Pinnick Gales Pridgen - Every Step Of The Way

Less than 18 months after the release of their debut album Pinnick Gales Pridgen, PGP are back with a follow-up record that matches the supergroup’s earlier work in fervor and intensity. Of their first record, bassist and vocalist “dUg” Pinnick (King’s X) described the collaboration as natural, effortless and “built upon raw energy.” For PGP 2, listeners will come to the instant understanding that none of the band’s initial energy was lost in the time that lapsed between the two releases. PGP 2 is energetic and ambitious, a dynamic creation by musicians whose high performance levels are simply second nature.
Guitarist and vocalist Eric Gales (of the Eric Gales Band and Lauryn Hill’s band), drummer Thomas Pridgen (formerly of The Mars Volta) and Pinnick don’t waste any time bringing their A-game to this 2014 follow-up. PGP 2 kicks off with Gales’ howling guitar on “Every Step of the Way” as Pridgen and Pinnick support. Gloomy lyrics on “It’s Not My Time to Die” pull the trio into dark territory as Pinnick recounts speeding through sharp turns in his car and surviving a brutal stabbing. As each dismal scenario unfolds, Pinnick remains determined, ending each chorus with a resolute, “It’s not my time to die.”
Pinnick and Gales work in tandem on lead vocals throughout the record, passing the role back and forth from one song to the next. As Gales’ smooth baritone voice lends an edge to “Every Step of the Way,” the vocal harmonization by Gales and Pinnick at the beginning of “Have You Cried?” acts as that one standout element that makes the track truly memorable. Yet for all there is to be said about the album’s lyrical delivery, few songs place the vocals as the single point of focus. “Psychofunkadelic Blues” speaks to the sonic blend the trio achieves in their work as they mesh influences from Cream and Jimi Hendrix to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Stevie Wonder into one simultaneously complex and seamless package. Softer instrumental numbers like the delicate “LaDonna” and album closer “Jambiance” reveal the expansive range of a group that seems to hit the mark every time they strike a chord.  From: https://bluesrockreview.com/2014/06/pinnick-gales-pridgen-pgp-2-review.html

Petra Haden - Petra Haden Sings The Who Sell Out (full album)

01 Armenia City in the Sky
02 Heinz Baked Beans
03 Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand
04 Odorono
05 Tattoo
06 Our Love Was
07 I Can See for Miles
08 I Can't Reach You
09 Medac
10 Relax
11 Silas Stingy
12 Sunrise
13 Rael
14 Track Records

Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out is an album by Petra Haden, an entirely a cappella interpretation of the 1967 album The Who Sell Out by English rock band The Who. Haden supplies all of the vocals. It was released in 2005 on Bar None Records. The recording was suggested by Haden's friend Mike Watt, who ranks Sell Out as one of his favorite albums and gave Haden an 8-track recorder she used to create the album. Haden formed a ten-woman choir, dubbed Petra Haden & The Sellouts, to perform songs from the album live.
In the Boston Globe on 13 March 2005, Pete Townshend, The Who's guitarist and principal songwriter, spoke positively about Haden's album: I was a little embarrassed to realize I was enjoying my own music so much, for in a way it was like hearing it for the first time. What Petra does with her voice, which is not so easy to do, is challenge the entire rock framework ... When she does depart from the original music she does it purely to bring a little piece of herself -- and when she appears she is so very welcome. I felt like I'd received something better than a Grammy. In his book Paddle Your Own Canoe, actor Nick Offerman recommends the album as ideal to listen to while building canoes.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra_Haden_Sings:_The_Who_Sell_Out

In the 21st century, the Who have become spokesrockers. "Who Are You", "Won't Get Fooled Again", "Baba O'Riley"-- as themes for CBS' "CSI" franchise the songs are meaty enough and beaty enough to match David Caruso's ego, while being big enough to hook baby boomers into Tivoing the clunky procedural crime dramas. Someday a CBS! Miniseries! Event! will unite the three "CSI" casts in an epic struggle against GSR residue and Dan Cortese's career as a character actor, and its theme song will be the 10-minute Tommy epic "Underture". When that happens, the Who will have reached Kravitzian levels of licensing overexposure. But in the meantime we can still enjoy the band's music for its strong points-- thundering power chords, machismo blending with naughty British schoolboy humor, ambitious flights of pop songwriting, and a conceptual scope that was as enviable as it was flawed.
All of that's wrapped up in Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out, the Los Angeles singer's a capella interpretation of the Who's 1967 album. Haden recreates the entire record with only her voice and an eight-track recorder, from the flatulent trumpets and "What's for tea, darling?" drop-ins of fake advert "Heinz Baked Beans" to the swirling psych-rock of classic rock radio staple "I Can See for Miles". On the latter her harmonic selves suggest a Mellotron while she sings the lead in a voice that's clear and bright, but also a little deadpan. And that wryness is important for Haden, because it's both a connection to and a departure from her primary source. While Who Sell Out was a gleeful lambaste of advertising and radio, it also featured some really strong songs. Haden understands both aspects, but knows she can't retell it accurately with her limited materials. So she doesn't. She uses suggestion instead, and a fan's emulation, and her own sense of humor, too; she makes something that loves its predecessor but has no intention of resembling it exactly. And at that, the baby boomers and rockists breathed a little easier.
As the story goes, Mike Watt put Haden up to this project in the first place. She'd already done an a capella record-- 1996's fanciful Imaginaryland-- and Watt wondered what she might do with one of his favorites. There's no purism in that backstory. Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out is just a fun exercise, the work of a daydreaming geek girl who sings like an angel and makes cool guitar noises with her mouth. Its casual "Why not?"-ness is its greatest strength. But there's attention to detail here, too. "Face the music with Odorono", the original Sell Out's fake ad copy smirked beneath a shot of Townshend mugging with an enormous can of the stuff. "The all-day deodorant that turns perspiration into inspiration!" But at the same time, the actual song "Odorono" exemplified the songwriter's emerging flair for epic pop. Haden has fun recreating the album art, and the songs on Sell Out, too. Of course, since she's the only instrument, this is done with lots of layers and a general knack for hitting the sweet spot of Pete's famous fanfares. "Triumphant!/ Was the way she felt/ As she acknowledged the applause..."  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/4005-petra-haden-sings-the-who-sell-out/

Robert Palmer - Hey Julia / Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley

If you mention Robert Palmer today, the first thing you think of is the influential music video for his song "Addicted to Love." Because of the heavy airplay on MTV, the song became an international sensation and the signature song of his career. The downside of this success is that his early work tends to get overlooked. Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley is his debut album and probably the most under-appreciated work in his discography. In 1974, after a three-year stint in the British rock/R&B band Vinegar Joe, Palmer left the group and signed a solo deal with Island Records. His next task was to search for session players for the album.
The quest took him to New York City and New Orleans to find these musicians. Palmer stated to Fred Shuster of the L.A. Daily News in 1996,  "Here was this white English kid coming to New Orleans and New York to work with bands I had only heard on vinyl. I first knew Stuff (guitarist Cornell Dupree, drummer Bernard Purdie, keyboardist Richard Tee and bassist Gordon Edwards) when they were called The Encyclopedia Of Soul, the seminal New York Rhythm and Blues band. They had been on loads of records and still had that raw edge. So, I jumped in the deep end and asked if they would be up for some sessions. They didn't know me from Adam and, at first, they wouldn't even say hello. But eight bars into the first tune, Purdie turned around and said, 'Sir, excuse me, what did you say your name was?' From then on, it was great."
Palmer struck gold in New Orleans, where he managed to wrangle the Meters (comprised of drummer Zigaboo Modeliste, bassist George Porter Jr., guitarist Leo Nocentelli, and keyboardist Art Neville) and Lowell George of Little Feat into the fold. Palmer wanted to capture a funkier sound relative to the music that he had previously made with Vinegar Joe and it doesn't get any funkier than having this incredibly accomplished group of musicians backing you up. Throughout his career, Palmer proved to be an excellent interpreter of other people's material and he did not fail to deliver on Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley. Even though his career went off in many different directions, his solo debut album was a sign of great things to come later.
Sneakin' Sally opens up with one of the best three-song sequences heard on any album. "Sailing Shoes,” penned by Lowell George and originally performed by Little Feat, kicks things off into high gear. This version is more uptempo and funkier (with a huge assist from backing vocalist Vicki Brown) than the original, which leaned towards the more bluesy and slower end of the pool. "Sailing Shoes" flows seamlessly into the second track of the trilogy, the sublime but clever "Hey Julia", written by Palmer and highlighted by the vocal interplay between him and the aforementioned Brown.
The final piece of the opening trilogy is the title track "Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley,” penned by New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint and originally sung by Lee Dorsey of "Working in a Coalmine" fame. Backed by the Meters with Simon Phillips on drums and Lowell George on slide guitar, this song is one of Palmer's best vocal performances of his illustrious career. The power and confidence of the then 25-year-old singer leaps off the vinyl and into your eardrum. After the three-song opening, you're buying the water Palmer is selling. Despite the fact that "Hey Julia" was recorded with different musicians, these three songs mesh together perfectly.  From: https://albumism.com/features/robert-palmer-debut-solo-album-sneakin-sally-through-the-alley-album-anniversary

Paper Bird - Don't Want Half

Hailing from Denver, Colorado, Paper Bird is a band that has been on the rise for a number of years now. Their latest self-titled release, off of Thirty Tiger/Son Of Thunder Records, is a record that will have listeners hooked on the first spin. The album is extra special for the group as they called upon the legendary John Oates to join them in the studio. The opening track “To The Light”, features a strong vocal performance by lead vocalist, Carleigh Aikins, showcasing her powerful voice. To the listener, this song rings true in life sometimes with the lyrics: “The world is full of broken hearts. The world is full of hard times.” Let’s be honest, we’re all going to go through some hardships at some point, but we just need to keep looking “to the light”. The track is a testament of how Paper Bird’s dedication to their craft has brought them to where they are today. Lending his masterful skills on guitar, Paul DeHaven, shows off his craft, in the foreground of the opening number.
The hidden gem on this eleven track self-titled album is “Heavy Road”. All three singers' harmonies are “A+” on this number and the musicianship is top notch from all. Drummer Mark Anderson keeps a strong background beat on Aikins and vocalist Genevieve Patterson harmonizes flawlessly on, “Don't Want Half”. The six-piece displays its wide range of influences with “The Run”, DeHaven’s down and dirty guitar work compliments Caleb Summeril’s thumping bass lines well as vocalist Sarah Anderson, along with her counterparts Patterson and Aikins, display why three vocalists are a perfect fit for the group. “Waiting For You” closes out the Colorado based quintet's best release to date. This record shows that hard work and a passion for the music is what takes a group like Paper Bird to the next level in their musical endeavors.  From: https://www.215music.net/paper-bird-album-review.html

Otis Redding - Pain In My Heart

Otis Redding’s second single, That’s What My Heart Needs, sold reasonably, but the youthful singer with the mature voice dropped a bomb with his third release for at Stax, Pain In My Heart, a heartbreaking wail of love gone bad that was a smash in the autumn of 1963. His song prompted a cover by British up-and-comers The Rolling Stones and triggered a row with New Orleans’ R&B kingpin Allen Toussaint, who’d written Irma Thomas’ Ruler Of My Heart on which Otis had based his hit. No matter: the record helped establish Otis as a major force.
Sessions continued with Stax’s regular musicians, Booker T & The MGs, plus Johnny Jenkins on guitar, saxophonists Packy Axton and Floyd Newman, and trumpeter Wayne Jackson. Everyone at Stax was struck by the creativity and sheer life force of their new star. His debut album was set for release at the start of 1964. Otis had arrived… Well, up to a point. Pain In My Heart sold reasonably well for a debut album by a black artist of the era, just failing to broach the US Top 100. However, Otis was soon drawing attention abroad, particularly among the UK mod movement, and in one of those curious slow-burning successes that sometimes occur in music, the album saw a British release three years after its US pressing and hit the Top 30.
The music Otis’ new fans enjoyed was a bit of a mixed bag. Apart from the three singles, there were plenty of covers. Otis put his stamp on The Dog, an R&B hit by his labelmate Rufus Thomas. He took on one of the great early soul ballads, offering a beaty, stripped-back version of Ben E King’s Stand By Me which showed off some of the vocal tics and nuances that would soon become so familiar. His voice was even more distinctive on You Send Me, written by one of his all-time favourite soul artists, Sam Cooke; Otis would go on to cover Cooke on several more albums, including 1965’s Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul, which had initially been intended as a tribute to the lost soul originator. There was a frenzied version of Richard Berry’s Louie Louie, clearly an influence on Toots And The Maytals’ reggae version eight years later. And Otis dipped into his immediate past as a Little Richard apostle on the rock’n’roll pioneer’s Lucille and his own Hey Hey Baby.
Just to remind us that Otis was a great writer in his own right, there was the bright and poppin’ Something Is Worrying Me, with a beautifully gentle vocal from the soon-to-be king of soul; the tender and intimate That’s What My Heart Needs, which is a confession straight from Otis’ troubled mind, with the singer breaking – unusually, for him – into James Brown-style wailing towards the end; and his fourth single from Pain In My Heart, Security. This latter soul groover was a modest hit but should have been bigger. Etta James recognised its potential and landed a Top 40 hit with her version of the song in 1968.
Packed with soul and feeling, Pain In My Heart was not so much a modest introduction to a major talent, more a banging on the door with both fists. Otis was already able to show the broad range he was capable of; within months he’d honed his talent further and sharpened his style. But all the original ingredients of his unique sound were in place and he already looked unstoppable. A year later, he’d become such a fixture on the soul scene that it would be impossible to think of him as a comparative newcomer. The legend started the moment he confessed to the pain in his heart.  From: https://www.thisisdig.com/feature/pain-in-my-heart-otis-redding-album/

Sam Phillips - Circle of Fire

Sam Phillips (not to be confused with the Sun Records impresario) is many things: a gifted singer-songwriter, an underrated alt-rock goddess, a composer of incidental television music (all those “la, la la’s” on Gilmore Girls) and a performer with a stage presence that’s both warmly confident and magnificently eerie. In recent years, she has also become a fiercely independent artist, almost an iconoclast of sorts—a quality one can trace back near the start of her career, when she recorded Contemporary Christian music under her birth name, Leslie Phillips. After four well-received albums in that genre, she concluded she no longer wanted to be “a cheerleader for God” (as she bluntly put it in one interview) and switched over to secular pop music (and professionally adopted a childhood family nickname). Whether brought on by an actual crisis of faith, feeling discomfort from that boxed-in community, or by meeting musician T-Bone Burnett (who became both her longtime producer and romantic partner after helming her final Leslie album), her decision to leave one world behind for another continually enhances the cultural, philosophical, and yes, spiritual nature of much of her subsequent catalog.
Transitioning from religious to secular music, her artistry immediately flourished. The Indescribable Wow (1988), her debut as Sam, is a near-perfect ten-track album of sly, sighing retro pop. A little more tart and perhaps a few shades darker, Cruel Inventions (1991) kicks off with the clever confession, “If I told myself I believed in love, and that’s enough / I’d be lying,” and concludes with a gorgeous manifesto against uniformity (“Where The Colors Don’t Go”). Both records are very good, though the former’s production sometimes feels a little dated and the latter is occasionally a touch too internal (it could use a little more sweetening). By contrast, Martinis & Bikinis is an important step forward, not only for Phillips’ growing confidence and agility as both a lyricist and a tunesmith, but also in how effortlessly it balances her affable persona with an ever-cunning acidity (just look at that album cover).
Following “Love and Kisses”, a minute-long apéritif whose lyrics contain the album’s purposely frivolous title, Phillips doles out one catchy, tightly constructed pop song after another. Practically every instrumental and vocal part provides some sort of hook, from the clipped barre chords of “Signposts” and the elastic bass line of “Same Rain” to the declarative opening riffs of both “When I Fall” and “Same Changes” (the latter almost as effective as the one in The Beatles’ “Day Tripper”). And yet, only roughly half of Martinis & Bikinis is strictly guitar pop. As with the Fab Four, Phillips doesn’t shy away from adornments inspired by a spectrum of musical genres. “Baby I Can’t Please You”, for instance, has a Middle Eastern flavored, Van Dyke Parks string arrangement (along with plenty of sitars and tablas), while ecological lament “Black Sky” aims for Tom Waits-style, post-apocalyptic minimalism, with Phillips’ vocal almost entirely carrying the melody over a stark, clanging percussion-heavy backdrop. Both are pop songs that also expand the idea of what such a thing can contain.  From: https://hauntedjukebox.com/2015/12/06/sam-phillips-martinis-bikinis/

Soundgarden - Burden In My Hand

I think all the opinions of this song are taking the song way too literally. If you know anything about Chris Cornell, his bout with heroin was his monkey on his back, and the "Burden In His Hand". He refers to the object of his addiction, (heroin), as "her", but that doesn't mean it is a woman or female creature. Below is a copy of the lyrics, and my interpretation. As a songwriter, lyricist and producer of 40 years, I have a good understanding of where the pain of many artists come to write about... and remember, this was in the days of the "Seattle Grunge Invasion", where most of the big musicians were into heroin. (Layne Staley, Kurt Cobain, others)

"Follow me into the desert As thirsty as you are Crack a smile and cut your mouth And drown in alcohol"

--- he's asking you to follow his story of desperation regarding his addiction, his "desert". If you "smile" you "cut" your mouth because the smile is fake. You are desperate too. Drowning in alcohol is only the legal "painkiller" you can buy freely, which is why the 30% of the world population can be considered alcoholics. Drowning in booze is just another path to self destruction he knows he's on, and his "go to" solution if he can't find his heroin fix. He never admitted to using "heroin" and made his comments about his addictions strictly about "alcohol", but this song was released after his friend Kurt Cobain committed suicide, and Layne Staley overdosed, along with several other close friends he saw dropping due to addictions.

"'Cause down below the truth is lying Beneath the riverbed So quench yourself and drink the water That flows below her head”

---the "riverbed" is the source of Life, and below that, even if the riverbed is dry, you can dig "below" for water and find "truth", but there is a "lie, a deceit" that "flows below her head". What is the first big hint at what the song is in this phrase, "her head" --it means the tip of the syringe needle. He's saying you think you'll find satisfaction and relief in heroin. You think you're drinking water of "truth", but notice it's "below her head". Who is "her"? Heroin. Also, take notice that the "truth" is "BENEATH" the riverbed. It's not the real water flowing in the riverbed, its the dried up riverbed that forces you to dig to find release to your emotional pain.

"Oh no there she goes Out in the sunshine The sun is mine, sun is mine --- I am shooting up, the day is not rainy because I'm high and the "sun is mine"... said TWICE.

"I shot my love today Would you cry for me I lost my head again Would you lie for me

--- then he actually states he "shot" (shoot up) his "love" (heroin or other drug). Will you cry for him and his lack of control, and spiral to these depths of self-destruction? He lost his head, and if you were his friend or "hanger-on", would you "lie" for him?

"Close your eyes and bow your head I need a little sympathy 'Cause fear is strong and love's for everyone Who isn't me

--- "close your eyes" to his addictions, his failures, bow your head and say a prayer for him because he "needs a little sympathy". His fear is strong, and he thinks everyone else gets love that "isn't him".

"Kill your health and kill yourself And kill everything you love And if you live you can fall to pieces And suffer with my ghost

--- If you follow his path, you will "kill your health and kill yourself and kill everything you love". If you "live", you will still "fall to pieces" and suffer with his own "ghost", predicting his own death, and if you're on his same path of self destruction, you will "suffer" with the memory of him dying, regardless of his rockstar status, he died unhappy, addicted, and his addictions will be his "ghost" following you.

From: https://songmeanings.com/threads/c/73016153927/

Hekate - Einarvollsgråen

Hekate consists of Silje Liahagen, Malin Alander and Synnøve Plassen. Each one has been showcasing their unique styles of singing on scenes all around Norway, and now they have come together to perform as a trio, wanting to use the traditional dance music as the base for their powerful sound image. After their debut-concert at a night club at Riksscenen in Oslo, Norway, they have become a hot name in the music industry. In the summer 2024, they won the open class contest at the Norwegian championship of folk music. They are releasing their debut album in June 2025 on Heilo Records.  From: https://www.hekate-trio.com/about

Arcadea - Silent Spores

A synth-rock record about a futuristic society from the drummer of Mastodon, you say? As elevator pitches go, it’s an intriguing one. Intriguing, yes, though not necessarily promising. Lest we forget, several of those hallmarks characterised Mastodon’s 2014 album, Once More ’Round The Sun, which, despite intergalactic expectations, is now considered a relatively by-the-numbers offering from a band known for continuously taking ambitious leaps.
Admittedly, this second album from Arcadea is Brann Dailor – joined by Core Atoms and João Nogueira – trying to avoid crossing the streams of his projects, attempting something more fun and danceable than their self-titled debut, released in 2017. In that regard, this is pretty successful, at least in its ability to provoke listeners to trip the line fantastic, thanks to tracks like Fuzzy Planet and 2 Shells. You’d have a hard time throwing shapes to Starry Messenger with any less than eight limbs, given how speedy its electronic undulations are.
It’s less proggy and po-faced than its predecessor. It’s certainly jauntier, with Gilded Eye and Planet Pounder seemingly relishing their own absurdity, sounding as they do like several video game soundtracks being played at the same time. Both tracks also benefit from being more suited to Brann’s vocals, which work best when darting in and out of big, busy arrangements.
The Exodus Of Gravity is an album of niche pleasures; despite sounding different to its predecessor, it is unlikely to appeal to many beyond Mastodon’s fanbase. It would be a shame if it doesn’t, as its brain-bending arrangements and eccentricities will appeal to those for whom music is for space exploration, not billionaire bellends like Jeff Bezos.  From: https://www.kerrang.com/album-review-arcadea-the-exodus-of-gravity

Katy Perry - Firework

This Fourth of July, we’re taking a look at the meaning behind Katy Perry’s apropos song, “Firework.” As much as you hear the popstar’s hit single during the holiday weekend, the song really has very little to do with America. Instead, “Firework” has to do with a more morbid concept: death, or more specifically, Katy Perry’s death. In a Billboard interview the singer said, “when I pass, I want to be put into a firework and shot across the sky over the Santa Barbara Ocean as my last hurrah.”
But where did Perry get this idea? She explained that she was inspired by the great American author, Jack Keuroac, and his 1957 novel, On The Road. “My boyfriend showed me a paragraph out of Jack Keuroac’s On the Road, about people that are buzzing and fizzing and full of life and never say a commonplace thing. They shoot across the sky like a firework and make people go ‘Ahhh.’ I guess that making people go ‘ahhh’ is kind of like my motto.”  From: https://americansongwriter.com/the-meaning-behind-firework-by-katy-perry/

Messa - Live at Nantes 2022

 Messa - Live at Nantes 2022 - Part 1

 

 Messa - Live at Nantes 2022 - Part 2

 

On March 11th, the Post-Metal world will and should be watching when Italy’s most elegant combination of Jazz and Post-Metal releases their third full-length onto a waiting world. Well, the VoS-lers surely can’t wait for Messa’s new record Close! And as we like to keep you on the edge of your seats we give you a detailed interview with the band conducted by our living library Knut who has gotten a lot of really good answers, mostly from singer Sara but also from her bandmates on several questions. Maybe this will make you as excited as Knut and us about this release because it is really a great release and another proof that elegance and force are not at all at opposite ends of the musical spectrum but really combinable!

Q: Congratulations on your new album! You have really developed your music further! After the two releases Belfry and Feast for Water, you now name your album Close. The cover of the first album has a picture of the famous bell tower in Lake Reschen, the cover of the second one is connected to water and now on this new one dancing women, I assume they are performing the Nakh dance from the video for the song “Pilgrim”. The covers on the previous album had clear connotations with the titles. So, what is the reasons behind the title Close that you have chosen for this new album?

A: The term “Close” has a lot of meanings. Actually, each of us in the band looks at it through different perspectives. We like to think that “Close” is a direct emanation of our yearning to escape. The main goal was transporting ourselves and the listener on a journey. We wanted to stand by the concept which lies behind the title of the record by creating and recording it while being physically in the same room. It is not a concept album but we always want to have that fil rouge, that thin red thread that ties the songs together, just like we did on our past albums. We came to read about Nakh once we found this 1930s picture by E. M. Schutz. The picture conveyed the sensations we wanted to express through the albums, so we decided to use that photo on the cover of Close.

Q: So, about the dance that is a traditional dance performed by women in Algeria/Tunisia and the distinct Eastern Mediterranean musical influences on this album. At the end of the second song, the heavy, fast and doom-laden music incorporates some sonics from traditional Eastern music, and the next song start with a Duduk, also connected to the Eastern music, the instrument spread through the Eastern part of the Mediterranean all through Armenia. And you incorporate Oud and Dulcimer in the sonics. And the name of the song “Orphalese” is connected to the Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran. These Eastern musical elements are extremely well incorporated in your way of playing doom metal throughout the album. How did these inspirations find their way into your music on this album?

A: As previously stated, the whole idea behind Close is the journey. We did not want to repeat ourselves, so we looked for new sounds and instruments that are not typical within the metal genre. It was natural for us to search for inspiration in the musical heritage that we have as Mediterraneans. Arabian music is very evocative as it can transport the listener to a different place. Alberto had to learn how to play the Oud - which has 11 strings and is a fretless instrument, which allows you to play microtones – and it was not easy for him. Another challenge we had to face was incorporating these different acoustic instruments while keeping Close a metal album.

Q: Let us go back in time for some background. Six years ago, I found Belfry on Bandcamp, and it happened to me as with so many others; it blew me away. I tried to find other releases by Messa but discovered the jaw dropping thing that this exquisitely performed album in fact was a debut album, full-length even. So where did you come from, musically when forming Messa in 2014? What background of musical styles were fused into what became Messa? What did each of you contribute?

A: We have very different musical backgrounds and they all ended up straight into Messa’s cauldron. Alberto mostly played Prog, Rocco had many Black Metal bands, Marco played in a Dark Rock band and Sara played bass in Punk/Death Metal/Grind projects. In fact Messa is the first band Sara ever sang in. We all befriended many years before Messa started, though. In early 2014 Marco and Sara started developing some ideas, and soon Alberto and Rocco joined. None of us had played Doom before and we were curious to approach a genre that sounded new to us as musicians. Our songs are the result of our sensibilities mixed together. There are many personal elements that we introduce when we create music.

From: https://veilofsound.com/2022/03/02/Interview_with_Messa.html

 

Throwing Muses - Sun Racket (full album)

01 Dark Blue
02 Bywater
03 Maria Laguna
04 Bo Diddley Bridge
05 Milk at McDonald's
06 Upstairs Dan
07 St. Charles
08 Frosting
09 Kay Catherine
10 Sue's

2020 has been such a disaster of a year on so many fronts, we've got to take crumbs of comfort where we find them. And a brand new Throwing Muses album in 2020 was certainly a pleasant surprise to me. I got kind of obsessed with Throwing Muses a few years ago and have been working my way through their extensive discography, as well as Kristin Hersh’s solo material, ever since. Most recently, I’d been listening to their output from the late 1980s, to which Sun Racket sounds far more muscular and raw by comparison. What has not diminished one iota in all that time is Hersh’s fearless creativity; and the sound her band members kick out is as powerful and uncompromising as ever.
As always with Throwing Muses (apart from the sprawling double album Purgatory/Paradise) the record is punchy; most of the ten tracks clock in under four minutes so the whole thing is done and dusted in little over half an hour. In that time though, we’re treated to some of the most experimental tracks the band have recorded as well as a couple of thunderous rockers on a par with their early 90s heyday.
The album opens with the grungey Dark Blue, and the devastating pair of couplets, ‘If you were a sore loser, I'd be a better dreamer, And if I were a better dreamer, You'd be a dream come true’, proving the years have not blunted Hersh’s tongue - before descending into a crunchy choppy head-bobber of a tune.
As an ‘island band’, Throwing Muses’ music has always had a strong undercurrent of aquatic associations. The songs on Sun Racket were written in the aftermath of an incident where Hersh nearly drowned, having fallen asleep on the beach. This sense of slipping in and out of sleep - and dreams - and slipping underwater pervades much of the album. Bywater is particularly dreamlike, featuring a case of projected identity that only makes sense in dreams, as Hersh sings about a goldfish in the toilet...who happens to be Freddie Mercury, ‘a mustached amputee, heading out to sea’. Among such surreal poetry there's the occasional lyric that catches you with its directness, ‘Changing clothes in the kitchen’ - the context is left unexplained but it clearly implies unusual circumstances, maybe a sense of fumbling panic or of trying not to be discovered.
Bo Diddley Bridge is a song about the bridge where her son used to fish as a child and combines buzz-saw guitars over lock-tight drums and a snaking bassline. Midway through, the song breaks down, just as the real bridge also collapsed, as well as according to Hersh, their life at the time. Thankfully both have been rebuilt, as she says, “But we lived; we swam in a life sunshine somehow. And both bridges — the Bo Diddley one and the life one — were rebuilt around us.”
The trio of tracks, Milk at McDonalds, Upstairs Dan and St Charles are some of the most stark and unusual I’ve heard from Throwing Muses. As always there’s the juxtaposition of surreal imagery with the odd lyrical bolt from the blue. Kristin Hersh currently lives in New Orleans and it feels like elements of Southern Gothic have influenced her songwriting; Milk at McDonalds is a macabre bluesy dirge, one minute the lyrics have her imagining coyotes in the freezer, or turning into a pillar of salt, and then comes the naked admission, ‘I don’t regret a single drop of alcohol’ - the song manages to sound defiant yet regretful at the same time.
Frosting is a triumphant 90s-style rocker bringing the tempo back up and waking the album from its unsettled dream-filled slumber as Hersh rasps, ‘Then I wake up and see your smiling smile’. As always, we’re not sure if she’s happy to see that smile smiling at her, if the return to the ‘real’ world is relief or disappointment - as always it’s probably a combination of both.
Despite some of its more avant-garde moments, and the presence of tracks that recall their early 90s prime, Sun Racket sounds both fresh and unmistakably like Throwing Muses. The band have been through various line-up changes during their long career, and while Hersh is the creative glue that binds everything together, she and drummer David Narcizo and bassist Bernard Georges have been playing together for some 30 years. After that long it must be inevitable that they would share an intuitive sense of one another’s musical powers - and this shows in the way their free-flowing experimental tendencies are kept in check by super tight playing.
I've never heard a Throwing Muses album I don't like so I'm hardly an unbiased reviewer. Apart from 1994's University which remains a clear favourite, I tend to rate them all equally and Sun Racket is easily as strong as the bulk of their discography. Hersh's singing may have become even more gravelly with the passage of time, but her lyrical voice is clearer than ever.  From: https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/82385/Throwing-Muses-Sun-Racket/

Beautify Junkyards - Aquarius

I had the great pleasure recently of interviewing João Branco Kyron from Portugal’s excellent Beautify Junkyards. Their lovely new album Cosmorama comes out in less than a week on 15 January. This interview was conducted over email and I got some great, thoughtful answers from João. Thanks again for this opportunity.

EK: Please tell us how the band formed.

JBK: Some of the members of BJ came from a band called Hipnótica (that released 5 albums between 1999 and 2010). We started playing covers of songs we loved (mostly from the Autumn Folk period), just for our own pleasure. Things evolved and suddenly we had enough songs for an album that we thought it was worth to release, and that’s when we decided to release it under Beautify Junkyards. It was an unusual way to start a band with a debut album made entirely of cover versions, but all of them had a sense of unity soundwise speaking.

EK: What have been your biggest influences, not just in music, but in art and literature too?

JBK: We are always absorbing new artistic expressions and sometimes we find some artists/works that we feel a strong affinity with, to the point of trying to incorporate some of their elements in our own musical and lyrical language. Things change through time but there are artists that are constantly present on our minds, for instance: Os Mutantes, Glauber Rocha, Incredible String Band, Derek Jarman, Czech New Wave cinema, Broadcast, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, United States of America, Zeca Afonso, Fernando Pessoa, Banda do Casaco, Ash Ra Tempel, just to mention a few. For this new album, we also searched in more depth the visionary works of Austin Osman Spare and Vali Myers.

EK: How integrated is Portuguese culture in your recordings?

JBK: Many aspects of the Portuguese culture are part of our musical identity, but the access to some of the more recent recorded material was not an easy task but for the existence of YouTube (thats works as our collective memory). During 40 years, Portugal was under a dictatorship, so everything from abroad was filtered through the regime lenses. During that period, many artists had to exile and others faced difficult times. With the Carnation Revolution in ‘74 came an “explosion” for the senses in all the artistic fields. Then in the 80s, we had a boom of local rock bands, and nowadays I think Portugal is one of the most exciting places in Europe in terms of music creation. We love to mix our Portuguese influences and also our language in the band´s music, it’s that fusion of influences and languages that make it unique. On our live sets, we also usually play covers from artists we admire like Zeca Afonso and Fausto, and we have plans to invite some of those artists to play with us.

EK: How did you cultivate your current sound? You play a unique blend of tropicalia, dream pop, and folk. Your songs are like wandering inside a dreamscape.

JBK: It’s not a conscious process, most of the base ideas for songs come from improvised sessions that are later worked in the studio. I think all of the influences I´ve mentioned and the fact that they are from different latitudes allows us to create music with many layers. There are some aspects we invest a lot of time on: the sonic textures and the instruments that better serve each song, sampling sounds from multiple sources and times and working on the lyrics.

From: https://bigtakeover.com/interviews/AVirtualConversationwithJoaoBrancoKyronofBeautifyJunkyards

Black Mountain - Mothers of the Sun

Black Mountain's mixture of texture and force is a potent one, with the Vancouver collective drawing from a variety of heavy and pastoral sounds throughout their four LPs. Founded by Stephen McBean and Joshua Wells near the end of their previous project Jerk with a Bomb, Black Mountain evolved from a eponymous song from those early sessions into one of the most prominent of the prolific McBean's multiple projects. Their 2005 self-titled debut was a critical success, and set the template for the band (currently consisting of McBean, Wells, Jeremy Schmidt, Brad Truax, and Amber Webber), whose touring and recording was steady throughout the end of the decade. After some time spent on other projects, Black Mountain returned earlier this year with their fourth full-length album, the aptly-titled IV. "Mothers of the Sun" both serves as the album's opener and its thesis statement, a striding, miniature epic that maximizes the heavy efficacy every one of its eight minutes. Equally utilizing a sludgy main riff and eerily glowing atmospherics, the tune underscores the band's talent at balancing restraint with crunch – every element of the songs plays a distinct role, sublimely arranged with clockwork precision. (Or at least as much precision an eight-minute psychedelic jam can feasibly have, anyway.) "Mothers of the Sun" is a fantastic return, effortlessly capturing the band's best qualities and channeling them into a winding, expansive eight minutes.  From: https://www.kexp.org/read/2016/5/4/song-of-the-day-black-mountain-mothers-of-the-sun/

Wovenhand - Crook and Flail

Wovenhand is a Gothic Americana rock band formed by Colorado singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist David Eugene Edwards. Since the demise of his brooding alt-country band 16 Horsepower, it has become his full time vehicle. The music offers winding, dark, atmospheric lyrics with a fierce spiritual bent circling around elements of vintage folk, country blues, and gospel music given force by swampy rock & roll. While Edwards performed (mostly) solo on Wovenhand's self-titled 2001 debut and two subsequent albums, he expanded the studio group to a quartet for 2006's gloomy Mosaic. By the time 2010's globally acclaimed, modally structured The Threshingfloor was released, the band had become a trio. Wovenhand's sound evolved to include mutant rockabilly, surf, desert blues, and spooky prog on 2016's Star Treatment, with guitarist and future songwriting partner Chuck French. It was their last outing for six years. Edwards and French wrote, recorded, and released 2022's wildly diverse Silver Sash with a quintet.
In 2001, 16 Horsepower went on hiatus, and as the group pondered a new creative direction, Edwards launched Wovenhand, built around similar musical and thematic frameworks but with a more powerful and personal approach. Edwards initially formed Wovenhand as a trio with multi-instrumentalist Daniel McMahon and guitarist Steve Taylor (also a member of 16 Horsepower), though soon the lineup would expand to include Ordy Garrison on drums and Paul Fonfara on cello. (For live work, Shane Trost subbed for Fonfara on cello.) Edwards played nearly all the instruments on Wovenhand's first album in 2002, released by Glitterhouse in Europe and Sounds Familyre in the United States. In 2003, he reworked several pieces from the Wovenhand debut for a Belgian dance troupe, and the results were released on the album Blush Music. For 2004's Consider the Birds, Wovenhand contrasted Edwards' solo material with tracks that featured a full band, while for live shows Wovenhand was a duo consisting of Edwards and Garrison.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/wovenhand-mn0000581700#biography

Indigo Girls - Three Hits - Live 1992

1992-05: rites of passage, epic records press release:

" 'three hits' was inspired by the poems of frank stanford. a music writer friend of mine sent me a book of his poetry, 'the light the dead see', and i went crazy over it - it changed my life a little. i was reading some autobiographical notes on stanford and learned that he'd committed suicide in the early '80s at age 30 - he shot himself three times in the heart. that image really stuck with me. so i used images from his poems and his life: that he was adopted, that he left his wife behind. i started this song on electric guitar, a gibson melody maker with a gun-metal blue finish."

1992-06-07: indigo girls bring literature to songwriting, the st. louis post-dispatch:

q: you make direct references to virginia woolf on "rites of passage." you also cite a poet named frank stanford as an influence on your song "three hits." how does a poem or a novel bear on your songwriting?

a: i get a lot of ideas from what i read - more from what i read than from what i hear. i'm not going to listen to a song and be as inspired because it's the same medium i'm working in. for some reason, that doesn't work with me. the books really get me going. when something i read moves me, it first of all helps me to finish a song i'm writing, even if the song has nothing to do with the book. what i'm doing is reacting on an emotional level to what i've read and writing whatever comes into my head.

From: https://www.lifeblood.net/songs/backgrounds/threehits.html

Psychotica - Ocean of Hunger

After several label changes and finally settling on Red Ant, Psychotica recorded what was to be their landmark album. “Pandemic,” only to have it never be released.Pandemic opens with a melodic guitar/violin which shifts quickly into high gear with the open notes of the first song, “Fool’s Gold.” This song swings between frantic electric guitars and synthesized string ambience. Angelic voices back Briggs’ often brash voice. The album floats through deep swells and decrescendos having no defiantly climax or closing. In fact, the album cycles. The beginning of the first song, “Into,” picks up right where the last song, “Valentino” leaves off.Not only does the music take the listener through the gamut of human emotions, so do the lyrics. In “Oceans of Hunger,” Pat croons to the listeners, “And I wish you were the conscience lost forever in the war/Wish you were my spirit what went out with the storm/Wish you were the air that feeds the fire,” he brags in “Euthanasia,” “You were a slave in heaven/And now a superstar in hell” and assures him/her in “Contradiction,” “I used to be a feather in your headdress/But it beats the fucking loneliness /And I'm happy now.” The only disappointment was the song “Valentino,” where Briggs and band over-dramatize a refrain. It feels like a rough jolt from the serene sadness of the rest of the piece. It feels like a Broadway musical gone sour. This being said, Pandemic is a must for new listeners and hard-core Psychotica fans alike. Who knows what could have been, with this possible break-though album left in the vaults. Everyone should check it out because you sure can’t beat the price.  From: http://saltyka.blogspot.com/2007/06/psychotica.html

Eurythmics - Who's That Girl

"Who's That Girl?" is a song by British pop duo Eurythmics. It was written by band members Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart and produced by Stewart. In the UK, it was released in July 1983, several months in advance of their third studio album Touch (1983), on which the track eventually appeared. In North America, "Who's That Girl?" was issued as the second single from Touch, and did not appear as a single until April 1984.
The music video for "Who's That Girl?" features Lennox in the role of a suspecting woman demanding to know with whom her lover has been seen associating. The video became a heavily played clip on MTV, and further showcased Lennox's gender-bending image. She appears as a nightclub singer performing the song (complete with 1960s-era blonde flip wig) and also as a male member of the audience akin to Elvis Presley (as seen on the cover of the single). At the end of the video, the female Lennox is shown kissing the male Lennox.
Stewart appears in the video, escorted by a number of different women played by a variety of guest stars including Cheryl Baker and Jay Aston of Bucks Fizz, Kiki Dee, Hazel O'Connor, Kate Garner of Haysi Fantayzee and all four members of Bananarama (including Stewart's future wife, Siobhan Fahey and future group member Jacquie O'Sullivan, who was a member of the band Shillelagh Sisters when the video was filmed, and who would replace Fahey in Bananarama in 1988). The gender-bending pop star Marilyn also makes an appearance in the video as another of Stewart's escorts.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_That_Girl%3F_(Eurythmics_song)

Ben Folds Five - Army

In this song, Ben Folds is going through a life crisis and is thinking about joining the Army, since nothing else is working out. It is mostly autobiographical: Folds was in a band called Majosha that broke up, with some of the other members forming another band without Ben. He had also been divorced twice by this point ("my ex-wives all despise me"). He took some liberties in the part about dropping out of college after three semesters, blowing $15000 of his dad's money: He left the University of Miami after just one semester, but he was on scholarship. He also never had a mullet, although he later grew a mini mullet because the hair on the top of his head grows slower than the back. He didn't work at Chick-fil-A, but did have a job at a Hardee's in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Folds plays this regularly at concerts. He often gets up from his piano and conducts the crowd for the horn part, having them sing the horn lines for him. Depending on the crowd, it sometimes sounds surprisingly good.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/ben-folds-five/army

Bonnie Raitt - Live at Sigma Sound, Philadelphia 1972

Bonnie Raitt - Live at Sigma Sound, Philadelphia 1972 - Part 1

 

 

Bonnie Raitt - Live at Sigma Sound, Philadelphia 1972 - Part 2 

01 Mighty Tight Woman
02 Rollin' & Tumblin'
03 Any Day Woman
04 Women Be Wise
05 Thank You
06 Bluebird
07 Finest Lovin' Man
08 Big Road
09 Stayed Too Long At The Fair
10 Under The Falling Sky
11 Walkin' Blues
12 Can't Find My Way Home
13 Richland Woman Blues
14 Blender Blues
15 Since I Fell For You

While attending Radcliffe College in Cambridge in the late 1960s, Raitt’s life changed course when she met Dick Waterman, a blues promoter who worked with legends like Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, and Buddy Guy. Through Waterman, she gained unprecedented access to these towering figures and seized the opportunity to learn directly from the masters. Following her instincts rather than a calculated career plan, she took a semester off from school to travel, listen, and play with the musicians whose records had inspired her.
After Cambridge, Raitt immersed herself in Philadelphia’s vibrant folk and blues scene of the late 1960s. The city’s Philadelphia Folk Festival was at its peak, and venues like the 2nd Fret and the Main Point hosted both local talent and national icons. For a young blues guitarist, there were few better places to develop. Raitt performed in these clubs, often alongside the very bluesmen she had come to admire. Philadelphia wasn’t just a backdrop—it was her proving ground, marking her transition from fan to performer.
Her ties to the city deepened in 1972 when she recorded a live acoustic set at Sigma Sound Studios. Backed by local musicians, the show was broadcast by WMMR, one of Philadelphia’s influential rock stations. Selections from the performance aired regularly, helping build a dedicated regional fan base that has followed her ever since. In a world dominated by male blues musicians, Raitt’s ability to play bottleneck slide guitar with confidence and soul made people take notice. While her gender may have drawn initial curiosity, it was her tone, timing, and touch that earned respect.
She acknowledged that playing “pretty good blues guitar for a girl” helped get her foot in the door—a phrase that speaks volumes about the low expectations she faced. Rather than conform to the industry’s ideas of marketable image or sound, she stayed true to what she loved: traditional blues, folk roots, and heartfelt storytelling. That sincerity resonated, especially with seasoned blues musicians who took her seriously because she took the music seriously. She wasn’t borrowing the blues—she was living it.  From: https://www.knowyourinstrument.com/bonnie-raitt-blues-journey/