The Radiation Flowers - Lead Me Tonight

Radiation Flowers are a band from my neck of the woods, and honestly I’ve been a music journalist for almost 10 years now, and I NEVER write about bands from my neck of the woods (Saskatoon, SK Canada). RF has left me with no choice. On the surface they’re a shoegaze band, but upon a few listens their self-titled debut is elliptical and wildly varied within a pretty loose framework. The genre’s conventions are splattered all over the map. Every song has a driving sense of melody, but is never afraid to let their music breathe, and definitely never afraid to get physical (witness the brilliant "Wall of Gold" solo or the crescendo of album closer "Lead Me Tonight"). No lame odes to inertia here. This is gorgeous, spacious music arriving like uninterpreted dreams, intimate and immediate. The basic design of shoegaze can be wimpy at times — the goal a little aimless, the delivery ineffectual. Radiation Flowers stand out within this genre, and that might be a big reason I love them so much. They are much, much too good of a band to exist where I live, so I would suggest you let them exist where you do. Radiation Flowers will give you a ride for sure, but all the beauty you’ll see on the trip is serrated, magnetic. A phantasm lurks on their debut album, which somehow always manages to link soulful, fuzzed-out noise to a deeper symbiosis.  From: https://www.norecessmagazine.com/single-post/2017/05/31/a-band-you-should-know-radiation-flowers 

My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow

My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless is the rare album that made its way into my collection without me hearing any of it until minutes after laying the cash down on the counter. I had heard plenty about the album, just not the music itself, but when it came right down to it, something about that hazy, red, distorted guitar photograph on the cover seduced me into buying it. And then came the first listen, with leadoff track “Only Shallow” surging through me, my ears left defenseless but ecstatic. The experience was akin to the infamous montage scenes in Aronofsky’s Requiem For A Dream—I soaked in the rush of sound, blood vessels expanding, pupils dilating—without the prostitution or severed limbs of course.
Millions of words and inches have already been committed to describing and discussing Loveless, and to try and add something new could either be seen as superfluous or arrogant, but everything that’s been said about this album bears repeating. It’s as stunning a rock album as one will likely ever hear, dense and noisy, chaotic but calming. Loveless is driven by guitars—big guitars, loud guitars, hazy and oblique sheets of guitar, cascading waterfalls of guitar, strings, distortion and tremolo. To hear Loveless, one would think that there were about 100 guitar tracks in every song, but Kevin Shields once debunked this myth, claiming that there are, in fact, fewer guitars on this album than on most bands’ demos. Furthermore, there are no chorus or flanger pedals on Loveless, unlike the work of many of their shoegazing contemporaries.
How, exactly, My Bloody Valentine came to create the sounds on Loveless seems almost an act of divine inspiration. The band’s approach was deceptively simple, with minimal effects pedals used, though it was most certainly a studio creation, with various producers being hired and fired over the two years during which it was recorded, and countless takes, often recorded with no communication, or even access to hearing the recording, between musicians and engineers. Still, the deft use of the equipment and the reliance upon a relatively bare-bones guitar setup led to the creation of an album that sounds enormous, surreal, even magical, but familiar and seductive.  From: https://www.treblezine.com/my-bloody-valentine-loveless-review/

Jethro Tull - Witch's Promise - Beat-Club 1970

So many speculations and interpretations of “The Witch’s Promise” by Jethro Tull [one of my favorite songs], have circulated, and I’ve come across several interesting angles. But I have my own views, which are deeply personal and rooted in hidden experiences [and probably have absolutely nothing to do with the inspirations for the original piece.]
I’ve read commentaries saying the lyrics reference countless deep concepts and opinions about religion and whether or not it’s a farce–and I can definitely see where that comes through in the imagery. But to me, the song means so much less and so much more. To me, it speaks of blackened irony: Of the Everything and Nothing that are already right here. Of cycles where people chase the same dream over and over again, only to find that–just like when they started–the autumn leaves are still falling, looking lackluster and repetitive thanks to a jaded attitude and the lost ability to feel gladness or gratitude.
The Witch’s Promise, to me, is simply an observation: What you want, if you focus heavily enough and step towards it, will come, and she’s willing to be the face of your “wish come true” . . . But will you see the gifts she saw for you and nudged your way? Will you seize them in time, or will you continue mourning the reasons you wished until the gifts are gone?
And when you seize your gift and accept what was promised you . . . what will you do with it? Don’t wait around– and if you have, don’t wait up–now it’s time to complete another cycle, so the gift promised you is going to seem “late”.  I don’t want to wait too long for the answers to my wishes, and many things I once wished for are right before me already. 
To my ears, Jethro Tull offers a clever take on a classic warning: Seize the moment. Pay attention to avoid missing the golden, fluttering moments amidst the dark mists before another year, another moment, passes. The rain is still falling, but so are the autumn leaves–and no many how many times I’ve seen them, I can enjoy them if I try.  From: https://theinksphere.com/2024/05/06/the-witchs-promise/ 

Laboratorium Pieśni - Sztoj Pa Moru

 Jakub Knera: How did you start singing? 

Alina JurczySzyn: It wasn't singing that started, but theater. I studied Polish Philology at the University of Gdańsk, specializing in theater studies, and that's what fascinated me most – working in theater, directing performances, and training as an actor. I was particularly moved by Gardzienice, which I visited frequently and wrote my master's thesis on before I was accepted to the Academy of Theatre Practices there. I traveled and participated in many workshops – including one at Brzezinka, a branch of the Grotowski Institute, where Grotowski himself worked in a paratheatrical capacity with his actors. Eventually, I began co-creating and directing performances myself, primarily at the Wybrzeżak Theater in Gdynia, but also at the Off the Bicz Theater in Sopot, the LSD Theater, and the Żak Club. 

Did you have any singing in your family? 

Both of my younger sisters went to music schools, and I was the only one who didn't. I have no musical education, and my life is music. But if I were to trace my roots, my grandfather, a singing, joyful man, was crucial to my musicality. He loved to sing – whether with his brothers at family gatherings or just on an ordinary day. But genes aside, I'm a completely urban girl, born in Gdynia and spent my entire childhood in Gdańsk Główny, surrounded by the city. I wasn't raised in the forest by my grandmother, a shaman, who taught me songs of power from a young age (laughter). 

You didn't sing? 

Singing back then was like diving for me now – something I hadn't consciously done before, and it was completely new to me. It just so happened that during the next workshop in Brzezinka, Wrocław, the instructor started choosing me more and more often to sing in front of the group. Since then, it's become clear that people want to hear my voice, that for some reason it's special to them. It stirs something in them; they say it's extraordinary. I was surprised; I didn't understand why this was happening, as I'd never done it before. So I began to explore singing, and from then on, my path slowly turned towards singing. I chose workshops that were less theatrical and more vocal. I went to singing festivals and traveled through villages with collectors of traditional melodies. I was constantly in Wrocław, because the Grotowski Institute held many workshops devoted to voice work. The workshops led by Natalka Polovynka and Serhiy Kovalevych from Maisternia Pisni were incredibly important to me. I especially remember the ones where they invited babushkas from the Drewo group. 

Was that a breakthrough? 

Yes, it was an incredible experience. When they sang Ukrainian songs in polyphony, I was transfixed. It was as if time had stopped; I cried and sang. A very intense time. And then began Gardzienice – Academy, very inspiring classes, vocal and movement training, and performances. In Gardzienice, I became deeply immersed in songs from around the world. I also went on my own expeditions, during which I collected even more songs. For example, I worked with the Tratwa Association, which organized musical expeditions near Radom, a region known for its oberek traditions. We walked through fields and villages, learning traditional music from older musicians. These musical and theatrical journeys, exploring the nature of the voice, lasted about ten years before I decided to focus on my own ensemble. 

When did you decide to create something yourself? 

When did I feel I had a strong legacy of song and musicality? I settled in the Tricity area and thought I needed to share it with someone and do something with it. I wanted to sing with a regular group of people, right where I lived. So, at first, I sang with friends. We often organized rehearsals at the music school or went to Kashubia, to my wooden cottage, and sang there all day. Eventually, I began conducting regular workshops in the Tricity area – first at the Ethnographic Museum in Oliwa, then at the University of Gdańsk, and currently at the Shakespeare Theatre. 

Thus, the Song Laboratory was born. Why the Laboratory? 

The name comes from my fascination with Jerzy Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre and with theatre-laboratories in general: those of Juliusz Osterwa, Eugenio Barba, and Peter Brook. These are the kinds of theatres that go beyond what we think of theatre and seek new avenues of expression in actor training, the truth of the role, but also the truth about the person, embracing paratheatrical activities. I'm also interested in this kind of paramusic, exploring the phenomenon of the voice, asking fundamental questions, searching for answers. It's a very mysterious subject, and one that can be studied throughout one's life. 

Translated from: http://noweidzieodmorza.com/pl/9634-alina-jurczyszyn-spiew-naturalnym-oczyszczeniem/?fbclid=IwY2xjawLep2pleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE5MzJSazZObkdVbWN2N2FDAR6awEP_mkLMpXDqboGdUU7ttoWuNn-GQ_DyI84v1jjrKUjEcD22zha_l1bOEw_aem_UDo-QkVgB-0HWWXTmufT_w

Church of the Cosmic Skull - Sorcery & Sabotage

Presentation has always been a central facet of Church of the Cosmic Skull‘s approach, arguably no less crucial to it than the lush vocal arrangements or tight-knit songcraft that have played out in such classically progressive fashion across their two prior albums, 2018’s Science Fiction and 2016’s Is Satan Real? With their third offering and first to be self-released through their own semi-real imprint Septaphonic Records, Everybody’s Going to Die, they bring their delivery modus to a new level entirely on all fronts, from the writing and execution of the material to the artwork for the album by Zorad, to the release method, to the theme and narrative creating of a kind of journey through a dogma of cosmic self-realization, or, as they put it, “The Psychic Ascension to Humanity,” played out across what they call ‘The Seven Objects’:

– Recognise the hallucinatory nature of reality
– Investigate all aspects of the reality-hallucination
– Receive all phenomena with equanimity
– Celebrate and uphold the freedom of art, science and thought
– Meet mistakes with forgiveness and determination
– Do what you want, with love in your heart
– Maintain focus on the unity of all living beings

To lead the listener through these precepts, Church of the Cosmic Skull — guitarist/vocalist/principal songwriter/producer Brother Bill Fisher, vocalists Sister Caroline Cawley and Sister Joanne Joyce, legkick-prone key specialist/vocalist Brother Michael Wetherburn, bassist/vocalist Brother Samuel Lloyd, and the actual-brothers Brother Joseph Stone on viola and Brother Laurence Stone on drums — have put together a complex release method. Sure, there’s a vinyl release impending, with various special versions available to order from “night black” to “exploding crystal,” “nuclear meltdown” and “cosmic rainbow” — the latter seems the most aesthetically appropriate, given the band’s penchant for color despite their all-white stage costumes — but they’ve also found a means to add complexity to a digital release, often seen as a kind of dumping of tracks onto Bandcamp and other streaming outlets. In Church of the Cosmic Skull‘s hands, even this becomes a work of carefully crafted ideological and creative construction.
They’ve dubbed it ‘The Path,” and essentially it’s a means of introducing the willing participant to the songs of Everybody’s Going to Die one at a time. Since the digital release Nov. 29, if one wants to listen to the 37-minute LP in full, it’s available, but they’ve also made it available through “The Path,” which is a process of signing up through their website and receiving a series of emails from Brother Bill that, with each one, bring an individual track stream and a new step along the purported ascension to humanity, tracing the voyage of a kind of inner-stellar pilgrim, The Protagonist (and eventually The Sorcerer), until at last the final manifestation, accompanying album-finale “Living in a Bubble,” is a stepped-outside view of the multiverse and reality as a series of subjective bubbles created by those living within them.  From: https://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2019/12/10/church-of-the-cosmic-skull-everybodys-going-to-die-review/

Broadcast - Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age (full album)

1 intro / magnetic tales
2 the be colony
3 how do you get along sir
4 will you read me
5 reception / group therapy
6 a quiet moment
7 i see, so i see so
8 you must wake
9 one million years ago
10 a seancing song
11 oh you chatterbox
12 drug party
13 libra, the mirror's minor self
14 love's long listen-in
15 we are after all here
16 a medium’s high
17 ritual / looking in
18 make my sleep his song
19 royal chant
20 what i saw
21 let it begin / oh joy
22 round and round and round
23 the be colony / dashing home / what on earth took you

Musician, graphic designer and Ghost Box Records co-founder Julian House (artist behind the Focus Group) had collaborated previously on artwork and packaging by British indie electronic group Broadcast. Their shared sources of inspiration—1960s BBC soundtrack music, pulp science fiction, Europop, occult texts and jazz—led to this, their first album-length musical collaboration.
Rookie wrote that "the vast array of chopped and screwed samples–drawn from horror movies, nursery rhymes, and something that sounds like a long lost mantra-like ritual from some faraway place a hundred years ago–create a dynamic, haunting, but still pleasant mood, which is what makes it so thrilling". Vice assessed Witch Cults as "perhaps Broadcast's finest achievement, with intimations of Pink Floyd circa Piper at The Gates Of Dawn, as well as the horror film The Innocents and a whole, macabre toybox of colourful, arcane devices". PopMatters described their work as a unique postmodern approach which "seeks not show the world as it is, as a series of meaningless symbols, but to instead imagine a world that either never was or one that bubbles just a thin layer beyond perception".
BBC Music Review reviewed the album favorably, stating, "Witch Cults of the Radio Age is laced with enough wonder and intrigue to keep you coming back. It doesn't make perfect sense, but the sense of mystery is a key in itself". Drowned in Sound called the album "chaotic, overstimulating, like opening a dusty wardrobe and having an entire childhood tumble down on your head".  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_and_The_Focus_Group_Investigate_Witch_Cults_of_the_Radio_Age 

Gentle Giant - Giant in a Box - Live on TV 1974

 Gentle Giant - Giant in a Box - Live on TV 1974 - Part 1

 

 Gentle Giant - Giant in a Box - Live on TV 1974 - Part 2

 

Gentle Giant was formed at the tail end of the 1960s by the Shulman brothers—Phil, Derek and Ray, all of whom sang and played multiple instruments—after their previous band, the psych/soul/pop troupe Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, proved marginally successful but artistically unfulfilling. 
Between 1970 and 1972, the trio (alongside guitarist Gary Green, keyboardist/vocalist Kerry Minnear and various drummers) issued four immensely distinctive, extraordinary and influential LPs whose standout characteristics—namely, charmingly complex interlocking vocal and instrumental patterns born from wide-ranging influences like folk, classical, jazz, hard rock and more—rubbed off on countless other genre acts over the years. (To name a few: Spock’s Beard, Echolyn, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, The Flower Kings, Beardfish, Sky Architect, and perhaps even Jethro Tull via Songs From the Wood.) 
Beyond that, the release of 1972’s Octopus saw the arrival of permanent percussionist John Weathers and the subsequent departure of Phil Shulman (due to various stressors and incompatibilities); naturally, this led to the remaining two brothers and company pushing themselves especially hard to prove how well they could carry on without him. Fortunately, the result—1973’s In a Glass House—exceeded expectations and is considered by many to be their peak up to this point.
That brings us to Gentle Giant’s sixth record, 1974’s The Power and the Glory. It’s their third overt thematic sequence in as many years (after 1972’s Three Friends and the aforementioned In a Glass House). In a 2014 interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Derek Shulman explains: “The concept for the album was based on the corruption of power and how people on the bottom are affected by the people on top. Money and power will win no matter what and the people that are hoping for the best won’t usually get the best.” (Obviously, then, it has no connection to Graham Greene’s 1940 novel of the same name.)
Pressured by their UK label—Vertigo/WWA—to be more commercial (as was the case with many of their peers at the time), they released an eponymous non-album single—which they despised—to appease them. Ironically, though, it actually foreshadows the direction they’d take on their last two or three outings. 
As for The Power and the Glory proper, it’s more or less a perfect melding of the virtuosic, musicianship-for-musicians approach of its predecessors with the increasingly more mainstream and warm sheen that’d truly begin with its follow-up, 1975’s Free Hand (a damn fine effort in its own right, of course). Filled with the sophisticated quirkiness and inventiveness fans have come to expect, The Power and the Glory also leaned closer toward hospitable hard rock than, say, the relatively cold, sparse, and bizarre In a Glass House. 
In that same interview, Shulman looks back on the full-length as follows: “A band is born, has a childhood and then goes into adulthood. I think we became an adult on The Power and the Glory. It was . . . the culmination of the best of our musicianship coming together as a band; it was a golden period for the band.” Forty-five years later, it’s hard to disagree.  From: https://rockandrollglobe.com/rock/progressive-rock/they-got-the-power-got-the-glory-gentle-giant-in-1974/

 

Tim Hart & Maddy Prior - Serving Girls Holiday / Sorry The Day I Was Married / Three Drunken Maidens

Recorded during Steeleye Span Mark II's early days, Summer Solstice -- the most advanced of the three albums that they recorded together early in their careers -- has a very different feel from the Steeleye work of the era. Tim Hart (vocals, guitar, dulcimer, harmonium, psaltery, tabor) and Maddy Prior (vocals) are working with Sweeney's Men (whence Steeleye Mark I's Terry Woods came) alumnus Andy Irvine and Steeleye Mark I guest drummer Gerry Conway. The sound is mostly fairly spare, just Hart and Prior backed by Irvine on mandolin, John Ryan on string bass, Pat Donaldson on electric bass, and Conway on percussion. The only exception is "Dancing at Whitsun," which features a very tasteful backing orchestral arrangement. Hart and Prior do a version of "False Knight on the Road" that's very different in pacing and nuance from Steeleye's, and a beautiful, droning rendition of "Bring Us in Good Ale." Their voices mesh wonderfully on "Sorry the Day I Was Married," and Prior gets a chance to shine as a solo on "Westron Wynde," "Fly Up My Cock," and the two most Steeleye-like track here, "Cannily, Cannily" and "Three Drunken Maidens."  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/summer-solstice-mw0000617338#review 

Uriah Heep - I Wanna Be Free

The third album from Uriah Heep sees them taking further giant steps forward. The rhythm section is still in a state of turmoil, but the nucleus of Box/Byron/Hensley have found a solid direction, and are approaching the pinnacle of their combined creativity.
The title track has become one of the band's most enduring pieces, a solid five minute chunk of loud, infectious rock, with a wall of sound, and a breathtaking pace. The instrumental breaks are quite stunning, with Box in particular in fine form. Towards the end of the track, Bronze label-mates Osibisa add additional percussion as it increases pace before reaching a climactic conclusion. I only discovered recently, that the lead vocals on the track are performed by Ken Hensley, not David Byron, although the latter always took the lead when the song was performed live. Quite why this happened is puzzling, as the overall sound is very much as if Byron himself was singing as usual.
The album includes the epic "July Morning", with its majestic prog sound, and superb structure. The track alternates between soft and loud passages, and includes a wonderful Hammond solo followed by Byron reaching ever higher with his piercing screams. The main instrumental theme which closes the track is basically simple, but transformed by a guest appearance from Manfred Mann on synthesiser. While Hensley would later master this instrument himself, they were still somewhat rare at the time, giving the track a very progressive feel in the early 70's. A truly magnificent piece of music.
The rest of the tracks are all very strong, including the melodic ballad "What should be done", and the twin guitar lead on "Tears in my eyes". With this album, the Uriah Heep "sound" was firmly established. The tracks have great power, while strong melodies are still very much the priority. "July morning" especially is an absolute classic.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=5896

Susanna Hoffs - Weak With Love

 Ray Shasho: Who were some of the music artists that influenced you while growing up? 

Susanna Hoffs: “There were so-so many! Starting in the 60’s, I would say The Beatles being the toppermost of the poppermost for me. (All laughing) So many bands … The Byrds, the Buffalo Springfield, The Mamas and the Papas, The Kinks, The Zombies, along with a lot of the great female singers of that time and period like …Petula Clark, Lulu, Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick … my mom had all the Burt Bacharach/Hal David music, many people covered their songs but we had all those Dionne Warwick records. To this day, those Burt Bacharach/Hal David songs move me so much. I love singing them; I got the chance to sing “Alfie” in the ‘Austin Powers’ movie and that was so much fun.”
“In the 70’s, singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Carole King, as well as bands like Yes. At the end of the 70’s, where the whole Punk Rock revolution happened musically, I got very into those groups at a time when it started to be an idea in my head. I thought, wow, I could do this, especially after hearing a band like The Ramones because they were like Punk/Pop and I knew those same three or four chords. I could probably get an electric guitar and change my Folk-like sound to a Ramones style treatment of a Pop song.”
“Blondie, the Talking Heads, Television out of New York were all influences, and that whole scene. Bands like Television lead me back to bands like The Velvet Underground, who I kind of never knew about when I was just a kid. I had heard of Andy Warhol, my mom had been a painter and later became a screenwriter, but she started out as a teacher, so I knew a lot about the art scene of the 60’s through my parents. But I didn’t really know about The Velvet Underground’s music until the late 70’s when I rediscovered all of that.”
“But yea, even like Nick Lowe, early Elvis Costello … it was a really interesting time. The fact that I could go to local clubs and see the Talking Heads at the Whiskey A Go Go, probably on their first tour, the early Go-Go’s shows, The Undertones, The Jam, Blondie … it was a great time!” 

Ray Shasho: Susanna, I’m reluctant to admit this, but I never knew that “Manic Monday” was written by Prince … how did that transpire?

Susanna Hoffs: “Oh no? Wow! We were recording at the time with Producer David Kahne and working with David and Peggy Leonard who were recording engineers and worked a lot with Prince. Somehow Peggy was working on Princes’ record at The Sound Factory on Sunset Boulevard and her husband David was working on our record at the sister studio Sunset Sound & Sound Factory. So we got word that Prince had some songs and wanted me to come over to The Sound Factory. So I drove over there, picked up a cassette, it had “Manic Monday” on it and we recorded it. I think Prince had seen the “Hero Takes A Fall” video on MTV and that’s how he kind of discovered The Bangles. Then he came to at least two shows and performed with us onstage. I think he may have watched us the first time, the second time performed with us, then performed with us again in San Francisco. So he was like an early fan of the band. It turned out to be an incredible thing for us because we were very much like the rest of the world … in awe of Prince, his talent, and magnificent stage presence. I really learned a lot watching him and the gift of “Manic Monday” was unexpected, it turned out to be so amazing because it worked its way up the charts, peaked at #2, and it really got our name out there.”

From: https://www.classicrockhereandnow.com/2014/06/susanna-hoffs-interview-bangles.html

Timechild - This Too Will Pass

Timechild is massive and organic Heavy Rock from Copenhagen, Denmark. The band’s soundscape is made up of a powerful and present lead vocal, characteristic twin guitars, and atmospheric vocal harmonies, which together create their unique Scandinavian expression.
Timechild was formed in 2020 by four seasoned musicians from different corners of Denmark. With extensive past experience in a number of former and existing Danish Rock and Metal bands, the members had already crossed paths on both Danish and international stages. When the opportunity arose, they decided to unite their musical experiences and visions and created Timechild.
The debut album was written and recorded during the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, which paralysed the Danish and international music industry. However, this silence gave the band time to jointly develop their common sound and expression. The vision from the start was to show how Heavy Rock can continue to challenge and surprise audiences even in 2021. Although the foundation of the band’s sound universe is clearly laid by the Rock giants of the past, Timechild’s inspiration is drawn from across both time and genres.
The opportunity to dive into the music history of past decades, and through this define one’s own sound, is one of the greatest privileges that today’s musicians have at their disposal. We can learn from the past without being backward-looking or unoriginal and we can be relevant and innovative without having to define a new genre.
This same mindset also applies to Timechild’s lyrics. The title of the upcoming debut album “And Yet It Moves” is, according to legend, the last phrase uttered by physicist and philosopher Galileo Galilei after the Vatican forced him to recant his scientific belief, that the Earth moves around the sun and not the other way around. It is precisely this human search for the purpose of our own existence and the struggle to elevate ourselves above the laws of nature, that are recurring themes in the album’s textual universe.  From: https://bloodynews.ro/en/2021/11/12/timechild-debut-album-and-yet-it-moves-out-today/

Red Sky July - Kings of Better Things

Think Country: Please introduce yourself. Please introduce your position in the band, where you’re originally from and where you are based now.

AM: I’m Ally McErlaine, founder of the band, along with my wife Shelly. I play guitar in the group, along with mandolins, banjos and anything with strings.

TC: What types of music did you hear around the house growing up? What did you enjoy listening to on your own?

AM: My dad was really into Bob Dylan and rock ‘n’ roll music, my mum loved The Beatles and The Beach Boys. I heard a lot of country at the family Christmas parties. Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, etc. I had phases of punk, metal, Bowie, so it was always very varied.

TC: How did you get your start playing and/or singing?

AM: I started playing guitar with my dad, he was a folk player so he taught me my first chords.

TC: How did Red Sky July get started?

AM: Red Sky July started as a side project for me and Shelly. I was in the group Texas and she was in Alisha’s Attic. We originally teamed up with Floridian Charity Hair. Charity has since moved back to the US, so we asked an old friend Haley Glennie-Smith to join.

TC: Tell me about the upcoming release. Give as many details as you can, especially your contribution to the project.

AM: Our new album, Misty Morning, is the first with Haley. It was recorded mostly at our home studio in London. We have Joe Hammill from the band Cattle & Cane guesting on “Utah.” Other important contributions were Rory Carlile, who did the mixing, and some bass by Ryan Small and Ross Hamilton.

TC: What are your outside activities when you aren’t doing music?

AM: We do a lot of writing with other artists and also a lot of TV and film scoring. Recent film was My Old School, the Scottish film starring Alan Cumming. We did a cover of “My Old School” by Steely Dan, featuring Lulu on vocals.

Think Country: Please introduce yourself. Please include your position in the band, where you’re originally from and where you are based now.

Shelly Poole: I’m Shelly, singer-songwriter and producer with Red Sky July.

TC: What types of music did you hear around the house growing up? What did you enjoy listening to on your own?

SP: When I was growing up we used to listen to things like the Eagles and Neil Diamond in my dad’s old Mustang; very much American-based music. My dad was in a band in the 60s (he was the lead singer) of Brian Poole and The Tremeloes, so we had music around the house all the time, lots of bands and lots of rock and roll!

TC: How did you get your start playing and/or singing?

SP: It took me a long time to get any kind of a start in music. I was doing it from when I left school at 16 and I got my first deal at 25. Before that, my sister and I were playing in clubs and pubs, etc. We were sending out demos to record companies and getting lots of rejections. We finally met a lawyer who took our demo tape to one of the people we’d already written to, and we got offered a deal straight away with Howard Berman at Mercury Records. 

TC: How did Red Sky July get started?

SP: Red Sky July got started by just Ally writing a piece of music on his guitar and me singing a song over the top. I wanted a harmony on it, so my friend came over to sing for us (our previous band member Charity Hair), and we loved it so much we started the band on the spot. The song was “Morning Song” and it was on the first album.

TC: Tell me about the upcoming release. Give as many details as you can, especially your contribution to the project.

SP: On this album it took a while to get it into place. We wrote songs, we scrapped them. We wrote some more, we scrapped them. Every time I produced them up (and it took ages) and we still scrapped them. There was something not quite right about the feel of it. I can’t say why, and even though I’m really trying to think of an answer, there isn’t one. It just didn’t feel right. This final one feels like it came together in the right way. The songs were written from the heart; we tried to use different instrumentation and not really think about what you should use for certain genres like Americana. We used our really good friend Rory (Carlile), who we worked with on the first album, to mix.

TC: Ultimate goal for Red Sky July? Is this the band we will always see or are there plans to add any new members? Special venues you’d like to play?

SP: The ultimate goal for Red Sky July is that we want to continue to play our songs to people. We will probably make another album next year and we just want to keep singing and playing together, as it’s fun. It’s a very good release from the day job of composing for TV and sync. We really enjoy the art of producing music like this too, and we don’t get much of a chance to outside of Red Sky July. So when we all get together to do what we love, we will keep it going in whatever capacity we can.

From: https://thinkcountrymusic.com/music/q-a-with-uk-trio-red-sky-july-new-album-misty-morning-set-to-release-february-28th/

The Book of Knots - Obituary For The Future

The Book of Knots is an avant-prog band founded by Matthias Bossi (Skeleton Key, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) Joel Hamilton (Shiner, Battle Of Mice, Sparklehorse, Elvis Costello, Unsane) and Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu, Frank Black, They Might Be Giants), in the spring of 2003 in Brooklyn, New York based on The Ashley Book of Knots. At the outset, the band was originally an excuse to write songs for their friends, but took a more serious turn when Mauro Arrambide of Archlight Records stepped in and offered to release their unique music. They were joined by vionlinist/vocalist Carla Kihlstedt (Tin Hat, 2 Foot Yard, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Cosa Brava) about halfway through the recording of their self-titled debut, which solidified them into a quartet. It was decided that the band would release three records, the first being an ode to the rotting seaside towns of Matthias and Joel's youth, the second a tribute to the American rust-belt, and the third, a praising of all things aeronautical. Their Music is a mixture of avant-garde jazz, folk, prog and experimental rock. From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=5567 

The Swan Chorus - The Hilary Step

The Swan Chorus are a six-piece progressive rock group of seasoned musicians from the Liverpool area. Formed as a result of the reunion of the song-writing duo of David Knowles (keyboards) and Colin McKay in 2015, they soon recruited a number of talented local musicians including vocalist John Wilkinson and bassist Dave Jones (both members of the popular Genesis-tribute band, 'Mama' and more recently Tim Bowness's fictitious band project, Moonshot). Along with Peter Dover on drums and Les Norton and Eddie Devlin on guitars they released their eponymous debut back in 2018. Like so many hard-working progressive rock bands, it is so often the case that quality music releases, that deserve a wider audience, just 'fall through the cracks.' I was personally unaware of their existence until a fellow TPA reviewer asked me to have a listen to them a week or so ago. I'm very pleased I did! 
Over 10 tracks, including several of an extended length, you get some very enjoyable prog-pop to dive into. Music that is both vibrant, melodic, accessible, and song-oriented; yet also instrumentally progressive. Powerful, confident vocals and a deeper lyrical content throughout. This is infectious prog that needs to be spread to a wider audience. Describing their style and sound is not straightforward, as the band have created their own soundscape, whilst signaling their influences across their diverse collection of tracks. There is, not surprisingly, a strong later-period Genesis feel, largely related to John's impressive Collins-like vocals and David's melodic, later-period, Banks-style compositional structure. However, David is not afraid to add a layer of classic-era keyboards and synthesizers when appropriate. 
The Hilary Step starts the album with an upbeat, chiming rhythm and pop sensibilities, yet David's symphonic keyboard chords add nice proggy touches (especially towards the end) and John's clear vocals send out a hard- hitting statement of American politics over a mountaineering analogy. "When I get to the bottom, I am never going up again!" Light and shade for sure.  From:  https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=11120

Nadine Shah - Topless Mother

ZUZANNA CZEMIER: You’ve said that “Evil” was inspired by Philip Larkin’s poem “Days.” What does this poem mean to you?

NADINE SHAH: It’s a really short poem, it’s great. Within just two stanzas he sums up all the problems with people’s attitudes towards mental health or anybody who lives outside the norm. He says, “Brings the priest and the doctor / In their long coats / Running over the fields,” which means that religion and medicine and society are going to judge you. It’s where [“Evil”] came from, but also my own and my friends’ experiences with mental illness.

CZEMIER: There is a verse in the poem that goes, “Where can we live but days?” which can be interpreted as a comment on the mundane but necessary cycle of life. I was wondering if you’re the type of person who tries to escape the quotidian or conversely, do you find a sort of peace in routine?

SHAH: It’s a mixture of both. The industry I work in isn’t necessarily the norm. It’s a very different routine to a lot of other people and a lot of my time is spent in isolation. I will be in a studio or in my bedroom by myself, working. My friends and my boyfriend all have “proper” jobs, if that’s what you want to call them. I hate being called lazy, so when everybody gets up at half seven in the morning, I’m up at the same time. Everyone goes to work and I’ll do a few hours of writing, then I’ll mess about for a bit and come back to it. By the time I go home I’m done. I think it’s really good to keep that kind of a routine with writing. I find that when I don’t do that, it’s really hard to get back into that headspace of writing.

CZEMIER: Where there any specific musical influences behind Holiday Destination, or do you prefer to draw inspiration from other mediums, like poetry?

SHAH: What happens when I’m making a new album is I try not to listen to music that’s coming out at the time. I turn off the radio and don’t read any music blogs, because I tend to get really distracted by new music. When I hear it, I think, “Should I be doing that?” But I listened to Talking Heads a lot; they influenced the sound of this album. Because [in Holiday Destination] the topic is quite heavy, politically, I wanted the music to be energetic and upbeat. Even though it’s a political message, I wanted it not to be dour; I wanted it to inspire hope. 

CZEMIER: The album cover photo is pretty clear reference to photos from Iraq and Syria that we see on the news a lot, which ties into the theme of Holiday Destination. Can you say where it’s from? 

SHAH: It was taken in Gaza by a guy named Christian Stephen, who is a war correspondent. He’s been in war since he was 17 and he’s 22 now. He’s such a brilliant mind. I met him at a party and we were talking about his work and the new album. We met later and I asked if I could use one of his images for the album cover. He showed me a whole bunch of them and most, I’d say 98 percent of them, were too painful. I couldn’t use them. They were the saddest, most harrowing images I’ve ever seen. What this particular image had is that it instills hope. There’s this young boy, who’s 11 years old at maximum, and he’s standing in this building, which has been destroyed by war. The front facade of the building is missing and you see him standing on the top floor, kind of triumphant, and flipping a peace sign. Despite all the travesty that’s going on around him, every disgusting thing that this boy must have seen, he’s still standing there flipping a peace sign.  

I think that’s what I wanted to do this this album: despite all of this happening you want to instill hope. We’ve been talking about the Syrian refugee crisis a lot, in the news in the U.K. and possibly the U.S., but it isn’t the only refugee crisis that is happening at this minute. There’s something like 22 million refugees in the world. There are people from Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria, and so many other places where people are living in complete turmoil. It was important to me that we showed a place other than Syria, which is why we chose that image. 

CZEMIER: In Fast Food, [Shah’s 2015 album,] you sung about mental illness, whereas in Holiday Destination you focus on the current global refugee crisis. Does immersing yourself in heavy subjects like these take any sort of emotional toll on you? 

SHAH: It was something that one of my older brothers pointed out years ago when my first album came out. He was saying that watching me perform—I’d get really emotional on stage—was really uncomfortable for an older brother. He almost wanted to step in and tell the audience, “Go home, there’s nothing to see here, I’m taking her home and we’re having a cup of tea. People shouldn’t be watching this.” But I think I have an on-stage persona that is very different from how I am now on the phone or even between songs. Sometimes I’ll finish performing and tell a joke, because you have this moment of realization when you’re like, “Oh shit, I just hung out my dirty laundry for everyone to see.” You’ve exposed yourself and it’s a moment of embarrassment almost, because you’ve revealed so much. But it’s been six or seven years of me doing this and I’ve started to find techniques of how to live a healthier life within this crazy industry. I think I’ve got a pretty good balance now. 

From: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/nadine-shah

The Electric Flag - Another Country

When guitarist Mike Bloomfield left the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1967, he wanted to form a band that combined blues, rock, soul, psychedelia, and jazz into something new. He knew for sure that he wanted a horn section in the band, which he began forming with a couple of friends, keyboardist Barry Goldberg and singer Nick Gravenites. Although the three were all veterans of the Chicago music scene, the group based itself in the San Francisco area. Bloomfield, Goldberg, and Gravenites were in turn bolstered by a rhythm section of bassist Harvey Brooks (who had played on some of Bob Dylan's mid-'60s records) and drummer Buddy Miles; on top of them came a horn section. 
Oddly, before even playing any live concerts, Electric Flag recorded the soundtrack for the 1967 psychedelic exploitation movie The Trip, which afforded them the opportunity to experiment with some of their ideas without much pressure. Their live debut was at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival (although they didn't make it into the documentary film of the event; they do appear in the bonus footage on the DVD version), but their first proper studio album didn't come out until the spring of 1968. A Long Time Comin' predated Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago's big-band rock sound, mixing it as they did with jazz-rock but also soul-rock-psychedelia that sometimes (but not always) employed prominent horns.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/electric-flag-mn0000135829#biography

Buckingham Nicks - Crying In The Night

"Crying in the Night's about an actress; her name is Lesley Ann Warren and she did some movie that was very a-la-Gunsmoke Kitty, you know, that type of thing, and I wrote this song about her. And many years later when I did the video for ‘Stand Back,’ and Jeffrey Hornaday choreographed it, they were going together and he, in fact, introduced me to her and I told her about it, that this song had been written about her. So this was a song that was really written about a certain person, and if you know who she is and whenever you hear ‘Crying in the Night’ will know that that’s what I wrote it about. And she thought it was pretty neat and I thought it was pretty neat and I thought it was pretty neat to get to tell her that I wrote it about her.”
Although Stevie has never said what the movie was called, her description appears to match the character of “Mae” in the ABC TV movie The Daughters of Joshua Cabe (1972), in which Lesley Ann Warren played a “come-on girl,” or a prostitute. “Crying the Night” (backed with “Stephanie”) was the lead single from Buckingham Nicks.  From: https://stevienicks.info/music/buckingham-nicks-1973/crying-in-the-night/ 

The Band - Ain't No More Cane

"Ain't No More Cane on This Brazos" is a traditional prison work song of the Southern United States. The title refers to work assigned to prisoners sentenced to hard labor in Texas. The labor involved cutting sugar cane along the banks of the Brazos River, where many of the state's prison farms were located in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 
It has been recorded by Alan Lomax on his 1958 recording Texas Folk Songs Sung by Alan Lomax as "Ain't No More Cane on This Brazis", Odetta, Lonnie Donegan, the Limeliters on their album 14 14K Folksongs (1963), Son Volt on the album A Retrospective: 1995-2000, and The Band on the album Across the Great Divide. Bob Dylan also performed the song live in the early 1960s[1] and his version is on multiple bootleg recordings taken from The Gaslight Cafe. An extensive set of lyrics to the song, as sung by inmates of Central State Farm near Houston, Texas, appears in folklorist John Lomax's book American Ballads and Folk Songs, originally published in 1934. 
The song is sometimes attributed to Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), but a recording of him singing the song is obscure or non-existent. A song titled "Ain't No More Cane on this Brazos" does not appear in the extensive discography of Leadbelly recordings contained in Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell's book The Life and Legend of Leadbelly. Alan Lomax suggests, in the notes for his recording, another source from the Texas prison community. Possibly the song became associated with Leadbelly through his various recordings of another Texas prison song titled "Go Down, Ol' Hannah" which shares some verses with "Ain't No More Cane on this Brazos".  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain%27t_No_More_Cane 

Bel Canto - The Glassmaker

The atmospheric, melancholy, somewhat medieval soundscapes of Bel Canto (Italian for "beautiful song") mix an essentially synth-based chamber rock sound with a wide range of orchestral and folk instruments. The group hails from Norway and began as a trio consisting of ethereal vocalist Anneli Drecker plus Nils Johansen and Geir Jenssen. Bel Canto have claimed to draw their inspiration from powerful energy fields, including those of the female and the Earth's gravitational pull. Debuting in 1987 with White-Out Conditions, they started out with a sort of abstract synth pop style, gradually incorporating more neo-classical and dance elements on subsequent efforts like 1992's Shimmering, Warm & Bright. Following a few releases that delved into trip-hop rhythms, like 1998's Rush, Bel Canto went on hiatus, eventually returning in 2024 with the lush, majestic Radiant Green.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bel-canto-mn0000125976#biography  

Ruphus - Flying Dutchman Fantasy

Ruphus was founded early 1970. The band signed with famous record label Polydor in 1973 and released six studio albums and one compilation between 1973 and 1979. During the years their sound gradually turned from harder-edged prog to more jazzrock oriented. Ruphus had good album sales after their breakthrough album Let Your Light Shine (1976), then got some airplay and toured successfully in Germany. Due to multiple line-up changes the band dissolved eventually in the early Eighties, but in the 2000s Ruphus did a number of reunion concerts.
An important part of their sound on this debut album is the interplay between the Hammond organ and the harder-edged guitar, reminding me of the Early British Progressive Rock Movement (somewhere between Atomic Rooster and Fruupp). Most songs contain catchy beats and sumptuous eruptions, blended with male vocals (with a strong accent) and female vocals, her raw, powerful and emotional sound evokes to me female singer Inga Rumpf (from contemporary German band Frumpy). The strong element in Ruphus its music is delivering variety in atmospheres and instruments, topped with a passionate approach.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=1313