Coming hot on the heels of their 2021 album, Charismatic Megafauna, Psymon Spine‘s Charismatic Mutationsis a remix of the aforementioned album that features guest remixes from collaborators such as Joe Goddard from Hot Chip, Each Other, and Bucky Boudreau.
Goddard’s remix of “Milk” is first, and it’s lovely and peppy – a fine way to kick off a record of highly danceable and spring break road trip tracks. The “Love Injection Euphoric remix” of “Jumprope” is perfectly named because it’s made to boost your vibrational patterns, give you energy, and probably connect you to various luminous beings.
Brother Michael‘s “Downstairs at Eric’s remix” of “Jacket” gets extra points for referencing Yaz and for being so damn funky. “Modmed” turns into space station lounge grooves with Dar Disku‘s “Balearic Touch” mix of it. Each Other’s remix of “Solution” is almost an industrial dance track. Their synth and drum machine work on it is stunning. The “Safer” remix of “Jumprope” has bass so thick you can almost slice it, and Bucky Boudreaux’s remix of “Different Patterns” almost makes it into a torch song for androids.
There isn’t a weak remix on here, which is not always the case for remix albums. Psymon Spine chose their collaborators and ideas well.
Keep your mind open.
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This summer, hallucinatory keyboard wizard Marco Benevento pulls back the curtain on his latest studio effort, simply titled, Benevento. Due June 10 on Royal Potato Family, the 11-track collection presents 40-minutes of small-batch psychedelia, bubbled up from his home studio (Fred Short Studios) at the base of the Catskill Mountains in Woodstock, NY. Its title nods to Paul McCartney‘s first solo album and like Macca’s eponymous release, Benevento is a similarly loose, low-key affair where song sketches and sunrise jams share space with more constructed tracks. Benevento plays all of the instruments with exception of percussion from Mamadouba ‘Mimo’ Camara and backing vocals by his wife and kids on a handful of songs. He also produced and engineered the recording. The album’s latest single “Marco & Mimo,” which sets Afro-Caribbean melodic lines and sing-song, earworm vocals against the bump ‘n’ grind of Camara’s percussion, is out today (listen/share), while pre-order is available here.
“This record really acts as a psychedelic window into my studio and my brain,” Benevento explains. “The studio was a good place to be trapped for the last few years. I was surrounded by tape machines and gear. The album started to become this document of a crazy dude losing his mind in the woods—and maybe regaining it.”
Recording was conducted amidst stacks of gear in varying states of repair, all fodder for inspiration during long quarantine-dictated solo jam sessions. In this environment, Benevento unlocked his archives, mining for unfinished song ideas, and surrendered to the machines, coaxing beats and melodies from both go-to favorites and gear that had long been collecting dust. Benevento has since decamped to a new, significantly larger, home studio. As such, the album also acts as a swan song for his former workspace.
“Wall-to-wall keyboards, mics, amps, drums, the place was about to explode,” Benevento laughs.
In contrast to Let It Slide, his minimalistic 2019 full-length collaboration with producer Leon Michels, Benevento is heavily saturated and experimental, built from countless layers of keyboards, bounced to 4-track tape. Deeply indebted to the West African psychedelia of artists such as Francis Bebey, Kiki Gyan and William Onyeabor, the songs are rhythmic and repetitive, built into thick mosaics of sound. Each track features at least one keyboard solo, allowing Benevento ample time to explore sounds from the deepest recesses of his gear collection.
For the five songs with vocals, Benevento collaborated on lyrics with Al Howard, a San Diego-based poet. Howard handed over a 10 pages of lyrical sketches which Benevento worked into his tracks, occasionally chopping and mixing the lines or adding in words of his own.
“It was a new thing for me to dive in to—using someone’s lyrics,” Benevento says. “Or, I should say, finding a way to fit someone else’s lyrics into my tunes. I was a bit fed up with my own lyrical ideas, and was immediately drawn to Al’s writing.”
Despite stresses of the global pandemic, the vibe at Fred Short Studios was deeply peaceful and creative as Benevento patiently worked through years of accumulated ideas, lost, as he says, in the wonder of Woodstock. The experience ended up being so inspiring that—in another nod to McCartney—Benevento II is already in the works.
“I guess all my records are kind of experimental and weird, but this one is really unique,” Benevento says. “Records are snapshots of time, and this is from a time when it was just me, dialing knobs and making mixes and inventing how things could sound.”
As such, Benevento is sonic time capsule, a wormhole beckoning listeners to enter and explore. Throw away your preconceptions of time and space and dive in.
Benevento is out June 10 on Limited Edition Bubblegum Pink 180-Gram Vinyl, Classic Black 180-Gram Vinyl and Digital formats from Royal Potato Family. Pre-order available HERE
Marco Benevento Tour Dates:
4/7 – Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair 4/8 – Burlington, VT – Higher Ground 4/9 – Fairfield, CT – Stage One 6/22 – Rochester, NY – Abilene 6/23 – Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird 6/24 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom 6/25 – Rothbury, MI – Electric Forest Festival 7/1 – Scranton, PA – Peach Music Festival 7/3 – Quincy, CA – High Sierra Music Festival 9/3 – Portland, ME – Ghostland Festival
Orange County-bred Vicky Farewell releases a new single/lyric video, “Kakashi (All of the Time)” from her debut album, Sweet Company, out April 8th on Mac’s Record Label. The anime-inspired standout “Kakashi” came about during a COVID lockdown binge of the Naruto series. “It’s probably the most fun I ever had writing a song,” says Farewell. “It’s also the most embarrassing and I thought I’d never share this with anyone, but here we are.” Elongated synth acts as the song’s backbone, as Farewell’s saccharine voices sparkles across.
Farewell’s emergence as a solo act is the latest chapter in an already impressive career. A classically-trained pianist, songwriter, and producer, Farewell began to flourish at the epicenter of the funk-addled and deeply experimental Angeleno musical ecosystem alongside The Free Nationals in the studios of Shafiq Husayn (of Sa-Ra Creative Partners) before graduating to the legendary hip-hop producer Dr. Dre’s. She also boasts writing credits on Anderson.Paak‘s acclaimed GRAMMY-nominated album Malibu (Best Urban Contemporary Album) and the GRAMMY-winning album Ventura (Best R&B Album). With this rare combination of elite musicianship and singular vocal performance, Farewell produced, arranged, and engineered Sweet Company herself. Her particular knack for pocket-driven ear worms match the album’s melancholy tone with whimsical notions and unbridled joy.
Sweet Company cements Farewell as a true record producer, complete with the confidence to let the music do the talking. For Farewell, it’s “all about the music and the music is fucking good.”Sweet Company is a bold statement of artistic capacity delivered in feather-light refrains, bursting phasers, and robust arpeggios that conjure pastels and the tender nostalgia of a childhood crush. Farewell finds herself fully realized in the span of eight tracks painstakingly designed to shatter industry norms.
Kevin Marksson, otherwise known as Endearments, makes spacey dream pop seem easy, even though at least two of the songs on his Father of Wands EP are about heartbreak.
I mean, opener “Ocean” starts with the lyrics, “You could make me nothing. You could be the ocean. I’m inside you drowning.” Meanwhile Marksson’s synth and guitars are as bright as the high noon sun bouncing off the surface of Caribbean beach waters.
“How could we love each other endlessly?” He asks on “Empress,” a song in which he speaks of knowing a lover could treat him well if only she would stop focusing on just herself. The song bursts with optimism, though. Marksson’s instrumentation is too bright to ignore and too lovely to deny.
That being said, “Hymnal” has Marksson singing about how he can’t understand his girl’s thinking and how she can’t understand how he’s lost without her (“I don’t think you understand where I go when I’m not here with you.”). The closing track, “Delicate,” has Marksson resigned to the fact that things might not work out after all and he just needs to accept that (“I thought I was yours, but I could never be enough for you like this.”).
Still, the EP has that optimism I mentioned earlier. Marksson lets us know that love can be rough, but there is always some hope that, if we can’t find love, it might find us.
Today, Orange County-bred Vicky Farewell announces Sweet Company, her debut album, out April 8th on Mac’s Record Label, and presents a visualizer for its lead single, “Are We OK?” Possessing a rare combination of elite musicianship and singular vocal performance, Farewell produced, arranged, and engineered Sweet Company herself. Her particular knack for pocket-driven ear worms match the album’s melancholy tone with whimsical notions and unbridled joy.
Farewell’s emergence as a solo act is the latest chapter in an already impressive career. A classically-trained pianist, songwriter, and producer, Farewell began to flourish at the epicenter of the funk-addled and deeply experimental Angeleno musical ecosystem alongside The Free Nationals in the studios of Shafiq Husayn (of Sa-Ra Creative Partners) before graduating to the legendary hip-hop producer Dr. Dre. Boasting writing credits on Anderson .Paak’s acclaimed GRAMMY-nominated album Malibu (Best Urban Contemporary Album) and the GRAMMY-winning album Ventura (Best R&B Album); it was in the company of these giants that Farewell found her sound, and—at their urging—she ultimately found her own voice.
Today’s “Are We OK?” was born at the height of pandemic uncertainty, conveying the palpable vulnerability of that fraught period. “‘Are We OK?’ was the first song I ever wrote and produced to completion on my own,” says Farewell, “Honestly, I never considered myself much of a singer until I made this song. It really paved a way for the rest of the record.”
Grounded by the pandemic, Farewell channeled her artistic energy into a vehicle she could operate from the comforts of her own home. The ability to work with little to no input from the outside world is a hallmark of the scene that made her, and this approach affords Farewell the freedom to perfect her output. Though the first track came from her decision to write tunes for fun, Farewell was encouraged to record a full-length record by the more established artists in her orbit who were digesting these early demos. Upon finishing Sweet Company, Farewell played the album for Mac Demarco and was offered a deal on the spot: “I’ve known Vicky for several years now, she’s a good friend and a ripping musician. I’m super excited to be working on this release with her. Vicky shared a couple of the songs with me as she was making them a while ago, and it’s been cool to watch the rest of her process in putting it all together. I love all these tunes, I’m happy Vicky’s allowed us to help out with them, and I’m really excited for everybody else out there to have a rip on them.”
Sweet Company cements Farewell as a true record producer, complete with the confidence to let the music do the talking. For Farewell, it’s “all about the music and the music is fucking good.” Sweet Company is a bold statement of artistic capacity delivered in feather-light refrains, bursting phasers, and robust arpeggios that conjure pastels and the tender nostalgia of a childhood crush. Farewell finds herself fully realized in the span of eight tracks painstakingly designed to shatter industry norms.
Sweet Company Tracklist 1. Prelude 2. Sweet Company 3. Kakashi (All of the Time) 4. Believe Me 5. Are We OK? 6. H.W. 7. Forever 8. Get Me
Good heavens…This album is so lush, haunting, and beautiful that it will sweep you away from whatever you’re doing when you play it. Anika’s voice immediately drapes over you like a luxurious robe with a knife hidden in a back pocket.
Seriously, why aren’t more people going nuts over Rochelle Jordan? She mixes soul, house, disco, and trip hop better than most, and Play with the Changes is, if you ask me, the sexiest album of 2021.
This lovely mix of trip hop, dream pop, bossa nova, and house music is a delight from start to finish. It was a much-needed tonic during the crappy 365 days of 2021. It’s a perfect spin for any time of year. Got the winter blues? Play this. Need a fun record for that summer beach trip? Play this. Need a boost to start your garden? Play this. Looking forward to sipping hot cider in the fall? Play this.
This solo record from one of the cats in Durand Jones and The Indications is one of the best soul and R&B records of 2021. Frazer puts down his trademark sharp beats and brings his other trademark, high-end vocals, with him to create a groovy, sexy blend that impressed Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys so much that he produced it.
This album got locked into my number one spot not long after it was released. It’s a sharp post-punk record, and I remember being more and more impressed with it after each listen. It covers everything from Brexit and the pandemic to boredom and hope for the future. It’s snarky, witty, and powerful.
There you have it. I hope 2022 is good to all of us.
Keep your mind open.
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Let’s Eat Grandma – the duo composed of songwriters, multi-instrumentalists, and vocalists Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth – present a new single/video, “Happy New Year,” from their much anticipated third full-length album, Two Ribbons, out April 8th on Transgressive. Following the title track and “Hall Of Mirrors,” “Happy New Year” is a blissful song celebrating friendship. The video features the duo embroiled in a tennis match-turned-party, the fierce to-and-fro between them representing the difficulties their relationship has faced, and the fireworks behind them illuminating a new chapter in their friendship.
Walton elaborates: “I wrote ‘Happy New Year’ after a breakdown between us that lasted for a long period of time, to communicate to her how important she is to me and how our bond and care for each other goes much deeper than this difficult time. I used the setting of New Year as both an opportunity for reflection, looking back nostalgically through childhood memories that we shared, and to represent the beginning of a fresh chapter for us. I’d been struggling to come to terms with the fact that our relationship had changed, but as the song and time progresses I come to accept that it couldn’t stay the way it was when we were kids forever, and start to view it as a positive thing – because now we have been able to grow into our own individual selves.”
Two Ribbons tells the story of the last three years from both Hollingworth and Walton’s points of view. Following the critical acclaim for 2018’s I’m All Ears, for which they won Album of the Year at the Q Awards, the two began to find themselves as individuals, tastes differing here, reactions jarring there. There was a time when both felt a little trapped, and needed to fight to create the space to express themselves as individuals within their relationship. Two Ribbons can be heard as a series of letters between the two of them, taking the place of conversations as they try to make sense of the rift in their relationships.
As a body of work, Two Ribbons is astonishing: a dazzling, heart-breaking, life-affirming and mortality-facing record that reveals the duo’s growing artistry and ability to parse intense feelings into lyrics so memorable you’d scribble them on your backpack. Two Ribbons treads a fine line expressing the most intimate feelings of, whilst making space for, the different perspectives of two women; an album that says this is not the beginning or the end but part of a never-ending circle. It’s cyclical in nature; there is sadness, and pain, and joy, and hope – and knows that no matter what detours we take, we are all connected. Listen to “Happy New Year”
This delightful live album from The Beths is full of joy. The band was over the moon, the crowd was ecstatic, and daring to open with “I’m Not Getting Excited” was a gutsy move when everyone in the place was bursting with energy.
Acid Dad were a band I’d heard a lot about, yet didn’t know much about them. I caught them live about an hour from my house and was sold within two songs. Take It from the Dead is a fine psych-rock record with touches of surf that make it a standout.
Ty Segall added a bunch of synths and electronic beats to his already heavy fuzz rock, and the result, Harmonizer, was impressive. He showed his love for krautrock and even dance rock, and that he could pull off both genres as easily as psych jams.
Easily one of the loveliest and sexiest albums of 2022, Till I Start Speaking is a great mix of Morly’s vocals, electro-beats, and synths. I hadn’t heard of Morly until this record was sent to me, and it was a pleasant discovery.
Speaking of lovely records, here’s another one. Bossa nova, disco, ambient, and house all merge together for an album as pretty and trippy as its cover.
Chicago’s Brett Naucke teamed up with two other well-respected Chicago musicians, Natalie Chami and Whitney Johnson, to create Mirror Ensemble– an album that combines synthwave, ambient, and even a bit of indie rock to make a meditative gem.
“Vanity Well” gets things off to a mood-altering start, and then “The Glass Shifting” comes in sounding like something from the new Dune film score. The longest track on the album, “A Look That Tells Time,” takes its time to stretch out and let you relax into it with its temple-like bell sounds and lotus flower-drifting-on-a-lazy-river.
“Catch Your Breath,” at a quarter of the previous track’s length, is a short meditation, while “Parallax” is the sound of sunlight shining through a prism. Trust me, you’ll feel this when you hear it. “Rose Water” is equally delightful, while “Sleep with Your Windows Open” is going to become your new favorite song to put on your bedroom speakers this summer. The closer, “Late Century Reflection,” ends the album with slightly up-tempo beats and synths that rise like a flock of birds from the edge of a still lake.
It’s a lovely record, suitable for meditation, making out, or even just walking around the neighborhood.
Keep your mind open.
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Named after the gardens people were encouraged to start and tend during World War Two, Cold Beat‘s new album, War Garden, is a lovely collection of synthwave, 1980s pop, and optimism created during the pandemic and written, in part at least, via Zoom.
Opening track, “Mandelbrot Fall,” begins with thick 16-bit video game bass and peppy blips while lead singer Hannah Lew sings “There’s nothing to explain, I’m trying anyway.” That’s basically been my motto for the last month. “SOS” starts off like a sad scene in an episode of Stranger Things, but soon blossoms into a happy skate around the roller rink. “Tumescent Decoy” has bright synths bouncing around lyrics about finding paradise within and within lonely times.
“Weeds” brings in shoegaze guitars that are as dreamy as the lyrics. “See You Again” sums up the band’s (and everyone else’s) feeling during the onset of the pandemic. It has a twinge of sadness to it, but an underlying hopeful vibe as Cold Beat knew they’d eventually reunite in person – or even beyond the void if (when) it came to it. “Arms Reach” is a soft caress while “Year Without a Shadow” is almost an industrial dance club floor-filler.
The synths on “Rubble Ren” are as soothing as a Jacuzzi. Lew’s vocals on “Part the Sea” flow like waves while the synths rise like crests and then splash onto the shore. “Leaves and Branches” is just as uplifting. The album ends with the optimistic “New World” – a track to give us hope as we emerge from our self-imposed exiles.
War Garden is one of the more hopeful albums of 2021. Give it a spin if you need a boost.
