Beaulieu Porch - We Are Today

I have something to admit. I have a reoccurring dream of hearing a psychedelic symphony. It’s a sort of British version of Smile with full orchestra, Indian instruments, harpsichords…plus bugles and flugelhorns of course. Unfortunately, the tunes fade away and disappear as I arrive back in the waking world. However, Beaulieu Porch, aka Salisbury native, Simon Berry must have the same dream with his new album “We Are Beautiful”.
Encouraged by the success of his debut album, Simon has penned and performed ten tracks where the psychedelic kitchen sink has been recycled and dusted off for the modern era. “We Are Beautiful” therefore has plenty of highlights.
“The View From Gainsborough” combines electric guitar with lovely harpsichord style flourishes where the vocals ask the listener to “Let me be your guide to the other side”. “Limestone Head Of The Year” blends trumpets and church organ building up to a sing-a-long crescendo. “Daylight Faces” then gives us a stomping Indian style trippy track. 
My favourite is “Of Particles”, a sort of acoustic space rock trip into the mind. The long player finishes with “Is”. It mixes backward swishing Rain style backing, Syd Barrett strumming, climaxing in a full orchestral rock out. You don’t hear that everyday!  From: https://thestrangebrew.co.uk/beaulieu-porch-we-are-beautiful/ 

Espers - Another Moon Song

Having seemingly shrunk back into the undergrowth following the dense psychedelia of 2006’s II, Philadelphian folksters Espers return to the fray with their fourth album, III (man, I bet they wish they’d renamed second LP The Weed Tree now, even if it was a covers record.)
Of course, Espers have hardly been resting on their laurels, as this new album reveals. The band’s creative driving force, Greg Weeks, has been almost as busy as fellow freak folkster Devendra Banhart, popping up on any number of other people’s records, and releasing a solo LP, the dirge-filled The Hive. Meanwhile, Weeks’ creative foil in Espers, Meg Baird, released a solo album of her own, 2007’s Dear Companion, that was light and airy where Espers can be shadowy and imposing.
It would be simplifying things slightly to suggest that this lighter side that has had the bigger influence on III, but it’s a hard argument to ignore. As a whole, III is cheerier than its predecessor, and the band themselves have stated that this was an aim from the outset – before admitting that they failed with such ambitions. The gentle ‘Another Moon Song’ does capture this aesthetic perfectly – Baird’s airy vocal drifts atop a rolling, relaxed rhythm that recalls Vetiver or Pentangle’s softer moments. Elsewhere, ‘The Pearl’ breaks into an extended, blissfully fuzzed-up solo halfway through, which then continues to track Baird’s vocals for the rest of the track. If such a thing as pastoral chill-out folk-rock exists, this is it.
However, there are darker moments lurking on III. ‘The Road Of Golden Dust’ is probably the bleakest of these, an eerie duet between Weeks and Baird that talks of death and other such delights, before becoming overrtaken by Brooke Sietinsons’ piercing solos. From there, the track evolves into an extended mass of guitar and shrieks of fiddle, and is perhaps the individual track that recalls Espers' earlier work the most clearly.
The following track, ‘Caroline’, initially feels like the most conventional moment on the record. The duetting vocals return, over a bubbling brew of analogue synths and woodwind, telling the listener, "don’t you cry, go lie down in the day", but paired with the track beforehand, it feels more like a respite from the storm than any simple-minded hippy talk.
Indeed, it’s this switching between dark and light that characterises III, rather than any direct move towards a lighter, more conventional style. Closing track ‘Trollslända’ is a great example – beginning as a Fairport style stroll through Anglo folk territory, it soon makes an impressive break for the border, striding purposefully towards post or even classic rock territory with the electrifying solo that follows.
It’s certainly a very different album to II, but that’s certainly a positive thing, for both the band and listeners, as another record in that vein would have been hard to differentiate from its predecessors. As it is, Espers have moved towards new territory, stumbling occasionally, but with a clear eye on where they’ve come from.  From: https://drownedinsound.com/releases/14831/reviews/4138336

The Who - Sell Out - Full album

01 Monday to Sunday
02 Armenia City in the Sky
03 Wonderful Radio London
04 Heinz Baked Beans
05 More Music
06 Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand
07 Premier Drums
08 Odorono
09 Radio London
10 Tattoo
11 Church of Your Choice
12 Our Love Was
13 Pussycat - Speakeasy - Rotosound Strings
14 I Can See for Miles
15 Charles Atlas
16 I Can't Reach You
17 Medac
18 Radio One Jingle [Happy Jack]
19 Relax
20 Great Shakes
21 Silas Stingy
22 Bag O'Nails
23 Sunrise
24 Things Go Better with Coke
25 Rael 1
26 Rael 2

Inspiration can take many forms, but nothing stirs the creative juices quite like a looming deadline. Just ask The Who. In mid-September 1967 the band returned from an exhaustive tour of the US, a slog prefaced by an incendiary appearance at the inaugural Monterey Pop Festival, at which their gear-trashing performance left audience members open-mouthed. Rather than being allowed a breather back home, they were swiftly informed that new Who music was expected in the shops by Christmas. 
“It was a surprise, and there are a couple of shades to that,” reflects guitarist and chief songwriter Pete Townshend. “One was that our managers, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, were diverted to a great extent away from The Who to running Track Records, which featured Marc Bolan and Jimi Hendrix. 
"There was also a contractual obligation to Polydor, the parent company. They just needed a Who album, and we didn’t have one ready because we’d been working so hard. We’d been all over the place, incredibly busy. And although I had a lot of material, I didn’t really feel much of it was appropriate for The Who. So it felt to me like: ‘Oh god, how am I going to rescue this?’ There was a huge sense of panic."
The Who already had a tiny handful of standalone songs in the can, recorded at various US studios during rare breaks in the tour: Relax, Rael, I Can See For Miles. Townshend also had the seeds of other, equally disparate ideas. But the solution to the band’s immediate problem arrived via an ingeniously simple device that would link these songs together as a unified statement: the advertising jingle.
The new album started to take shape at De Lane Lea studios in London. The Who created spoof promo slots for Radio London, Premier Drums and Rotosound Strings, recorded in the brash ad-speak of 60s pirate radio. Bassist John Entwistle came up with humorous, minute-long odes to Heinz baked beans and Medac spot cream; Townshend brought along the song Odorono, ostensibly about a brand of underarm deodorant. 
“I think the idea of doing commercials was already knocking about in my head,” Townshend recalls. “I’d already written two songs for [co-manager] Kit Lambert for the American Cancer Society – Little Billy and Kids! Do You Want Kids? – and I had Odorono, about a girl who loses a record contract. It wasn’t meant to be a commercial, it was just a song about body odour. 
"That’s the kind of thing I was writing at the time, totally off-the-wall. And it just came up when we brainstormed. Subsequently, Kit Lambert pulled it together and made one half of the album into an emulation of a pirate radio station. For me, that just saved it.” 
The album, soon to be titled The Who Sell Out, also happened to be very timely. In August 1967, the British government had passed the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act, which outlawed pirate radio in the UK. The offshore stations had been a lifeline for pop music fans over the previous few years, as well as providing crucial airtime for bands and artists including The Who. In what could be seen as a cynical move, the BBC now attempted to woo the same audience with the launch of their own pop station, Radio 1. Bold and brilliant, The Who Sell Out was both a valedictory salute to a lost art form and a satirical take on 60s consumerism. 
“It was really done as a tribute to those ships that used to beam that wonderful music,” says frontman Roger Daltrey. “We’d been raised on pirate radio for the last five years. For the first time ever we’d had DJs, these kinds of renegade people, who were just so happy to be playing the music they loved. It was really special. 
"Although we’re one band playing all the music, the album sounds exactly like a pirate radio show with the jingles. To me it still sounds a lot better than modern radio. It’s one of my favourite Who albums.”
Just as the Summer Of Love symbolised a seismic shift in the counterculture, The Who found themselves in transition in 1967. The band were still masters of auto-destructive chaos on stage, but they’d ditched the R&B and mod connotations of their early years. 
Townshend’s songwriting had begun to deepen, as evinced on A Quick One, While He’s Away, the epic closing track from the previous year’s A Quick One, their second album. He’d also moved towards colourful character studies with recent songs like Happy Jack and Pictures Of Lily, a style that he began to perfect on The Who Sell Out gems such as Tattoo and the winking Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand. 
Such creative evolution, Townshend suggests, “might have been inspired by the success of A Quick One, While He’s Away, which was a little song cycle that I’d done. What we used to call the mini-opera, which was maybe four or five very short thematic pieces strung together. It was quite clear that we’d hit on something really quite important and precious, the ability to tell stories and to go quite deep. 
"I think A Quick One, While He’s Away is about child abuse and I think it’s about rape and I think it’s about women’s rights. But for me at the time, I wasn’t thinking of it in those terms. I was thinking just in terms of a story about somebody being deserted. 
“It’s kind of an autobiographical story, I realised many years later,” he continues. “A child being deserted and being abused while the parents are away or the mother is away and then coming back and life being okay. I think the characters in the mini-opera were very real to me. I could see them and I could feel them. So when I started to go back to the idea, with the song Rael, I was on a mission to try to write a real opera. And I suppose I meant a rock opera.” 
Townshend, who suffered physical and sexual abuse as a child, would go on to process the experience more fully on 1969’s multi-faceted Tommy. Meanwhile, on a formal level the striking Rael provided a platform for him to get there.
Daltrey cites Kit Lambert as an important figure in Townshend’s move away from conventional pop music. The son of composer Constant Lambert, Kit introduced The Who’s songwriting captain to the classical music of his godfather, William Walton, as well as to figures like Henry Purcell. 
“Kit loved pop singles, he loved rock’n’roll,” Daltrey explains. “But he always thought that the music could actually do and say so much more than it was doing at the time. That was always his dream. He hated what classical music had become, the fact that it had become pompous for this overfed middle class with their noses in the air. Composers like Mozart wrote songs for the people and it was the pop music of its time. So Kit always wanted to give rock a bigger foundation.” 
As a working unit too, as 1967 wore on The Who were moving away from standard convention. They’d flown to America for the first time that March, making their live debut on an old-school Murray The K theatre bill in New York. By mid-June they were sharing a stage with Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin on the closing night of Monterey. 
The contrast was stark – from jostling for position with comedy troupes and novelty acts on the East Coast, to being at the epicentre of the psychedelic youthquake out West. Acid had replaced pills as the drug of choice. And while The Who were never likely to align themselves to the hippie scene or its attendant paraphernalia, Townshend was keen to experiment with LSD. 
His brief flirtation ended after a particularly terrifying trip in which he underwent an out-of-body experience on the flight home from Monterey. Other, more meaningful factors played into Townshend’s development as an artist, not least a burgeoning interest in spirituality. 
“At that time I was starting to get interested in [Indian spiritual master] Meher Baba,” he says. “I was starting to get interested in metaphysical ideas and meditation, the kind of stuff that The Beatles had been doing, and hanging out with Brian Jones, who’d met the Maharishi. It was an exciting time.”
The Who onstage at Monterey Pop Festival, June 18, 1967 (Image credit: Getty Images)
1967 was a royal year for psychedelia, with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as its crowning jewel. Pink Floyd debuted with The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn; Hendrix hit a double whammy with his Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love albums. 
Across the Atlantic, Love paraded the exquisite Forever Changes, while Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow included the counterculture’s defining hymn to turning on, tuning in and dropping out, White Rabbit. The Who seemed like dissidents by comparison.
Townshend acknowledges a debt to Sgt. Pepper’s experimental zeal, but says he was galvanised “more by some of the extraordinary harmonic leaps that Brian Wilson had taken in [The Beach Boys’] Pet Sounds. Going from songs about the beach that were not much different than those by Jan & Dean to a song like God Only Knows is just a huge leap. It was inspiring to me and obviously to many others. I was just trying to make the music interesting.”
Certainly The Who Sell Out has an outlier sensibility. It’s psychedelic only in terms of the rushing Technicolor of the songs, which feel instead like a confluence of Townshend’s love of Pop Art, English baroque music and windmilling rock’n’roll. There’s also a heightened sophistication to many of the arrangements and chord structures. 
The standout is I Can See For Miles, a smouldering firecracker of a song, riddled with paranoia. In May 1967, while promoting Pictures Of Lily, Townshend had referred to The Who’s sound as “power pop”. That term later came to signify an entire genre. 
“I suppose it’s about writing pop songs that have a little more going for them than the usual subject matter,” he reasons today. “I think powerpop was just an attempt to say: ‘Listen, pop songs are not going to be about what they’ve been about any more. They’re going to have power and energy and colour and humour. 
"And they’re going to be more important and they’re going to be much more emphasised. They’re going to be more mischievous. They’re going to be more dangerous, possibly.’ In a sense, the powerpop thing was a recognition, during that time in sixty-seven, that the function of the pop song had changed.”
Another key track was Tattoo, whose vaguely jocular lyrics belie a more profound discourse on the notion of masculinity. It’s a classic in the style of previous singles Pictures Of Lily and I’m A Boy, both of which had touched on a similar theme. 
Townshend explains that I’m A Boy, released in August ’66, arrived at a time when “homosexuality was still illegal in the UK, so these adventures had to be couched in vignettes of humour and irony”. As for his own preferences, he adds that he was probably pansexual at the time: “I think I was ready to fall into bed with anybody that would have me.” 
In terms of music, Tattoo displays a new level of finesse in Townshend’s songwriting. It was conceived during The Who’s recent US tour with British pop act Herman’s Hermits. 
“It was a long sixteen-week tour,” he recalls. “A charter plane and a gig every day. We had three days off in Las Vegas, and I wrote Tattoo while I was there. I think I was very conscious of the fact that somehow there was a poetry behind all this stuff. It’s a very important song. And it’s so interesting that the reason The Who still sing it today is because Roger just loves it. 
"I think he loves challenging himself with the idea of ‘what makes a man a man’, because when he was a young guy he talks about the fact that he was short and became a bully, a fighter. Roger was a notorious fighter in the neighbourhood we grew up in. I remember doing a gig in Glasgow and he got into a fight with about ten Glaswegians and knocked them all out. He was an incredibly efficient fighter."
For all Daltrey’s commanding presence on Tattoo, I Can See For Miles and Rael, it’s instructive to note that The Who Sell Out features an unusual amount of lead vocals from the guitarist. Townshend is front and centre on, for example, Odorono, Our Love Was, Sunrise and Can’t Reach You. This wasn’t necessarily by design. Townshend has a theory. 
“Jimi Hendrix was using the studio [recording Axis: Bold As Love] on the days that we weren’t in there,” he says. “And at that time Roger’s girlfriend, Heather, who became his wife, had been seeing Jimi. I don’t know whether or not this is turning into sort of silly gossip, but I think he wasn’t around as much as he would normally be. He used to enjoy being in the studio, and suddenly he was gone. 
"So I think what actually happened was that I was finishing the songs as I was finishing the vocals, imagining that Roger would come in and replace mine. But he just wasn’t there. I think it had something to do with him being concerned about Jimi Hendrix stealing his girlfriend. I think Heather is the redhead he wrote Foxy Lady about, so I think there was some intrigue going on there. I’ve never spoken to Roger about what really happened.”
Given the short lead time and Townshend’s initial lack of faith, it’s a wonder The Who Sell Out got made at all. Referring to the ultimatum laid down by co-manager Chris Stamp on The Who’s return from America, Townshend remembers “a difficult situation. I would, of course, have written songs eventually. There’s always been a problem for me to find the time to write songs, make demos of them – which takes me a long time – then go into the studio and record them all over again with the band. Then go out on the road and play them. 
“The guys in the band always wanted the album to be ready by the time we landed,” he continues. “I can remember Roger Daltrey once saying to a newspaper that ‘Pete writes his best stuff on the road’, which was his dream and his fantasy. But I never wrote on the road, because I needed a studio. So I was always under the gun.” 
Despite everything, The Who Sell Out is an undoubted masterpiece. Released on December 15, 1967, it invited ready comparisons to the Rolling Stones’ album Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out the previous week. But it was light years removed from the latter’s contrived psychedelia. The Who pushed against expectation without sacrificing their identity.  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/songs-about-body-odour-and-a-bath-full-of-beans-the-story-of-the-who-sell-out 

Old & In The Way - Live at California State College 1973

 Old & In The Way - Live at California State College 1973 - Part 1

 Old & In The Way - Live at California State College 1973 - Part 2

 

1 Going To The Races
2 Catfish John
3 Eating Out Of Your Hand
4 Lonesome Fiddle Blues
5 Land Of The Navajo
6 Old & In The Way Breakdown
7 Panama Red
8 Pig In A Pen
9 Fanny Hill
10 Hobo Song
11 Wild Horses
12 White Dove
13 Lonesome L.A. Cowboy
14 Drifting Too Far From The Shore
15 Wicked Path Of Sin
16 Knockin' On Your Door
17 Uncle Pen
18 High Lonesome Sound
19 Just A Tramp On The Street
20 All Around The Watertank
21 Midnight Moonlight
22 Orange Blossom Special 

 

Old and In the Way were (ironically) mostly not old – and certainly not at all in anyone’s way! – when they gathered in 1973 to play about 50 live shows. Fiddler Vassar Clements, born in 1928 and having joined Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys at 21, was still under 50. The other members of OAITW were only about 30 at the time, give or take a few years.
After spending a year with OAITW playing the banjo (the first stringed instrument he learned to play as a teen), Jerry Garcia soon returned his focus to playing guitar in the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band. John Kahn, who had been playing bass for Garcia’s side projects since 1970, remained by Jerry’s side on stage and in the studio until they both passed away in the mid-1990s. Clements, who appeared on over 200 albums in his life, was never lacking in invitations to record or play live with other musicians. He died in 2005.
Guitar player and lead OAITW vocalist/yodeler Peter Rowan (who had also played for Bill Monroe) moved forward with a storied solo career. The same can be said for 'dawg' music pioneer and mandolin virtuoso David Grisman. Both of them continue to carry the bluegrass torch and each has also led numerous explorations into other avenues of folk, Americana, and jazz.
It’s now fair to categorize their classic album, recorded at San Francisco’s Boarding House, as 'old'. (Fun fact: the album was recorded by the “Wall of Sound” engineer and LSD impresario Stanley Owsley.)
But they’re still not in the way. Most definitely not in the “just ignore the old guys in the corner” way. To the contrary, the original album was for decades the best-selling bluegrass record of all time – finally unseated by the “O Brother, Where Art Thou” soundtrack after more than 25 years. (Because, of course, all records are made to be broken!) It’s no exaggeration to observe that thousands and thousands of music fans, especially Deadheads, got turned on to bluegrass by OAITW.  From: https://www.gratefulweb.com/articles/album-review-old-way-live-sonoma-state-11473 

 

Fleetwood Mac - Bare Trees - Side 2

1. Bare Trees
2. Sentimental Lady
3. Danny's Chant
4. Spare Me a Little of Your Love
5. Dust

When Bare Trees arrived in March 1972, Fleetwood Mac were still searching for that now-familiar identity, with a lineup that included three future Rumours-era members – Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Christine McVie – along with the sharply underrated Bob Welch and the soon-to-depart Danny Kirwan.
Kirwan, who'd joined Fleetwood Mac as an 18-year-old in 1968, was the link back to their galloping blues days with the now-departed Peter Green – but a penchant for more thoughtful songwriting eventually meant that he played a key role in their evolution toward stardom, too. "Danny was a quantum leap ahead of us creatively," Fleetwood later told Music Aficionado. "He was a hugely important part of the band."
Unfortunately, he also had gnawing personal issues which eventually led to an issue with alcohol. "Looking back, Danny was not suited to this business," Fleetwood added. "It was too much pressure. He and Peter were both highly sensitive people, not suited to take the blows."
Kirwan was summarily fired on the tour in support of Bare Trees, and later fell on very hard times. But not before quietly framing this entire project with five songs, to go with two apiece from the late Welch and Christine McVie.
"Danny wasn't a very lighthearted person, to say the least," Welch said in a 2003 Q&A for Penguin. "He probably shouldn't have been drinking as much as he did, even at his young age. He was always very intense about his work, as I was, but he didn't seem to ever be able to distance himself from it – and laugh about it. Danny was the definition of 'deadly serious.'"
You heard it in the music. Kirwan's weary, compact "Dust" counts – with Welch's "Hypnotized" from Mystery to Me – as one of the top moments in this transitional period. "Child of Mine" begins things with a tough declaration of intent, before Kirwan leads the group though "Sunny Side of Heaven," a introspective, musically rich instrumental. The title track boasts a muscled groove, while the wah-driven, rhythmically involving "Danny's Chant" sets an early template for "Tusk." "Trinity," another Kirwan song from this prolific final period, later appeared on the 1992 box set 25 Years: The Chain.
That said, Bare Trees was always most famous for the contributions of others. Elsewhere, both Welch ("Sentimental Lady") and McVie ("Spare Me a Little of Your Love") add signature songs to the mix. Fleetwood Mac made "Spare Me" a staple of their '70s-era set lists, while "Sentimental Lady" was later reworked into a solo Welch hit in 1977 – with notable assists from Fleetwood, Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham. Holding it all together was a polished, warm new production style that came to define their most famous period.
"Bare Trees is the beginning of the band showing a body of work with all the proper connections made," Fleetwood told Music Aficionado. "It's a well-rounded album. Like Lindsey, Danny had the chops with layering techniques, and the ability to know what's right and wrong in the studio."  From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/fleetwood-mac-bare-trees/

Small Fools - Melt in the Sun

The duo of Small Fools are made up of brother and sister Nathan and Ruthie Prillaman. Born in Potomac, Maryland, the siblings reside at opposite ends of the United States, with Nathan in New York and Ruthie in Los Angeles. Both are composers in their own right, with Nathan writing for film, ballet and theatre. In film, he specialises in writing historically accurate pieces performed on period instruments, while focussing on neo-classical music for ballet and immersive electroacoustic sounds for theatre. In 2021, Nathan composed a new score to choreographer Norbert De La Cruz III’s work ‘Fluency’ at Juilliard School’s Center for Innovation in the Arts where he is currently serving as part of the music technology faculty.
Ruthie has written for television and has been commissioned by choirs and orchestras across the United States, having premiered a new children’s orchestral work called ‘What About The Duck?’ with the Utah Symphony in 2024. The short 15-minute piece is an intended sequel to Prokofiev's ‘Peter and the Wolf’ inspired by composer Andrew Maxfield’s son. Ruthie has also co-written a best-selling novel with Kate McMillan entitled ‘Maple’s Theory of Fun’, aimed at pre-teen readers. 
As Small Fools, the siblings have been releasing music since early 2023, beginning with the bluegrass single ‘Horseradish’ and continuing with the well-received four-track EP ‘Crying In My Subaru’. The latter combines Nathan’s electronic tendencies with Ruthie’s choir layering and minimised lyricism. The result is like driving through a medieval town in an EV. 
‘A Secret Dialogue on the Side of a Mountain’ is a purely instrumental single, fusing folk stringed instruments and further exploring the electronic sound heard on their EP. The dreamy ‘Spruce Grouse’ followed in the summer of 2023 and ‘Haunt This Place’ was released for Halloween. 
With the highly layered nature of their work, their studio playthroughs recorded by the band on their YouTube channel explore just how intricate their arrangements are. Nathan plays the mandolin, classical guitar and banjo parts for ‘A Secret Dialogue’, while Ruthie breaks down the five vocal lines for ‘Departures’ (even the pitched down one!). On Instagram and TikTok, the siblings have boosted their following through their wit and storytelling whilst incorporating their songs in fun and exciting ways.  From: https://www.mothsandgiraffes.com/theactualcontent/shb5k7gocpamug6ctrthla937qo1ze 

Harrow Fair - Dark Gets Close

Harrow Fair formed when Miranda Mulholland met Andrew Penner through the Toronto music scene. The two started writing songs together after the release of Miranda’s solo album, 2014’s Whipping Boy, on which Andrew played the dobro.
“We wrote a bunch of stuff pretty quickly,” Andrew said. “We didn’t really talk about it that much. It was just more like it worked really well, and there was a cool chemistry, and there was a sound that kind of happened right away.”
Miranda had been a member of Great Lake Swimmers and Andrew a member of Sunparlour Players, and they worked closely together to carefully craft a specific sound for their new act.
“We had a discussion about, ‘What do we want to do as far as what it’s going to look like?’” Andrew said. “It wasn’t a super long discussion … But I think the discussion was more like stripping that down even more, where it was just something much simpler that was still providing enough of a wide kind of sonic thing going on. You have the sizzle of hi-hats, and then you have the fiddle that can just go through, but it’s going through pedals and going through amps.”
For Miranda, working with Andrew has been extremely positive and has allowed her to continue to grow as an artist, she said, even though she already has years of experience.
“I’ve been taking more chances ’cause Andrew kind of allows me to take more chances sonically than I perhaps could’ve in other bands,” she said. “And I can kind of be a little more rock n’ roll, I guess, in a way that I really wasn’t able to before.”
Together, Miranda and Andrew manage to appear as if they’ve been playing together for over a decade even though it’s only been about half that. Their Troubadour Festival set highlighted their ability to perform a tight and memorable show featuring subtle gestures between the two members as they effortlessly balanced their individual roles to form a homogeneous duo. Miranda chalks up that dynamic to good communication.
“We had a good place to start from,” she said. “I think going on really long drives on tour you get to know each other really well, and you have a lot of trust.”
“We’ve both played so much I think we know when not to question things,” Andrew added, “Then we also know when to question things.”  From: https://www.rootsmusic.ca/2019/10/22/how-harrow-fair-got-so-good-so-quick/

Moon Letters - Sudden Sun

Lots of artists barking at the Moon these days. I can't keep track of how many Moon bands there are any longer! There's Moon Safari of course in the prog world but so many more like Moon Goons, Moon Duo, Moon Tan, Moon Phantoms and countless others. Here's yet another one of the newer harbingers of modern retro prog, the Seattle based Moon Letters. This band doesn't just copy and paste its prog ethos from the past but rather has constructed an interesting new take on taking something old and reinventing it to suit a newer audience in the modern day and age all the while tamping down the tones and timbres to fit into the old school golden age prog world. So far Moon Letters founded and led by guitarist Dave Webb released the debut "Until They Feel The Sun" in 2019 and after receiving warranted kudos for an interesting retro-prog stylistic approach, Moon Letters continues and ups its game on its second release "Thank You From The Future".
This is my first exposure to Moon Letters but from what i've read there has been a significant improvement from the debut. This album of seven tracks is retro down to the 41-minute playing time and features elements from many classic prog bands. There's an interesting symphonic prog sound reminiscent of Yes at times and Kansas at others. There are also playful early Spock's Beard vocal antics, Gentle Giant time signature gymnastics and occasional King Crimson styled rocking out. However the one artist that comes to mind more often than others is that there is a clear Mars Volta thing going on here. The juxtaposition of musical elements with the punk rocker's intensity in fully fueled prog time signature splendor was the winning formula for albums like "De-Loused in the Comatorium" and "Francis The Mute." Luckily Moon Letters succeeds in finding its own voice.
Moon Letters was formed six years ago in 2016 and features some prog veterans including guitarist Dave Webb (Spacebag, Wah Wah Exit Wound), lead vocalist and flautist Michael Trew (Autumn Electric), drummer Kelly Mynes (Panther Attack!, Bone Cave Ballet), bassist Mike Murphy (Authentic Luxury) and keyboardist John Allday (Chaos and Cosmos). The debut "Until They Feel The Sun" was warmly received by the prog world and if it's in the same vein as this new release i can tell why! Add to that a really cool album cover and I’m all in. This is what I call fun prog, that is prog that engages in all the check the box elements like time signature frenzies, extended compositional fortitude and improvisation up the ying yang yet without scarifying that playful melodic sing-songy style that made the 70s bands so cool.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=76043

 

Ulvens Döttrar - Spader

Ulvens Döttrar (The Daughters of the Wolf) consists of the three sisters Isabella, Johanna and Ella Grüssner. The sisters have been singing together throughout their childhood, but as the trio Ulvens Döttrar, they have been working for about ten years.
In Ulvens Döttrar the sisters combine their individual musical styles and careers in folk, jazz and rock into a singular musical interaction with both medieval and oriental influences. Their music is often described as evocative, and driving with a rhythmic base. The trio built up sound in their music with instruments such as fiddle, keyed fiddle, didgeridoo, djembe, thunder drum, frame drum, flute, rain stick and mouth harp.
Their main instrument, however, is voice and some pieces are wholly a cappella in three-part arrangements with tight harmonies. Most of the repertoire is now their own material. Ella composes music, Isabella writes the lyrics and Johanna organizes.  From: https://www.last.fm/music/Ulvens+D%C3%B6ttrar/+wiki

Macroscream - Bloody Noise

 

"Macrophonix" is a compelling album by the Italian progressive rock band Macroscream. This third release from the band showcases their ability to blend various musical styles into a cohesive listening experience. The songs are excellently played and arranged, with a dedication to the 1970s RPI and symphonic prog era but with a very modern, jazzy sound. You have to hear it to understand what I mean—its spirit is old, but the sound is very new. Macroscream was formed by bassist/vocalist Alessandro Patierno, so you can expect the bass to be front and center in most tracks, which is a big part of what I love about this record.
"Macrophonix" highlights Macroscream's innovative approach to music. It revives some themes from the past but does so with a freshness that makes it feel like a modern revisitation rather than a nostalgic throwback.
The album's lyrics are in English and inspired by classical mythology and philosophy. While "Macrophonix" could be defined as an RPI, symphonic, and even neo-prog album, it also includes a folk component that harkens back to the great classics of the early 70s. As I mentioned earlier, this combination of influences results in a sound that, while reminiscent of the past, feels fresh and contemporary.
The production quality is top-notch, allowing each instrument to shine while maintaining a balanced and polished sound. The compositions are well-crafted, taking the listener on a journey through various moods and themes, reflecting the band's versatility and creativity. This is one of those albums you’ll appreciate on a good sound system or high-end earphones/buds (and of course on Prog Radio at 320 kbps =).
"Macrophonix" highlights Macroscream's innovative approach to music. It revives some themes from the past but does so with a freshness that makes it feel like a modern revisitation rather than a nostalgic throwback. This album will appeal to fans of progressive rock and those who appreciate music that pushes the boundaries of genre conventions. Tune in to Prog Radio to hear several of these interesting tracks, which will jump out at you in a very good way, and of course, we’ll be featuring it in Monday’s “What’s New Proggy Cats?”  From: https://www.progradio.com/reviews/macrophonix

 

Linda Ronstadt - I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You

 

Linda Ronstadt - Rolling Stone 1974 (click to read)

 

 Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris

Herbert - Cattle Call

These four Americans definitely have every Black Sabbath and Monster Magnet album on their shelves. Want to bet? The eleven songs on "Steppin' Off To Eden" sound pretty much exactly as if Dave Wyndorf had become the successor to good old Ozzy and had listened to a lot of progressive metal with the rest of the band. At least, these groups are likely the most clearly recognizable sources of inspiration for Herbert's album. And the result is quite impressive: varied songwriting, catchy yet not overly poppy melodies, and intelligent tempo changes, presented by excellent musicians, make Herbert interesting for anyone who has found the stoner rock genre a bit too monotonous lately.  Translated from: https://www.visions.de/review/herbert-steppin%C2%92-off-to-eden/ 

Laura Nyro - Poverty Train

On this haunting track from her sophomore album, Laura Nyro sings from the perspective of an addict in the midst of a terrifying drug trip, where "You can see the walls roar, see your brains on the floor" as the Devil watches with a grin. While she mentions cocaine in the song, it was really about heroin. A year after Eli and the Thirteenth Confession was released, the singer's 21-year-old cousin died of an accidental heroin overdose.
Nyro was a frequent pot smoker but typically stayed away from harder drugs, except for a bout with LSD that conjured horrific hallucinations like the ones described in the song. The New York Times noted in the 1968 article "Laura Nyro: She's the Hippest - and Maybe the Hottest?":
Laura has since stopped using acid because of the medical evidence that it is genetically dangerous, but it seemed useful to her at the time. She refers to the event as "the day I became a woman." During the experience, monsters - half men, half rats - filed into her room and menaced her from the walls. She summoned the strength to resist them, and after nine hours of spiritual combat they withdrew... "I won the struggle for myself," she says. "I stopped being a loser and became a winner instead." This features jazz musician Joe Farrell on the flute. "He kind of turned it into Alice in Wonderland, almost," Nyro told Down Beat magazine in 1969. "He came into my world, and he really enhanced it."
This was one of the songs (along with "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Eli's Coming") Nyro performed at her notorious appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, a counterculture milestone that marked major debuts from Janis Joplin and Otis Redding. She felt out of her element belting soul songs in a long black dress adorned with an angel wing for a hippie crowd who was there to see Jimi Hendrix and the like. As the legend goes, the crowd hurled boos at Nyro and she fled the stage in tears, afterwards demanding documentarian D.A. Pennebaker remove her performance from the accompanying film. He complied, but when footage of her songs emerged on the 2002 DVD release, it was clear Nyro was catastrophizing the incident.
While the concertgoers weren't fully invested in her showing, the "boos" Nyro heard were actually exclamations of "beautiful!" Bones Howe, who turned a handful of Nyro's tunes into hits for The 5th Dimension, weighed in: "Let's just say she was miscast at Monterey. It was only in the context of everything else that happened there. It was really smoke-dope folk music and heavy rock music – people setting fire to their guitars – and she wasn't folk and she wasn't heavy rock."  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/laura-nyro/poverty-train

Fairport Convention - Shattering Live Experience

Fairport Convention has long been British folk-rock with the emphasis on British and folk, but listeners most familiar with their revved-up interpretation of traditional English ballads (and like-minded originals) often forget that the band started out as the U.K.'s response to Jefferson Airplane. Heyday collects 12 performances (ten of them covers) recorded for the BBC during the early period when Sandy Denny and Ian Matthews were both singing for the group (and a bus accident had not yet taken the life of original drummer Martin Lamble). While most of the songs were written by noted American folk-rockers of the day, the Fairports put a very individual stamp on every selection here; if you don't think you ever need to hear another version of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" or Bob Dylan's "Percy's Song," you might well change your mind after hearing Fairport work their magic with them, and their takes on Joni Mitchell's "I Don't Know Where I Stand" and Gene Clark's "Tried So Hard" actually improve on the very worthy originals. Fairport Convention approaches these songs with taste, skill, and subtle but potent fire, and Richard Thompson was already growing into one of the most remarkable guitarists in British rock (and if you're of the opinion that he doesn't know how to be funny, check out his goofy double entendre duet with Sandy, "If It Feels Good, You Know It Can't Be Wrong"). While Fairport Convention would create their most lasting work with Liege and Leif and Full House, Heyday offers delightful proof that this band's talents (and influences) took many different directions, and it captures one of the band's better lineups in superb form.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/heyday-bbc-radio-sessions-1968-1969-mw0000201000#review 

Kitchen Witch - Just For One Day

Since 2013, red-dust desert rock outfit “Kitchen Witch” have been wowing audiences with their powerful twist of femme-driven heavy rock grooves with some extra low-end riffage to spare. Dubbed as South Australia’s response to the California desert/stoner rock scene, the quartet continue to go from strength to strength with their uniquely Australian blend of blues & soul, 70’s rock, desert psychedelia and stoner metal doom. They've cast a spell on audiences on stages across Australia with 1000 Mods, The Sword, Brant Bjork (Kyuss), Earthless, Samsara Blues Experiment, Mammal and many more international riff-wizards worthy of note.  From: https://www.bandsintown.com/a/7207753-kitchen-witch 

Del Amitri - Be My Downfall

Loud, moody drums conquer all in the memorable masterpiece that is Del Amitri’s Change Everything. Initially released in July 1992, the ‘90s musical essence oozes out of the tracks on the album. This project is what a listener would find as a definition of a made for concert listening experience; every song blows up your speakers and rattles your eardrums in the best way. The pop and soft-rock infused album will go down in music history as groundbreaking.
Part of what makes the first time listening so impactful is how everything blends so effectively. The echoey drums and smooth electric guitar create a larger-than-life atmosphere that lasts throughout the entire project. Del Amitri’s lead vocalist Justin Currie, bold, yet sensual vocal performance that bless the songs guide listeners through this engaging musical story. Individually, these factors all shine and enhance the listening experiences for audiences; when placing the impeccable volume, instrumental accents, and vocal elements together and properly balancing them, the full intentionality and tactfulness of this sonic statue comes into the light.
Change Everything has listeners tag along on a journey where its protagonist, the narrator who sings these songs, does just that. Much of the project, especially the first half is dedicated to exploring the different shades of gray that comes along with heartbreak. There are instances in which Currie (or the character he is playing) is the heartbreaker or betrayer. On the other side, there are songs that show the realities of experiencing one’s own heart being broken. No matter the somber perspective, Del Amitri is willing to be vulnerable in sharing their emotions; every ounce of sadness, anger, displeasure, and the joys of love and growing up that are highlighted in the latter part of the track list.  From: https://www.rootsmusicmagazine.com/post/del-amitri-s-change-everything-is-an-album-made-to-be-played-in-stadiums

Crash Test Dummies - Live Karlsruhe, Germany 1997

 Crash Test Dummies - Live Karlsruhe, Germany 1997 - Part 1

 

Crash Test Dummies - Live Karlsruhe, Germany 1997 - Part 2

 

When you hear the Crash Test Dummies, it's very likely you'll recognize Brad Roberts' distinctive deep voice almost immediately. But the group has also relied heavily upon his song writing and can attribute much of their success not only to their unique sound, but to their unique songs. Here is an interview with this very talented songwriter, singer and performer, conducted via e-mail when Brad and the band were in the Toronto area to help promote the Crash Test Dummies' newest CD, Give Yourself A Hand. I think you'll find that he has quite a unique sense of humour too.

Question: What was your first musical experience as a kid and how do you think it contributed to the music you're making today?  Is there a particular incident that sticks out in your mind as a "defining moment"?

my first musical experiences were probably that of listening to my dad play the piano and my mom singing along. then i began taking piano lessons myself.  but my teacher was a horrid old bitch, so i quit. (years later, as a bratty teen, i egged her house.) at age 8 i began buying those K-tel 22 greatest hits packages. listened to them hundreds of times. at age 10, i bought an archie comic with a story in it about the "cave archies". the last frame showed jughead and reggie sitting around a campfire playing prehistoric guitars, called "plinka plunks". the idea of playing guitar around a campfire was very appealing to me, and made me want to take guitar lessons. at age 12, i bought my first "kiss" record, their third album, called "dressed to kill". i listened to it hundreds of times, and decided i wanted to be able to play guitar just like ace did. so i found a guitar teacher who i liked, and took lessons for about 4 years after that. all of the above are factors which contributed to my growing fascination with music throughout my early years. but the most "defining moment" of my musical life was the realization that i was a loser at school, that i couldn't play hockey, that girls didn't like me, and that the only way i could dig my way out of the land of nerds was by becoming a rock star. which i did.

Question: I hear that you studied English and Philosophy in University.  What did those studies do for your songwriting?  And how have your philosophies changed since you first started out?  Do you see things differently now then you used to?  Do different things inspire you?

my studies very much influenced my earlier songwriting, which tended to be more cerebral than my current work. nowadays, i have grown bored of trying to figure things out. i don't read anymore. at present, i am inspired not by philosophy and literature, but rather by alcohol and prostitutes. ctd's new record is mainly about getting drunk and masturbating and going to strip clubs. it's the best work i have done, and i am very glad to be freed from the shackles of the mind.

Question: have to ask this - and you probably knew it was coming.  (No, it has nothing to do with the silly story about your third testicle.) Do you experience the dreaded "Writer's Block"?  And if so, how do you get yourself over it?

when i have writers block, i just stop writing. i have learned that i have to get away from writing and recharge my batteries, in order to be able to continue more writing at a later date. in other words, the time spent NOT writing is as important as the time spent actually doing the work. if i'm really desperate to write something, i'll go on a bender and get drunk for days. then i get ideas during my hangovers. i don't know why, but a hangover often puts me in a writing mood.

Question: Out of all the songs that you've written, which is your favourite and why?  Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to write that favourite song?

this is an impossible question to answer. when i'm writing, i always think that whatever i'm currently working on is the best thing i've ever done. then, years later, i look back at it, and i think its crap. for example, almost everything on "the ghosts that haunt me" is, as far as i'm concerned, total garbage. but hey, those were the first songs i ever wrote, and they paved the way for me to do better work later. everthing on our new record ("give yourself a hand") is my favorite stuff.

Question: Having recorded numerous albums at this point, you've probably been able to do things differently with this newest release.  What have you changed since your earlier recordings?  What about the process has become more satisfying as time progresses?

our recent recordings are different from our earlier recordings in that they are more about attitude and less about ideas. also, in our new live shows, i get to strut around the stage like a rock-star-jack-ass and hurl abuse at the audience, something which they seem to love. go figure.

Question: What's in store for CTD in the future?  I know your latest release is coming out in a few weeks.  Will there be a tour to promote it?

yes, we will tour all over north america, europe, australia, south africa, and parts of south america. it'll take about a year. then i will collapse and swear never to do it again. then i'll write another record, and do it all again. and again. like a hamster on a treadmill.

From: https://www.musesmuse.com/bradroberts.html 

 

The Lemonheads - Into Your Arms

This is a simple, immediately likable song, but it’s also a song that says a lot in a small space. The entire lyric:

I know a place where I can go when I’m alone
Into your arms, I can go
I know a place that’s safe and warm from the crowd
Into your arms, I can go
And if I should fall, I know I won’t be alone anymore

That’s it, sung over and over again. Rarely did the early-Beatles even dare to repeat so few words so many times. The achievement, of course, is that the listener barely notices. The song’s so active, and so catchy, and tightly-edited, that it seems to end one foot-tapping moment after it’s begun.
The key is variation; since the words don’t change, the music must. The arrangement builds and slackens. More instruments join in, then drop out. The melody varies slightly–but tellingly–at each pass. The result is a song that’s saying one thing, over and over, but says so much more.
For example, I used to hear this song as an Ode to a Plan B. The singer struggles with loneliness, and there’s a girl he can always call when he needs a warm body. I heard the “fall” as more literal–if he’s down, he knows the place where he can be picked back up. To me, it wasn’t a love song, but a song about a backup plan, a way to bide the time until real love comes along.
A few months ago, one of my closest friends mentioned “Into Your Arms.”  He said that he and his fiance love the song, so I immediately revisited it.  Suddenly, it sounded different. I heard it as a simple statement of unconditional love. The “fall” is figurative–he anticipates falling in love and meeting his girl there. Lonely days are over; he’s found the one. The words were the same, but their meaning changed.  Or maybe I did.
Great songs find listeners at the right time and the right place and speak to them at that moment. My favorite songs, though, are the ones that evolve as I do, that are flexible and generous enough to offer a hand no matter what I feel that day. They meet me wherever I am.  The lyrics of “Into Your Arms” stay the same, but (through some clever musical devices) sound different in each verse. Similarly, the song’s stayed the same, but over the years (and with some insight from a friend) its meaning has changed.  From: https://chrismilam.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/song-of-the-week-the-lemonheads-into-your-arms/

The Three Degrees - Collage

I’d never heard this song until I stumbled upon it today, but after only playing it for only a few seconds I had no doubt in my mind that this little little soul worm was not going to get out of my head! Steered by a powerful force, this tune is driven by soul and spirit. Vocal lines twirl with spiralling repetition as their melody firmly nestles itself in your head, their grip strengthened by lines such as, “Autumn calls for a change of year/Bringing winter near while spring’s the ground/And the skies are fine/Wintertime is a razor blade/That the devil made, it’s the price we pay/…For the summertime”.
What a really cool tune and very happy accident to have happened upon! Collage was written by US guitarist/singer Joesph Walsh and Colorado-based songwriter/ musician/ producer, Patrick James Cullie. Written in the late 1960’s,the song has since been covered by an array of bands/artists, including the likes of Golden Earring (1995), The Breeders (1999), Lady Blackbird (2021)
James Gang were the first band to release this song in 1969 but, in my humble opinion, this not a patch on the rendition I am featuring today! The Three Degrees recorded their superb version a year later in 1970. Featuring it as the B-side to their Maybe single, this 45 was issued on the Roulette label and I’m sold. Never will there be another version of this song that does what The Three Degrees version does to me. They just simply transform it!  From: https://thelisteningpostblog.wordpress.com/2024/07/06/song-of-the-day-the-three-degrees-collage/

Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels

A friend of mine recently told me he was just starting to get into Tears for Fears and was I fan? I was shocked. Back in the day, on my daily commute to school from SF to Marin County, my bus driver had his favorite easy listening power ballad station on lock, so for me, Tears for Fears are the soundtrack of my pre-pre-pubescent crush on a boy called Bryn who used to let me zip down the hills sitting on his skateboard. Am I fan of Tears for Fears? Did I never actually kiss Bryn but did a classmate called Molly tell teachers she saw us having sex under the jungle gym during recess? The answer to these questions is yes.
But anyway, back to my friend not being familiar with Tears for Fears. OK, he’s 29, so in the 80s he barely existed, but if you saw Donnie Darko then—hello!—that was your moment to retrospectively embrace the mulleted quartet. The pairing of “Head Over Heels” with Donnie getting off the bus and walking through the halls, observing every clichéd high school clique, character, and trope as he makes his way to class, is one of cinema’s finest pairings of song and scene. In fact writer/director Richard Kelly wrote the scene with this very song in mind. It’s also impossible to forget that unfortunate bastardized version of “Mad World” by Gary Jules that became a Christmas number one (in the UK, Canada, and Portugal) back in 2003, lingering around the charts for weeks like a stale dog fart.
But let’s not focus on that. Thanks to my friend’s recent TFF exploration, I decided to have a little re-watch of the proper “Head Over Heels” video. Viewing this now I’m not sure I actually ever saw it in the first place. I think I just re-watched that Donnie Darko scene again and again, because, vintage Gyllenhaal, among other things. Thus today, with fresh eyes I gazed upon this 80s classic and these are some of the things that occurred to me while watching it.
The premise for this promo appears to be that Roland Orzabal is in love with the spectacled, stern-faced, but clearly quite hot librarian. You’d think she’s be down to love him because he’s big into reading, but she’s having none of it. I love that he just walks in, dumps the books on the front desk, and starts aggressively singing at her. This guy has zero game. His opening line is: “I wanted to be with you alone / And talk about the weather,” which is in no way an appealing proposition. It’s not like, “Oh I wanted to be with you by myself so we could gaze at constellations and maybe I could touch your inner thigh.” No. He wants to talk about the weather. Tears for Fears are from Bath, England. I’ve been there several times and can say with some authority that while the architecture is beautiful, the weather is most often grey and drizzly, so already this pick up line is a disaster. Come on Roland Orzabal (say it in full, say it again!), time to step it up. Still you can tell he’s genuinely really into her by the way his eyes can’t meet her gaze and the dejected manner in which he slopes away.
The best thing about 80s music videos is that they’re almost entirely nonsensical. It was a new medium! MTV was a revolution! Record labels were splashing cash! Fans were buying records! Everyone was taking too much cocaine! Just ask director Nigel Dick. He went on to helm videos for Guns N Roses, Oasis, Backstreet Boys, and OMG, many Britney classics including “Baby One More Time.” I have to track this guy down. But back to this TFF video: when Ian Stanley rocked up to the library front desk it made total narrative sense for an enormous keyboard to slide into view. A keyboard which he pretended to play with all the skill of Keyboard Cat, because he knew the most important thing was keeping your eyes on the prize—staring down your prey, eyes glazed like a stoner when he spies a pack of Cheetos in the corner of the kitchen. Not since Kurt gave the game away by simply refusing to play the guitar on Top of the Pops back in 1991 have I seen a musician mock his craft so flagrantly. Sweet leather jacket BTW.
But Roland Orzabal is not giving up. When buttoned up librarian moves a tome from the shelves, whose head should pop up in the gap on the other side? You guessed it! Then in the next scene, he’s right beside her, singing in her face again. Roland Orzabal’s getting a leetle creepy right about now, but we all know it’s better to have tried really hard than to have never tried at all. Pretty sure Lord Tennyson came up with that maxim.
Side note III: Key to any 80s video—absurdist touches like a random man in a gas mask and / or a chimp. Or drummer Manny Elias working a Hasidic vibe. Sure! Why not. Do you suppose people felt emotions much more deeply in the 80s? I think there might be some truth to that. People can be so aloof these days because they’re cursed with FOMO and hand-in-hand with that is the pressing paranoia that if you confess your feelings for one person and jump all in, you might close yourself off from someone “better” and miss that damn boat. Pre-Tinder and pre-internet, people selected partners with at least a modicum of conviction.
Here we have a man in sensible knitwear singing about falling head over heels, begging you not to take his heart, not break his heart, not to throw, throw, throw it away. We can tell that Roland Orzabal really means it because he appears to not care what he looks like when proclaiming his feelings. Thanks to too many mirrors and too much time selfie-ing everyone and their pet rat knows about angles. Kids probably pop out of the womb with their chin dropped, eyes wide, looking coyly upwards, ready for their close up. Roland Orzabal knows nothing of this pose. He is all-earnest. He is letting that camera shoot him up the nose. He is doing that chicken head cluck as he delivers each line. He is 100 percent gesticulating the lyrics (“four leaf clover,” “one open mind”). These are deeply uncool moves. But love isn’t about being cool—it’s about being vulnerable. Clearly.
Does Roland Orazabal get the girl in the end? Well, what do you think? Ultimately, it always pays to be a nerd. I can only conclude by saying it’s never too late to get into Tears for Fears. Perhaps a Tears for Fears newbie who’s never delved into their back catalogue will embrace the sparkly, drive-time goodness of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” or the pleading beauty of “Pale Shelter” (note that punk-funk bassline), and yes, the new wave-y, window-stroking angst of the original “Mad World,” and that newbie will understand a little bit more about love and life and feelings.  From: https://www.vice.com/en/article/head-over-heels-tears-for-fears-video/?

The Joy Formidable - Share My Heat

Most bands want 15 minutes of fame. The Joy Formidable just want 15 minutes of your time. The Welsh trio are taking us on a mighty sonic trip with the release of “Share My Heat,” a rousing alt-rock escapade that arrives today (September 26) via Enci Records, complete with a wild animated video that supplies psychedelic visuals across its entire 15-minute runtime. Hot damn.
“‘Share My Heat’ is about true connection & love,” says guitarist and vocalist Ritzy Bryan. “Deep, selfless love between humans is a beautiful part of our existence, but I’m also singing about our inherent love for nature, the living world & our kinship to everything: Plants, animals, mountains & lake. Can we repair our relationship & bring more reciprocity, compassion and companionship to a world that already gives us so much?” Well, we’ll soon find out.
The epic “Share My Heat” is the third and final Joy Formidable single in a string of new releases, all following 2021 album Into The Blue. At a time when most artists are shortening songs to pad play counts on streaming services, The Joy Formidable have snapped back in to the other direction to release a single song that’s longer than some new EPs.  From: https://vanyaland.com/2023/09/26/the-joy-formidable-go-long-on-the-psychedelic-share-my-heat/

Preoccupations - Slowly

Preoccupations' beautifully rough version of post-punk is equally life-affirming and well-versed in existential dread. The band's debut album, 2015's Viet Cong, mixed post-punk, psych-pop, shoegaze, noise, and electronics in fearless ways that nevertheless maintained a very human pulse. This connection to their humanity remained on all of their albums, though Preoccupations' music became subtler and more open-ended on 2016's Preoccupations, more anthemic on 2018's poised New Material, and more confrontational on 2022's Arrangements.
Vocalist/bassist Matt Flegel and guitarist Scott Munro, a pair of musicians from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, formed Preoccupations in 2012. Flegel was a member of the celebrated Calgary indie rock band Women while Munro had formerly played guitar with Lab Coast. Flegel and Munro began working on songs together during a European tour as part of Chad VanGaalen's backing band; when they heard about the death of Women guitarist Chris Reimer, they realized it was time to start a new project. They recruited former Women drummer Mike Wallace and guitarist Danny Christiansen, who had worked with Flegel and Wallace in a Black Sabbath tribute act. Originally named Viet Cong, in 2013 the band released a four-song cassette -- cleverly titled Cassette -- that they sold at their shows during a North American tour with Freak Heat Waves. Following their performance at the 2014 CMJ Music Festival, the group signed to the Canadian label Flemish Eye, who issued two songs from the cassette as a single (in the U.S., Mexican Summer released an expanded seven-song version of the tape as a 12" vinyl EP in 2014).In January 2015, the band released their self-titled debut album. Produced by Graham Walsh, Viet Cong added noise and electronics to the band's moody mix of post-punk, shoegaze, and straight-ahead indie rock.
Citing concerns that their name might be offensive to some, in April 2016 the band announced they had changed their name to Preoccupations. Their first album under that name, September 2016's Preoccupations, was a more considered effort that nevertheless highlighted the heavy and danceable sides of their music and featured a guest appearance by Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner. A deluxe version of the album included a single with covers of Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Key" and the Raincoats' "Off Duty Trip." For their third album, March 2018's bluntly titled New Material, the band recruited producer Justin Meldal-Johnson, who helped add polish and a grander scope to their anthemic songwriting. That year, Preoccupations also teamed up with Protomartyr on Telemetry at Howe Bridge, a split single that found them covering each other's songs.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/preoccupations-mn0003514608#biography

Sheila Chandra & Monsoon - Wings of Dawn

A precursor to the scene of artists featured on Naya Beat’s South Asian Dance And Electronic Music 1983-1992 compilation, Monsoon was a short-lived Indi-pop trio consisting of musician and producer Steve Coe, multi-instrumentalist Martin Smith, and Sheila Chandra, who has been celebrated as “one of the most beautiful voices on earth.” While the use of sitar in Western music can be traced back to the psychedelic ’60s (The Beatles, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones), Monsoon pioneered the first true fusion of East meets West blending traditional Indian music with ’80s synth-pop, long before the term “World Music” would ever be used in Western media.
In 1982, Monsoon’s self-released debut single was distributed by the influential London-based label Rough Trade, and caught the attention of Phonogram’s David Claridge and Dave Bates who signed the group as the first act on their new sub-label Mobile Suit Corporation. “Ever So Lonely” became an unexpected global hit, making history in the process as Chandra (only 17 at the time) became the first South Asian woman to appear on the UK’s “Top of the Pops.”
Monsoon’s lone album Third Eye would arrive in 1983, and remains a groundbreaking and pioneering classic from the Asian Underground in London. Sitar, tambura, santoor, and tabla meet synthesizers, drum machines, and Bill Nelson’s e-bow guitar for a sound that was unlike anything else being released at the time. Album opener “Wings of the Dawn (Prem Kavita)” sets the stage with an Indian raga featuring sitar drone, Chandra’s enchanting vocal, and Indian percussion before soaring into drum machines and electric e-bow.
The group’s cover of The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows,” more than likely a suggestion from Phonogram executives, is also sublime and lifts the psychedelic ’60s classic into the ’80s with deep percussive grooves. Crucial to mention, besides Chandra, the album also features some of the best Indian instrumentalists including Ravi Shankar disciple Dari Mankoo on sitar, santoor player Deepak Khazanchi, and Punita Gupta.
Monsoon would disband shortly after the release of Third Eye due to conflicts with their label. Chandra and Coe would continue their collaboration through his Indipop label and further develop their Asian fusion sound through Chandra’s solo releases and The Ganges Orchestra. The label would also establish links with artists pursuing similar fusions of sounds including groups like Michael Wadada’s world music collective Suns of Arqa, and the legendary West India Company, a Blancmange spin-off who brought Asha Bhosle’s voice to European dancefloors.  From: https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/third-eye-monsoon/