Recorded in 2022 while they had some extra days in Los Angeles after the end of a U.S. west coast tour, Holy Wave got together with Osees‘ Tomas Dolas and knocked out a few singles…and then a couple more when they realized they had the makings of a groovy EP on their hands. That became the Studio 22 Singles and B-Sides album.
The opening drum fill by Julian Ruiz on “chaparral” immediately drops you into lovely headspace, and Kyle Hager‘s slightly distant vocals and sunlight-breaking-through-the-clouds synths guide you along a river made of melted ice cream. “time crisis too” is even brighter and lusher, with Hager’s synths sounding like a backing choir and Joey Cook‘s acoustic guitar work feeling like a happy cat prancing around your house as the sun rises.
The acoustic guitars return for “cowprint” — a song about being fascinated by a potential lover and watching them from afar. The song transforms by the second half into a synth and electric piano-driven bit of mellow psych-rock. Speaking of mellow, the delightful “father’s prayer” will be your new favorite 1970s toe-tapper…and it was made in 2022!
“bog song” floats along like cat tail fluff over a bog on a bright day. Cook’s guitar solo on it is never forceful, but centers the whole track, and Ryan Fuson‘s piano takes you by the hand and along all the safe places to walk in the bog. Fuson is subtly and cleverly all over the background of the record, actually, adding details (with multiple instruments) that would cause the songs to sound odd if they were absent.
I love that the albums ends (after the brief, slightly goofy “away here”) with an almost meditative instrumental — “string performer.” It’s just guitars, synths, piano, quiet bass, and little, if any, percussion. It’s lovely.
The whole record is. They captured a neat moment when recording this, and thanks to them for sharing it with us.
In case you weren’t aware, Seattle’s KEXP is one of the best radio stations out there for music lovers. Part of the reason is that they present so many great live performances from so many artists in different genres. They also host, and broadcast, full live concerts. Some of them are even released for us to consume afterwards, like the newest Live at KEXPrecord from psychedelic rippers Frankie and The Witch Fingers.
FATW go back to their (near) beginning by opening with the title track from their Brain Telephone album. Nikki Pickle‘s bass is a snarling beast, and it’s easy to lose track of whose guitar sounds like it’s already falling apart – Dylan Sizemore‘s or Josh Menashe‘s. Just when you think the whole song and set is going to be wild noise, they drop into their funk grooves that they do so well. “Futurephobic” starts and stops on a dime, leaving you a bit bewildered by the end.
“Syster System” struts around the stage like an unearthed Thin Lizzy track stretching its muscles and staking a claim on rock and roll. “Cops & Robbers” is almost a psychobilly track with the wild lyrics about bank robbery and Nick Aguilar‘s punk drumming, and then it dissolves / oozes into the slime-punky “Sidewalk.” “Weird Dog” snaps back and forth between garage rock funk and crunchy punk kerplunk that your neck might snap.
Jon Modaff is a welcome addition to the FATWF lineup on synths, and his work on “i-Candy” almost brings the band into spooky rock / haunted house terror music. In other words, more cool stuff the band pulls off with ease. The longest cut, “Empire,” has become a fan favorite of their live shows as it lets each band member shine at different times and always belts you hard in the chest.
The concert, and album, ends with “Bonehead” – a raucous rocker made for pogo-dancing and kicking down doors and, well, boneheads…and good grief, Menashe’s solo is manic. The whole song, and (again) the album, practically has you sweating just from hearing it. It, like seeing them in the flesh, will leave you invigorated.
You might think Acid Rooster‘s Hall of Mirrors album was an EP by looking at the track listing, as it’s only four songs, but the shortest one is nearly six minutes in length.
Those four songs are are excellent cosmic rock tracks perfect for either tripping out inside the album’s namesake at your local county fair or surfing around the universe as a herald of Galactus. “Automat” (the five-minute-fifty-second song) has Joe Satriani-like riffs from Sebastian Väth and enough psychedelic synths from Maximilian Leicht to melt your mind and then reform it into something capable of clairvoyance. “Chandelier Arp” first sounds like the pulse and happy sighs of an android receiving a massage in zero gravity. Then, Steffen Schmidt comes in on drums and the android starts some form of astral projection or perhaps a digital upload to some giant connected mind. Leicht’s saxophone work on this put you in orbit about an emerging white sun.
“Confidence of Ignorance” brings in Middle Eastern desert rock flavor, which is fine by me. The sound takes on a heavier tone and reminds you of scantily clad, scimitar-wielding maidens emerging from the desert to either cut you down, cast spells on you, or both. “When Clouds Part” beautifully ends Side B with a gentle float back down to Earth, nicely landing us on a warm, green cliff overlooking the ocean.
Did I mention it’s an instrumental album? It’s a trip-tastic bit of space rock that you’ll want for times you need to float away for a bit.
THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE announce a new single, ‘Makes Me Great / Out Of Body’, on red transparent 10” vinyl, released April 25th via Anton Newcombe’s record label A Recordings. Pre-save here. Following a hugely successful UK and Europe tour earlier this year, the band will return to North America this fall for an extensive run of live shows, including two dates with special guests, Cast, making their first US appearance in nearly 30 years. Tickets on sale now.
It is over 30 years since Anton Newcombe – frontman, songwriter, composer, studio owner, multi-instrumentalist, producer, engineer, father, force of nature – and his band The Brian Jonestown Massacre released their first single She Made Me / Evergreen. Released in 1992, as the British music press descended on the US to anoint the next US guitar band as flavour of the month and major labels were on the hunt for the compliant hopefuls to be their latest quick fix, Anton Newcombe had an idea: say no. As leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Newcombe had already established himself as a visionary songwriter, a man to whom making music wasn’t a lifestyle choice or a hipster haircut but the very fabric of existence itself, and he had observed in silent horror as his peers meekly acquiesced to everything – yes to contracts, yes to management, yes to suggestions, yes to this, yes to that, yes, yes, yes. But he was different. Anton Newcombe was going to say no to everything. “I just knew I would be more successful in a certain way by saying no, just being contrary because I figured that if people liked me they were gonna like me anyway,” he says. “Or dislike me. It doesn’t matter.”
Much of this was documented on the controversial documentary ‘Dig!’, which is still hailed as one of the best rock documentaries ever made, and celebrates its 20th Anniversary this year with the remastered, expanded version “Dig! XX.”
Brian Jonestown Massacre’s shoegazing-tinged debut album Methodrone was released in 1995 and since then numerous band members have joined Newcombe on his sonic escapades, but he has remained the sole constant, the creative mastermind at the centre of one of music’s most fascinating bands. There have been a further 20 albums under the Brian Jonestown Massacre moniker since then, each embarking on their own mind-expanding adventure and exploring the outer realms of rock’n’roll; psychedelic rock, country-blues, snarling rock’n’roll, blissed-out noise-pop and more.
Along the way, Newcombe has established himself as a once-in-a-lifetime talent who saw the direction in which mainstream indie-rock was heading and opted to take the long way round. He’s emerged as a revolutionary force in modern music, an underground hero. There was no other way, this was how it had to be. “My only option with everything in life has always been that you just jump into the fire,” he declared. “It doesn’t matter what it is.”
It’s with that spirit that he’s hopped around the globe, from the West Coast to New York, from Manhattan to Iceland, and then to Berlin, where he’s lived for 15 years and has two flats, one to live in and one that’s been converted into his studio.
After a hugely prolific 2010s that saw the release of eight long-players and one mini-album, Newcombe had been going through a period of writer’s block when one day he picked up his 12-string guitar and The Real (the opening track on previous album Fire Doesn’t Grow on Trees) came out of him. Like the kraken, it was as if he’d summoned it. “All of a sudden, I just heard something,” he says. “And then it just didn’t stop. We tracked a whole song every single day for 70 days in a row.” By the end of it they had 2 albums ready to go. Joining Newcombe in the studio for The Future Is Your Past were Hakon Adalsteinsson (guitar) and Uri Rennert (drums).
Brian Jonestown Massacre released their 20th full-length studio album The Future Is Your Past, in February 2023 on Anton’s record label, A Recordings. In 2022 / 2023, they completed a massive world tour that saw them play 34 dates in North America, 25 dates across Europe and 16 dates in the UK. Towards the end of 2024, they released ‘Don’t Look At Me’ ft. Aimee Nash. It is a delicious slice of hypnotic shoegaze with Nash lyrically casting a spell with the mantra “Do No Harm.”
There is no such thing as a defining statement in Anton Newcombe’s world anymore, just more chapters that contribute to the tale. “Nobody can stop me, I’m not asking somebody, I’m not making the rounds at Warners, saying ‘please put out my record!’. It’s just for me,” he says. He hopes he can be an inspiration to others. “I would love to see more groups, people playing music in the UK and everywhere else because I really enjoy it. That’s the only reason I need. It’s the only reason to do stuff.” That hits to the core of what makes Anton Newcombe and Brian Jonestown Massacre tick. He’ll keep jumping in that fire. That’s how he rolls. Savor it.
LIVE SHOWS:
Sept. 3 – Cat’s Cradle – Carrboro, NC Sept. 4 – Variety Playhouse – Atlanta, GA Sept. 5 – Basement East – Nashville, TN Sept. 6 – Orange Peel – Asheville, NC Sept. 8 – 9:30 Club – Washington, D.C. Sept. 9 – Webster Hall – New York, NY – with special guests, Cast Sept. 10 – Union Transfer – Philadelphia, PA – with special guests, Cast Sept. 12 – The Sinclair – Cambridge, MA Sept. 13 – Beanfield Theatre – Montreal, QC Sept. 14 – Danforth Music Hall – Toronto, ON Sept. 16 – Globe Iron – Cleveland, OH Sept. 17 – Majestic Theatre – Detroit, MI Sept. 18 – Mercury Ballroom – Louisville, KY Sept. 19 – Hi-Fi Annex – Indianapolis, IN Sept. 20 – Majestic Theatre – Madison, WI Sept. 22 – Metro – Chicago, IL Sept. 23 – Slowdown – Omaha, NE Sept. 24 – recordBar – Kansas City, MO Sept. 26 – Studio at The Factory – Dallas, TX Sept. 28 – White Oak Music Hall – Houston, TX Oct. 31 – Music Box – San Diego, CA Nov. 1 – Pappy and Harriet’s – Pioneertown, CA
Nov. 2 – Observatory OC – Santa Ana, CA Nov. 4 – SLO Brew – San Luis Obispo, CA Nov. 6 – Swan Dive – Las Vegas, NV Nov. 7 – The Van Buren – Phoenix, AZ Nov. 8 – Tumbleroot – Santa Fe, NM Nov. 10 – Gothic Theatre – Englewood, CO Nov. 11 – Fox Theatre – Boulder, CO Nov. 13 – Metro Music Hall – Salt Lake City, UT Nov. 14 – Shrine Social Club – Boise, ID Nov. 15 – The Showbox – Seattle, WA Nov. 16 – The Pearl – Vancouver, B.C Nov. 18 – Revolution Hall – Portland, OR Nov. 20 – Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA Nov. 21 – Rio Theatre – Santa Cruz, CA Nov. 22 – Teragram Ballroom – Los Angeles, CA Nov. 23 – Teragram Ballroom – Los Angeles, CA
Blackwater Holylight excel at writing, singing, and playing haunting songs that take doom rock into spectral places. Now, with their new EP If You Only Knew, the band take their doom rock into the shoegaze realm and the results are excellent.
Sarah McKenna‘s rainfall-like electric piano opens the EP on “Wandering Lost.” It matches the sorrowful guitar from Mikayla Mayhew as lead singer / bassist Sunny Faris reminds us that we all suffer at some point, and we can sometimes find solace in that. The song kicks into grand metal riffs in the second half, with drummer Eliese Dorsay putting down beats that Nordic metal bands would love.
“Torn Reckless” is a gorgeous shoegaze track that caught me by surprise. Faris sings about standing on the precipice of a relationship and not sure if plunging off it or backing away is the right decision. Mayhew’s guitar sounds like its being pumped through a dozen half-blown amplifiers.
“Fate Is Forward” is pure 1990s (good) alt-rock with its bursting guitars and quiet-loud-quiet verses and chorus. It’s almost a forgotten Failure track, and it’s impossible to choose who shines the most on it, but why should you bother? Just let it wash over you like a rolling thunderstorm.
Finally, I did not have “Blackwater Holylight covers Radiohead.” on my 2025 bingo card, but they’ve done it with a beautiful version of “All I Need.” They keep the buzzing synths and add more guitar fuzz. Faris’ version of Thom Yorke‘s vocals make the song open its heart a bit more and, yes, make it sexier.
This is one of Blackwater Holylight’s best records, and a great sign of good things to come as they continue to explore and expand their sound.
Keep your mind open.
[If you only knew how much I’d like you to subscribe.]
The Sword have announced their first European tour dates since 2015, with the recently reunited band slating a trio of intimate club performances alongside festival appearances, including Copenhell, Freak Valley, and Tons of Rock.
The Sword European Tour:
June 19 Copenhagen, DK Copenhell Festival
June 21 Netphen, DE Freak Valley Festival
June 22 Nijmegen, NL Doornroosje
June 25 Gothenburg, SE Monument
June 26 Stockholm, SE Slaktyrkan
June 28 Oslo, NO Tons of Rock Festival
Tickets for the three exclusive club dates are on-sale now, with ticket links available via TheSwordOfficial.com.
The legendary Austin-based band announced their reunion earlier this year, bringing their signature blend of crushing heaviness and cosmic groove back to audiences who have long awaited their comeback. JD Cronise, in conversation with Revolver, discussed The Sword’s Levitation Festival performance as a turning point for the foursome, describing the experience as “like putting on a comfortable pair of sneakers.” Kyle Shutt added: “I can’t tell you what it means to see everyone’s positive reception. It feels so good to see people out there almost more enthusiastic about the band than ever – it’s something we’ll never take for granted.”
Psychedelic-laced indie rockers MESSINESSpresent the single ‘Previous Life’ – an upbeat sonic reflection on alienation, sensory excess, and the paradox of nostalgia. At its heart, the song articulates an existential crisis in which the self seeks refuge in an imagined past that is not so much remembered as it is constructed. The band’s debut album will be released later this year via Tarla Records and StoneFree Records. ‘Previous Life’ imbues psychedelic 60s-flavoured indie rock with a raw, rebellious exploration of life.
Based in the gritty underbelly of Italy’s fashion capital, Milan, Messiness revolves around Sicilian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist MAX RAFFA. Messiness is the welcome result of his remarkable journey, carved through Europe’s cultural landscapes, from sun-bleached Balearic shores to British harbor towns, as Raffa performed in various rock ’n’ roll bands while conducting the ethnographic research that ultimately shaped his musical vision.
Raffa has assembled a proper motley crew: Rosario Lo Monaco wielding guitars, Filippo La Marca manning the keys, Giovanni Calella thumping the bass, and Luca Anello keeping the beat.
“This “Previous Life” is not a site of historical retrieval but a metaphysical counterpoint to the suffocating present—a liminal space where agency dissolves, aspirations are rendered obsolete, and structure itself is negated. The song thus stages a dialectic between presence and absence, reality and myth, in which the very act of longing for another life exposes the impossibility of its attainment,” explains Max Raffa.
“‘Previous Life’ is not merely a reflection on nostalgia; it is an interrogation of nostalgia’s internal contradictions. The song exposes the futility of retreating into an imagined past, revealing that such a past is, by definition, uninhabitable. The impulse to escape is simultaneously an acknowledgment of entrapment—the longing for a life beyond structure, obligation, and meaning ultimately leads not to liberation but to negation.”
Messiness creates accessible, vibrant feel-good indie rock with Britpop leanings. Incorporating elements of art pop, psychedelic and space rock elements, their harmonic styles bring Canterbury scene experimentation together with Southern European flavours, drawing from both traditional and urban soundscapes.
In ‘Previous Life’, the repetition of “I’m making plans for my previous life” serves as both a mantra and a lament. The author clings to the idea of a different, freer existence, but the sheer act of making plans—a forward-looking action—ironically contradicts the notion of a previous life. Raffanotes, “This contradiction reinforces the song’s central theme: the longing for a life beyond structure, obligation, and meaning ultimately leads not to liberation but to negation; the search for meaning often leads to its undoing, and the past we construct as a refuge is, in the end, an illusion.”
Night Beats announces a new 7″single, “Behind The Green Door,” out April 11 on Suicide Squeeze. The video features the directorial debut by Danny Lee Blackwell,which was heavily inspired by Giallo films.
On side A, we’re treated to a down-tempo, minor key track drenched in the haze of vice, as if some aspiring Motor City outfit had traveled down to Austin and snuck into the studio to cut a song while The 13th Floor Elevators were on a smoke break. Or perhaps it’s more akin to a meeting between Ray Charles, Skip Pence, and Link Wray. Or maybe it’s Joe Tex grappling with Gram Parsons. Or Duane Eddy pairing up with Cedric Bixler-Zavala. Or maybe it’s just years of Blackwell distilling and translating the sounds around him into his own concoction.
Danny Lee Blackwell explains the story behind “Behind The Green Door”:
“This song started as a lone star instrumental, something I pieced together in my studio in 2024. I imagined dusty roads and dimly lit dance halls. I wanted the guitars to shimmer like heat waves on an open road. The rhythm to pull like footsteps across a wooden floor, soaked in smoke and neon. The lyrics followed, drawn from past and present—unwavering love, transcendence. The ‘green door’ is that threshold between devotion and disillusionment. The story lives not just in the words, but in the tones and textures, if uncovered.”
Under the moniker of Night Beats, Texas native Danny Lee Blackwell has spent the last fifteen years exploring a nexus of vintage rhythm & blues, after-midnight soul, and sun-scorched psychedelia. On Night Beats’ latest offering, Blackwell presents two markedly different renditions of his song “Behind the Green Door.” On side A, “Behind The Green Door” is an invitation to enter the kingdom and dwell in the garden while the shadow of doubt looms nearby, a subconscious journey into the delights and pitfalls of unknown territories made manifest in the music of Night Beats.
Side B features the Rah John version of “Behind The Green Door.” According to the Night Beats camp, Rah John was discovered by Blackwell on his recent expedition to the island Koh Khram Yai, located off the coast of Pattaya in the Gulf of Thailand. Not much is known about the young artist besides his love for 70’s Thai disco and dancehall tapes received from local sailors. Hearing a streak of revelry buried in the Night Beats tune, Rah John summoned a sunnier, breezier, and more exotic side to the Rhythm and Blues sway of the original.
Suicide Squeeze is proud to offer up Night Beats “Behind The Green Door” b/w “Behind The Green Door (Rah John Version)” out April 11 on seven-inch transparent violet vinyl, limited to 500 copies.
Ty Segall rides back in with his 16th album, Possession, to be released May 30th via Drag City, and with today’s announcement, releases the lead single, “Fantastic Tomb.” Following 2024’s Three Bells, Possession sees Ty on the hunt for new horizons, hitting the trail beneath the big skies of our frontier empire to take us on a high-octane narrative journey. A literary set of lyrics co-written by his longtime collaborator, filmmaker Matt Yoka, paint an abiding view of quintessentially American stories. All the while, there are invigorated new sounds around every bend – glittering rhythm arrangements feature more of Ty’s own piano woodshedding than ever, joined in battle by sweeping movements of strings and horns. Rife with singing guitar leads and banks of Ty’s vocal harmonies, Possession features some of Ty’s most inspired songs to date.
Tapping Yoka to write with him was one of the keys to this new music. As a non-musician, Yoka’s language sense is different from the one Ty’s amassed as a player of music. With the trust they’ve developed over the years — brainstorming the visual worlds of Goodbye Bread, Manipulator, Emotional Mugger, and music of Yoka’s Whirlybird documentary — they throw the conceptual ball back and forth to translate a general feeling or a vibe into wicked lyric imagery, each acting as writer and editor in the process. Be it de Toqueville, duBois, George H. Nash, Howard Zinn, Bob Dylan or Smile-era Beach Boys, Ty’s sharpened narrative approach and storytelling takes a page from everyone’s history.
Today’s single, “Fantastic Tomb,” is an epic story-song. Desperate for something he can hold onto, our hero takes a job hitting the house of “a man worth more than a country could make,” only to find the treasure hunt to be just another ride to nowhere. The song is a modern American noir-cum-classic rock hoedown, scored with Ty’s burnt-filament lead guitar and ingeniously sealed with Mikal Cronin’s saxophone section.
Possession is Ty Segall’s own bizarre traversing of the American landscape, taking back alleys through complicated cityscapes and singing about the end of the rope while resisting defeat — suggesting an ecstatic new empire to build as he cruises the countryside. Ty is currently on a solo acoustic tour throughout North America, with a full band fall tour commencing in October. Tickets are on sale now.
Recorded in an abandoned warehouse on a banana farm, and named after a towable tractor plough made by the Bunyip company (“…a revolutionary ripper of great strength.”), Babe Rainbow‘s new album, slipper imp and shakaerator, is a trippy affair that blends psych-rock with surf vibes.
The album starts with a question: “What is ashwagandha?” Elliot O’Reilly‘s bass groove hooks you right away as you “swim around like yin and yang” and “plunge into oblivion” with them. “Long Live the Wilderness” encourages us (with great yacht rock guitar riffs from Jack Crowther) to take it easy and get outside now and then. Or maybe it’s “Now and Zen,” as the next track adds in some vocal echoes and warps the instruments to produce a neat effect.
“Sunday” dips into astrological themes and spacey, jangly guitar chords backed by Miles Myjavec‘s zero gravity-drifting drums. The instrumental “Apollonia” is a lovely transition to “Like Cleopatra” – a fun love song about taking your girl to outer space and treating her like a queen.
“When the milk flows” (featuring King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard‘s Stu Mackenzie – who mixed the album) is a bouncy track designed to get you to shake off your troubles. Mackenzie returns on “Mt dub” – which seems to be a song about surfing in Australia (which Babe Rainbow do often, as well as in other parts of the world) and learning that “You’re more loved than you know.”
“Aquarium cowgirl” has a fun beat and sounds ready for radio play as the band sings about how amazing it is to be alive, despite what many others would tell you. It’s interesting that there’s no apostrophe in the title of “Rainbows end.” It’s a sentence, and song (featuring Camille Jansen on guest spoken word vocals), about impermanence with dreamy synths to help you relax with the idea that all things pass. The album ends with “re-ju-ven-ate,” in which Angus Dowling asks the bold question, “What are you paying for?…Abundance, abundance for everyone.”
This is a fun record, possibly the most fun one I’ve heard so far in 2025. Have a good time with it.
