Madi Diaz gives us a lesson on presence with new single – “New Person, Old Place.”

Photo by Alexa King

Today, Nashville-based songwriter Madi Diaz releases her new single/video, “New Person, Old Place.” Madi recently marked a full restart of her career with the evocative “Man In Me,” a first offering showing how she’s capable of distilling profound feelings with ease. While “Man In Me” took Madi through her first steps of a really hard time, “New Person, Old Place” presents her further down the road, after processing the pain and loss of a breakup. She uses specific diction to describe feelings that are typically hard to verbalize: “I used to stay up on the off chance that you might call me back // I used to go shopping for pain go through pictures it’s all I had // I’d sift through our memories and live there even when I wasn’t sad // I used to, I used to, but now I don’t do that.”

Madi elaborates: “This was a moment I realized I wanted to start to learn how to do it not better, not worse, but just different… and then something shifted. Something in my heart finally knocked loose and I was breathing deeper. It’s hard as hell, breaking patterns and unlearning all the old shit, trying to shut all the doors that I used to open to let all the same hurt happen over and over. I’m at least learning to find new doors. ‘New Person, Old Place’ is a mantra. A line that I’m casting into the future so that I have something to guide me forward. It’s something of a reminder that if my heart is the house that I carry with me wherever I go, I can take it somewhere new, or I can do the same old thing I always do but backwards or with a cartwheel, and I can repaint and I can rearrange the furniture. I can clean the mirrors so I see myself true and clear.”

The “New Person, Old Place” video was directed by $ECK and shot in Madi’s pickup truck throughout Nashville. The video follows Madi on a journey to the salvage yard, driving different versions of herself to face her history.

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Throwing Snow releases mysterious new single – “Brujita.”

Throwing Snow, a.k.a. Ross Tones, will release his new album Dragons on June 25th via Houndstooth. Today he’s sharing the first single from the record, “Brujita“. 
 Speaking about the track, Throwing Snow said “‘Brujita’ is about the breaking of aural tradition and the suppression of cunning women and men. It’s a eulogy to lost folk wisdom.”

Listen to “Brujita” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg03mbuiZqI

Listen to “Brujita” via other streaming services herehttps://hth.lnk.to/dragons

Throwing Snow’s fourth album is the audiovisually-augmented Dragons, a work that occupies the space between science and ancestral wisdom. It links music back to its prehistoric capacity for transmitting knowledge to new technology that can untangle the complexity of the contemporary world. Dragons ten tracks of heavy primal rhythmic productions incorporate the physicality of acoustic sources, from ancient ritual instruments to modern drum kit, and each track is accompanied by visuals generated by a neural network. 

Throwing Snow, aka Ross Tones, developed Dragons neural network with artist, designer and technologist Matt Woodham. The structures and changes in Tones’ music trigger corresponding changes in accompanying moving images, which combine life in three scales, from microscopic views of rocks to large scale maps. “Everything that happens musically triggers the algorithm to do something,” Tones explains. “This isn’t controlled or predictable, and the music becomes an instruction for the algorithm to make its own decisions about datasets, images, speed, movement and other manipulations.” 

The tracks on Dragons match Tones’s ambitions for the album in weight but not complexity. They are intentionally dazzlingly simple in their means, for maximum effect, with repeating motifs, locked basslines, cosmic patterns and full-frequency mids. Often built from four or fewer elements, Tones allows sound to accumulate into his unique take on ritual music for the 21st century. Throbbing ritual dances contain half-remembered earworms revealing glittering night skies of synthesizer patterns – ‘Halos’ stabs and stutters like a dance atop a longbarrow; ‘Purr’ reverberates in silky vibrational motifs; the heavyweight ‘Brujita’ is nu-metal for a past-future ceremony of uncertain purpose.  

Tones says he often uses his music as allegory and container for the concepts and theories he’s immersed in – he studied astrophysics, and is fascinated by crafts, archeoacoutics, history, evolution and psychology. In Dragons, he wanted to explore the purpose of music from the beginning of human history. “We have Palaeolithic minds but find ourselves in an increasingly complex and interconnected world,” Tones explains. “Music and art have always been ritualised as a tool for memory, knowledge and emotion, and humans make sense of existence by using tools. Songs were tools of understanding, passed down from our ancestors. Now, things are complex and interrelated, so we can’t use that ancestral knowledge, and need to invent new tools – that’s where machine learning comes into it.”

As is typical for Tones’ Throwing Snow project, the album contains a bold and eclectic mix of instruments, from a bodhrán and daf to cello, with their uses rooted in their inherent acoustic properties. Tones also essentially built his own sample pack for the percussion patterns, working with drummer Jack Baker (Bonobo, Kelis, Alice Russell, Planet Battagon) on an intensive two-day session. 

Tones is a Houndstooth stalwart, and Dragons is his fourth full-length album on the label, along with a string of 12”s and EPs. His first album was Mosaic in 2014, followed by Embers in 2017, and Loma in 2018. Originally from the North Of England, for the last few years he has worked from The Castle, his studio an hour outside Bristol/Bath, where he can both forage his own food and find the headspace to make music and experiment with modern technology. He is currently recording a new album with his trio Snow Ghosts, and a soundtrack for a Netflix documentary.

Dragons is a new form of inter-disciplinary album, which is neither wholly electronic nor acoustic, sonic or visual, and pulls from an equally diverse range of inspirations, from texts such as Steven Mithin’s The Singing Neanderthals and Margo Neale and Lynn Kell’s Songlines to the 1982 animated film Flight of Dragons“I’m into putting music back into history,” Tones explains. “I want to make you think about what music is, what its purpose has been. I’m asking about the scientific aspect to folklore and ancient knowledge, and looking at why it’s still useful. This album is a doorway – if you choose to listen like that.”

Pre-order Dragons here: https://hth.lnk.to/dragons

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Squirrel Flower claims she wouldn’t “Hurt a Fly” on her new single.

Photo by Tonje Thilesen

Squirrel Flower, the moniker of Ella Williams, announces her new album, Planet (i), out June 25th on Polyvinyl, and today offers its lead single and video, “Hurt A Fly.” Planet (i) is the follow-up to 2020’s I Was Born Swimming, which boasted “peaceful, almost-ambient songs as well as heavy, hook-laden rockers” (Rolling Stone). Planet(i) is a world entirely of Williams’ making. The title came first to her as a joke: it’s her made-up name for the new planet people will inevitably settle and destroy after leaving Earth, as well as the universe imagined within her music. The record is a love letter to disaster in every form imaginable – these songs fully embrace a planet in ruin. Buoyed by her steadfast vision and propelled by her burning comet of a voice, Planet (i) is at once a refuge, an act of self-healing, and a musical reflection of Squirrel Flower’s inner and outer worlds.

Watch Squirrel Flower’s Video for “Hurt A Fly”

Williams wrote most of the songs on Planet (i) before the COVID-19 pandemic, but disaster looms large in its DNA. Susceptible to head injuries having played a lot of sports in her youth, Williams received three concussions from 2019-2020. Amidst the chaos of touring internationally during her own healing process, she began weaving threads between her physical and personal sense of ruin and her lifelong fear of the elements: of being swept up by storms, floods, and the deep ocean. “To overcome my fear of disasters,” Williams says, “I had to embody them, to stare them down.” This journey of decay and healing is the lifeblood of Planet (i).

Once quarantine set in, Williams began to produce demos in her room, amassing a collection of more than 30 recordings. Feeling a sense of artistic synchronicity over international phone calls with producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius), and with newfound covid antibodies, Williams flew to Bristol, UK in the fall of 2020 to record Planet (i) at Chant’s studio, The Playpen. “We had this shared creative language,” she recalls, “and the recording process was, like my demo process, very sculptural. Instead of recording live with a full band, we built this record layer by layer, experimenting, taking risks.” While Williams and Chant played most of the instruments on the record, Bristol drummer Matt Brown and Portishead’sAdrian Utley also joined their sessions. When Chant suggested the idea of backup vocals, Williams, whose voice had until now stood alone in her songs, enthusiastically enlisted friends and family to join her remotely with their voices and instruments; Tenci’s Jess Shoman, Tomberlin, Katy J. Pearson, Jemima Coulter, Brooke Bentham, and her brothers Nate and Jameson Williams, as well as her father Jesse.

The songs on Planet (i) are Squirrel Flower’s instruments for connection: with the people in her life, her collaborators, audiences, and ancestors; a lineage of artists whose spirits continue to inform her art. At the heart of this record is an insistence on connection and healing in the face of catastrophe. On the explosive lead single “Hurt A Fly,” Williams is a volatile, relentless presence. She takes the persona of a manipulative lover as she lurches from guilt to sorrow to renewed fury, backed by whirring, frenetic guitars. The accompanying video, directed by Ryan Schnackenberg, visualizes this energy, as Williams moves around inside a plastic bubble.

“‘Hurt A Fly’ is me embodying a persona of gaslighting, narcissistic soft-boy type shit,” says Williams. “The classic ‘sorry I acted violently, I’m not mad that you got upset at me, wanna hang out next week?’. I wanted to see what it was like to be a character trying to skirt around accountability. It’s an angry and unhinged song, and for the video I wanted to be inside a bubble writhing around and trying to get out. A stranger filmed me practicing choreography at a public park, submitted it to a meme page making fun of ‘influencers,’ and the video got 1,000,000 views, which in my mind is perfect thematically.”
 On Planet (i), Squirrel Flower reveals a bright and uncompromising vision, confident in her powers of self-healing and growth. No matter what the disaster ahead of or within her looks like, and no matter how she shape-shifts to meet it, Squirrel Flower will always be a world of her own, a space-rock flying down the road in flames and flat tires. 

Pre-order Planet (i)

Planet (i) Tracklist
1. I’ll Go Running
2. Hurt A Fly
3. Deluge In the South
4. Big Beast
5. Roadkill
6. Iowa 146
7. Pass
8. Flames and Flat Tires
9. To Be Forgotten
10. Desert Wildflowers
11. Night
12. Starshine

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CHAI claims “Nobody Knows We Are Fun.” I don’t believe them.

Photo by Hideo Hotta

Japanese quartet CHAI reveal a new single/video, “Nobody Knows We Are Fun,” from their forthcoming album, WINK, out May 21st on Sub Pop. It’s the third single off of the album released thus far, following “Maybe Chocolate Chips” (Feat. Ric Wilson) and “ACTION.” CHAI are known for their fun, vibrant music videos, and “Nobody Knows We Are Fun” is no exception.

Directed by Hideto Hotta, the video is cinematic and polished, showing the band adorned in colorful outfits and settings. The track was inspired by an at-home activity: YUUKI was watching 2019’s Booksmart when she had the idea for the song. (The movie’s whip smart protagonists decide to attend a party before high school graduation after realizing, “Nobody knows we’re fun!”) “I thought, ‘We, CHAI, can really relate to that scene,” YUUKI said of the song, which the band describe as “a mix of screaming our annoyances—why don’t you guys notice us!—while trying to be cute and sexy.”

Let’s check in with CHAI and see what they have to say about the song: 

“It’s like ‘Nobody Knows We Are Fun,’ right?!”
“Seriously! Not cool!”
“Perhaps they underestimate us? ♡”
“Or maybe they are like ‘don’t be a show off!’”
“Say what you want!  What matters is that despite always being ourselves and never changing, we are still the most FUN!”
“Totally!! ♡♡”
“It’s that type of song!  Take a listen and loosen up♡”

WATCH CHAI’S VIDEO FOR “NOBODY KNOWS WE’RE FUN”

CHAI is MANA (lead vocals and keys) and KANA (guitar), drummer YUNA, and bassist-lyricist YUUKI. Following the release of 2019’s PUNK, CHAI’s adventures took them around the world, playing their high-energy and buoyant shows. Like all musicians, CHAI spent 2020 forced to rethink the fabric of their work and lives. They took this as an opportunity to shake up their process and bring their music somewhere thrillingly new. Rather than having maximalist recordings like in the past, CHAI instead focused on crafting the slightly-subtler and more introspective kinds of songs they enjoy listening to at home—where, for the first time, they recorded all of the music.  They draw R&B and hip-hop into their mix (Mac Miller, the Internet, and Brockhampton were on their minds) of dance-punk and pop-rock, all while remaining undeniably CHAI.

WINK is also the first CHAI album to feature contributions from outside producers (Mndsgn, YMCK) as well as Ric Wilson. This impulse towards connection with others is in WINK’s title, too. After the “i” of PINK and the “u” of PUNK—which represented the band’s act of introducing themselves, and then of centering their audiences—they have come full circle with the “we” of WINK.  In that act of opening themselves up, CHAI grew into their best work: “This album showed us, we’re ready to do more.” 
WATCH CHAI’S VIDEO FOR “MAYBE CHOCOLATE CHIPS” (FEAT. RIC WILSON)

WATCH THE “ACTION” VIDEO

WATCH THE “DONUTS MIND IF I DO” VIDEO

WATCH THE “PLASTIC LOVE” VIDEO

PRE-ORDER WINK

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Clutch to release collector’s edition of “Blast Tyrant.”

CLUTCH announces the Clutch Collector’s Series, limited-edition vinyl reissues of initially four catalog albums on their own label Weathermaker Music.  

Blast Tyrant is the first release in the series and is curated by drummer Jean-Paul Gaster. “I worked with the album’s original artist Chon Hernandez to create a new look and feel for the Clutch Collector’s Series release of Blast Tyrant. Chon did an amazing job drawing the Blast Tyrant to look 20 years older and wiser. We selected new colors for the jacket, sleeves, and vinyl to make a completely new package.  

“The album has been remastered and is manufactured on 180-gram colored vinyl. The gatefold jacket is printed on metalized polyester paper and embossed with the official Clutch Collector’s Series seal. The double-disc set is sleeved in extra heavy stock paper and includes a numbered insert autographed by the band. The Clutch Collector’s Series release of Blast Tyrant is limited to 5,000 units worldwide.” 

Blast Tyrant is scheduled to be released in June. The initial presale on clutchmerch.com took place on March 23rd and sold out within 3 hours.  

The limited-edition can be ordered through Indie retailers. Use this search engine to find a store near you: https://bit.ly/2O4FH7C 

The album is also available for pre-order on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3dn7Uiu

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Warish release wild new single from upcoming album.

Southern California trio Warish share a new video & single from their anticipated sophomore full length, Next To Pay (RidingEasy Records) today via Kerrang! Watch and share “Second Hand Misery” HERE. (Direct YouTube and Bandcamp.)
Consequence of Sound recently shared the single “Seeing Red” HERERevolver Magazine premiered the video for “Say To Please” HERE. (Direct YouTube.)

About the video, Riley says:“This video came to mind when I heard the ‘If you’re happy and you know it’ song by Barney playing somewhere while I was in a bad mood and was thinking, this song is kinda evil sounding. Then I went home and instantly started editing the video to the track S.H.M. Because it’s the polar opposite of If You Are Happy And You Know it. It fit nicely I thought, hah.” 

With a name like Warish, the San Diego noisy punk-metal trio assured listeners they were in for a maniacal bludgeoning from the get-go. But the band has never been as dark and bitingly vicious as the wholly ominous Next To Pay. The band’s mix of early AmRep skronk, dark horror rock and budget doom antipathy is taken to a whole new level on this 13-song invective. 

“‘Next To Pay’ is about a sense of imminent doom, everyone is going to die,” vocalist/guitarist Riley Hawk says. “It’s not the happiest record, I guess.” To say the least. On the title track opener, Hawk screams through shredded vocal chords with the tuneful rage of Kill ‘Em All era James Hetfield and the seething desperation of Kurt Cobain. 

“This album is more of an evolution, it’s a little more punk-heavy,” Hawk says of the group quickly founded in 2018. “We figured out what our sound was.” And with that evolution comes a change in the lineup. Original drummer Nick (Broose) McDonnell plays on about half of the songs, while new drummer Justin de la Vega brings an even tighter urgency to the remaining, more recent tracks. Bassist Alex Bassaj joined after the debut album was recorded and here showcases muscular and melodic low end previously missing. Riley Hawk is also the pro-skater son of Tony Hawk. 

Inspired by early-NirvanaThe MisfitsThe Spits and Master of Reality-era Black SabbathNext To Pay keeps things heavy and pummeling at all times. The guitars are heavy and powerful, though decidedly not straightforward cookie cutter punk; more like Greg Ginn’s and Buzz Osbourne’s wiry contortions, and occasionally drenched in chorus effects. The rhythms bash right through it all with aggressive force ensuring that nothing gets overly complicated. Warish’s cover of 80s DischordRecords punks Gray Matter turns the emotive flail of “Burn No Bridges” into a Motorhead style basher. 

Next To Pay will be available on LP, CD and download on April 30th, 2021 via RidingEasy Records. Pre-orders are available HERE.

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Jess Cornelius covers the Eagles’ “I Can’t Tell You Why.”

Photo by Nina Raj

Today, Los Angeles-based musician Jess Cornelius presents a cover of the Eagles’ “I Can’t Tell You Why.” Rather than remaining faithful to the original, Cornelius transforms the song with a grittier sound featuring a drum machine and live drums, and fuzzy guitars which unwind under her muscular croon. It was recorded by Aaron Stern in Los Angeles earlier this year.

Cornelius elaborates: “I can’t remember when this song first came under my radar — I imagine that, like for many people, it was sort of playing in the background on one of those classic hits stations. One day a friend put the song on (because we were talking about late 70s yacht rock, I guess) and it got a bit stuck in my head so I learnt the chords. It wasn’t ever going to be something that I covered faithfully, and I didn’t see the point anyway.

So I was messing around with the arrangement, making it less bouncy and darker. I have always loved the melody, and the tension of the chorus, but to me it was a sad song and I wanted to bring out the frustration of the lyrics. Also, years ago I heard Lou Reed cover Peter Gabriel’s ‘Solsbury Hill,’ which is one of my favorite covers of all time, and that became a bit of a template for this version. It’s almost an homage to that cover, really.

I wanted to learn the guitar solo, because I never do, so it was fun to practice all that cheesy string bending. Of course, my version is a little trashier. And I started with drum machine drums but added some live drums at the end. I kinda wanted it to sound like it was disintegrating — luckily Jarvis Taveniere was mixing so he made the drums sound cohesive and not as chaotic.”

This is Cornelius’ first new material since the release of her debut album, Distance, last year via Loantaka RecordsDistance will see its UK release on May 14, 2021. 
Listen to Jess Cornelius Cover the Eagles’ “I Can’t Tell You Why”

Watch/Listen/Share:
Purchase Distance
Watch the “No Difference” Video
Watch the “Kitchen Floor” Video
Watch the “Body Memory” Video

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The Go! Team announce sixth album with new single, “World Remember Me Now.”

Photo by Matt Jacob

The Go! Team’s debut LP, 2004’s Thunder, Lightning, Strike, is an album that had a transformative effect on independent music, a release Pitchfork describes as “an ear-ringing sugar buzz that energized a generation of previously fun-averse indie fans.” In the years since The Go! Team have never let up, releasing 4 more albums of innovative, danceable, sample-based music while steadily evolving a sound that has an omnivorous appetite for tones, textures, styles and genres, combining and re-combining disparate building blocks into a sound that is always, undeniably The Go! Team. Today, the band are announcing their 6th LP. Get Up Sequences Part One, set to be released via Memphis Industrieson July 2nd, and sharing the album’s first single “World Remember Me Now,” a song that provides a tantalizing hint of an album that it sure to be a bright light of this summer and of the band’s catalog. 

WATCH: to The Go! Team’s “World Remember Me Now” on YouTube

Performed by long time Go! Team lead vocalist Ninja and members of the Kansas City Girls Choir, “World Remember Me Now” is about feeling forgotten in the modern world. From the opening alarm clock, the lyrics take the structure of a day in the life of a woman in a big city: “Pour the Orange Juice and Check the Post, Flip the Calendar and Pop the Toast”. “I’ve always been interested in people’s daily routines – what people do all day” says Go! Team songwriter Ian Parton. “It was written ages ago but has become strangely relevant to the world now. It’s easy to feel forgotten at the moment”. 

While the album is a burst of positivity from the band, the recording of the album was a tough process for Go! Team leader Ian Parton, who began losing his hearing while working on the album.  

I lost hearing in my right ear halfway during the making of this record” Parton explains. “I woke up one Thursday in October 2019 and my hearing was different in some way – it fluctuated over a few weeks and at one point everything sounded like a Dalek. I seem to remember listening to music was bordering on unbearable. Over time it settled into just a tiny bit of hi end being audible on my right side. I thought the hearing loss was from playing music too loud over the years but it turns out I was just unlucky and it was a rare condition called Menieres. It was traumatic to keep listening to songs I knew well but which suddenly sounded different and it was an odd juxtaposition to listen to upbeat music when I was on such a downer. The trauma of losing my hearing gave the music a different dimension for me and it transformed the album into more of a life raft.

Read more on the background of the album and the band from DJ, film maker, The Clash cinematographer and Big Audio Dynamite member Don Letts below:

Twenty one seconds, that’s all it took – actually rewind that ‘cause I was hooked by the first 15 such was the impact of ‘Let The Seasons Work’ the veritable statement of intent that is the opening track of The Go! Teams latest album ‘Get Up Sequences Part One’ and once I’d stepped through that door I definitely wanted more….

With echoes of the past, their avalanche of sound first caught my ear with ‘Power is On’ from 2004’s ’Thunder, Lightning, Strike’ which sampled a clip from my Clash film ‘Westway to The World’.  I was struck by their use of the obscure – something that didn’t go unnoticed by this ex-member of Mick Jones second band Big Audio Dynamite. But here’s the thing – on further investigation it was clear to hear there was more going on than a clever use of samples n’ loops – ‘cause if you took ‘em away you still had kickass songs and that was always the B.A.D acid test. The album was a great introduction to an outfit I’ve been a fan of from that time till this. Further exploration led to the revelation it was primarily the vision of one man, musical ringmaster Ian Parton – accompanied by a co-ed team of players to push that vision further.  I also came to recognise Ian’s ability to see the beauty and the possibilities of the amateur and the naive. Armed with these attributes they delivered Proof of Youth The Go! Team’s second album in 2007 n’ that took things to another level with guest vocals from the likes of the Double Dutch Divas and Public Enemy‘s Chuck D. For 2011’s ‘Rolling Blackouts’ the band’s cut n’ paste approach was supplemented by a cast of thousands, some regular some not to deliver a bunch of satisfying songs that sampled the likes of Harry Nilsson, Lata Mangeshkar n’ Joe Tex along way. By way of contrast and in the wake of a band break up 2015’s ‘The Scene Between’ would see a return to the stripped back beginnings of the debut album. But at the heart of what was an undoubtedly more sampled driven outing were those, by now familiar, melody driven hooks. In 2018 ‘Semicircle’ knocked it out of the park, teaming up with a community choir in Detroit, Michigan.

And now on ‘Get Up Sequences Part One’ Ian, Ninja, Nia, Simone, Sam and Adam  have created a musical world distinctly of their own making. A place where routine is outlawed and perfection is the enemy. Where Ennio Morricone meets the Monkees armed with flutes, glockenspiels, steel drums and a badass analogue attitude. We’re talking widescreen, four-track, channel hopping sounds that are instantly recognisable.                                                      

           In The Go! Team’s world old’s cool, the future’s bright and melody is the star….

Just check the second cut COOKIE SCENE – with a bouncing flute and junk shop percussion it introduces guest rapper Indigo Yaj who delivers an old school vocal that continues this sonic trip. Next stop the harmonica driven northern soul groove that is A MEMO FOR MACEO, an instrumental for your thoughts to become lyrics and turn your life into a movie. In WE DO IT BUT NEVER KNOW WHY matters of the heart get a look in albeit with a Go! Team twist that sees trumpets ask the questions and steel drums give the answer. Just as FREEDOM NOW comes bursting through the gates with an OMG instrumental jam that’ll blow out your speakers. Now if you wanna loose your shit this next cuts it – with a chorus channeling Curtis Mayfield, enter the inimitable Ninja with POW and you don’t stop, you wont stop to this flute driven free for all. By way of demonstrating the ringmaster’s passion for those old’s cool vocals combined with his ‘needle-in-the-red’ recording technique comes I LOVED YOU BETTER a defiant message to an ex love, spelling out exactly how he’s fucked up – and then there’s those steel drums. Following that some soda fountain soulcourtesy of A BEE WITHOUT ITS STING, a groovy protest song that makes its point with a tambourine – hey only The Go! Team. The musical wagon train then takes you into the wide screen, wind swept western that is TAME THE GREAT PLAINS heading off into a polyrhythmic panorama that’s full of hope. Slappin’ you back to reality comes WORLD REMEMBER ME NOW a timely reminder that when you’re lost in the routine of life,you can always count on The Go! Team.

The sum total of my listening experience was that the band came through on their opening musical promise to deliver that most rare of works – a complete one. Using ingredients available to everyone they manage to sound like no one – they are The Go! Team and if ‘Get Up Sequences Part One’ doesn’t hit you like it hit me, check yr pulse – you might be dead.

– Don Letts

“World Remember Me Now” is out now on Memphis Industries. Get Up Sequences Part One is out on July 2nd on Memphis Industries. Pre-order from their store here.

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Museum of Love take on our “Cluttered World” with their new single.

Photo by Tim Saccenti

Museum Of Love – the New York-based duo of Pat Mahoney and Dennis McNany – returns with new single “Cluttered World” on Skint Records. Produced by the duo and mixed by James Murphy (DFA / LCD Soundsystem), “Cluttered World” is a super-futuristic torch song — it takes you by the hand and leads you down, down into a subterranean basement, all thick air and close heat. It pulls up a stool somewhere between the grand piano and the quaking bass bins and sets you right in the heart of the action. It’s a wild and disorientating place, yet it’s one you’ll want to return to again and again each time the drum track stops. “The song is about labor in the 21st century, and drifting and sifting through the hyper-abundance of our so called civilization,” explains Museum Of Love.

 
Stream “Cluttered World”
 

Mahoney, founder and drummer of  LCD Soundsystem, and McNany, known for his production work as Jee Day, formed Museum Of Love in 2013 and released their lauded self-titled debut the following year. “Cluttered World” is their first taste of new music to come later this year.

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Clone and Swallow the Rat share a split single from their upcoming split LP.

Kindred spirits from far across the globe, Brooklyn, NY quintet Clone and Aukland, NZ trio Swallow The Rat announce their forthcoming split LP today, sharing one track from each band via New Noise.

Hear and share both tracks HERE. (Or listen/share via Clone’s Bandcamp or STR’s Bandcamp.)


New Zealand’s Swallow the Rat (featuring ex-My Education guitarist Brian Purington) and New York’s Clone (ex-Dead Leaf EchoSquad Car) shared a stage in Queens, NYC on perhaps the last day before the city shut down in 2020. A mutual appreciation society was formed over drinks later that night. Swallow the Rat were in town to play the New Colossus Festival, while Clone were playing what was to be the first date of their debut tour of the East Coast. There were plans to share the stage again in New Orleans and in Austin at SXSW.


A global pandemic put an end to this, but the bands kept talking. Both had recently recorded EPs, and so a plan was hatched: a split 12″ with songs from both bands. Four tunes apiece, about the irony of memory recall, the loss of friends by their own hand, frustrations of gender role psyche and the fear of looking back. Dissonant delayed guitars and martial drums abound, despite the oceans and continents separating the groups.


Swallow The Rat / Clone split LP will be available on LP and download on May 21st via Headbump Records. Pre-orders are available via Rough Trade in the US HERE and Golden Antenna in the EU HERE

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]