and some majors, and had no idea which way to go. Earache, being from England, was seen as ‘exotic’ and meant they’d be labelmates with Godflesh, who they loved.
“It was a very confusing time for us, as far as what a good business move would be,” admits Neil. “We just figured they [Earache] must know more about this kind of music. Thankfully it was just a one-off deal.” Ironically for a band so drama-free, (just one lineup change when keyboard player Mick Schauer joined in 2005 and left in 2008, with no ill feelings) the one thing they’ve continuously had a problem with is labels. Their debut album, Transnational Speedway League, on East/West in 1993, was no exception: while Beavis and Butt-head were going righteously nuts over the video for A Shogun Named Marcus, the label had no clue what to do with them.
“That was always the case with us and labels,” agrees Neil. “Our exposure on mainstream media was always through a back channel, never through a topdown, ‘this is gonna be the band we push’ scenario. All those labels were signing bands like it was going out of style: they were dropping hair bands and signing punk bands, grunge bands, and everything in between, and we were one of those bands. Their hopes were that we were gonna be multi-platinum, and obviously that didn’t work out and we got dropped. We just scratched our heads and went, ‘What were they thinking in the first place?’
“In hindsight, we were all babes in the woods, going to these high-rise offices with multi-platinum records on the walls. As much as we considered ourselves down to earth and well grounded, it does confuse you. But getting validation from [Beavis And Butt-head creator] Mike Judge was much more gratifying and effective, because it showed that people do like this band even though your [sales] may not be reflecting a meteoric rise to fame and fortune.”
Written in two phases between New York and San Francisco’s Razor’s Edge studio, (“because that’s where the Melvins were recording, and we were huge fans”), Transnational Speedway League, the primal hardcore root of the band, remains a classic; so heavy and intense that urban myth insists they had to stop playing Binge And Purge because audiences would kick the crap out of each other.
“With any urban myth there’s an element of truth with a lot of exaggeration wrapped around it,” allows Neil. “It became one of those things where people wanted to hear it because we weren’t playing it. I think, because there’s a huge barrage of curse words at the end of it, it’s seen as a moshpit classic, and I can recollect that the day I wrote those lyrics was the day we recorded them. I hadn’t written anything for it and finally I locked myself in the bathroom of the hotel and wrote the lyrics up until 20 minutes before tracking. I think that’s how my frustration with the song manifested itself, but we always knew that we weren’t the kind of band that got off on seeing violence in the pit. Maybe I was trying to reflect angry bands because I liked that music, but I ran out of that juice really quickly and I realised that I couldn’t fake it. It’s exhausting! I think we realised that heavy doesn’t necessarily equate to angry, you can still have a good time while you’re doing it.”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/getting-validation-from-beavis-and-butt-head-was-much-more-gratifying-it-showed-that-people-do-like-this-band-even-if-your-sales-may-not-reflect-fame-and-fortune-how-stoner-rock-enigmas-clutch-became-metals-favourite-weirdbeards

 

Burdon Folk Band - Zozulenka

The Burdon Folk Band  was founded in 2002 in Lviv (Lwów, Lemberg), Western Ukraine with an aim to play music inspired by eastern european and carpathian folklore. We're using acoustic folk instruments for the best reproduction of atmosphere of old dances which didn't change through centuries. But our music is not a real authentic reflection, we play modern folklore. We don't invent any new tunes, we play old and often very famous ones, with our own arrangement and modern influences.
We've started from nordic folk music. Also the band is working upon european folk and old dance music. The range of our ethnic interests is not limited to a certain region only, so we play also Belgian, English, French & Italian tunes. And our latest interests includes traditional music of Carpathian region (Hungary, Moldavia and of course, Ukraine).  From: https://burdon.lviv.ua/en.html 

Cobalt Chapel - In Company

Yorkshire, UK duo Cobalt Chapel recently released their second album, Orange Synthetic, and it’s a wonderful contemporary progressive take on the psychedelic music of the 1960s. It has fresh production values with lush textures and glowing vocals. So who are Cobalt Chapel? Cecilia Fage (from Matt Berry & The Maypoles) and Jarrod Gosling (from I Monster). Gosling also happens to make the album artwork for Tim Bowness‘ solo albums. 
Fage’s vocals are the clear centerpiece of the album, and her voice is absolutely stunning. It’s treated with some echoey effects that give it a choral feeling, which matches the aesthetic implied by the band’s name. The album sounds fantastic, with the vocals and music clear, clean, and distinct. The various organs and keyboards are the primary musical sounds, with their textures swirling around the listeners head as Fage sings in the center. The guitar, drums, and soft bass complete the psychedelic sound. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better-sounding album out today. It is mixed very well with everything easy to pick out. Nothing is muddled. You can even make out the clicking of keys or buttons on whatever instrument Gosling is playing at the end of “A Father’s Lament.” There’s a slight hum in the background at that point which makes you feel like you’re in the room with him as he closes out the song. The whole record is really a pleasure to listen to.
There are folk elements to the music, with the album being influenced by Yorkshire itself. The song “E.B.” sounds the most folky, with instruments kept to a relative minimum and Fage’s voice carrying the brief track. Overall though the music retains a psychedelic vibe through heavy use of keyboards and organs, along with very 60s-sounding drums and guitars. The music is much more upbeat than the type of psychedelic music I’m more familiar with, though. It isn’t as spacey, although there are times when it sounds like they’re about to launch into the spacier side of this corner of rock music. They never quite get there all the way, except for on “Cry A Spiral,” which is the spaciest track on the record. Even on that song the ending is heavier and more lush-sounding, ending with a light touch of saxophone and various organs. Melody takes a central position on the album, which is perhaps what makes this album so appealing on repeated listens. You’re left feeling refreshed after listening to Orange Synthetic. 
If I had to make one complaint, it’s that I would have preferred some longer extended instrumental sections. The end of the first track, “In Company,” breaks into what sounds like it’s going to be a wonderfully psychedelic Floydian soundscape, but then it breaks off suddenly. The second track similarly fades out as it enters an instrumental passage. The third track does the same thing. It drops into the beginning of a 1960s-style psychedelic mood, yet it cuts off after a few brief seconds. At about 43 minutes in length, I think there’s room on the album for some longer musical exploration. They set the listener up for it, but they leave me longing for that instrumental space to breathe.  From: https://progarchy.com/2021/02/21/album-review-cobalt-chapels-orange-synthetic/ 

Collapsing Scenery - Let’s Burn Down the Cornfield

Through the early 2000s, Pennsylvania-born and New York City-based Don Devore played in many local bands, including punk rockers the Icarus Line, indie guitar band the Lilys, rockers Amazing Baby, theatrical band Ink & Dagger, and electronic group Historics; he is also a curator for the Brooklyn arts space Trans Pecos. Texas native and Los Angeles resident Reggie Debris doubles as Mickey Madden, bassist for Maroon 5. They met in Los Angeles and reconnected in London while each was touring. In 2013, the two musicians started a new band, Collapsing Scenery, with a goal of casting aside the stringed instruments on which they had first learned to play music and on which they were comfortable and versed. Instead, they assembled an array of analog electronics -- samplers, step sequencers, synths and drum machines -- all supplemented by effects pedals. It did not mean they were not going to abandon traditional instruments; it meant they were going to create untraditional music. Collapsing Scenery performed at art installations and underground clubs, and recorded music independently. Collapsing Scenery will release its debut album, Stress Positions, on June 28, 2019.
Collapsing Scenery celebrated the announcement of its pending album release with a free performance tonight at Home Sweet Home. Debris as vocalist and Devore as multi-instrumentalist, along with a drummer, Ryan Rapsys, crossed the lines of futurist electro, goth, industrial, techno, post-punk, chillwave and darkwave with haunting vocals and a hard pulsing beat. Abrasive, aggressive and jolting, the performance seemed to border the fine line between sanity and insanity, with Devore ranting on social injustices as Debris challenged the listener with a mix of conflictingly coarse and meditative soundscapes. Collapsing Scenery has built on the sounds pioneered by Suicide, Swans, and Sonic Youth in the 1980s and taken them one more step further over the edge for some creative and engaging experiments in noise rock.  From: https://www.themanhattanbeat.com/2019/04/collapsing-scenery-at-home-sweet-home.html

The Bateleurs - Since I've Been Loving You (Led Zeppelin cover)

The Portuguese band The Bateleurs presents a live performance/studio rehearsal of the classic Led Zeppelin song "Since I've Been Loving You" (1970), as part of their Namouche Sessions, a series of videos where they play their favorite songs and rock classics. The voice of The Bateleurs' vocalist, Sandrine Orsini, is one of the group's most striking features. Her voice combines soul and strength, carrying the weight of emotions with ease and soaring with an almost spiritual intensity, especially in moments where the interpretation demands emotional weight—a trait that naturally suits a song like "Since I've Been Loving You," which is essentially a deep blues.  Translated from: https://www.ecletismomusical.pt/en/cover-the-bateleurs-since-ive-been-loving-you-led-zeppelin-cover/ 

Young Widows - Call Bullshit

B.G.M. – Young Widows have been a favorite band of mine for some time now. The thing that first struck me when I heard your music was just the overall dark, tight, and heavy feel. What are some of the influences that shaped the band’s sound?

Evan Patterson – Appreciate the kind words. Influences come and go. Today, I might want to make a song inspired by Furry Lewis. Tomorrow, a song inspired by Throbbing Gristle. But most of the time, we get together and create with no direction or purpose other than to solely create new music that we feel compelling.

How have the various side projects Old Baby, Early Age, or Jaye Jayle affected Young Widows sound or writing process?

Jaye Jayle and Old Baby have highly affected me. The writing process for Young Widows is basically still the same, but since starting my other bands, I’m more open to using my voice as if it was an additional instrument. Words and lyric are valid and equally as important. The melody is why I listen to and create music. It took years for me to understand what I’m capable of. I attribute the majority of my progression to Kevin Ratterman’s influence during the recording of In and Out of Youth and Lightness and Jonathan Wood, who is my fellow bandmate in Old Baby and Jaye Jayle.

Easy Pain seems to combine the ferociousness of Old Wounds, with the slow minimal somberness of In and Out of Youth and Lightness. How would you say the new album fits in with your overall sound?

Fits like a glove.

Describe the writing and recording process for Easy Pain.

We can’t give away our secrets.

My favorite track off of the new album is “Doomed Moon”, I love the intro and how heavy the song is right out of the gates! What are you doing to create the noise at the beginning of the song? Is it just a guitar effect?

Thanks again. I have these loop pedals, a reverb pedal, and a volume nob on my guitar. Twist and stomp and there you have it. 

Do you have any favorite songs from the new album?

The “Last Young Widow” is probably the most pleased I’ve been with the use of a poem that I wrote last year and a riff that I’ve had for 4 or 5 years lingering in the back of my mind. When songs come together with such ease, that’s what I like to call “magic”.

Easy Pain only consists of eight tracks. This is an aspect that I really enjoy about your albums, they are very concise and devoid of any ‘filler tracks’. Is this intentional? Or do you tend to only include the songs you’ve written during a certain writing session?

Ideally, we intend to project a mood that doesn’t get disrupted. Even if we might be happier with a song that doesn’t make the cut for the album sequence than songs that made the cut, the mood is always the most important.

The artwork for all of your albums seem to be variations of each other. Is there anything behind the ongoing theme for your cover art?

No theme, besides visual cohesion. 

Any chance I can get a custom variation drawn up so I can get it as a tattoo?

I have no control or say in what anyone chooses to tattoo or get tattoos of. 

Young Widows have been releasing music through Temporary Residence for your past three albums. How did this relationship come to be?

Jeremy (deVine) was raised in Louisville and I met him when I was 11 or 12 skateboarding outside of a show. 2007 I wrote him and email, we reconnected. Eventually, we began to work together.

The band premiered / played Easy Pain in its entirety back in January way before the release date. How did this idea come about? 

Saint Vitus Bar, invited us to play two shows. We decided to perform Easy Pain. It’s that simple.

You guys have recently been on tour where you have been playing Old Wounds in its entirety. What was the motivation behind this, does it take you back in time?

Performing Old Wounds was enjoyable. I don’t see us doing that again in the near future. Performing our most recently written music is always our preference. 

You just finished a tour with Helms Alee and recently released a split 12” with them. Are you good friends with the band? Are these songs outtakes from Easy Pain?

Ben (Verellen) and I met on my first west coast tour in 2000. He was playing bass and singing in Harkonen and I was playing guitar in The National Acrobat. Since then, we have toured with each others bands and been fortune enough to be able to share a large majority or our musical journeys together. Ben also built my guitar amplifiers.

You guys are playing Salt Lake City June 21st. Seriously stoked for this show. Do you have anything special planned for this tour?

Looking forward to stopping by. Every tour and every show is special. 

Any bands / albums out right now that you guys are really digging that we need to know about?

Recent records are a tough. I mostly listen to older records. The Mark Lanegan Anthology recently came out. I’ve been a fan for some years now, but it’d be a perfect introduction for a new listener.  Zomes most recent record speaks to me in ways that most music can’t and never will, it’s called Time Was. Been listening to Endless Boogie‘s Long Island pretty often and David Lynch’s The Big Dream got my vote for best album of 2013. That covers the past few years of new releases for me.

From: https://beardedgentlemenmusic.com/2014/06/20/interview-young-widows/ 

Færy - Blýth

Liana Cornell seems to do it all. An actor, writer, environmentalist, and award-winning filmmaker, she has dipped her toes into a plethora of creative industries and truly given her all to each. Now, as she embarks on an exciting music career as færy, she once again dives headfirst into the art form, putting her heart and soul into her work. Following five years of musical studies, delving into the therapeutic concept of sound healing through solfeggio frequencies, she reveals her debut single, “blýth”.
A cinematic masterpiece, “blýth” offers listeners an immersive, transformative, and healing experience. Reaching the body’s energy centres through medicinal instruments, specific frequencies, patterns, and repetition, the sound promotes cellular regeneration and relaxation. To represent this visually, Liana worked with Tom Dream, a director known for his work with Gucci, Arlo Parks, and North Face. It celebrates nature and feminine energy in a magical, mystical video.  From: https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2023/07/20/premiere-faery/

The Raconteurs - Hands / Level

 The Raconteurs - Hands

 

 The Raconteurs - Level

 

The Raconteurs formed in 2005 as a side project initiated by Jack White of The White Stripes and Brendan Benson, both Detroit-based musicians seeking to explore rock influences beyond their primary bands. The collaboration began when White and Benson, longtime acquaintances who had first met around 1998, co-wrote an early song during a summer session in an attic, sparking the idea to develop material together. To complete the lineup, they recruited bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler, both from the local band The Greenhornes, forming a quartet of established artists drawn from the Detroit rock scene. The band's name originated from Benson's reference to "raconteur," a term for a skilled storyteller, which he suggested during discussions about their songwriting approach that emphasized narrative elements.[10] White embraced the moniker, noting its alignment with his interest in embedding storytelling into rock compositions, as seen in influences like traditional folk tales. Positioned as a low-pressure outlet without rigid expectations, the project allowed the members to experiment freely, contrasting their more structured commitments elsewhere. The Raconteurs were publicly announced in early 2006, coinciding with the rapid development and recording of their debut album, Broken Boy Soldiers, from which the track "Hands" emerged as a prominent song.[9] This formation marked a supergroup dynamic rooted in mutual respect and shared regional ties, setting the stage for their collaborative output.
The song "Hands" emerged from the collaborative songwriting efforts of Jack White and Brendan Benson during the development of The Raconteurs' debut album Broken Boy Soldiers in late 2005. Benson contributed initial ideas, including just a single line for the track, which White and the duo refined together without either bringing fully completed songs to the table. This process took place amid informal sessions in a Detroit attic during a hot summer, where White and Benson built upon each other's fragments in a "dual-rock" style, drawing from rock influences such as Deep Purple and Thin Lizzy to create dense, layered compositions. The refinements emphasized harmonious elements inspired by The Beatles' Revolver, allowing White to explore multi-part vocals beyond his White Stripes work, while the lyrics centered on themes of human connection, evolving the song into a key piece of the album's rock and garage-infused sound. Initial demos captured this experimental approach, with the band deciding to position "Hands" as the second single following the lead track "Steady, As She Goes," released on July 31, 2006, to highlight its melodic accessibility within the album's broader creative arc.  From: https://grokipedia.com/page/hands_the_raconteurs_song 

Hedningarna - Tuuli / Vottikaalina

 Hedningarna - Tuuli

 

 Hedningarna - Vottikaalina

 

Hedningarna 1989-2003: This fascinating retrospective of the Nordic group Hedningarna is a real eye-opener. This innovative group has been together in for 14 years, mixing heavy rock with often dark- sounding Swedish and Finnish folk music, all propelled by swirling, relentless dance beats and trance programming. This collection provides a sample from each of their five albums, each one apparently another shifting incarnation in their continuing evolution. To say they’ve come up with a tremendously rich amalgam would be a failed description, as their music is just stunning. They’re genuinely breaking new ground, and their sound is like nothing I have ever heard before. They’re well known favorites on the rave circuit in the U.S. and abroad, and I can only wonder where have I been that I’ve never heard Hedningarna before this? Well, not ravin’ with the Sámi, obviously, though now I somehow think I should have been.
Drones, gutsy fiddles, a keyed fiddle, hurdy gurdys, Swedish bagpipes, strange medieval instruments, snappy snares, frame drums, subsonic bass drum, Jew’s harp, and crazed electric guitar are some of the instrumentation. The twin female voices carrying the melodies are sharp as glass and make good use the polyphonic Finnish Kareli, singing in close harmony. But even though I can recognize some of the elements, I can’t easily describe the music and that’s a rather humbling experience. Some critics label them as “modern Swedish folk music”, which sounds rather too generic and tame for this group. There are times when Hedningarna come across with a brutal raw sound (their name means “Heathens, after all), especially when driven by vicious beats. That dark blood courses beneath a skin of complex and sophisticated arrangement. So it is a canny combination of the throbbing pulse and the surface beauty that causes a visceral reaction while engaging the sensibilities and head.
Arctic winds are brought to life by their Viking sounding horns. Their modal steps sometimes lend a menacing atmosphere to their music, but the rhythms are compelling. Hedningarna have dug deeply into the roots of Nordic folk music to reinvent it as something more than “drone-rock”. They’ve come up with a higher development, more like art-rock. There are times the Sámi yoiks sound like the chants of Native American singers, the fiddles sometimes carry a reminder of Appalachia, and the bagpipes can be every bit as mesmerizing and affecting as the East Indian drone. The music is all built on the steadiest pyramid of melody, drone, and rhythm, but the imagination of Hedningarna (and the listener) soars from there.
When reading through a list of nearly unpronounceable titles like “Ukkonen” or “Gorrlaus”, a prospective non-Nordic listener is better served just slipping in the disc. “Ukkonen” is a dark simple-sounding tune, carried by the beat of a deep echoing frame drum, twisting and twining female voices, a fluttering bamboo flute, and a keening Arabic-sounding flute. It matters not a whit the words are in (I guess) Finnish. The result is listening to a description of a completely different world, an echoing shifting mysterious view as seen from different eyes. I’ve since heard that many of Hedningarna’s songs are written as stories told by wilderness creatures — animals, wolves and horses, and the humans who live far apart from civilized society in a place where birds stare down from the skies.
You needn’t understand the words to get into the groove of kicking dance music. “Viktorin” is carried by tabla-sounding drums and a fiddle (I’m guessing a droning moraharpa); the sonic background of sweeping echoey distortions that suddenly sharpen into knife-sharp clarity is where Swedish folk dance meets Philip Glass. An instrumental kicking dance tune “Dolkaren” is driven by the rhythm of a gutbucket fiddle and accordion and has the fast clip pace of a horse trotting quickly through the snow. A few snaps of a whip in the crispy air lend to that vision. Anyone will want to start drifting into movement when hearing “Höglrofen” maybe even edge a bit too far into trance dancing, spinning like a cat chasing its tail, faster and faster until you melt into a pool of butter. For a laid-back hipster groove, Hedningarna heads to “Chicago”, a sprightly triad of mixed styles which moves from a beret-wearing jazzy flute trio sound into a rock and roll bounce that brings an image of the Mamas and Papas to mind before taking the next step in the musical evolution of rock, a long fuzzy electric slide guitar riff.  From: https://www.popmatters.com/hedningarna-19892003-2495937579.html

 

 

The Answer - Why'd You Change Your Mind

Sean: Hi Paul, it’s Sean from The Rockpit. How are you?

Paul Mahon: Great thanks mate.

Sean: Normally I would be sat in my office in sunny Perth in Western Australia but I’m currently sat in a kitchen in South East England with my laptop perched on a cooker hob, while linked to a old Samsung mobile hotspot and its 2 degrees centigrade outside [laughs].

Paul: It sounds grand [laughs].

Sean: Firstly, a huge congratulations for the new album ‘Sundowners’. It’s fantastic! Seven years we have had to wait and what a return.

Paul: Thank you. I’m so glad you liked it. When you say seven years it seems such a very long time and at one point I seriously thought we wouldn’t get the chance to do another record so I was very happy to get the call from our manager when Golden Robot got involved and we got the opportunity to reform the band again and record ‘Sundowners’. We were very happy to get the opportunity.

Sean: Do you think those seven years really helped freshen things up because the album sounds so vibrant.

Paul: Yeah, I certainly think so. We were probably allowed to be much more objective that we were before because with the break I really thought we wouldn’t get back together and as the years passed I kind of mentally removed myself from The Answer and it gave me the opportunity to give myself time to listen to the albums more as a fan which gave me a different perspective on things. I was keen to start writing again and it definitely influenced how we went about it. Any band who has done it for as long as we have and who have six albums under their belt gain a lot of experience and you kind of know what worked and what didn’t. You look at what you can change and do differently. Having that break allowed us to get in that head space and allowed us to come back at it from a different angle and much more reenergised. I think we have made a much better record than if we had just followed up right after ‘Solas’. It’s been really positive.

Sean: We were treated to the first single ‘Blood Brother’, which was absolutely superb and really whet out appetites from more, and just when we thought it couldn’t get any better the next two singles just teased us with how good ‘Sundowners’ was going to be. I’m still finding tracks on the album that sit forward even more for me. It’s so great when you listen to an album from start to finish and hear so many potential singles right there in front of you.

Paul: I think so too. ‘Want You To Love Me’, ‘Livin On The Line’… there were a couple of other tracks, maybe ‘Cold Heart’… they were talked about as being singles and maybe ‘All Together’ as well. We were quite fortunate that the songs came out that well, once we came to recording them. I also think there are some album tracks on there that are filler [laughs] – they don’t stand on their own as such and need a few listens to grow on you and give the album some longevity.

Sean: Funny you mention ‘Want You to Love Me’ as that is one of my favourites on the album at the moment.

Paul: OK, well that one came from one of the very first sessions we did once we got back together. It was one of the first riffs we did and that came out exactly the same on the album – we had that format straight away. It was actually one of the ones that we were sure if it would make the final cut.

Sean: Really?

Paul: Yeah, it was kind of one the B-list when we finally went into the studio but we listened to it when we got in there and we thought that we definitely had to give it a craic. I remember hearing it back for the first time once that backing vocals and keyboards were on it and I thought, “Oh wow! That’s incredible!” We knew we had something there. It’s so trashy it kind of  pulls a different kind of sonic for us which we have been trying to get on previous albums and never quite achieved it. I don’t know whether it was by accident or through producer Dan Weller who really helped to get us into a different kind of sonic that we have been trying to achieve before and never quite got exactly what we wanted, I think. Production-wise we are the happiest we have ever been than with all the albums we have done previously.

Sean: I see it was April 2022 that you guys headed into Middlefarm Studios in Devon. How was that chemistry like getting back together in the room after so long?

Paul: It was really good. I think to kind of step back from it a little bit was good for us. We met up for three sessions together before covid hit… we kind of knocked the cobwebs off by then and the chemistry was really flowing by then. It was a real bummer when covid hit because it kind of killed the momentum. After so long a break and getting back in to it and everything was good and we were all really excited, it suddenly looked like we might not get to finish what we started. I think there was uncertainty for everyone all over the world. We kept writing and talking over zoom, like we are now, once a week then we had one week together in August 2020 when we did some demos in Ireland and then we didn’t get to see each other for another year. We did the same thing across zoom, firing demos back and forth, got together in Ireland for a week and then went to Devon. So it was kind of a very different way preparing to write an album with zero pre-production and even with the producer Dan, we’d never actually met him in person until we arrived at the studio which is vastly different for us because we always did around three weeks pre-production with the producer in the past, you kind of really get to know them, know if it’s going to work or not. But this time we were all very relaxed and maybe in some ways not being super prepared this time allowed the songs to breath a bit more and allowed us to discover new things in the studio as we did it so your kind of hearing the same as we heard it for the first time, whereas before everything was really planned within an inch of its life. Maybe moving forward this is a better way for us to do it.

From: https://www.therockpit.net/2023/interview-paul-mahon-the-answer/ 

The Altogether - On Decatur Street

Q: The Altogether was founded in 2012, and you released 22 songs before your first EP in 2018. What did you learn as musicians during those six years?

Jonah Scott: I think I learned that I don’t belong anywhere in front of a camera! Before 2018 we were mostly releasing YouTube covers from various halls and dorm rooms at our school. We were learning how to strip back a song to its bare elements, how to make it work with just a guitar and one or two vocalists. Those years helped refine my idea of the “acoustic guitar test,” which is still the first way I measure good songwriting. If a song can survive being played with just an acoustic guitar and a singer, I know it can be something great. I was also in school for recording engineering at the time, so a big part of the pre-EP era was working towards making our music sound real.

Your 2018 debut Look Up featured Sierra Scott as a backing vocalist, and later that year, When We Were Kids featured Sierra as a lead vocalist. How has your sound changed since Sierra became a full member of the band?

I’ve known Sierra for a long time, so I’ve always had an idea of the shape of the puzzle we had to construct in order for her piece to fit right in. As a singer, she brings a particular purity in tone. Same with Brian [Gilbert, the Altogether’s third member]—they both balance out my rough edges vocally. Put her in front of a microphone and the sonic result is pure silver. 

You wrote, performed, produced, recorded, and mixed the Altogether’s most recent release—December 2020’s A Christmas Couplet. How was the artistic experience of working almost entirely alone?

In my creative work, it’s always been important to me to remove all excuses not to consistently release new stuff. First and foremost, I’m a writer and musician. But I realized early on that, if I never learned the technical side of music, there would always be a reason not to put songs in the world—“I don’t know any producers,” or “no one wants to work on my music,” or “engineers are too expensive.” I spent the last several years learning how to inhabit all those roles at once, which culminated in “A Christmas Couplet.” It’s very satisfying! And a lot of sitting. I should work out more. 

The band, which began in Baltimore, relocated recently to New York. How does the landscape of each city change your music?

It’s difficult to say! We haven’t played many live shows so far, and I think it would be exciting to feel the energies of different crowds in New York, in Baltimore, or elsewhere. For the moment, we are absolutely a studio band. I will say that our Baltimore-based music feels very different from our New York-based music, but that could be as much about time as place. In any case, both of those cities have my heart. Also, I am constantly looking for a path out of them—maybe our next release will be the result of me disappearing into a forest.

Aside from the band, what personal projects are each of you involved in?

Personally, I’m involved in trying to become the fastest cyclist in Brooklyn. Brian has been writing and producing some amazing video projects. He recently asked me to score his Youtube short “Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss”—it’s a hell of a ride. He is also biking fast, but in a stationary way. Sierra will have her own solo album out soon, which I’m producing! She doesn’t generally ride a bike, so at least there’s one person I am definitely faster than.

Look Up features “Sophie,” one of your most well-known tracks. What do you think draws listeners to this song in particular?

It’s interesting, isn’t it? Maybe all the listeners are named Sophie. We’ve clearly cornered the Sophie market. 
In all seriousness—I’m not sure! I wrote that song before anybody was truly listening. So, whatever it is about “Sophie” that makes people press “replay,” I do believe it came from a very raw, genuine place. There wasn’t any pressure for the song to be something it didn’t want to be. And, at the end of the day, I think Brian’s voice does a lot to elevate the emotion that runs through the track.

Describe your music as three books you’ve read in the past year.

This year I’ve been on a major kick of only reading the biographies and autobiographies of my heroes—many of them musicians. So, I don’t think I can answer without being pretentious! That said, if someone else feels like describing the Altogether as the biographies of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Elton John, and Bruce Lee, then please, be my guest. 

“Slowly,” featuring Karen Han, forms a bridge between melancholy and hope—a common thematic thread in your lyrics. What draws you to emotional liminality?

Brian and I are interested in telling as complete a narrative as we can in the space of three or five minutes. When you shout out your side of the story, what echoes back? For every person who had a miserable 2020, who stumbled upon some small triumph? Especially in a song like “Slowly,” which was rush-released as a single at a crisis point in our country, we wanted to reflect and look forward at once. I suppose we’re drawn to emotional liminality because, at times, anything less feels like a lie. 

From: https://www.halfmystic.com/blog/the-altogether

Strawbs - The Midnight Special 1975

Probably the most under-rated Strawbs album, "Ghosts" was certainly not nearly as successful as it should have been commercially. The numerous line up changes which seemed to be a feature of just about every album appeared to give the band fresh impetus each time, thus "Ghosts" had a great diversity of music, from almost fragile beauty, to very powerful pomposity.
The opening (title) track is similar in structure to "Autumn" which opened the previous album, "Hero and Heroine". It is however much darker, and heavier reflecting the "nightmare" lyrics. The three parts flow together seamlessly, with a menacing nightmare sequence before cumulating in the melodic awakening.
"The life auction" has some excellent guitar riffs, the track building quickly from the "Visions of Southall from the train" prelude, an odd multi tracked Betjamin like recital of poetry describing a less than scenic portrait of this area of West London. As the short narrative ends, Dave Cousins bursts in, his full voice almost a-cappella, the awesome power of the band only arriving for the instrumental verses. The song is bombastic, acidic, and certainly one of the most powerful pieces the band has ever done. Think along the lines of the "New world" track performed at double the speed. For the middle section, the track enters a mellower phase, with cascading keyboards and soft guitar, before returning for a magnificent climactic ending. Surely one of the Strawbs most under appreciated tracks in their entire catalogue.
With these two tracks ("Ghosts" and "The life Auction"), alone running to over 15 minutes, the band were moving further and further from their folk roots, in to superb melodic prog.
The final two tracks are somewhat softer, "You and I" is a lovely soft atmospheric piece reflecting on younger days. It builds subtly to a beautifully harmonic middle section. "Grace Darling" you either love or you hate, there really is no middle ground here. With its choir backing and swirling keyboards I love it, even if the lyrics are a bit on the soppy side! A great album which probably demands more attention than any other Strawbs release. I say this because it is not as immediately accessible as much of the Strawbs output; that in many ways is what makes it so appealing.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=2917

Crumbling Ghost - Four - Full Album

01 - Bows of London
02 - Bill Norrie
03 - Valtz Efter Tor Lohne
04 - Lovely Joan
05 - Wassail
06 - Last of All Sleep
07 - The Unquiet Grave
08 - Billy Mill

Doom/Stoner Rockers Crumbling Ghost return in spectacular fashion with their latest record Four which is obviously their fourth full length record and their first in a decade. This record has a heavier and diverse array of Doom, Stoner, Fuzz and Folk melodies that’s strengthened by the band’s great use of warped psychedelics and space rock attitude. I always feel that the band never got the recognition they truly deserve for helping to establish the modern day UK Stoner Rock sound that’s benefited so many great bands of late. 
This isn’t Crumbing Ghost playing catch up, this is the band solidifying their reputation as one of the true original bands the UK underground rock scene currently has right now. Four offers a refreshing take on that modern Stoner Rock sound with the band applying Folk, Shoegaze, Indie Rock and Pop influences amongst the aggressive Doomed Out sounds that reminds me of Electric Wizard, Windhand and Black Sabbath in equal measure. 
Check out the superb opening tracks of Bows Of London and Bill Norrie that have different musical perspectives to each other but allow Crumbling Ghost to play a distorted style of Doom Metal that harks back to the days of Electric Wizard in places. The lyrics are brilliantly whimsical and heartfelt on Bill Norrie whilst the music itself is just crushing with epic levels of distorted movements that allows that Shoegaze aspect to hit some really emotional highs for the listener to become part of the whole musical journey that the band have created here.
Each track on Four tells a different musical perspective and story where Crumbling Ghost changes into a different musical persona with freakish jazzy and post-rock beats becoming part of the musical perspective whilst still remaining an essential part of the Doom/Stoner Metal universe. The music is played beautifully throughout with Crumbling Ghost laying down some of the best sounds of their music caterer and with the amazing vocals from Katie Harnett being one of standout elements of the whole record.
The instrumental passages are constantly engaging with Crumbling Ghost giving Russian Circles a run for their money on the standout third track Valtz Efter Tor Lohne which is an intense and first class style of Instrumental Post-Rock with flashes of Cinematic themes appearing along the way. 
The second half of the record moves across areas of Folk, Psych and classic Heavy Rock whilst employing a great style of modern day surroundings which appears brilliantly on tracks such as Lovely Joan, Wassail and The Unquiet Grave. The whole record can be classed as a concept album with an emotionally wrought journey told throughout the album which allows the Folk Rock aspect to really shine but there’s more unexpected sonic and fuzzy delights waiting to be heard from Crumbling Ghost when everything is said and done.  From: https://outlawsofthesun.blogspot.com/2026/08/crumbling-ghost-four-album-review.html?m=1