Shoegaze and psychedelic music have always been siblings, and this is readily apparent on The Spin Out by Seattle’s New Age Healers.
Opening with psych-keys, fuzzy bass, and orbital guitars on “Dying Moon,” the album is off to a great start and instant head-turning for anyone hearing it for the first time. Farkhad Saidmuratov‘s keys on the title track creating a neat effect the builds into bright rays breaking through dark clouds. The whole song builds to a stunning end.
“Spark Up” has a dangerous edge to it thanks to Jeramy Koepping and frontman Owen Murphy‘s guitar work and Adam LeVasseur‘s snap, crackle, pop, and crash drumming. “Operatic” reminds me of some of A Place to Bury Strangers‘ early tracks during the verses.
Allen Murray‘s bass on “Chemical Control” is like a lit fuse racing toward a cache of explosives that will blow open a dam holding back sound that will flatten everything in front of it. “Let’s take a trip,” Murphy sings at the beginning of “Radiate,” and the band certainly obliges that suggestion as they all click with psych-rock guitars, 60s garage beats, mod synths, and lyrics about connecting on multiple levels with someone. The album ends with “All Wrapped Up,” bringing you back down to Earth, but you immediately want to levitate off it again by putting this album on repeat.
Austin trio Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol today announce even more US tour dates to close out 2024, adding December shows with King Buffalo. The band continues domestic dates this Fall supporting their new album BIG DUMB RIFFS ahead of their performances at Austin City Limits‘ prestigious ACL Fest and Levitation 2024 with The Sword and Pentagram. See all dates below.
Ticket pre-sales start tomorrow, August 7th at 10am local time (password: MAMMOTH) All tickets on sale Friday, August 9th HERE.
The band has also recently joined the roster of Doomstar Bookings for EU & UK touring beginning in Spring 2025.
BIG DUMB RIFFS is available on digital, LP and cassette, released May 10th, 2024. Order/stream the album on all formats HERE.
The band-curated second annual Rickshaw Billie’s BIG DUMB FEST in Austin, TX on June 1st SOLD OUT at Mohawk Austin. This follows a string of sold out dates throughout Texas, Denver, Los Angeles, Brooklyn and more.
“Our catalog has never been short on big dumb riffs, but the idea on this record was to really turn the screw,” says RBBP bassist Aaron Metzdorf. On Big Dumb Riffs, that screw is cranked incredibly tight.
“We just wanted ‘the part’: The opening of Pantera’s ‘Primal Concrete Sledge’, the breakdown in Primus‘ ‘Pudding Time’ — the shit that makes you move and lose your mind. Just that part the whole time.”
Across 11 concise, taut songs — most clocking in around 2 minutes or less — Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol demonstrates their skillful ability to blend the merciless low end of Leo Lydon’s 8-string guitar, Aaron Metzdorf’s masterful chordwork on the bass, and Sean St.Germain’s driving drumming.
Hot on the heels of their breakout 5th studio release Doom Wop (2023), Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol returns with Big Dumb Riffs: A whole new variant of the fuzzed out, overdriven, melodic, groovy music they have been making since 2016. While Big Dumb Riffs is decidedly more aggressive and rhythmic, it still retains the overtly melodic feel of Doom Wop. But Leo Lydon’s vocals are considerably more angry and negative (song titles like “1-800-EAT-SHIT” and “Body Bag” should be a clue).
“The whole writing process was, ‘what if we just played two notes the whole song’,” Metzdorf says. “‘What if we tuned down to almost unusable string tension?’, ‘what if we write a record that will make everyone say ‘wow that is dumb’? Leo and I really move around on stage a lot. Being a dingus is crucial to the groove. All these riffs were designed to allow us to act bigger and dumber on stage.”
Big Dumb Riffs is available on vinyl LP, cassette, download and streaming, released on May 10, 2024. Orders are available HERE.
New-York based band A Place To Bury Strangers release the new single/video, “You Got Me,” from their forthcoming seventh album, Synthesizer, out October 4th via Dedstrange. Following lead single “Disgust,” which “sounds as pleasurable and danceable as it does revolting and mangled,” (Paste), “You Got Me” continues to follow suit. The earworm is representative of a photograph from a perfect summer of love, lust, breaking out from the pack, and getting lost in the night. In the middle of the track, a field recording from one of those kinds of days on the beach can be heard as a 747 barrels through the sky overhead. Play it loud, and play it now.
Synthesizer is the title of the album, but it is also a physical entity, a synthesizer made specifically for A Place to Bury Strangers’ seventh album (a synthesizer that you too, can own (in part), if you buy the record on vinyl). In an era of making music where so little is DIY and so much is left up to AI, never setting foot in a practice room or a home studio, making something that feels deliberately chaotic, messy, and human, is entirely the point. Synthesizer is a record that celebrates sounds that are spontaneous and natural, the kind of music that can only come from collaboration and community.
The writing sessions for Synthesizer started in the band’s Queens studio, shortly after the release of 2022’s See Through You. The band re-formed with a new lineup, Ackermann still at the helm, now featuring friends John and Sandra Fedowitz. This new iteration of the band was inspiring for Ackermann, “It felt like a fresh new thing,” he says, “I wanted to write songs everyone was excited about playing.” Indeed, the sense of connectivity is everywhere on the record. Synthesizer very much feels like a record of reinvention, of taking a carefully honed aesthetic and sound and cracking it wide open, gutting it, reimagining it. And of course, to ever so slightly reinvent one’s sound, one must also build a new instrument, thus again the synth in question. The resulting record is one that is romantic, colorful, loud as hell, and one of A Place to Bury Strangers’ most live sounding records to date.
Earlier this month, the ever restless King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announced their 26th album, Flight b741, out August 9th via their own p(doom) records. Today the group share their new single, “Hog Calling Contest,” and announce a mini-documentary about the making of the album,“Oink Oink Flight b741: The Making of…”
Directed by Guy Tyzack, the mini-documentary captures the band’s creative process on 16mm film, which restricted Tyzack to shooting about five minutes of film per day, waiting for the right moment while sitting discreetly in the corner. “We were tasked with capturing the band make an album from scratch in two weeks, they purposefully didn’t prepare much for the recordings so it was very difficult for me to plan what to film,” Tyzack says. “I just knew they’d be in one room and three of them might drop out at any moment because they were expecting babies. The room looked brown and boring so I painted it like the sky to match the theme of the album in one 17hr stretch with three friends and a slab of mids.”
On the inspiration for “Hog Calling Contest,” the band explains: “While recording Flight b741, we occasionally had these ultra inspired tune-up/warm-up jams. Of course, we were never actually recording during these moments though. Lost to time. Except one time; This time. We learnt to record these moments; ‘Daily Blues’ came together this way too. But ‘Hog Calling Contest’ retains a unique unhinged-ness that only comes when you’re fooling around with your mates and you don’t think you’re being recorded. Happy in mud!”
As the band’s first release on their own newly minted p(doom) records imprint, Flight b741 showcases a remarkable change-of-pace, swapping the big picture ambition for the intimacy of six good friends enjoying each other’s company and collaborating on perhaps the warmest, most bonhomie-laden set the group have yet committed to wax.
With a recent run of expansive and conceptual albums behind them, which have spanned from a thrash-metal epic dealing with the current climate crisis to a Moroder-esque pre-digital synth album of proto-Kraftwerk bangers, Flight b741 sees King Gizzard ditch all the high-falutin’ scheming in favor of irresistible country-fried rock’n’roll and the kind of effortless songwriting that comes as second language when you’ve been playing music together 24/7 for almost a decade-and-a-half. The concept this time is ‘no concept’.
All hopped-up on early Steve Miller Band and the infinite wonderfulness of The Band, King Gizzard laid down the riffs, the grooves, the choogle. Once it was time for the vocals, however, they took a brand new tack – passing the mic, leading to what has become the most collaborative record in the group’s expansive discography.
King Gizzard will be undertaking a massive U.S. tour this coming fall, which includes 3 hour marathon sets in New York, Chicago, Austin, and Quincy, WA, 3 headlining sets at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and a performance at The Forum in Los Angeles. Tickets to all dates are available here.
KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD TOUR DATES Thu. Aug. 15- Washington, DC @ The Anthem % [SOLD OUT] Fri. Aug. 16- Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium * % Sat. Aug. 17 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium * % [SOLD OUT] Mon. Aug. 19 – Boston, MA @ The Stage at Suffolk Downs % Tue. Aug. 20 – Portland, ME @ Thompson’s Point % [SOLD OUT] Wed. Aug. 21 – Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage & Fri. Aug. 23 – Detroit, MI @ Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre ^ & Sat. Aug. 24 – Cleveland, OH @ Jacobs Pavilion & [SOLD OUT] Sun. Aug. 25 – Newport, KY @ MegaCorp Pavilion Outdoor & Tue. Aug. 27 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Dell Music Center & [SOLD OUT] Wed. Aug. 28 – Richmond, VA @ Brown’s Island & Fri. Aug. 30 – Asheville, NC @ ExploreAsheville.com Arena & [SOLD OUT] Sat. Aug. 31 – Nashville, TN @ Ascend Amphitheater & Sun. Sept. 1 – Chicago, IL @ Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island * & [SOLD OUT] Tue. Sept. 3 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Armory & Wed. Sept. 4 – Milwaukee, WI @ Miller High Life Theatre & Thu. Sept. 5 – St. Louis, MO @ The Factory & [SOLD OUT] Fri. Sept. 6 – Omaha, NE @ The Astro Amphitheater & Sun. Sept. 8 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre & [SOLD OUT] Mon. Sept. 9 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre [EARLY SHOW] & Mon. Sept. 9 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre [LATE SHOW] & Wed. Sept. 11 – Troutdale, OR @ Edgefield Amphitheater & [SOLD OUT] Thu. Sept. 12 – Vancouver, BC @ Pacific Coliseum & Sat. Sept. 14 – Quincy, WA @ The Gorge Amphitheatre * % Fri. Nov. 1 – Inglewood, CA @ The Forum @ Sat. Nov. 2 – San Diego, CA @ The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park ^ @ Sun. Nov. 3 – Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheatre @ [SOLD OUT] Mon. Nov. 4 – Stanford, CA @ Frost Amphitheater at Stanford @ Fri. Nov. 8 – Las Vegas, NV @ Bakkt Theater at Planet Hollywood @ Sat. Nov. 9 – Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre # Sun. Nov. 10 – Albuquerque, NM @ Revel Entertainment # Tue. Nov. 12 – Oklahoma City, OK @ The Criterion # Wed. Nov. 13 – Fayetteville, AR @ JJ’s Live # [SOLD OUT] Fri. Nov. 15 – Austin, TX @ Germania Insurance Amphitheater *# Sat. Nov. 16 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall # Sun. Nov. 17 – New Orleans, LA @ Mardi Gras World # Tue. Nov. 19 – Atlanta, GA @ Fox Theatre Atlanta # [SOLD OUT] Wed. Nov. 20 – St. Augustine, FL @ St. Augustine Amphitheatre # Thu. Nov. 21 – Miami, FL @ Factory Town # Sun. May 18 – Tue. May 20, 2025 – Lisbon, PT @ Coliseu do Recreios Fri. May 23 – Sun. May 25, 2025 – Barcelona, ES @ Poble Espanyol Thu. May 29 – Sat. May 31, 2025 – Vilnius, LT @ Lukiškės Prison 2.0 Wed. June 4 – Fri. June 6, 2025 – Athens, GR @ Lycabettus Theatre City of Athens Sun. June 8 – Tue. June 10, 2025 – Plovdiv, BG @ Ancient Theatre
* 3-HOUR MARATHON SET ^ ACOUSTIC SET % w/ GEESE, DJ Crenshaw & w/ GEESE @ w/ KING STINGRAY, DJ Crenshaw # w/ KING STINGRAY
Keep your mind open.
[Fly over to the subscription box while you’re here.]
Meat and Bone was the first album in eight years by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion when it was released in 2017. The trio (Jon Spencer – guitar and lead vocals, Judah Bauer – guitar, Russell Simins – drums) had worked on various side projects here and there and thankfully returned for another wild ride.
Opener “Black Mold” drops you right back into that solid grove the JSBX can only seem to pull off – chaotic yet tight at the same time. You can tell that they felt like they wanted to make up for “lost” time and unleash plenty of power in just three minutes or so.
“Are you ready for your new career?” Spencer asks at the beginning of “Bag of Bones,” prompting us to wonder if we need to tip over our desks and cubicles and strut around like the rock stars we are instead of the tired, locked-in-the-past worker bees we’ve become. “Boot Cut” has a great, gritty grind all the way through it.
“Get Your Pants Off” is a wild, wicked track about wanton women doing naughty things. The bass tone on “Ice Cream Killer” is as cool as its namesake. “Stranger Baby” has Spencer and his mates screaming the chorus and growling the verses. “Bottle Baby” has some of Simins’ wildest drumming. He seems to switch tempos every thirty seconds and yet he’s in the groove all the time.
“Danger” is a vicious rocker, and “Black Thoughts” has so much guitar fire in it that I’m not sure if Spencer or Bauer is putting out the most volume. “Unclear” is a fast, fuzzy cut, and “Bear Trap” snaps hard and has a heavy, swaggering menace to it. Spencer’s vocals are often distorted almost to the point of becoming just weird sounds, which is often the point.
I love that the album ends with an instrumental, “Zimgar,” showcasing the band’s wild and sometimes weird sounds. The JSBX returned from an eight-year hiatus and showed they hadn’t lost a thing. It’s almost like they went into cryogenic hibernation, shook off the frost, and walked into the studio and proceeded to melt everything around them.
I first learned of the French psych-rock giants The Limiñanas when they teamed up with Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre to form L’Épée and put out an outstanding record, Diabolique, in 2019. I had no idea that the band had been around since at least 2010. I’d been looking for some of their music for a while in physical form, and ended up finding their two-CD collection, Electrified, in a record store in Edinburg, Scotland.
Starting with “Migas 2000,” Lionel Limiñana‘s fuzzy guitar riffs grab your attention right away and have you dancing like you’re an extra on Shindig. Marie Limińana‘s drums on “I’m Dead” pound out a hip-shaking beat you can’t ignore and (former Les Bellas bandmate) Nadége Figueroa‘s playful vocals about death are just delightful. “Je Ne Suis Pas Très Drogue” (“I Am Not Very into Drugs / Very High”) is so trippy that you think they’re probably lying. Lionel’s guitar sounds like a buzzsaw on “Down Underground,” and Mu‘s guest vocals on “Je Suis une Go-Go Girl” hypnotize you straight away.
Lionel sings lead on “La Fille de la Ligne 15” (“The Woman on Line 15”), in which he laments about seeing her each day and wondering who she is and if he has enough bravery to finally speak with her. The looping synths on “Je M’en Vais” (“I Am Leaving”) combine with a bouzouki to transport your brain out of your head.
“Wind is blowing, black cloud approaching. I remember nothing when I think of you,” Figueroa sings on the sultry and slightly snarky “Salvation.” The band poke fun at themselves and one of their biggest genre influences on “Votre Coté Yéyé M’emmerde” (“Your Yéyé Annoys Me”). Marie’s vocals on “Cold Was the Ground” are breathy, sexy, and, of course, sad as she sings about missing her lover as one of them is on the other side of the veil. Lionel’s bass groove on “My Black Sabbath” is super-slick. I love that they have a song (and instrumental, no less) called “Carnival of Souls,” and that it’s full of weird organ riffs by Pascal Comelade – which you know makes perfect sense if you’re a fan of the film of the same name. The slow, quiet groove of “El Beach” will have you playing it every time you come back from a late night swim. “Prisunic” takes us down to the “Dime Store” and encourages us to hang out with all the weirdos there. “Dahlia Rouge” starts off with a low motorcycle rumble and then bounces into a playful yé-yé tune.
The last three tracks on disc one (Yes, all of the above-mentioned songs are just on one CD) are all team-ups. The first, “Garden of Love,” features none other than Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook, whose trademark crisp bass lines are all over the track. “Istanbul Is Sleepy” has The Brian Jonestown Massacre‘s Anton Newcombe on lead vocals and guitar for a powerful psych-track with a great beat from Marie. Mr. Hook returns on the last track of Disc One – “The Gift.” It’s a lovely track with slight goth and shoegaze touches.
The team-ups continue through most of Disc Two, starting with French actress, model, and signer Emmanuelle Seigner (who would later go on to form L’Épée with them and Newcombe) on the groovy and slightly gritty “Shadow People.” “Dimanche” (“Sunday”) with French actor and singer Bertrand Belin is hypnotizing and somewhat sinister. Speaking of French singers and musicians, French 1980s synthpop star Étienne Daho joins them on “Blood Circle,” singing in English about a tale of what appears to be murder or a tragic accident. Spanish siren / vixen Nuria contributes sexy vocals to “Calentita” (“Warm”), which, as far as I can tell, is about getting high and seeing funky phantoms.
French DJ Laurent Garnier adds house beats to Mr. and Mrs. Limiñana’s spooky pych jams to great effect on “Saul.” “USA Motorbike” (with film composer David Menke) is a great psych-instrumental. I’d take a whole record of stuff like that. Areski Belkacem has been making music and comedy since at least the late 1960s, and here he is co-creating trippy psych-jams on “La Musique.”
“Les Hommes et les Ombres” (“The Men and the Shadows”) is a cool Ennio Morricone-influenced instrumental with neat guitar work, and the following instrumental, “Domino,” (with Golden Bug) throbs with synth-bass and industrial hisses for a wild contrast between the two tracks. A third instrumental track, “Pulsing,” reunites The Limiñanas with David Menke for a growling, snarling, guitar-driven instrumental that has fuzz chords mingling with weird synths and sci-fi sounds.
The last seven tracks are all from the first group Mr. and Mrs. Limiñana were in – Les Bellas – a psych-rock group they had along with guitarist Giom Picard and vocalist / trumpeter Figuerola that was active from about 2003 to 2007. The tracks are a great addition here. “Hey I’m Going Down” sounds like it could’ve been a lost Dum Dum Girls track with it’s fierce beats and 60s garage rock guitars. “She’s on My Track” is a perfect slice of 60s girl group vocals and wall of sound fuzz. “A Dream That Sleeps” mixes rock and surf guitar with heavy organ riffs and Figuerola’s trumpet taking on a great solo.
The title track of this collection comes from a Les Bellas song, and it has a snappy post-punk edge to it that punches hard. Marie Limiñana’s beats on “You Got My Soul” roll back and forth between subtle and smashing. “Drown” mixes sexy vocals with psych-guitar riffs, Spanish trumpet blares, and almost Styx-like synths. The collection ends with the title track from Les Bellas’ lone album, “Belladellic,” a playful, fuzzy yé-yé track that reminds me of a cute kitten playing with you one moment and shredding your hand the next,
It’s a fun collection of rock that will instantly make you feel cooler and make people ask, “Where did you find this?” when you play it.
First, how cool is that cover? I could create a full Dungeons and Dragons adventure based on that. I’m thinking it’s the palace of a Storm Giant or a Cloud Giant, possibly protected by a Sphinx and having a portal to the Astral Plane inside it. I mean, what else could that glowing circle inside it be?
Islands in the Sky by Death Valley Girls turns out to be an album about self-healing, ascension to higher states of consciousness (or, perhaps, centering oneself to the present), and preparing for possible future incarnations of ourselves in this reality or another – such as the one on the cover.
Starting with “California Mountain Shake” (which could reference a few different things in its title), the album starts with moaning chants and haunting organ from Bonnie Bloomgarden as Larry Schemel‘s guitar subtly moves around you like a wise old serpent. “Magic Powers” put bassist Sammy Westervelt on lead vocals singing about realizing through enlightenment that she, and all of us, have untapped power waiting to be rediscovered.
The beat of the title track, thanks to Rikki Styxx and guest percussionist Mark Rains, instantly gets your body moving in a happy groove while Bloomgarden encourages us to leave worry behind and pick up joy. “Sunday” is a fun, almost go-go club rocker.
“What are the odds that we live in a simulated world, and I’m a simulated girl?” Bloomgarden asks on “What Are the Odds?” as she and Schemel trade guitar licks and Styxx puts down some of the heaviest beats of the album. The odds, by the way, seem about even, as we all create our own reality.
The second side of the album starts with the transcendent “Journey to Dog Star,” and by this time I’m long overdue to mention the contributions of Gabe Flores on saxophone throughout the album. His psych-jazz honks blend perfectly with Schemel’s trippy guitar work on not only this track, but on all the songs featuring him on the record.
“Say It Too” has some desert rock and even slight surf touches throughout it, and some of Bloomgarden’s loveliest vocals on the album. “Watch the Sky” could be a warning about UFO’s (watch the original The Thing from Another World) or a song about watching clouds go by and using that as inspiration to clear one’s mind. Either way, it’s a lot of good, fuzzy rock.
Bloomgarden tells us that life can be so much more than the drudgery in which we often trap ourselves on “When I’m Free,” and on “All That Is Not of Me,” she encourages us to let go of our trappings, excesses, and self-imposed limits (“All that is not of me washes away from me.”) while Schemel’s guitar work goes into near-shoegaze territory and Westervelt’s bass keeps the song locked into a sweet groove.
Closing with “It’s All Really Kind of Amazing” is a perfect way to end such an uplifting album. Lyrics like “Wake up it’s time to be all the things you dream.” sum up Islands in the Sky with perfect energy.
As good as this album was in 2023, it’s even better and more important now in 2024 as we head toward a Presidential election featuring two choices that most of us aren’t thrilled about and people are unsure and nervous about what’s to come. Don’t worry about what’s to come, focus on now. Don’t worry about now, but be present with it. The future, when it gets here, will be now. We’re already living in the future. We can fix it now. Death Valley Girls have been telling us this before Islands in the Sky, but this album can be a great entry point for their mystical, metaphysical, marvelous sound and message.
LEVITATION returns this Halloween weekend, taking over Austin, Texas music venues with an eclectic and expanded menu of music and art October 31 – November 3, 2024!
4 Day Passes and Single Show Tickets are available now, here.
For over a decade, LEVITATION has delivered lineups that span psych, dream pop, punk, indie, metal, darkwave and electronic music. It’s a beloved record collection manifested into a 4 day weekend, with lineups that span continents and generations: a heady amalgamation of vintage gear, immersive light shows and visuals, buzzing amps, moody synths, and good times in Austin, Texas.
This year’s festival brings a full platter of psychedelia, shoegaze, punk, metal, and electronica – a collection of underground legends, music vanguards and pillars of modern music and indie music culture.
The multi-venue format encourages fans to choose their own adventure through the weekend – you can buy single show tickets for over 30 different shows, or go all in with a 4 Day Pass and indulge in the entire 4 day Halloween weekend.
Many of the shows are mini-festivals in their own right. Slowdive, Drop Nineteens, Airiel, Ringo Deathstarr and Glare close out the weekend, topping off a 4 day shoegazer’s dream across 4 venues, including lineup highlights Panchiko, Swirlies, Julie, and Wisp. Punk legends the Jesus Lizard top off a stacked bill with Gang Of Four, Dry Cleaning, Special Interest, Pissed Jeans, Fat Dog and more – all on one ticket on Friday at The Far Out Lounge. Jazz Is Dead brings a 3 night residency with French greats Cortex and Adrian Younge. Psych punk titans OSEES make a 4 night stand at Hotel Vegas, an Austin tradition that’s seen them play nearly as many Levitation events as festival founders The Black Angels – who top off a Halloween night show brimming with international talent: Niger’s Mdou Moctar, and Brazil’s Boogarins. Local heavies The Sword ride high at Stubb’s on Sunday, with highly influential proto-metal outfit Pentagram, local rippers Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, and The Well. Saturday night brings Texas thrash giants Fugitive with hardcore heroes Integrity, plus more across a two stage lineup. Indie dream team Soccer Mommy and The Drums pair up to crush Stubb’s on Friday night, while Tycho, Washed Out, Hania Rani, Wu Lu, Arushi Jain and more bring bliss across a two stage lineup at The Far Out Lounge on Saturday night. LEVITATION 2024 adds a new downtown venue, Kingdom, which will host late-night sets from the likes of genre-defining and expanding DJs and producers such as The Dare, Axel Boman, and Patrick Holland with more to be announced.
More highlights include French heavy space-rock masters Slift who headline Mohawk, London’s Nilüfer Yanya, and Japan’s Boris bringing their album ‘Amplifier Worship’ on a two stage lineup with A Place To Bury Strangers. Australia’s Mildlife team up with UK chill auteur Arc De Soleil. The UK makes a strong showing with EMB pioneers Nitzer Ebb, Manchester stalwarts The Chameleons performing their 1986 classic ‘Strange Times’, and first wave post-punks The March Violets, all performing headline sets at Elysium.
L.A. based composer/musician Bryan Lee Brown shares the first single today from his forthcoming album under the Dark Brown moniker, American Instrument. The track, “Rhythm Surfer” features one of the last recordings of guitar icon Dick Dale — lending his legendary and oft-imitated “Machine Gun Staccato” style to the track, alongside L7 guitarist/vocalist Donita Sparks on the entrancing tune. Hear/share “Rhythm Surfer” on all DSPs HERE and Bandcamp HERE.
Brown has assembled a short series of mini-documentaries about the sessions for the album, with the first episodes covering the “Rhythm Surfer” sessions at Dave Catching‘s fabled Rancho De La Luna. Watch/share Dick Dale‘s fight club (HERE), Donita Sparks on Dick Dale fandom (HERE). Official video HERE. More to come soon.
American Instrument is conceptually just as expansive and ambitious as the lush soundscapes within. An 18-song album featuring an array of legendary guest musicians, its theme likewise embodies a profound meditation on selfhood and the Other.
Dark Brown is the creation of Los Angeles composer and musician Bryan Lee Brown. American Instrument is the fifth album under that pseudonym, but Brown has an extensive life-long career in music: Scoring Dave Grohl’s HBO series Sonic Highways (2014) and documentary film What Drives Us (2021) as well as countless other films, TV shows and commercials, drumming for Dick Dale, as well as numerous stints as a session musician.
The album was recorded over a 12-year period at 7 different studios. It features guest appearances by surf guitar innovator Dick Dale, John Stanier (Battles, Helmet), Brad Wilk (Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave), Alfredo Ortiz (Los Lobos ,Beastie Boys), Eric McFadden, Jon Theodore (QOTSA), Donita Sparks (L7), marching percussionist Marcus Joyner, Dave Catching (Desert Sessions), Jose Medeles (The Breeders, Author) and more.
The predominantly drummer-heavy line up is another element of the album’s exploration into Brown’s relationship with drumming, both musically and socially. Brown has a personal connection to almost everyone who played on the album. In a way, the album unites many common threads (personal and philosophical) throughout the musician’s life.
Slated for release in Fall 2024, American Instrument combines abstract minimalism with melodic psychedelia to create a vast ranch of soundscapes. Brown’s now signature sounds of melodic percussion, droning guitars, tremolo and propulsive rhythms permeate the tracks, with each guest musician’s personality leading the songs in many directions with each of their unique personalities shining through. Case in point, Dick Dale’s unmistakable guitar pyrotechnics on 2 album tracks, recorded in 2013 at Rancho De La Luna in Joshua Tree, bring all of his larger-than-life sonic imprint into a completely new world where the surf guitar meets counterpoint rhythms, post-rock ethereality and anthemic hooks. “Spacetime (feat. Brad Wilk)” finds the Rage Against The Machine drummer’s powerful backbeat driving a psychedelic haze of Hendrix-style guitar warped through haunting sounding tubular bells. “Miami Rute (feat. Jon Theodore and Alfredo Ortiz)” juxtaposes Latin percussion with soaring Pink Floyd-ian drones and ominous vocal chants. Throughout, a wide variety of sounds and musical styles explore the very meaning of rhythm and impact of the uniquely American instrument, the drum set, and its place in the course of human history.
American Instrument will be available digitally via Memory Bulldozer Records on September 10, 2024. Pre-order/pre-save HERE.
The Black Angels are soon back on tour, this time heading to Europe in mid-September through early October with pals The Dandy Warhols.
A good chunk of those shows probably will sell out, so don’t hesitate to get tickets.
Not to rest for too long, the psych-giants come back to the U.S. afterwards to embark on a west coast tour just ten days later, this time with Soriah and Daiistar.
They’ll also headline a stage at the 2024 Levitation festival sometime during Halloween weekend as well. Don’t miss them. They never disappoint.
