Skunk Anansie - Charlie Big Potato

British alternative quartet Skunk Anansie played what their lead singer, Skin, called clit-rock - an amalgam of heavy metal and Black feminist rage. Skin began singing in high school for a classmate's band after considering the offer for over a year. Six years after that band broke up, the members of Skunk Anansie (including bass player Cass, guitarist Ace, and drummer Robbie France, who was replaced by Mark Richardson in 1995) met one another by chance. Their name was taken from the West Indian folktales of Anansi the Spider-Man, with a slight change of spelling and "Skunk" added to make the name nastier.
The group played its first gig at London's Splash club in March 1994, subsequently taking six weeks to record its debut album, Paranoid and Sunburnt, at a "haunted house" outside the city. The band's first single, "Selling Jesus," was featured on the soundtrack of the film Strange Days; Stoosh followed in 1996, and three years later Skunk Anansie returned with Post Orgasmic Chill. They broke up in 2001, with Skin moving on to a solo career (releasing Fleshwounds in 2003 and Fake Chemical State in 2006). The group re-formed in early 2009, playing sold-out shows and recording three new tracks for a greatest-hits album, Smashes & Trashes. The reunion went so well that they decided to stick together and record a new album, Wonderlustre, released in the autumn of 2010, with the track "You Saved Me" used in Zack Snyder's 2011 movie Sucker Punch, along with their remix of Björk's "Army of Me."
Sadly, former drummer Robbie France passed away after his aorta ruptured in January 2011. The band released its fifth album, Black Traffic, in September 2012 and backed it with an extensive European tour. The first single from the album was "Sad, Sad, Sad." The group followed this up with the live album An Acoustic Skunk Anansie: Live in London, a recording of their performance at Cadogan Hall, London in April 2013, before their sixth studio effort, Anarchytecture, arrived in 2016. The following year, the band put out 25live@25 - a compilation album that traversed 25 years of live material.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/skunk-anansie-mn0000019831#biography  

The Small Glories - Had I Paid

Winnipeg's the Small Glories are an acclaimed roots music duo featuring former Wailin' Jennys singer/guitarist Cara Luft and singer/guitarist J.D. Edwards, both of whom are exceptionally gifted instrumentalists in the folk, country, blues, and bluegrass genres. They initially gained attention touring in 2014 and gained wider buzz with their 2016 debut, Wondrous Traveler, which showcased their impressive dual-lead-guitar approach and rich vocal harmonies. The inception of the Small Glories began in 2012 when longtime acquaintances Luft and Edwards were paired for a show celebrating the 25th anniversary of Winnipeg's West End Cultural Centre. The performance was greeted with enthusiasm and sparked the notion of a future collaboration. Prior to joining forces, each musician had enjoyed a lauded career, with Luft having co-founded the Juno Award-winning trio the Wailin' Jennys and issuing her own highly regarded solo albums. Similarly, Edwards had distinguished himself playing in traditional bluegrass outfits and his own genre-bending blues, country, and R&B projects. Following their initial performance in 2012, their individual careers took precedence for a few more years until 2014, when Edwards joined Luft on tour. Again, the chemistry between them was undeniable and they quickly solidified their creative partnership. In 2016, the Small Glories issued their full-length debut, Wondrous Traveler. A sophomore album, Assiniboine & the Red, arrived in 2019 and included the single "Oh My Love."  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-small-glories-mn0003488352#biography  

School Food Punishment - Loop, Share

Before breaking up in summer of 2012, School Food Punishment had proven itself to be one of Japan’s more consistent and forward-thinking rock outfits. Across three EPs and two albums, school food punishment espoused a unique electronic rock sound that had more in common sonically with avant-garde jazz than any kind of conventional rock music. This sonic direction can mostly be attributed to two of the band’s members: lead singer and guitarist Yumi Uchimura and keyboardist Masayuki Hasuo. Across all their projects, the group largely maintains a similar sonic palette and consistent lyrical themes of love, escapism and coping. And that’s not a bad thing: the group’s signature jazz-inflected electronic rock sound is one of the best genre-permutations this side of Kid A, proving to be a well of endless bounty for the group. Riff-rain follows their first two EPs, “school food is good food” and “air feel, color swim”. The latter EP spawned one of the band’s most successful singles, “you may crawl” and became how most of Japan learned of the band. So how do they follow such an immensely successful and well-regarded EP?
It’s immediately evident from the first song on Riff-rain, “Flow,” that the band has located its strengths and pulled them to the front. The song kicks off with the beautiful piano work of Masayuki Hasuo and puts extreme emphasis on the vocal work of lead singer Yumi Uchimura. The song itself is a midtempo piano-led ballad featuring some of the best vocal work from Uchimura up to this point. On the song, Uchimura likens the distance between her and the object of her affection to a body of water, and the five and six-beat meters in the song show just how indebted to jazz music the band really is. This song is followed by “Feedback,” another piano-led ballad that puts the spotlight on Uchimura’s transcendent vocals. In fact, this seems to be the approach of the entire EP, lending it a remarkable consistency that “air feel, color swim” in some ways lacked.
The synths on this EP are decidedly low-key, lending the tracks a sort of floating ambience that evokes a warm, summery feeling. Never are the tones icy or rigidly electronic, and this approach works perfectly in conjunction with the lyrics, which often address subjects of love and living. Standout lyrical tracks include “Egoist,” in which Uchimura laments the egotistical nature of a lying lover. The lyrics are poetic in their connections as she compares his narcissistic tendencies and her attempts to change him to yelling at a traffic light to change colors. The final track on the EP, “Over” ends using the same piano arpeggio that opens the album, creating a closed-loop of an experience that lends itself to multiple listens. It’s moments like these that populate the entire EP. From the soft electronics and beautiful instrumental work from the entire band (with noteworthy bass riffs on almost every song by Hideaki Yamasaki) to the stunning vocal melodies and masterful lyricism, school food punishment’s third EP is easily on par with their previous two, and indeed may be one of their best artistic endeavors.  From: https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/62478/School-Food-Punishment-Riff-Rain/

St. Paul & The Broken Bones - Convex

For all their efforts to expand their 8-piece band’s sound to include psychedelia and hip-hop rhythms, and as wide ranging as their lyrical pursuits have been – whether exploring Greek mythology, space travel and astronomical phenomenon, or sci-fi fantasy – St. Paul and The Broken Bones has always been a funky, R&B revue at heart. It’s been 9 years since their debut album, but nothing defines Paul Janeway and his comrades at their best better than that 2014 single, “Call Me,” with that phone number call out inspired by Wilson Pickett. Now on their fifth full-length release, St. Paul & Co. offer up their quietest, most intimate album yet, but on tracks like “City Federal Building,” “Sea Salt,” and “Wolf in Rabbit Clothes” you still hear that simmering funk and R&B underpinning that brought the band to the party.
Like most albums arriving after the global pandemic, Janeway has written his own quarantine love song, “Lonely Love Song,” sung over a gently played acoustic guitar. “Death ain’t what scares me,” he states, “it’s missing all that love that you give me,” before admitting there was some comfort in the world shutdown, “I wish we could be bored all the time.” But the singer with the remarkably high, tenor voice, has reported that the primary influence of the songs on Angels in Science Fiction, was learning about the birth of his daughter. In the album’s closing lullaby for “Marigold,” he expresses the separation anxiety that impacts many parents who travel to make a living: “I don’t want you to be alone, but I gotta go/I’ve got a show,” sung over a gently played piano with supportive strings. The 12-track album begins as it ends, a quietly sung ballad written to his future daughter, Janeway sings “I hope you get your mother’s eyes,” then seems to pray for angels to protect the child. The title track has a similar theme, as the former preacher Janeway confesses his questions about the presence of the divine, except that now, “I see (God) in your eyes,” and “Every prayer goes to you,” the gift of his daughter.
Musically, the entire project is delivered in more of an intimate, reflective mood. But here and there, the vibrant jazzy presence of Janeway’s Broken Bones bandmates rise to the surface. On the quieter song of praise for the “Magnolia Trees,” the band’s lush R&B soulfulness lifts the chorus up in tried-and-true fashion. And when the singer looks out on the world’s brokenness and “crumbling skyscrapers,” in “City Federal Building,” the rhythm section provides the sturdy drum beat and fine walking bassline that puts a skip in your step. Producer Matt Ross-Sprang and this able band take every opportunity to add a bit of sparkle and shine, with Browan Lollar on guitars, Al Gamble on keys, drummer Kevin Leon, bassist Jesse Phillips, and able horn section Allen Branstetter, Amari Ansari, and Chad Fisher adding what’s appropriate for the quieter, more gentle mood of this outing.
As a fan of St. Paul & the Broken Bones’ live show, I’m drawn to the songs that hint of the soulful, funky side of the band, a shout here and there in “Oporto-Madrid Blvd,” the hint of funk in “Sea Star,” the sultry bass line of “Wolf in Rabbit Clothes” that sends Janeway into the stratosphere of his falsetto with the jazzy piano pushing the tempo. But for all that, Angels In Science Fiction is designed to be a more reflective record, centered around Janeway’s meditation on the new life arising from the ashes represented in the birth of his daughter.  From: https://thefirenote.com/reviews/st-paul-the-broken-bones-angels-in-science-fiction-album-review/

Percival - A Tam Na Hore

Alan - Who are you and who answers questions?

K - I'm Katarzyna.

M -  and I'm Mikołąj. We're the band Percival and you probably know us because of our collaboration with CD Projekt RED in creating soundtrack for the Witcher 3 game.

K - We're not a typical band because we have many musical projects in one: we play a historical Slavic music as Percival, we play folk metal music as Percival Schuttenbach and we also have Wild Hunt Live shows where we present music known from the Witcher III game.

Alan - How many times were you playing in Czech republic?

K - A lot :) We live not so far from the CZR, so we visit it quite often.

M - This year we played at Blavicon - Witcher Festival in Tabor, we also gave one show in Prague as a part of our spring Percival tour. In the past we've participated in some historical festivals in Czech Republic, so yes, it's a lot.

K -  And soon we're going to play in Brno at Game Access Conference with Wild Hunt Liven project and we're really excited about that.

Alan - Where can we check you out?

M -  Please follow us on Facebook (Percival Schuttenbach), on Instagram (@percivalwhl,  @mikołajrybacki, @katarzyna_cello), we have also our website www.percival.pl and we also have our online shop where you can buy our CDs, T-shirts and more.

K -  Also please subscribe to our channel on YouTube - we release a new video almost every week: musical videos, Q&As and other stuff. We have our own show "Don't you shoot that!" where we show our musical lives and soon we're going to release the first episode of the third series. We know many people are looking forward to it.

Alan - When someone would have interest in your concerts in Czech Republic, where they can hit you out?

K -  As we mentioned before, very soon (May the 26th) we'll give a Wild Hunt Live show at a big event in Brno - Game Access. It'll be a treat for all Witcher's fans. The show is a combination of beautiful music, great lights, wonderful dance and acrobatic performances and video projections with the Witcher game fragments. It is definitely worth seeing.

M -  We definitely want to come to Czech Republic more often and we will. We have more and more fans here in your country.

Alan - What’s your last album, and what are you planing to do?

K -  We have a lot of exciting plans - concert tours, new shows, new albums with all our projects. We have many, many ideas and usually not enough time to make it all happen. But we're doing our best :)

M -  When it comes to our latest album, we released two of them this year: Slava III with Percival project - songs of West Slavs, the other one is "Dzikie Pola", the newest album of folk metal Percival Schuttenbach. Both are great :)  We put a lot of work into preparing them and we're really happy with the results. Now we're planning new albums, we don't have time to rest.

Alan - Where in Czech was the best city to play, and why?

K - So far we've played mostly in Brno and Praha and we must say that both are great. The audience always gives us a very warm welcome and it's a pure pleasure to play for them. So it would be really hard to say which one is better.

M -  We are always very happy to come and play for our fans in Czech Republic and  we can't wait to play Wild Hunt Live in Brno.

Alan - Do you have any favourite festival?

K -  You mean the festival we played at or just a festival in general? Also, a historical festival or a metal festival? Because they're totally different kinds of festivals and we used to play at both. There's so many great festivals, it's hard to distinguish only one.

M -  When it comes to historical festivals, the Festival of Slavs and Vikings in Wolin is probably one of our favourites, because, first of all, it's the biggest such festival in Poland, even in this part of Europe, so it's most impressive, but also because we go and play there every year, for almost 15 years now.

Alan - And in foreign countries? do you have any favourite festival or club?

K -  I don't think we have any favourite club in any foreign country yet. We haven't played enough shows abroad to have our favourite club.

M -  When we talk about festivals there's a few we'd love to play at, like Brutal Assault in Czech Republic, Wacken in Germany and the most crazy one, 70 000 tons of metal, the world's biggest heave metal cruise. That would be awesome to play there :)

Alan - Do you know any Czech musicians or bands?

K -  Yeah, sure, a few of them. My favourite band from Czech Republic is SSOGE (Silent Stream of Godless Elegy), they play really beautiful, very unique music. From time to time we meet at the same stage.

M -  The other such band we know and like is Cruadalach. We also know Helena Vondrackova i Karel Gott :D But also 123 minutes - we're not sure how to pronounce the name :) We were once at their concert a long time ago and we were really impressed.

Alan - Would you mind to cooperate with any Czech artist, and if yes with who?

M - Yes, why not. We don't have anyone specific in mind, but if there's an opportunity (and time!) we would be happy to do it. We're very open for any cooperations.

K -  In the past we already cooperated with Czech artists. On our "Svantevit" album our guests are Jan Vrobel, the ex-vocalist of Cruadalach and Pavel Zouhar, the ex-violinist from SSOGE. We also recorded some vocals for one of the Cruadalach albums.

Alan - You are a long time on the scene. Do you have any unfulfilled musician dream?

M -  Well, we're still working on it, we've been working on our musician dream for 20 years. Our main dream, our main goal is just to be able to live doing what we love - which is creating and playing music - and being able to do it without any limitations of any kind.

K -  I don't think there's an end to this journey. We must keep going and we'll probably never reach the point when we can say ok, that's it, we're here, we achieved everything we wanted, our mission is complete. We love that journey and the vision of constant progress but we also love what we've already achieved and what we have. We cooperate with great musicians, we give plenty of great shows, we keep growing, we have big plans for the future. We feel like all the best things are still ahead.

Alan - What 3 songs do people wanna hear on koncerts? and what is your opinion?

K -  It depends. We have three different musical projects and we play a different repetoir in each of them. There are some songs that people like the most, we're not always sure why they like these particular songs, but we don't argue with that and just play them on our shows and have fun.

M -  Some of our songs are popular because of the Witcher game, that's obvious. We play them on every show with every project - like Sargon (which is "Silver for monsters") or "Lazare ("Steel for humans").

Alan - What is your favourite 3 songs from you?

K -  Oh, this question is too difficult, definitely. We've been writing songs for 20 years and have plenty of them. I can't choose just 3 favourite songs, not even 10 favourite songs. It's impossible! I like plenty of them and it's a pleasure for me to play all of them.

M -  It is always nice to play the newest songs from the newest albums - they’re fresh and exciting and we can't get enough of them. But on the other hand, we sometimes reach for our older repertoire, for songs we haven't played for years and find them exciting too. We're sentimental about all our songs.

Alan - What do you wanna say to your fans in Czech Republic?

K - Thank you for your support, you're great! We love you Czech people and love playing for you! We hope we can play for you as often as it's possible!

M -  Yes, playing for you is a pure pleasure. See you in Brno :)

From: https://www.metalheartradio.com/en/articles/interview-with-percival-201

Spooky Tooth - Society's Child (Janis Ian cover)

"Society's Child" (originally titled "Baby I've Been Thinking") is a song about an interracial relationship written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Janis Ian in 1965. According to Janis Ian, Atlantic Records refused to release it although the company had financed the recording; the artist took it to Verve Records who agreed to release it. The song's lyrics concern an interracial romance – a still-taboo subject in mid-1960s America. Ian was 13 years of age when she was motivated to write and compose the song, and she completed it when she was 14. Released as "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)", the single charted high in many cities in the autumn of 1966 but did not hit big nationally until the summer of 1967.
The lyrics of the song center on the feelings of a young girl who witnesses the humiliation that her African American boyfriend receives from the girl's mother and the taunts that she herself endures not only from classmates but also from educators whose hypocrisy leads them to "laugh their smirking stares" while acting as "preachers of equality". It closes with her decision to end the relationship with the boyfriend because of her inability to deal with the social pressure. In her autobiography, Ian made this comment about the concluding line: "I didn’t want the breakup for their relationship to be just society’s fault. I wanted the girl to take some responsibility for it, too."
In 1964, Ian lived in East Orange, New Jersey. Her neighborhood was predominantly populated by African Americans and she was one of very few whites in her school. She said: I saw it from both ends. I was seeing it from the end of all the civil rights stuff on the television and radio, of white parents being incensed when their daughters would date black men, and I saw it around me when black parents were worried about their sons or daughters dating white girls or boys. I don't think I knew where I was going when I started it, but when I hit the second line, "face is clean and shining black as night", it was obvious where the song was going. I don't think I made a conscious decision to have the girl cop out in the end, it just seemed like that would be the logical thing at my age, because how can you buck school and society and your parents, and make yourself an outcast forever?
Songwriter and producer Shadow Morton signed Janis to a record contract and made the decision to issue "Society's Child" as her first release. Ian's original title for the song was "Baby, I've Been Thinking", but Morton changed it to "Society's Child". It was recorded using six studio musicians.  Leonard Bernstein's producer saw Janis perform "Society's Child" at The Gaslight and scheduled Ian to perform the song on Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, an April 25, 1967 CBS television special about new pop music. After acknowledging the controversial nature of the subject, Bernstein praised the musical qualities of Janis Ian's "marvelous song": "Society's Child" contains many of the musical joys we've talked about, and some we haven't – like fascinating sounds, both natural and electronic, like a strange use of harpsichord, and that cool nasty electric organ. There are astonishing key changes, and even tempo changes; ambiguous cadences, unequal phrase lengths – the works! So it would seem that the kids of our pop generation have a lot to say. Later Janis Ian acknowledged the "incredible impact" that the program had on her career. Largely owing to Bernstein's efforts, Verve Records started promoting it in trade magazines and many radio stations picked it up. Some stations, such as Chicago's WLS, did not play the song, but rival station WCFL did, and there it peaked at #12 on 17 August and lasted twelve weeks on the playlist. Though several radio stations were slow to add the song to their playlists, this behavior extended the record's airplay life.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society%27s_Child

Je Suis Animal - Beginning of Time

With the end of the year quickly approaching I was trying to assemble a rough cut of my favorite albums for 2008 and when I looked through the stack of cd’s I realized that there were more than a couple that I somehow neglected to write about.  It’s probably laziness or just a simple lack of time.  I work slowly, and am in constant awe of how other people seem to be so prolific with their writing.  So in an effort to bring you up to speed - at least my speed - I’ve got a couple posts about albums I’ve been enjoying this year but neglected here on the Finest Kiss.
The first such album is Self-Taught Magic from a Book by Je Suis Animal which came out way back in February over in Norway on the Perfect Pop Label.  It then got released in Australia on Lost and Lonesome in June and will be released in the UK in December on Angular.  No word on a US release date, but all of those labels do mail order.  Je Suis Animal are mostly from Norway but sound like they’ve been hanging out with Broadcast circa The Noise Made By People or maybe they are Electrelane reincarnated.  They have a slight 60’s spy sound provided by the use of old synthesizers, mixed with a 60’s girl group feel not dissimilar with what Lichtenstein are doing.  What makes this album so engaging is the guitar sound that rattles, drones and engulfs you like Stereolab at their most Krautrock.  I’m not kidding about the Broadcast comparison.  It is uncanny - on songs like Fortune Map, Mystery of Marie Roget and Indifferent Boy the band ratchet up their haunting, evocative charm.  I’ve been listening to this record most of the year and my favorite songs have evolved, starting with the more straightforward krautrock like Indifferent Boy and Secret Place, but like all really good records, every song ends up being a favorite and you can’t pick just one.  From: https://finestkiss.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/catching-up-je-suis-animal/