Frente! - What's Come Over Me

Frente! was formed in 1989 in Melbourne, Australia, by guitarist Simon Austin, lead vocalist Angie Hart, bassist Tim O'Connor, and drummer Mark Picton. The band's name, which means "forehead" or "front" in Spanish, quickly became synonymous with its unique blend of folk-pop and indie pop in the Melbourne music scene. Its acoustic sound and Hart's distinctive vocal delivery set it apart from the grunge trends of the day, giving it a fresh and honest appeal.

Discography and Notable '90s Albums

"Marvin the Album" (1992): Frente!'s debut album was a critical and commercial success, featuring hits like "Ordinary Angels" and "Accidentally Kelly Street." The album peaked at No. 5 on the ARIA Albums Chart and received Platinum certification in Australia. It also included their cover of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle," which became a hit in its own right.

"Shape" (1996): The band's sophomore album showcased a more sophisticated sound, blending acoustics with technology and innovative songwriting. The album peaked at No. 35 on the ARIA Albums Chart and included singles like "Sit on My Hands" and "What's Come Over Me”

Influence and Legacy

Frente!'s debut album, "Marvin the Album," was praised for its "quirky, irreverent, acoustic-based sound," which was at odds with the guitar-heavy trends of the time. The band's presentation, though twee, was offset by its genuine freshness and honesty. Their influence extended beyond Australia, as they were handpicked to tour with international acts like Alanis Morissette, the Beautiful South, and Everything But The Girl.
After disbanding in 1998, Frente! reunited several times, most notably in 2014, to celebrate the 21st anniversary of "Marvin the Album." In 2023, they marked the 30th anniversary of the album with special performances and a vinyl release. The band's legacy continues with their timeless music and enduring appeal to fans of '90s alternative music.

From: https://www.digmeoutpodcast.com/p/frente-history-of-the-band

The Amorphous Androgynous - The Isness & The Otherness

 The Amorphous Androgynous - The Isness & The Otherness - Part 1

 

 The Amorphous Androgynous - The Isness & The Otherness - Part 2

 

The Amorphous Androgynous - The Isness & The Otherness - Part 3

 

Occupying the blurred line between electronica and prog, Garry Cobain of The Amorphous Androgynous talks yoga, enemas and his “disrespect” for musical history. In hindsight, there was more shared ground between our beloved prog heroes and the 90s musicians behind techno, ambient, electronica and IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) than first met the ear and eye. And we’re not just talking about their long hair.
It is quite legitimate to make a connection between the 70s prog brigade and the grandiose, expansive structures and textured, trippy atmospheres of The Chemical Brothers, The Orb, Orbital, Moby, Leftfield, Aphex Twin, Underworld, 808 State, The Shamen, Ultramarine and The Future Sound Of London (FSOL). Indeed, ‘progressive dance’ was a term bandied around at one point as a suitable umbrella for these acts; ‘hippie techno’ was another. As features editor at Melody Maker, I remember setting up a summit in 1993 between Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Alex Paterson of The Orb, so that they could discuss in depth their similarities of sound and vision, ideology and intent.
Future Sound Of London were Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain, and were steeped in prog and psychedelia: their 1994 album Lifeforms even featured contributions from Robert Fripp, Klaus Schulze of Tangerine Dream, and Ash Ra Tempel. A year earlier, FSOL had transmogrified temporarily into Amorphous Androgynous and released Tales Of Ephidrina, which sampled Peter Gabriel’s Passion: Music For The Last Temptation Of Christ.
By 2002, the duo had moved in a less electronic, more organic direction for The Isness, hailed by some as a latterday neo-prog classic. With songtitles such as Go Tell It To The Trees Egghead, Her Tongue Is Like A Jellyfish and The Galaxial Pharmaceutical, the album invited comparisons with the Moody Blues, Aphrodite’s Child, Donovan and Pink Floyd, while reviewers proclaimed it, variously, “a modern progtronic rock opera” and “the most intelligent, coherent, ‘collage-ist’ summing up of everything that was wonderful about progressive rock and psychedelia that one could wish for.”
And now, The Amorphous Androgynous have travelled to the furthest reaches of the planet (Australia and New Zealand) to bring us the latest in their series of A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind… mix CDs. Their 2008 instalment so impressed Noel Gallagher that he invited AA to collaborate on an album.
The Amorphous Androgynous’ latest prog/psych purée ranges from the Hendrixian thunder of New Zealand guitarist Doug Jerebine to the proto-kraut rock of The Missing Links; is subtitled The Wizards Of Oz and is devoted exclusively to mostly obscure music of the cosmic kind from the Antipodes, from the 1960s to the present, from “Kiwi Krautrock to Aboriginal space jazz to OZ dream pop to cOZmic funkrok”, according to the press release accompanying this 34-track, two-hour CD extravaganza.
When Prog asks Garry Cobain why he needed the The Amorphous Androgynous project moniker, despite it being the same line-up as FSOL, his reply is suitably out-there. “I wanted to write spiritual, cosmic rock’n’roll operas,” he says. Cobain explains his evolution, from classic rock-loving teen from Home Counties Bedford into Floyd, Hendrix and The Doors, to acid house casualty based in Manchester, which is where he met Dougans at university in the mid-80s. Their roles were clear enough: Dougans was the studio boffin, Cobain the charismatic frontman, although both knew their way around a computer.
As FSOL, they enjoyed Top 30 hits, notably with 1992’s Papua New Guinea single, ’93’s 40-minute epic Cascade and the 1994 album Lifeforms, before Cobain felt a need to immerse himself in the prog/psych ocean, via Amorphous Androgynous. There had been rumours explaining this transformation, one of which was mental illness. In reality, it was his physical health that was poor. Unbeknown to him, Cobain had been slowly poisoning his body with the mercury from fillings in his teeth.
“I’d been ill, as a result of the mercury, for most of my life,” he reveals. “I’d had all sorts of immune disorders, a heart that didn’t work properly. I’d never felt right, but I just accepted it. In 1997, I decided to find out what was underpinning my illness. I looked at everything, including emotional issues.” Eventually, Cobain found a cure for his illness in a combination of “food, mysticism, and yoga”, mainly in India, where he learned about Ayurvedic medicine and “acquired the tools to self-cure”.
The Amorphous Androgynous were born out of this period of spiritual awakening, when Cobain was “finding healers and mystics and people of all persuasions”, including a blind sitar player from Stoke Newington with whom he’d attend Indian weddings. Meanwhile, he would travel the world, “to heal and find out loads of stuff”. He was, he says, “plugging into the truth”.
The Isness was the first manifestation of the new, healthier Cobain. Although it had the sound of someone on drugs, he wasn’t partaking. “Funnily enough,” Cobain says, sounding every inch the flower child out of time, “I realised early on that everybody is absolutely fucked up on drugs because of air and water. Nobody and nothing’s natural. There are heavy metals in vaccinations, the air is full of benzine, our water is full of fluoride… As for our food, there are 30 chemicals in strawberries. My quest was to try to be as pure as I could.” This he achieved via meditation, yoga and “fasting enemas”.
“I’d walk into the studio every day and Brian would go, ‘Fuck! This is a lot more interesting than going out and taking drugs and drink, pretending to be rock’n’roll.’ Potentially this was the new rock’n’roll – becoming as pure as possible to find some clarity. The clearer I was, the more expressive I became. And the more people thought I was on drugs… “I realised I’d never be free,” he continues. “Getting ill was expressive of me as a human. I wasn’t alive. I wasn’t happy generally. Society, elders, school, parents…”
Cobain was on a mission to get happy. At the same time he realised his musical future lay, not in electronic soundscapes but actual songs – albeit experimental, exploratory ones – with words. Loquacious in interviews and with ideas to burn, Cobain was as far from the anonymous, monosyllabic techno muso as you could get. “The truth is,” he says, “on press days I’d speak to hundreds of journalists from around the world. I was doing half-hour speeches.”
Cobain scoured second-hand shops for “obscure prog” and as many records as he could find bearing “interesting instrumentation and cosmic songtitles”. Donovan, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Alice Coltrane were among the artists he discovered. These would form the basis of the Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble mix CDs. Had the 47-year-old been around in the early 70s as a record-buyer (he was born in May 1967, two weeks before the release of Sgt Pepper), Prog wonders whether he would have been more into psych, prog or kraut?
“Probably I’d have been dabbling with them all, and been the first to put them all on one album,” he suggests. “People are surprised to see John Lydon was into Kate Bush. I’m not. A hippie is a punk in a different era.” The Amorphous Androgynous of The Isness and its follow-ups Alice In Ultraland (2005) and The Peppermint Tree & The Seeds Of Superconsciousness (2008) reflected Cobain’s intention to “use the studio creatively, only with instruments not alien electronic noise”. These albums were a blend of strummed guitar and what he calls “studio bend”. Having grown bored, after a decade of making electronic dance, with beats, he discovered 1967. Once he’d ransacked psychedelia, he moved onto 1972: prog’s golden age.
“By Alice…, we’d started to get a lot more prog,” he admits. Since then, there has been a series of soundtrack albums showcasing successful attempts, using live musicians, to recreate, for example, blaxploitation-era scores, and the Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble… series, of which The Wizards Of Oz is the latest and, arguably, greatest.
“We began to hatch a plan for an album devoted to Antipodean music in 2004, when we were on tour in Australia,” explains Cobain. “But it’s not your average psych album. We’re not interested in the past. We want a modern revolution; it’s just that we need the wisdom of the past to do that. “I like our disrespect for history,” he adds. “I’m a non-expert.”
His is a punk vision of psych and prog. “There’s a rebelliousness to what we do,” he decides. It chimes with the times, and taps into insurrectionist currents. “I can see psychedelic bands around the world, and I see people disenfranchised with governments, yearning for freedom. And that’s what Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble is about – a birthright for freedom, colour and interconnectedness. That is the future. A vision that is progressive.”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/amorphous-androgynous-and-their-road-to-prog

 

 

Dazkarieh - Finisterra - Live Atlântico Blue Studios

Dazkarieh is a recent surprise in Portuguese traditional and folk music, although those that are more in touch with folk music in Portugal have already been hearing the band's wonderful live performances at the traditional music and dance festivals. After spending some time doing only live concerts, they have finally recorded their first studio album.
'Dazkarieh' is not a Portuguese word, nor is it from any other known language. According to the band, it's a "magical word of unknown origin. It might have something to do with the energies that are released when several worlds, essences and influences touch each other." That is probably also the best definition one can come up with for the music of this group. In their repertoire, Dazkarieh travel through the musical universe of the Mediterranean, of the North of Portugal and Galicia, of the Middle-East, and of Africa. There they gather the sounds that they weave into tunes that can be calm and introspective (making us think of bands like Dead Can Dance), but can also change suddenly into real explosions of energy and rhythm, where the spiritual and emotional component is always present.
Although these changes between intimacy and emotion are noticeable throughout the record, it is in the second, third and fourth tunes of the album, the fabulous triptych "Kriamideah," that they are revealed in all their beauty and excellence. First we are invited, even hypnotized, by the intimate and contemplative environment created by the guitar, the cello, some soft percussion, and by the brilliant voice of Marie Beatriz Lucio. But as we get involved in the sounds there is the feeling that there's still something more to discover in the tune, and finally we are completely overwhelmed by the rhythm of the African drums, the bouzouki, the chanters and the magnificent voice, which by now has become almost tribal.
Dazkarieh take their music very seriously. All the tunes work very well, particularly in the way that the members of the band were able to bring together instruments of very different origins. The quality of the arrangements shows the band's commitment and love for music. The only problem with the record is its short length. Dazkarieh are known to have some more great tunes that they normally use in their live performances, but they chose to leave them out of a studio recording for now, citing the problems that they had when recording the album.
Like all bands upon release of their first album, Dazkarieh had to deal with several logistical difficulties and problems that could only be overcome with the help of friends, so we we are in the presence of work that was only made possible because of friendship and of love for music. And like all labors of love, sooner or later its results will appear.  From: https://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/dazkarieh.shtml

Swans - Song For The Sun

By this album, the Swans have made the complete shift from that dark, heavy and muddy sludge rock to a more gothic prog rock. I add the word prog in there because the music is a step above the typical goth rock, it is well produced, but with some elements of surprise added in. They have not yet arrived to being a full on Post Rock band yet, but you can hear that the transition is coming.
As far as Goth Rock goes, I am not a huge fan of it except for some occasional songs. I do love this album however, because it is so well done, so atmospheric, and it still has plenty of variety throughout it's tracks. Michael Gira's vocals are more melodic now and he has actually become a decent singer utilizing dynamics. Jarboe has also become a bigger contributor to the music. She balances out Gira's deep and occasionally rough vocals, and you can hear her sing more background when she is not doing the occasional lead vocals. She is also in charge of orchestral and choral arrangements and contributing keyboards.
The percussion is powerful on this album, and is not at all pushed to the background as is the case with many goth-rock bands. Dynamics are used better than ever before. And each track has it's own personality. There is darkness, but there is also light. There is heaviness, but there is also softness. There are also a lot of supporting musicians on this album, which helps immensely with the overall sound on each track.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=44159 

Sam Phillips - When I Fall

Since emerging from the haloed ghetto known as Contemporary Christian Music in the late 1980s, Sam Phillips has recorded six albums of consistently sharp-edged music while navigating the boundaries of numerous radio genres — without ever managing to find her way across those boundaries into real mainstream success. Encouraged to expand her sights beyond CCM by future producer, songwriting partner and husband T Bone Burnett, Phillips launched her secular career with albums that dabbled in the thematic as well as the musical obsessions the two of them shared, from roots rock to psychedelic pop. More recently, after a less-than-successful flirtation with electronica and dissonance, Phillips has stripped down her sound and released two acclaimed albums of acoustic cabaret-pop.
Full disclosure: I’ve been in the tank for Phillips since the first night of her first tour as a secular artist, an opening slot at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., in December 1988. My wife and I got to the club a little early, just as Phillips and the evening’s headliner, Luka Bloom, were heading out to dinner. Soon Sam had invited us to join them, and we were off to RT’s restaurant down the street to introduce Sam to the wonders of turtle soup. (She liked it; my wife, not so much.)
Later, back at the gig, Sam had what could have become a very rough night, breaking two strings on the only guitar she had brought onstage. By the time Bloom brought out one of his own, Sam had valiantly and good-humoredly picked her way through the tricky (and bass-note-heavy) instrumentation of her early semi-hit “Flame” (download) on the four remaining strings. It was one of those moments that earn an artist the undying loyalty of everyone present, and I can’t help thinking of that night every time I hear her sing. Heck, I thought of it even while watching her vamp her way through the sultry silence of her Big Hollywood Moment a decade ago, playing villainous Jeremy Irons’ mute girlfriend in Die Hard With A Vengeance. Fortunately, she’s never quit her day job.

Martinis And Bikinis (1994)

When Martinis And Bikinis arrived it made the biggest splash of Phillips’ career, earning unanimous critical raves as well as a Grammy nomination, and even poking its way onto the Billboard 200 album chart (the only time she has managed that feat). More important, the album consolidated all the themes she had pursued since The Turning, in particular her relentless search for “truth” in a life that, particularly through her conservative-Christian upbringing and her journey through the CCM circuit, had surrounded her with “meaning.”
To drive the point home, she closes the album with a cover of John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth” that trades Lennon’s vocal snarl for an weary tone of resignation; to borrow from another rock god, she clearly still hasn’t found what she’s looking for. The Lennon tune fits here not just because of its themes, but because, generally speaking, Martinis And Bikinis takes Phillips and Burnett’s mutual Beatlemania to new heights. “When I Fall” and “Same Rain,” the latter co-written by the two, are veritable primers on Revolver-era guitar licks and harmonies, and the Pepper-y imagery that permeated earlier albums reaches full flower power here on tracks like “Strawberry Road” and “Same Changes.” You’d swear it was Ringo on drums all the way through.
“Baby I Can’t Please You” serves as a neat bookend for “Gimme Some Truth,” and features a neat lyrical trick: Even as Phillips skewers an unnamed politician through the verses (“You try to tell the world how it should spin, but you live in terror with the hollow m3n”), in the chorus she turns on herself with a mixture of self-loathing and pride familiar to persecuted peoples who’ve been forced to hear themselves derided by their oppressors. Finally, in the glorious “I Need Love” she presents a manifesto that sums up everything she’s done since she turned away from the Christian market: “I need love/Not some sentimental prison/I need God/Not the political church/I need fire/To melt the frozen sea inside me.” And from wherever he is now, Lennon smiles.

From: https://popdose.com/the-complete-idiots-guide-to-sam-phillips/

The Bilinda Butchers - Night and Blur

Michal Kepsky and Adam Honingford have been writing and creating music together since they were around fifteen years old, initially bonding over a shared love of shoegaze and, as you can probably discern from the band name, My Bloody Valentine. Along with the shoegaze and dream pop influences from MBV and bands like The Radio Dept. and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, there was also the love of video game soundtracks and bossa nova that had a hand in the BB’s wonderfully unique sound, always somewhere between the jagged and the whimsical, the sharp and vulnerable. In this sense, however, Regret, Love, Guilt, Dreams – which Kepsky entirely wrote and recorded on his own – comes with a disclaimer, as he has admitted he is obviously not the same person today as he as when it was written over eight years ago. It’s an album partially fueled – even if by unintentional means – by teenage angst and yearning, by emotions flowing out so fast there is that conscious need to make sense of them. 
There’s also the heavy, continuous theme of cinema within their discography that makes itself known in gorgeously subtle ways within these two EPs; In fact, Kepsky mentioned in a 2010 interview that he treats every song as a singular scene in a movie of his own design, all dwelling on moments within the darker, more painful complexities of the human condition – and, perhaps most of all, the feelings that come with being deep within the throes of loneliness, in both its physical and emotional variations. They want you to engage with their music in this manner, to picture something happening, preferably something that deals with love or, to converge with the aforementioned themes, perhaps more with the lack thereof.  From: https://kidwithavinyl.wordpress.com/2019/10/18/kwav-revisited-the-bilinda-butchers/ 

Robin & Linda Williams - Chain Of Pain

“All we ever wanted when we started out was to have a career in music.” Robin Williams was on the line from the tiny hamlet of Middlebrook, out in the Shenandoah Valley where he lives with wife and musicmate Linda.“We didn’t have any goals of being on the radio or being household names. We just wanted to have a life in music. It’s such a gift to have, to be able to work on it every day. And then to make a living in it is just icing on the cake. Here we are, forty three years into it and still doing it.”
Robin and Linda Williams have “done it” in a way they probably could never have imagined when they first met in 1971. But in 1975, shortly after releasing their first album, they met a guy named Garrison Keillor who had a new little radio variety show in St. Paul, Minnesota, called A Prairie Home Companion. He liked their music the first time he heard them, and Robin & Linda Williams became an integral part of the PHC family, appearing often on the iconic public radio program over the next forty years.
For much of that time, Robin & Linda toured with “Their Fine Group.” But when they come to town for a Tidewater Friends of Acoustic Music concert on January 14th, it will just be the two of them doing it the way they started out. “It’s been a period of transition,” Robin told me. “We ran a four-piece band for thirty years. The last couple of years of the run of the band, Linda and I began feeling the need to do something different. We’re kind of nicheless when it comes to musical genre: We’re really not bluegrass; we’re really not just singer-songwriters; we’re not just old time music. We’re all of it. After all this time, we started feeling that we’d like to do something different.“
It took us a while to think about that, to make a change. There are huge advantages to having a band. There’s the fun factor, wonderful musicians to play with every night. So we had to think about what we’d lose and what we’d gain by just going back to being a duo. “When we made the decision, it presented some challenges musically. But it’s been energizing, it’s been great fun taking all the responsibility of writing thoughtful arrangements and stepping it up musically. We are responsible for all of the music, the two of us. It’s been fun pulling it off every night. And then there’s something that we didn’t even think about—the freedom it gives you to pull new tunes together quickly, to shift gears on stage and play a song we haven’t played in a long time if someone wants to hear it.”  From: http://www.jimnewsom.com/robin-linda-williams-a-life-in-music/

Strawbs - Lady Fuschia

Bursting at the Seams represents the Strawbs at the peak of their powers both artistic and commercial. Grave New World was a great concept and piece of work, but really didn't have all that many great "songs", given the number of very short pieces. Hero and Heroine was sheer genius but, like much genius, a bit insane, and Ghosts, while vying for the title of Strawbs' most well rounded album, lacked the commercial clout to truly conquer American audiences, which was the goal. Bursting at the Seams is an incredibly consistent, musically diverse, and very accessible album of song oriented folk-rock with strong progressive overtones.
The album begins with a Strawbs classic, "Flying", with narrative verses, harmonic choruses and even a gorgeous instrumental break featuring a banjo/mellotron combination. Lady Fuschia is a lovely soft rock track featuring the vocals of Hudson and Ford and even some sitar. Stormy Down is one of two country-flavoured rockers...it could have been a hit but for the use of the phrase "God the Father". Great lead guitar by the newcomer Dave Lambert, in tasteful small doses. Next are the perennial favourites "The River" and "Down by the Sea". Plenty of dramatics, sweeping contrasts, soft reflective vocals and agonized wails. Even a moving orchestral section. Next is the big hit "Part of the Union". Commercial yes, but also catchy and instrumentally bright, especially Blue Weaver's honky tonk piano solo. "Tears and Pavan" introduces one of the earliest "Goth" pieces, with echoed vocals, stately mellotron, and great sadness, followed by a Greek sounding dance. In terms of contrasts on the theme of melodic prog and folk, this album knows no peer. But it's not over. Dave Lambert's first and best songwriting contribution is the emotional "The Winter and the Summer", quiet with mellotron/organ and a heavy middle 8, with an intense ending leading into one of Cousins' greatest songs, the hard proggy country rock song "Lay Down". From the opening chords you know you are in for something awesome, sort of the way "Benedictus" opened Grave New World. The use of mellotron choir is one of the first of its kind. While Bursting at the Seams uses mellotron heavily, do not be misled into thinking that these songs are nothing without it. The recent acoustic revival of the group bears witness to the power of these songs in an unplugged setting. Having said that, the presence of Blue's organ, piano, harpsichord and mellotron does augment the tunes to celestial heights. The original closer was the rather silly "Thank You" with a children's choir.
While other Strawbs A&M album rereleases featured mostly mediocre bonus tracks, the ones here are among the best, again reflecting the confidence and panache of Cousins and company at this point in time. "Will ye Go" is a nigh traditional piece that is given the Celtic rock treatment, accent on rock, with Blue filling in on accordion. "Backside" features impressive atmospherics and lead guitar in its treatment of the Spiders from Mars personae. Cousins pulls off the vocals impressively as well, with their fairly explicit sexual messages. Finally, the original single version of Lay Down is provided for completeness sake.
Bursting at the Seams is probably the first real rock album by the Strawbs, and is the most essential album from that period. Prog fans note it is not their most progressive - that title might go to one of the other 3 "big 4" albums - but prog fans with an interest in folk will find much to enjoy here.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=2895

Loaded Honey - Don't Speak

A year after landing a Brit award for best British group, two-thirds of retro-soul dance-pop practitioners Jungle are going it alone. Lydia Kitto and J Lloyd’s debut as Loaded Honey traces the highs and lows of their romantic relationship, cocooning it in a vaguely trippy suite of songs that fuse soul, R&B, funk and, on occasion, the playful cut-and-paste bricolage of the Avalanches.
Unhurried opener In Your Arms steadily builds layers of atmosphere, weaving strings around pitched vocals and distant harps, while Over – which hints at trouble in paradise – uses a downcast doo-wop feel and high-wire coos to create a luxuriant sadness. The pair can pick up the pace too; Don’t Speak’s feather-light funk is anchored by Kitto’s joyous vocal, while Really Love dabbles in the emotional push-pull of 60s girl groups.
As with Jungle’s recent output, Love Made Trees is immaculately produced, the perfect soundtrack to a wine-drunk dinner party or a long bath with posh candles. As their name suggests, the record is smooth, oozing sweetness that definitely hits the spot but can leave you longing for a hint of sour.  From: https://observer.co.uk/culture/music/article/album-review-loaded-honey-love-made-trees

Sammy - Get Into A New Thing

It's doubtful many folks have ever heard the British band Sammy - I certainly hadn't which was kind of surprising given the band's impressive pedigree.   Drummer Mick Underwood was apparently the band's driving force, with the lineup rounded out by a collection of rock veterans including ex-Audience horn and woodwinds player Keith Gemmell, ex-Billy J. Kramer keyboardist Mick Hodgkinson, former Ginhouse guitarist Geoff Sharkey, and ex-Roy Young Band bassist Paul Simmons. Signed by Philips, the band debuted with a 1972 45 'Goo Ger Woogie' b/w 'Big Lovin' Woman' (Philips c.  While the single did little commercially, it attracted enough interest and attention for Philips management to green light an album.
Co-produced by Louie Austin and Deep Purple's Ian Gillan (not Jon Lord) and the front cover artwork was done by Philip Castle who was the man who did the artwork for the film Clockwork Orange. 1973's "Sammy" offered up a competent, if slightly worn set of mid-1970s hard rock.  
Largely penned by Sharkey and Simmons, lyrically and musically there wasn't a lot of originality going on here (kind of like the album cover) - Gemmell's sax adding occasional jazz-influenced runs to the band's blues and rock-oriented sound.  As lead singer Sharkey wasn't bad; his raw raspy voice sounded surprisingly good on tracks like 'Give Me More', their unlikely cover of 'I Ain't Never Loved a Woman (The Way That I Love You)', and 'Get Into a New Thing'.  Imagine Uriah Heep-lite with the saxes, a little more boogie and variety ('Who Do You Really Love') and you'll be in the right aural neighborhood.  From: https://madshoesmusicology.blogspot.com/2024/11/sammy-sammy-1972.html 

Lais - Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby

This is a Black American folk song, originating in the slavery era. At that time, it was dangerous for enslaved people to speak openly about their concerns, so many songs of the era have hidden or concealed meanings. As a folk song, however, neither the lyrics nor the interpretations are fixed, so it can be difficult or impossible to make a definitive determination.
Like many of the most popular lullabies and nursery rhymes of many traditions (compare Rock a Bye Baby or Ring Around the Mulberry Bush there's some dark and ominous imagery here. It's perhaps most instructive to compare it to All the Pretty Horses, another lullaby with similar origins, and a more established meaning. As in that song, we can surmise that this song is being sung by an enslaved caretaker of a baby belonging to the slavemasters, leading to a mix of tenderness and anger in the lyrics.

Your momma gone away and your daddy's gone to stay
Didn't leave nobody but the baby

The "momma" having gone away indicates that the woman singing is not the baby's actual mother. Likewise, the baby's father is also out of the home.

Everybody's gone in the cotton and the corn
Didn't leave nobody but the baby

With all the masters gone, the baby is at the mercy of its caretaker.

She's long gone with her red shoes on
Gonna need another loving baby

The mother is out having fun, and doesn't care what happens to her child. She might need a new one, because her current child may not have long to live.

You and me and the devil makes three
Don't need no other loving baby

This moves more into pure speculation, but "don't need no other loving baby" may be a veiled reference to her being unable to take care of her own children (as in All the Pretty Horses) because of being forced to caretake her master's child. The devil is present, because she is having fantasies about killing the baby in revenge.

Come lay your bones on the alabaster stones
And be my ever loving baby

This seems like the most clear threat in the song --the alabaster stones, are, of course, the headstones in the graveyard.

This is a song that seems to have originated among slaves in the southern US and has has been passed on orally from generation to generation by people who might not even have been able to write, so there is no 'authoritative' version of the lyrics. So, of course, no interpretation of those lyrics is going to be 'authoritative'. There are probably almost as many different interpretations as there have been attempts at interpretation. A recurring theme in these is that the baby has been abandoned by both parents and the singer is preparing to poison it, but there are plenty of other variations.

From: https://musicfans.stackexchange.com/questions/10086/origin-and-meaning-of-didnt-leave-nobody-but-the-baby

Mu - The Land Of Mu

Mu were: Merrell Fankhauser (Vocal, Guitar, Bass, Percussion), Jeff Cotton (Vocal, Guitar, Bass Clarinet), Randy Wimer (Vocal, Drums, Percussion), Jeff Parker (Bass), Mary Lee (Occasional Violin)
If you’re feeling lost, depressed or brought down by life’s humdrum reality, a good cure is to give Mu a listen. Much of the music on these pages carries a certain amount of — weight. Which is fine if you want to get out there on the perimeter. What MU does, though, is like a warm gentle breeze blowing through your soul, a spiritual spring clean.
All the members of Mu had been in LA pop bands at some time during the early 60s, oriented towards surf with Beatles and Byrds influences. Fapardokly was an album collection of these early efforts released only in LA and copies used to change hands for up to $2000 among collectors, such was the aura surrounding it. Fankhauser was in the Surfaris, and I think it is his voice that can be heard laughing maniacally at the beginning of Wipeout. Cotton landed a gig in Beefheart’s Magic Band, playing on Strictly Personal and Trout Mask Replica. Many chapters have been written about the influence of this latter album on rock, one of the most surreal, jagged episodes ever in music, and Cotton was a key part of the creation process. 
So … surf meets Beefheart. They recorded a promising first album in LA, then decamped to Hawaii where they embraced a blissed-out lifestyle of vegetarianism, flying saucer watching, study of the lost Pacific continent of MU and creating gentle, organic music. The CD reissue on Sundazed contains the first album, the second, only released locally at the time, plus singles. I’m concentrating here on the second, recorded and released in 1974.
The Land Of Mu starts with Merrell seeing ‘eyes watching over me and you’, a sub-two-minute introduction to their philosophy. Then we are invited to Make A Joyful Noise, with slide solos and bizzare cooing noises from Cotton. Haleaka La is an instrumental hinting at some of the weirdness Cotton took away from his Magic Band tenancy, soloing on bass clarinet and sliding around some more on guitar. Blue Jay Blue and Showering Rain are more developed songs. Tuneful images of birds in flight and rain on water abound. Beatific, crafted pop ballads all overlaid with that exquisite slide of Cotton’s. I Saw Your Photograph doesn’t make it for me — too twee by far — but hey, there’s twenty songs here. Mary Lee plays wistful violin on the next two ballads. Calling From A Star is the next standout with harmonics and wind effects giving the feeling they are singing from light years away. They belt out Waiting For The Sun a bit harder and we have predictions of aliens, heralded by Halleys Comet, landing here in 1986, to bring in a golden age. Did I miss it?  From: https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/reviews/mu-end-of-an-era 

Hle - Umile

A pastor's daughter born in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, in 1991, singer Hlengiwe Ntombela—better known as Hle—has brought glamorous soul power to South Africa's contemporary-gospel scene since joining Joyous Celebration in 2016. HLE began her career as a backing vocalist for Ntokozo Mbambo, and has collaborated with Hlengiwe Mhlaba and gospel giant Benjamin Dube. But it’s her 2020 solo debut, Your Kingdom on Earth, recorded with the award-winning producer Siyanqoba Mthethwa, that established Hle as ruler of her own musical dominion. Funky, soulful, and majestic tracks like iTunes chart-topper "Dwala,” "Living Hope," and "You Are" (a colorful series of encomiums to Jesus) ascend from simmering foundations to ecstatic climaxes.  From: https://www.jesusfreakhideout.com/news/2022/11/11.GlobalMusicStarHLEMakesUSDebutWithNewSingleYoureTheWorthyOne.asp 

Magic Circle - Rapture

Worship bands are a polarizing concept; the idea that a group of musicians would get together with the intention of sounding exactly like another band that came before them is unoriginal to some, but entirely exciting to others. In the end, the quality of a worship band comes down to two questions: subject and execution. And Sabbath and perfect really isn’t that bad when you think about it.
I caught up with Magic Circle guitarist and songwriter Chris Corry as we drove from one gig to another at Toronto’s annual punk festival Not Dead Yet. As I ate jerk pork in the back seat and he stopped to take photos of Sweet Pete’s Bike Shop because a sign that said “Sweet Pete’s” simply couldn’t be passed undocumented, we discussed Magic Circle’s record, Journey Blind on 20 Buck Spin (which you can stream in it’s entirety below), seeing concerts in arenas, and the underground music rivalry between YouTube and Bandcamp.

Noisey: Who are you and where do you come from?
Chris Corry: My name is Chris Corry and I grew up in Northern Virginia. My family is in Springfield now, so about 20 minutes from the District of Columbia.

Is that where you started going to shows?
Yeah. I went to a lot of big concerts when I was in high school. There would be these big radio station concerts at RFK Stadium. I think it’s a soccer stadium now. I saw the Ramones in 1994, there were those 20 bands for 20 bucks things, I saw a lot of alternative bands that people care about now that they didn’t care about, like I saw Hum, Archers of Loaf, PJ Harvey, Primus. The most violent mosh pit I’ve ever seen was for Primus, not fucking kidding man. They brought the pain.

And what was your first DIY stuff?
I went to punk shows and stuff. Just local bands that you would never have even heard of in Northern Virginia. There was this store called Record Convergence about 15 minutes from where I grew up. It’s a dry cleaner now. They had it all there. There was old hard rock and punk and metal. Local bands had their demos there. I went to see a lot of those local bands. I started going to big hardcore shows after that, but the first shows I saw were with no name bands from the 90s.

And when did you start playing in bands?
I had a couple of hardcore bands in high school that didn’t really do anything. And I started playing in hardcore bands in Boston.

Why did you move to Boston?
College.

Where?
Northeastern University.

For what?
Graphic design.

Do you do that for work?
I don’t do it for work. I work at a school actually. I do music stuff with kids. I record music in our music studio there.

That’s awesome. When did this band start?
Magic Circle started in, honestly dude, 2010. Me and the other guys in the band, Justin who plays bass, Q who plays drums, Brendan who’s the singer, and Dan who’s the other guitar player, we got together the end of 2010 and practiced for eight months, recorded in the spring of 2011 and had a finished record and didn’t know what to do with it. Maybe six months later we put it out, put a couple songs on the ol’ YouTube. Which is I guess is how you get people who have never heard of your band to hear your band.

YouTube before Bandcamp? 
So historically speaking, I don’t know the timeline of when Bandcamp came to be [Laughs]. It was probably around but maybe we weren’t aware of it, maybe you needed to be a real underground Bandcamp kind of person. We put some songs online in the fall of 2011 and then we did a couple shows and we pressed two songs onto a single in 2012. Armageddon Shop in Boston, which is a cool store that exists there that releases records from time to time, put out our first LP. And we’ve done some more shows since then pretty regularly. Started working on a new LP. We were rehearsing it and writing it in 2014 and then we recorded it in the beginning of 2015 and it’s all done now.

Where did you record it?
At my practice space The Paincave and at out bass player’s parents basement. We did the drums in the basement and we did everything else in the practice space.

What are your biggest influences on Magic Circle?
Definitely Black Sabbath, man. That’s my favorite band of all time. I try not to just wholesale rip it off, we mix in other things and mix together other ideas. But bluntly, that’s the biggest influence.

How do you guys write a song? 
Usually I sit down at home, play some guitar, come up with some riffs. Then I work them out in a skeleton, just a basic format, bring it to the other dudes, we tinker around with it a little bit, let them hear everything I got and then we make a rough demo of it before we do the actual recording. We do all the vocals, all the guitar solos. It’s weird because it’s kind of like we record the record twice. I had already heard every song completed before we did the proper recording of the LP. That way we weed out ideas that don’t work and make little adjustments and make sure we’re pleased with everything. So then when we do it for real there are no questions going into it.

What’s your relationship like with 20 Buck Spin?
Real cool, man. We talked to a few people that had done stuff on the label. Dave who runs the label got in touch after the first LP came out. And it wasn’t even to work with us or anything, he was just like, “hey, I really enjoyed the record, good job.” We had mutual friends but we didn’t know each other. When we were working out how we were going to release this one after we recorded it I just kind of cold called him and was like, “hey I don’t know if you’re interested but we have a record and here’s the songs and here’s the art. If you’re interested we need a label to put it out.” It’s been real easy since then. He’s real communicative, seems to give a shit about what he’s doing, seems to be really psyched about all the bands he’s working with. So that’s cool. A real easy guy to work with.

From: https://www.vice.com/en/article/magic-circle-interview/ 

Annie Oakley - Pomp and Swell

Annie Oakley is a folk band fronted by twin sisters Grace and Sophia Babb, paired with the violin and one-liners of Nia Personette. They are keen on telling stories, finding the sweetest harmonies possible, and playing shows where they meet the listeners they're playing for.
They started writing songs after the deaths of their fathers when they were middle school students. Nia lost her dad just a year before the Babb sisters lost theirs. This mutually-shared grief made them closer than friends – they became three sisters instead of two. During this period of recovery and self-discovery at the height of adolescence, they wrote songs, played countless shows, and began touring.
Now they’re graduating from college and the grief that first brought them to music. Once their remedy for pain, folk music has become their recipe for joy. The recent release of their first full-length album, Words We Mean, chronicles their transition from youth to young womanhood, from grief to happiness, narrating the first chapter of their story.  From: https://www.factoryshowroomseries.com/annie-oakley 

The Body & Dis Fig - Audiotree Live 2025

Back in October of 2021 I had the absolute honour of reviewing the The Body and BIG|BRAVE collaborative album Leaving None But Small Birds for The Sleeping Shaman. Back then I didn’t have any knowledge of who either band were, beyond having seen the names on various advertising and promotional platforms.
Knowing that The Body has a reputation as an experimental metal outfit, I was intrigued as to what the album would be like and was absolutely surprised with what I found. Not at all what I was expecting, I loved the album, and the review conveyed that without any doubts at all. Since then I have become quite the fan of BIG|BRAVE, but The Body has somewhat eluded me, until now.
Jumping forward to 2024, and the 23rd of February sees the release of the newest The Body collaboration, this time with Berlin based experimental DJ Dis Fig. It’s a very different experience to my last The Body outing, and through the course of this review, I will endeavour to explain why, and leave you with a need to explore deeper, and truly give yourselves to not only The Body, but to Dis Fig too.
The album itself is entitled Orchards Of A Futile Heaven and after experiencing the work, it does conjure up ideas of an apocalyptic future, and the notion of a futile heaven too. Over the course of the seven tracks, if you are brave enough to engage with the album, you will be subjected to an absolute mind melting sonic journey, the likes of which is pretty nightmare inducing let me tell you that.
Never overly death metal heavy, the intensity through the expertise in sonic noise scapes will infect your every pore, and leave you begging for it to stop, such is the power of the aural assault. This isn’t to say that its unlistenable, quite the opposite in fact, but what I am trying to express is the fact that the density of the sound will be, at times, utterly overwhelming, with a power which will give you the want to press pause on it all for a second. It will leave your heart racing, and your head pounding, and if that all sounds pretty exciting, then you’ve definitely come to the right place.
Opening with Eternal Hours, you would be very wrong to expect the first minute of uncomfortable fuzzy feedback and disjointed industrial noise to continue throughout the five minutes. By the end of the first couple of minutes everything has evolved, and the disjointed parallel of pained screeching and softer shoegazy vocal is coursing deeply within the sonic baseline.
I draw comparison to Portishead, but not so much for anything from the early incarnation of the band, more so for the album Third, when Portishead really go deep into exploring soundscapes and angst driven rhythms. It is painful to ingest, but such is the point of this sort of musical exploration.
This closeness and vibe doesn’t ever let up throughout the whole album, and while The Body create these post-apocalyptic scenarios sonically, Dis Fig effortlessly flits between moments of utter lunacy, and softer, almost serene beauty vocally, all the while bouncing off of the foreboding background. Its utterly awkward, at times jarring, and completely compelling.
For me it’s a weird one, because there are times when I can point at Portishead for a near comparison, and at others it’s as if Dis Fig has been looking towards Björk as a figurehead to look to for abrasive and unique vocal stylings. This is very true on tracks such as To Walk A Higher Path and Dissent, Shame, when that lean nudges me towards Björk especially, and yet, at other times, such as Coils Of Kaa it has a touch of Fever Ray in the mix. Such is the dynamic of Dis Figs voice, on track seven, Back To The Water, I would even go as far as adding Chelsea Wolfe vibes to that list too.
All the while, The Body throw absolutely everything at the recording, and no two minutes seem to have the same elements of sound. It saves the work from becoming stagnant, and at the same time gives the listener no chance to sit back and enjoy the ambience either.
As an exercise in experimental music goes, I have to say that not since Trent Reznor at his most vibrant have I been captivated like I have with this Mad Max desolate future soundtrack music, and this is a true testament to all the musicians involved.
Well, I say musicians, I think innovators is probably a more appropriate word, as this is truly visionary, and for the new generation of music, this should be the benchmark for groundbreaking and anxiety inducing terror. And that, my friends, is the real mark of art in its purest form.  From: https://thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/t/body-dis-fig-orchards-futile-heaven/

The Lazy Eyes - Starting Over

What led to the formation of The Lazy Eyes?

Harvey Geraghty: High school brought us together thank goodness! Itay, Noah and I met at the start of high school and started jamming at lunch times. That progressed to busking around the city with an acoustic set up to make some cash. With that cash we bought many many guitar pedals. It came to a point where we weren’t making much money busking (we lost the cute factor as we got older) so we ditched playing Katy Perry songs for cash and started a “real band”. Leon came to the school in year 11 and we instantly bonded over the same types of music. And here we are today, about releasing our first album and playing shows all around the place!

You’re a fairly new band… tell us what are some of the main influences when it comes to music making?

We are a fairly new band to the public eye but we have actually been playing together for like 6 years now. Nowadays we are influenced by all types of music whether it be rave music or finger style Americana guitar music. Back in high school we were influenced by the psych giants (Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, Unknown Mortal Orchestra). These are the main types of influences you can hear on ‘SongBook’.

After releasing two EP’s, are you excited to finally release an album that will be also available on physical format?

It’s been such a long time coming that it kind of just feels surreal that all these songs will be out in the world and no longer in our control. We are very excited of course, especially to get out and play the album live in different places around the world!

What’s the story behind the ‘SongBook’?

‘SongBook’ is our debut album and boy has it been a long time coming. We started recording the very first pieces of this album in the middle of high school, before we even knew it would turn into an album. During the making of the album we learnt so many things from scratch; how to record, mix audio, make album art, the list goes on! And here we are years later with our first project fully realised. ‘SongBook’ is our first baby and it encapsulates the first era of The Lazy Eyes. Here’s to many more!

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2022/06/the-lazy-eyes-interview-new-album-songbook.html 

Solstice - Frippa

I am convinced that if someone had approached Andy Glass a while back and told him that all his work and trials over the last 40+ years would be finally worth it, that his band, himself and one of the singers would all be voted #1 in the latest Prog Reader's Polls, with three others also getting in the Top Ten, while their latest albums would be highly acclaimed by both fans and critics he would have had a very good laugh indeed, as what has happened with Solstice in the last decade has been nothing short of remarkable, and highly deserved.
The debut came out in 1984, the second in 1992 and the third five years later before they went into hiatus. It wasn't until 2010 that the fourth album was released, and Solstice was by now gaining some continuity with the first appearance of Jenny Newman (violin), Pete Hemsley (drums), Robin Phillips (bass) and Steven McDaniel (keyboards, vocals). This was followed up with 'Prophecy' in 2013 with the same line-up (Emma Brown singing on both), but then there was a gap until 2020 and 'Sia'. Emma had been with the band since 1997's 'Circles', but for 'Sia' they now introduced singer Jess Holland, and the world finally stood up and paid attention. The second album of the 'Sia' trilogy, 'Light Up', was released in 2022 and now we come to the final part, 'Clann'. The harmony layered vocals have by now become an incredibly important part of the band's live performance, so much so that they have now become one of the very few prog bands who hit the road with three singers, with Jess now joined by Ebony Buckle and Dyanne Crutcher (plus Nick Burns also guests on vocals on one track).
Solstice were always associated with the Neo Prog scene; they were one of the most important bands keeping the prog light alive back in the Eighties, but their heavy use of violin always gave them a different sound, and now they are far more into crossover, both the sub-genre itself and the way they approach music. There is the strong sensation that here is a band who are finding their own way, and it is exciting and new, even though they have history going back aeons. They even recognise that as there is a bonus on the CD which is a rearranged take on "Earthsong" which was originally on the debut. Here is a band who are mixing folk, rock, prog and even dance into something which always feels light, airy, and simply remarkable. The harmony vocals alone gives them a very different take on prog, while Andy often sits in the background (with a very big smile on his face), rarely taking the lead role (although he can be dynamic and punchy when the need arises). Jenny has a wonderfully delicate touch on violin, knowing when to lead the melody, when to slow it down and when to make it sing, while Steven either provides banks of sound for the others to play against or take the lead himself. As for Pete Hemsley and Robin Philipps, here they provide a masterclass in rhythm section, knowing when to provide plenty of space and also when to come back in and hold down the foundation, even providing counter melodies.
Then there is Jess. She has one of those voices which is effortless, and she can do whatever she likes with it, but here she is fronting one of the most impressive and relentless prog bands around. There is little doubt in my mind that Solstice have produced the most remarkable, intriguing and delightful album of their career to date, and it is great to see how everyone else has finally recognised what an amazing band they are. I first reviewed them some 30 years ago and have always been a fan, but this is next level and very special indeed.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=89810

The Fernweh - Is This Man Bothering You

PS: I know this music has been sitting around for awhile, so I’m glad to see that it’s going to see the light of day. But I also know that the idea of this band dates back more than just a couple of years. Can you tell me how this whole thing came together?

Jamie Backhouse: It was at Glastonbury during a Candie Payne show we did. I’d only known Ned probably a matter of days, but immediately we were forming a band. We spoke about music in the same way.

Ned Crowther: I love American music, but there’s this other side where I’ve always had an interest in British psychedelia, British folk music, and Jamie and I really connected on that level. At the time, it was before the folk revival—the Mumford and Sons-type thing—we thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to bring some of that back?” To write in a very British folk style, but keep it rock and not twee with ukuleles and such. A few artists have been doing that in America for awhile – Devendra Banhart, Fleet Foxes. We just wanted to do a British version of that.

Backhouse: That band never happened. Every time we’d meet, we’d always say, “We’ve got to make that band happen.” It almost became a bit of a running joke. Four years go by, we’d meet up. “Oh yeah, we should still do that band.” There was kind of a sense it wasn’t going to happen, which felt like a bit of a shame. Myself and Ozzy got a bit sick of sessions—we were driving to rehearsals, and the music was fine, but we were just thinking, “You know what? I just want to play my own stuff.” I mentioned to him I’d been writing quite a lot and recording and Ozzy said, “Yeah, me too.” So we started to get together and come up with ideas.

Austin “Oz” Murphy: Life was catching up with us and it was a matter of: “We better do something before it’s too late.”

Crowther: I think we were often frustrated by the session life, where you’re very much at the mercy of changing whims and changing schedules. You’ve got no real creative outlet—you just do what you’re told. If you’re lucky, you get paid for it.

Murphy: Jamie and myself started playing in my loft trying to get some stuff together. We had a couple of bits. The first thing we got together in a demo form was “The Liar”—Jamie had this kind of folk guitar riff, but it didn’t have that bass behind it. We got a beat going behind it and a bit of synthesizer. He put down the guitar solo and I put down the bass, and then we thought, “This is quite interesting now.”

Backhouse: Ozzy and I realized that these ideas were just becoming songs. Three, four minutes and verse/chorus structures. They needed words, so we thought, “Well let’s get someone in to write with us who can sing.” The first person we thought of was Ned, which was quite a strange choice because he lives 300 miles away. [Laughter]

Murphy: We’d kind of lost touch with Ned after the Candie Payne thing, but we were always kind of thinking, “Do you think Ned will be into doing stuff? Is he busy?”

Backhouse: I don’t even think Ned fronted a band as a singer before, and I don’t know that I’d heard him sing prior to that. But I had a strong sense—and Ozzy did too—that Ned would be just a great fit.
 
PS: What effect did being separated by hundreds of miles have on the creative process?

Backhouse: The first thing we did was “Is This Man Bothering You?” Ned had a lyrical concept and it just fit straightaway. From there on, he’d come up every two months and we’d have a manic weekend of “Gotta finish a song! Gotta record a song!” Every session was just magic. He’d go away back home and we’d work on it in our own little sort of insular way. It was two processes, really: These mad weekends of intense creative group energy and then two months of me taking it away to do mixing and editing. Ozzy would whack a sax part down here and there.

Crowther: It was a really wonderful process. I would come up, we’d write or record a song, go away and live with it for a bit.

Murphy: A lot of the record was done over email. We never would’ve got it done otherwise, but it’s quite a hard way to work. The songs were all written as they were being recorded. Ned wrote all the lyrics with little tweaks from us—“Change this,” “Lose that verse,” etc.

Backhouse: We were never like the Beatles going, “This is the song—record it, finish it.” These things were growing over a period of three or four years. It was quite a weird creative process, but we had a sense early on we could come up with something quite special.

Crowther: When you make an album and there’s no expectations, you can say exactly what you want. It’s empowering.
 
PS: How long was the music around before Ned started adding lyrics to them?

Backhouse: Lots of the songs I brought in I’d tried with different writers. I’d tried the backing chords and picking for “Next Time Around,” “The Liar” and “New Brighton Sigh” with other writers and they didn’t quite work. I think it’s because I’m not a wordy person and I’m not a singer, so for me, it’s all about the initial feel of the music and where it comes from. “Fernweh” translates to trying to get to a specific place rather than general wanderlust. I think when I write, that initial feel takes me to a specific place. If I’m writing with someone who’s going to try to put words into that place, it has to fit. Whenever I tried to bring these ideas to other people, it was incongruous. The joy of working with Ned is that I’ll play him something and the first thing he gives me back is just, “Yes, that’s it.” That place I had in mind was specific but quite abstract. Ned has made that place accessible to people. He puts people into it. He has context and a story, whereas when I tried to write with other people it just has not fit. That’s why I held the ideas back so long. I thought, “Well, they’re quite special to me, so they have to be right when I do something with them.” Myself and Rob Stringer wrote the melody and chords to what became “New Brighton Sigh.” We gave it to Candie [Payne], who wrote a lovely thing with it, but we didn’t do anything at the time. Like lots of songs, it went by the by. I told her she should keep it cos it’s a nice piece of music, but I gave it to Ned and he went straight in there with this thing about this lovely old seaside town in the Wirral called New Brighton. As soon as he showed me what he was thinking lyrically, I said, “That is it. That’s perfect.” It was like it had always been like that. I just know that piece of music now as “New Brighton Sigh,” which is all you want from the songwriting process, I suppose.

From: https://transatlanticmodern.com/2018/11/12/interview-the-fernweh/

English Teacher - The World’s Biggest Paving Slab

English Teacher only realized they might be becoming famous when someone recently recognized them in a pub. Coming out of Leeds—an industrial city in the north of England and a place renowned for its DIY indie scene—the band is made up of Lily Fontaine (vocals, rhythm guitar, synth), Douglas Frost (drums, vocals), Nicholas Eden (bass) and Lewis Whiting (lead guitar).
Making a swirly mix of awkward indie post-punk rock, they managed just one live show before the pandemic but spent their lockdown busy building up a substantial following both with music fans and the UK music press. Releasing music on the specialist independent label Nice Swan Records, they’ve now found their music. In particular, standout tracks “R&B” and “A55” repeatedly played on BBC’s Radio 1 and Radio 6. Reflecting the anger and mundanity of the past two years, there’s an urgency to their music that’s striking a chord across the country.
Born from the ashes of a dream pop outfit called Frank, English Teacher’s drift to something with a bit more edge has been gradual but organic. “I was listening to a lot of psych like Tame Impala, Melody’s Echo Chamber and Brian Jonestown Massacre, as well as lo-fi artists like Clairo and Mac DeMarco,” Lily explains. “In my third year of university, I started getting into bands like Shame, and I think that’s when I realized I wanted to move away from the dreamier side of things.”
A product of the evergreen Leeds DIY community, (whose alumni includes Yard Act, Pulled Apart By Horses, alt-J and Wild Beasts) the members of English Teacher played in more than one band. Like most of the musicians around the scene’s epicenter, at the legendary live music venue Brudenell Social Club.
“I think having a lot of friends who are also musicians makes the lifestyle easier to cope with. There’s definitely strength in numbers. You can use the wisdom of the crowds when big decisions or tricky situations come along. We’ve all recently left our external music projects to focus on English Teacher. Personally, I struggled to cope with being in multiple projects – being in [my other band] Eades was one of the greatest experiences of my life but trying to work along- side recording and touring with two bands meant that my time and passion was divided between and that’s not fair on anyone. Brudenell Social Club is a second home for us, like barnacles to a ship’s hull. It will be a wrenching experience for us to depart Leeds for the “Big Smoke” [aka London]. I think it will happen though, we’re all keen to explore new cities, scenes and people.”
Whenever there was a relaxing of Covid measures, English Teacher managed to play a decent amount of live shows and festival slots. “It felt like we were touring constantly last year; I saw our managers and the band more times than my Mum,” Fontaine laughs.
“I think it was kind of playing catch-up as we hadn’t played live as English Teacher before the pandemic. We were learning our live set while playing some of the biggest shows of our lives and we became so close as a group of mates that go- ing home for Christmas and not playing or seeing each other for a few weeks felt wrong. It was hard though. I was personally ill from August and kept losing my voice. I think the lack of rest combined with a traveler’s diet meant my immune system couldn’t fight any cold. It was an intense learning experience and I’ve introduced rest, vegetables and exercise into my life so it doesn’t happen again. All I want is to be back touring with the band, It’s my favorite thing to do.”
Now, as they put it, they’re “shitting themselves” about what the next year will bring. Debut EP Polyawkward comes out in April and sees them heading out on their debut headline tour to support it. “Three very special headline sets in some very special cities with songs we never usually play live; a bigger sound and some very special guests. We’re currently writing our debut album as well.” They’re also coy about naming the label they’re signing to, only saying that it’s “produced some of the most iconic faces in music over the last decade. That kind of platform is terrifying to four considerably weak and introverted individuals.”  From: https://marvin.la/young-but-ready-indie-post-punk-rock-group-english-teacher-gaim-major-mometum-post-pandemic/