I've been a music fan since my parents gave me a record player for Christmas when I was still in grade school. The first record I remember owning was "Sesame Street Disco." I've been a professional writer since 2004, but writing long before that. My first published work was in a middle school literary magazine and was a story about a zoo in which the animals could talk.
Tanukichan‘s sophomore LP GIZMOis due out March 3rd via Company Records. A project led by Hannah van Loon, in collaboration with the Grammy-nominated chillwave pioneer Chaz Bear of Toro y Moi, their album is the follow up to their debut LP, Sundays, arelease that saw an enthusiastic response when it was released in 2018, earning praise from outlets like Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, FADER, Stereogum, Loud & Quiet and The AV Club.
The album’s lead single “Don’t Give Up“ was greeted with excitement upon its release, earning best of the week nods from outlets like MTV and Pitchfork, and the follow up “Thin Air” that featured Aramis Johnson of the Tacoma, Washington band Enumclaw, earned similar acclaim when it was released alongside a Stereogum feature about the new LP.
Today, Tanukichan is sharing a final single from the LP, a track called “Take Care”.
“I wrote ‘Take Care’ when I was feeling especially depressed,” explains Van Loon. “I felt so down and bummed out that I started cutting people out of my life. I felt like whenever I had interactions with others I was such a drag that I would bring down the mood. I had nothing I wanted to talk about so I just cut off from people. It was painful to feel isolated and I craved companionship or friendship even more, but I knew that someday I would come out of it, and hopefully we would be friends again.“
Dry Cleaning, photographed in Max Miechowski’s studio in Tottenham, London, on 09/27/2022.
Stumpwork, the sophomore LP from Dry Cleaning, “vibrantly expand[ed] Dry Cleaning’s core sound” (Pitchfork), and became one of last year’s most acclaimed releases, garnering year-end praise from Rolling Stone, Sound Opinions, Uproxx, and many more. Following their performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the UK outfit announce Swampy, a new EP composed of two previously unreleased tracks from the Stumpwork sessions, remixes and a demo, out March 1st on 4AD, and unveil two bonus tracks, “Swampy” and “Sombre Two.” Of the additions, the band says: “These two songs (‘Swampy’ and ‘Sombre Two’) were recorded in the Stumpwork sessions and they feel like good companions to us. They share a dusty, desolate and spacey atmosphere. On the eve of this release we have been touring through the southwest US, where these songs feel at home in the arid, Mars-like landscape of the Arizona desert.”
Also featured on Swampy are remixes from Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul, recently featured in Pitchfork’s “25 New and Rising Artists Shaping the Future of Music in 2023,” and Nourished By Time, who supported Dry Cleaning on their recently-wrapped North American tour. Swampy will be released digitally and as a limited edition cassette (band store only). Tonight, Dry Cleaning will begin the UK/EU leg of their Stumpwork tour, with full dates listed below. Tickets are on sale now.
DRY CLEANING TOUR DATES Tue. Feb. 21 – Nottingham, UK @ Rock City Wed Feb. 22 – Sheffield, UK @ The Foundry Fri. Feb. 24 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall Sat. Feb. 25 – Birmingham, UK @ O2 Institute Sun. Feb. 26 – Bristol, UK @ O2 Academy Tue. Feb. 28 – Cardiff, UK @ Tramshed Wed. March 1 – Brighton, UK @ Chalk – SOLD OUT Fri. March 3 – London, UK @ Roundhouse Mon. Mar. 13 – Copenhagen, DK @ VEGA Wed. Mar. 15 – Stockholm, SE @ Debaser Strand Thu. Mar. 16 – Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret Sat. Mar. 18 – Hamburg, DE @ Knust Sun. Mar. 19 – Groningen, NL @ Vera – SOLD OUT Mon. Mar. 20 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Tue. March 22 – Offenbach, DE @ Hafen2 Thu. Mar. 23 – Munich, DE @ Strom Fri. Mar. 24 – Vienna, AT @ Flex Sat. Mar. 25 – Prague, CZ @ Futurum Mon. Mar. 27 – Warsaw, PL @ Hybrydy Tue. Mar. 28- Leipzig, DE @ UT Connewitz Wed. Mar. 29 – Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg Fri. Mar. 31 – Rotterdam, NL @ Maassilo Sat. Apr. 1 – Antwerp, BE @ Trix Sat. Aug. 26 – Domaine National de Saint-Cloud, FR @ Rock En Seine
Originally released in 2007, Tinariwen‘s third album, Aman Iman: Water Is Life, is a stunning piece of work that tells stories of rough desert living, friendship, spiritual searches, heartbreak, and blessings.
“Cler Achel” starts off the record with Tinariwen’s characteristic handclaps and Mohammed Ag Itlale‘s snappy, raw, and blues-influenced guitar work. I don’t know how Touareg bands do it, but only they can seem to make guitars sound like this, and Itlale is a master at making a guitar sound like a desert wind one moment and a chattering, happy bird the next.
The vocal trills on “Ahimana” instantly transport you out of your environment and into a desert landscape, and the languid rhythm of “Soixante Trois” curls around you like a warm cat at your feet. “Toumast” (one of multiple calls on the album for Touraeg clans to unite) might be one of the more psychedelic tracks on the album, as the guitar tones on it shift from mesmerizing to almost garage rock sounds.
“Imidiwan Winakalin” rolls along with a danceable beat and fades out like the sun going down behind a tall dune. Other tracks lull you into a sense of being part of something bigger and yet something that can be found in something as small as a sand grain. The closer, “Izarharh Ténéré,” drifts away from you like a warm breeze moving toward a night sky.
It’s another lovely album from them, and a perfect balm for stress.
Tinariwen‘s fourth album, Imidiwan: Companions sends you into a hypnotic desert landscape from the first notes of the opener, “Imidiwan Afrik Temdam.” The simple, yet haunting guitar, the handclap percussion, and the group vocals during the chorus instantly are uplifting.
The whole album is like that (as is pretty much every Tinariwen record). “Lulla” will get you and everyone around you dancing. The heavy guitar chords of “Tenhert” would make Johnny Cash smile. “Tamodjerazt Assis” has a cool psychedelic rhythm that will make your head sway like its turned into a willow tree in a soft wind.
The chant-like vocals of “Imazeghen N Adagh” are almost as hypnotizing as the dust devil guitar chords and unhurried hand percussion. “Assuf Ag Assuf” moves like smoke. “Ere Tasfata Adouina” is perfect for a ride through the desert with no particular agenda or destination with its dreamy guitar licks and relaxed, but soulful vocals. The album closes with “Desert Wind,” a slightly eerie instrumental of simple guitar and synth loops that creates a mind-warping effect.
Tinariwen were making a lot of international waves when this album originally came out in 2009, and its reissue is a welcome treat for fans of Tuareg music, desert rock, and the band’s early career.
Chicago trio FACS have been perfecting their brand of intense, cathartic art rock over the course of four ever-evolving albums. Beginning with 2018’s Negative Houses thru 2021’s landmark Present Tense, the trio digs deep into the gaping maw of a black hole and pulls back whatever debris they can grasp onto. Their newest LP Still Life In Decay, which arrives April 7th, comes as an addendum to their last album— a “post-event review,” if you will.
When the guitar punctures the lock-step swing of first album single “When You Say,” it hits like a hammer. Case utilizes his lyrics like a person suffering from anterograde amnesia, repeating phrases and holding onto old memories in a desperate attempt to avoid the slide into oblivion. Freeform poetic missives touch on themes of resignation, cynicism, class warfare, and a search for identity and meaning in a crumbling society; A primal desire to hold onto anything in a post-pandemic barrage of sensory overload.
While FACS are a heavy band, they don’t necessarily feel like one— Case’s fluttering, melodic guitar lines are buoyed by the insistent, underlying pulse of an expert rhythm section. Bassist Alianna Kalaba, who stepped in for founding member Jonathan Van Herik in 2018, makes her amicable last stand here with the group. Alongside drummer Noah Leger, they dance and twist around each other like a double helix, forming the DNA of what makes FACS sospecial. Collectively they approach rhythm from outside the groove as opposed to inside it, creating a lattice where Case weaves guitar lines like creeping vines, making the moments on Still Life In Decay where the band locks in even more powerful.
FACS have never been more solidified as a unit, and Still Life In Decay is a decidedly focused effort. The apocalyptic chaos that defined their previous album is waved away in favor of an examination of events with cumbrous clarity. Recorded by Sanford Parker at Chicago’s esteemed Electrical Audio, Still Life In Decay will be available April 7, 2023 from Trouble In Mind Records. Pre-order the record here and see FACS on tour throughout the year. More singles and news coming soon.
FACS, on tour:
April 6 Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club
April 7 Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
April 8 Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
May 15 Pittsburgh, PA @ Government Center
May 16 Washington, DC @ DC9
May 17 Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA
May 19 Providence, RI @ Fete Lounge
May 20 Montreal, QC @ La Sotterenea
May 21 Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
July 28 Indianapolis, IN @ Post. Festival
Keep your mind open.
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Miss Grit — the New York-based, Korean-American musician Margaret Sohn (they/she) — will release their debut album, Follow The Cyborg, February 24th via Mute. Leading into the release, Miss Grit has released a string of stunning singles, and today they reveal a new track, “Nothing’s Wrong.” There is a profound tenderness resonating throughout “Nothing’s Wrong.” A tone of lament seeps from Sohn’s vocals, as they sing “Nothing’s Wrong // And so I can’t feel, can’t hear, can’t figure out how to make things right // I’ll never know // Why I was built without a throat // So I can never stomach growth // Or see outside this world I know.” The song’s instrumentation is rich and immersive, with melancholy guitar and piano, ticking drums, and illustrious strings.
Across Follow the Cyborg, Miss Grit pursues the path of a non-human machine, as it moves from its helpless origin to awareness and liberation. Miss Grit’s impetus to conceive an album about the life of a cyborg stems from their own connection to this way of existing. As a mixed-race, non-binary artist, Sohn has always rejected the limits of identity thrust upon them by the outside world, in favor of embracing a more fluid and complex understanding of the self. In their exploration of the life of a cyborg, they subtly and overtly refer to films, including Her, Ex Machina, and Ghost in the Shell, as well as essays by Jia Tolentino (from Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion) and Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto.
At times gentle and sparse, at others volatile and explosive, Follow the Cyborg occupies a sonic world of electronic experimentation and stirring electric guitars. It was recorded mostly in solitude in Sohn’s home studio, with the exception of a few guest collaborators joining: Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint, Aron Kobayashi Ritch of Momma, and Pearla.
“Nothing’s Wrong” is the follow-up to the “clearly anthemic” (FADER)“Lain (Phone Clone),” the “beguiling and elastic” (Stereogum) “Like You,” and the title track. Following the release of Follow The Cyborg, Miss Grit will play a pair of album release shows in New York and Los Angeles. Following, she’ll head down to SXSW (more details to come). Tickets for the release shows are on sale now.
Gonerfest returns for its 20th edition and to celebrate the 20th anniversary of prominent rock label Goner Records who have shaped punk, garage, soul and beyond for two decades! The gonzo independent music festival hosted by the label and iconic Tennessean storefront takes place in Memphis’ Railgarten from Thursday, September 28 through Sunday, October 1, 2023.
Today, Gonerfest 20 announces its initial lineup which so far includes performances by headliners Osees (Thursday), The Gories (Friday) and The Mummies (Saturday). Spanning genres and generations, Gonerfest 20 will showcase another unique and wide-ranging bill featuring bands, MCs, and DJs from around the world. Highlights include a number of acts coming from overseas, including performances by UK artists Chubby & the Gang and Vivron Vavron, Australian bands CIVIC, Dippers, 1-800-Mikey, TV Repairmann, Vintage Crop and C.O.F.F.I.N., Denmark’s The Courettes, Japan’s The Smog, and Lewsberg from the Netherlands, among others.
Gonerfest 20 tickets go on sale now. Golden Passes, which allow entry to all official GF20 events, are $130. Single-day passes will be available at the door, according to venue capacity. For more information and to purchase tickets, go here.
Since The King Khan & BBQ Show headlined Gonerfest 1 back in January 2005, the festival has grown to become an exciting and eclectic collision of four days of non-stop action that welcomes bands and fans from around the world. With a round-the-clock schedule of official shows, afterparties, art events, and more – at Gonerfest, the concept of community is truly at the heart of the event.
Goner Records’ co-founder Eric Friedl says, “There’s not a whole lot of separation between fans and bands and everything else in Gonerfest. It gives it a different feel, rather than seeing someone up on stage that isn’t interacting with the people at all.”
With the publication of an annual program guide, Gonerfest also works to support local business while promoting the music, arts, and culture of Memphis to its attendees. “Gonerfest has become a rite of passage,” says Goner Records co-owner Zac Ives. “It allows us to showcase our city and celebrate our little part of the music world in front of an extremely wide audience.” More than 1,000 tourists make the pilgrimage to Memphis for Gonerfest, which culminates in a substantial economic impact for its city. Gonerfest attendees eat at locally-owned restaurants like Payne’s BBQ and Cozy Corner, drink Goner-inspired beer brewed at Memphis Made, and visit the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Graceland, and the National Civil Rights Museum.
The Mummies, Osees, The Gories, Marked Men, Chubby & the Gang, Sweeping Promises, Ibex Clone, CIVIC, The Cool Jerks, Bill Orcutt / Chris Corsano, The Courettes, C.O.F.F.I.N, Alien Nosejob, Dippers, Virvon Varvon, Cheater Slicks, Lewsberg, 1-800-Mikey, TV Repairmann, Vintage Crop, The Smog, Laundry Bats, Turnt
Additional artists, DJs, MCs and more TBA!
Over the last two decades, Gonerfest has featured a dazzlingly international array of performers including Jay Reatard, Thee Oh Sees, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Mudhoney, Cobra Man, Lydia Lunch, Wreckless Eric, Simply Saucer, The Black Lips, The Carbonas, Rev. John Wilkins, Negative Approach, Shannon & the Clams, Cosmic Psychos, Amyl & the Sniffers, Robyn Hitchcock, The Mummies, Ty Segall, Fred Lane, The Spits, The Gizmos, Guitar Wolf, and more.
Recalling the first year of Gonerfest, Friedl says, “It was amazing that people wanted to come to Memphis to see this music. The first time I realized we were doing something more than just putting on a show was when we saw this guy from Italy walking down Cleveland Street in the middle of the day. I was like, ‘Okay, if people are willing to come from Italy to watch these bands over a weekend in Memphis, we might be doing something interesting here.’”
More About Goner Records: An independent music label and record store, Goner Records is based in Memphis, Tennessee and co-owned by Eric Friedl and Zac Ives. Goner Records is internationally recognized for its roster of artists including Oblivians, Jay Reatard, The King Khan & BBQ Show, Cobra Man, the Carbonas, NOTS, Ty Segall, and Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Goner Records has been named a top 10 record shop in the U.S. by SPIN and Rolling Stone, and a top 3 independent label by Billboard.
Spotlights, the hypnotic trio featuring married couple Mario and Sarah Quintero with Chris Enriquez, release their new album, Alchemy For The Dead, on April 28 via Ipecac Recordings.
The album, written and recorded following the band’s move to Pittsburgh, finds the trio once again balancing the tightrope of light and dark, toying with sonic texture, and as Invisible Oranges described Spotlights’ unique “magic” that’s “flickering with unnamable emotionality.” Mario Quintero shares the band’s mindset while writing and recording Alchemy For The Dead: “Our focus when making this record was to not repeat ourselves. I think we achieved our goal. Though we’re proud of all our releases, making just another ‘Spotlights’ album wasn’t an option. Pushing our own boundaries while creating something cathartic, yet strangely suffocating, with new sounds and textures as well as more personal and self-reflective themes, this album feels like a new fork in the path for us. Hopefully the listeners will follow.”
A preview of the nine-song collection arrives today with the release of the Oleg Rooz- created video for “Algorithmic” (https://youtu.be/19TqHZBUOgY). “For me, the song has a religious theme to it,” Mario adds. “It touches on the story of resurrection and afterlife in this one narrative, while wondering, does any of it really matter?” That narrative, one of death, the resistance and acceptance to one of life’s most secretive aspects, is a lyrical theme throughout Alchemy For The Dead.
Album pre-orders, which include two 2LP vinyl variants: a standard black version and a limited-edition gold edition available exclusively via Ipecac.com and on the band’s upcoming Alchemy For The Dead tour, can be found here: https://spotlights.lnk.to/AFTD. Vinyl is slated for an Aug. 4 release.
Alchemy For The Dead tour:
April 26 Pittsburgh, PA Club Café
April 27 Grand Rapids, MI Pyramid Scheme
April 28 Chicago, IL Subterranean Downstairs
April 29 Tolono, IL Loose Cobra
April 30 St. Louis, MO Red Flag
May 1 Kansas City, MO Mini Bar
May 3 Denver, CO Hi Dive
May 4 Salt Lake City, UT Kilby Court
May 6 Sacramento, CA Club Colonial
May 7 San Francisco, CA Winters Tavern
May 11 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Palladium*
May 12 San Diego, CA Tower Bar
May 14 Las Vegas, NV House of Blues*
May 16 Denver, CO Mission Ballroom*
May 17 Salt Lake City, UT Union Event Center*
May 19 Seattle, WA Showbox*
May 20 Seattle, WA Showbox*
May 21 Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom*
May 23 Oakland, CA Fox Theater*
May 24 Oakland, CA Fox Theater*
May 27 Denton, TX Dan’s Silverleaf
May 28 Austin, TX Hotel Vegas
May 30 Tulsa, OK Whittier Bar
May 31 Shreveport, LA Bear’s
June 1 Little Rock, AR Mutants Fest
June 2 Nashville, TN Drkmttr
June 3 Atlanta, GA The Earl
June 4 Gainesville, FL The Backyard
June 9 Miami, FL Gramp’s
June 10 Tampa, FL The Orpheum
June 11 Orlando, FL TBA
June 13 Columbia, SC TBA
June 14 Charlotte, NC Snug Harbor
June 15 Asheville, NC The Odd
June 16 Knoxville, TN The Pilot Light
June 17 Louisville, KY Kaiju Bar
June 18 Columbus, OH Big Room Bar
June 21 Harrisonburg, VA The Golden Pony
June 22 Baltimore, MD Metro Gallery
June 23 Philadelphia, PA Ortlieb’s
June 24 Brooklyn, NY Saint Vitus
*-Ipecac Geek Show performances
Birdhands open on dates between April 27 to May 1. Rile open from May 3 to May 6. Dates between May 11 and 24 are the Ipecac Geek Show with labelmates Mr. Bungle and the Melvins.
Pittsburgh trio Love Ethic announce their forthcoming debut album The Thinking Man’s Redux, sharing the first single — a fitting Valentine’s Day tune — “Let Me Count The Ways” via Punk News. Hear “Let Me Count The Ways” HERE. (Direct Bandcamp.)
The influence of punk history on Love Ethic’s music is no secret. The band wields angular texture, guitar eruptions, non-sequitur genre-bending, and an arresting holler from frontman/guitarist The Inevitable Mr. Chris that would fit seamlessly next to their predecessors (e.g. Minutemen, Nomeansno, The Birthday Party, Fugazi, Melvins, etc.)
The ferocity, however, is punctuated by exhalations of pop sensibility, delta moans, and a crooning allure that have attracted a broad mix of listeners to this dynamic music.
The band revived its musical enterprise just over a year ago in its birthplace of Pittsburgh, PA with a young, hungry rhythm section comprised of Anthony Capozzi’s searing drum battery and complex counterpoints provided by bass virtuoso Ethan Zajac-Woodie. Since then, they have quickly garnered glowing attention performing alongside a variety of established groups including Jon Spencer + The Hitmakers, Ed fROMOHIO (of fIREHOSE), Sponge, The Schizophonics, and Beechwood.
Love Ethic has recently completed a reworked album of their early oeuvre engineered/produced by Spotlights (Ipecac) helmsman extraordinaire Mario Quintero and mastered by Seth Manchester of Machines with Magnets studio (METZ/IDLES, Mdou Moctar, Full of Hell), intent on expanding their territory in audiences’ hearts and record collections both domestically and abroad.
The Thinking Man’s Redux will be available on LP, CD and download on April 28th, 2023.
Today, the Atlanta-by-way-of-Alabama artist Lonnie Holley unveils his new single, “I Am A Part of the Wonder” (with Moor Mother), from his forthcoming album Oh Me Oh My, out March 10th on Jagjaguwar. “I Am A Part of the Wonder” follows the previously shared title track with REM’s Michael Stipe, “an opportunity to experience beauty moment by moment” (NPR Music), and is one of two Moor Mother collaborations boasted on Oh Me Oh My. Written by Holley alongside Camae Ayewa and Jacknife Lee (The Cure, REM, Modest Mouse), “I Am A Part of the Wonder” also features Lee on percussion, drums, bass, marimba, kalimba, vocals, keyboards, and synthesizer programming. During each Oh Me Oh Mysession, Holley and Lee would discuss the essence of the songs and distill Holley’s words to their most immediate center.
Oh Me Oh My is an achievement in the refinement of Holley’s impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness lyrics. Both elegant and ferocious, it sharpens the work contained on Holley’s 2018 Jagjaguwar debut, MITH. Oh Me Oh My is both stirring in one moment and a balm the next. It details histories both global and personal, and taps collaborators like Moor Mother, Michael Stipe, Sharon Van Etten, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and more to give Holley’s message flight, and to reaffirm Holley as a galvanizing, iconoclastic force across the music community.
Holley’s music and visual art (which is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Gallery of Art, and is represented by the illustrious Blum & Poe) is much more about our place in the cosmos itself. It’s about how we overcome adversity and tremendous pain; about how we develop and maintain an affection for our fellow travelers; about how we stop wishing for some “beyond” and start caring for the one rock we have. Holley has never delivered this message as clear, as concise, and as exhilaratingly as he does on Oh Me Oh My.
Next month, Holley will perform at the Royal Academy in London, followed by two performances at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. Dates are listed below and tickets are on sale now.
Lonnie Holley Tour Dates Fri. Mar. 17 – London, UK @ Royal Academy Sat. Mar. 18 – London, UK @ Café Oto Thu. Mar. 30 – Sun. Apr. 2 – Knoxville, TN @ Big Ears Thu. May 18 – New York, NY @ The New York Society for Ethical Culture
