Alt rock – Page 13 – 7th Level Music

black midi take it “Slow” (sort of) with their new single.

Today, black midi present a new single/video, “Slow,” from their forthcoming album, Cavalcade, out May 28th on Rough Trade. In conjunction, they announce a fall North American tour, plus a new KEXP interview and performance. A full circle moment for black midi, their first KEXP performance (live from Iceland Airwaves in 2019) is how many first experienced the band. Following lead single “John L,” “a zoomed-out optical illusion, making you question what you’re witnessing at every turn,” (Pitchfork, “Best New Track”) “Slow” is one of two Cavalcade songs fronted by bassist Cameron Picton. The music for “Slow” was written just before black midi’s February 2020 UK tour with the lyrics finalised when demos were recorded in June 2020. They tell the story of a young and idealistic revolutionary dreaming of a better world who ends up being shot in the national stadium after a coup d’état.

“The ‘Slow’ video was made to fit the oscillating dynamics of the song. Going from calm to chaos over and over again,” says director and animator Gustaf Holtenäs. “The video tells the story of a character who creates AI-generated worlds. To emphasize this, I let real AI’s generate a lot of the backgrounds in these worlds. So they are partly AI-generated, but It isn’t long before an AI could create the whole deal and create endless iterations of fantasy worlds. It can already create a random beautiful landscape painting in 1 second.”

Watch black midi’s Video for “Slow”

Cavalcade is a dynamic, hellacious, and inventive follow-up to black midi’s debut, Schlagenheim, one of 2019’s most widely-praised albums. Cavalcade scales beautiful new heights, pulling widely from a plethora of genres and influences, reaching ever upwards from an already lofty base of early achievements. black midi — Geordie Greep (guitar, primary vocals), Cameron Picton (bass, vocals), and Morgan Simpson (drums) — picture Cavalcade as a line of larger than life figures, from a cult leader fallen on hard times and an ancient corpse found in a diamond mine to legendary cabaret singer Marlene Dietrich, strolling seductively past them.
Watch New KEXP Session

Watch “John L” Video

Pre-order Cavalcade

Purchase “John L”/“Despair” 12”

black midi Tour Dates:
Mon. Oct. 4 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
Thu. Oct. 7 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda Theatre
Fri. Oct. 8 – San Diego, CA @ The Casbah
Sat. Oct. 9 – Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy and Harriet’s
Mon. Oct. 11 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Cafe
Tue. Oct. 12 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall
Thu. Oct. 14 – Lakewood, OH @ Mahall’s
Fri. Oct. 15 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Spirit
Sat. Oct. 15 – Kingston, NY @ Tubby’s
Mon. Oct. 18 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
Tue. Oct. 19 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall
Thu. Oct. 21 – Baltimore, MD @ Union Brewery
Sat. Oct. 23 – Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle Tavern
Tue. Oct. 26 – Birmingham, AL @ Saturn
Wed. Oct. 27 – New Orleans, LA @ Republic
Fri. Oct. 29 – Austin, TX @ ??????????
Sat. Oct. 30 – Houston, TX @ The Secret Group

Keep your mind open.

[Take a stroll over to the subscription box while you’re here.]

[Thanks to Sam at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Madi Diaz is “Nervous” on her new single.

Today, Nashville-based songwriter Madi Diaz releases “Nervous,” a new single about recognizing unhealthy coping mechanisms. “Nervous,” her third single for ANTI-, follows the evocative “New Person, Old Place” and “Man In Me,” and further presents Diaz’s ability to write direct and introspective music, a craft she’s spent years refining. The song’s frank lyrics are bellied by infectious guitar and Diaz’s buoyant voice: “I know why I lie to myself // I’m not really looking to get healthy // I have so many perspectives I’m losing perspective I make me nervous.” The accompanying video was shot in Nashville and directed by Jordan Bellamy. It was inspired by and includes an homage to the final scene of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film The Stalker, a film that has always resonated with Diaz through its otherworldly nature, as well as its thoughtful and often anxiety inducing pace.

“You know when you hold a mirror up to a mirror and you get an infinite amount of reflections from every angle? That’s what ‘Nervous’ is about,” says Diaz. “It’s when you’re in a loop of looking at yourself from every vantage point until you’re caught up in your own tangled web of bullshit. It’s about catching yourself acting out your crazy and you’re finally self aware enough to see it, but you’re still out of your body enough and curious enough to watch yourself do it.”
Watch Madi Diaz’s “Nervous” Video

Watch the “New Person, Old Place” Video

Watch the “Man In Me” Video

Keep your mind open.

[I get nervous when you don’t subscribe.]

[Thanks to Jessica and Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Wings of Desire are “Better Late Than Never” with their new single.

Releasing debut EP End Of An Age back in February this year, the arcane Wings Of Desire have held a mirror up to the intensity of modern life, questioned our well-worn paths of existence, and asked the important questions on subjects of conformity and living in the present.

Drawing inspiration from visual arts and 20th century counterculture, Wings Of Desire confront themes of ignorance and identity to create shape-shifting soundscapes that cut deep, flitting between the dazed and euphoric, to the propulsive and emotional, through previous singles ‘001’, ‘Runnin’, ‘Be Here Now’, and ‘Chance Of A Lifetime’.

Today the two-piece share boundless new track ‘Better Late Than Never’ alongside a video. The visual was inspired by the early cinematic technique of Polyvision and the Mike Figgis film Timecode. The idea was to portray a multitude of days lived, and to reflect the various edges of our individual personalities through the mundane. It was shot on 8mm film and is meant to give the viewer a Rear Window insight into the human experience.

In the west, we are ingrained to think getting older is a bad thing.

In the east ageing is championed and seen as an opportunity to gain great insight and wisdom.

The song is about letting go and allowing time to take you on a grand journey of self discovery, and finding empowerment in all the life experience one has gained.

We need to find the transcendent in a world rooted in constant change and destruction. Otherwise we risk being washed ashore.

Watch the video for ‘Better Late Than Never’ HERE.

Keep your mind open.

[Better to subscribe late rather than never.]

[Thanks to Amy at Prescription PR.]

Rewind Review: The D4 – 6Twenty (2003)

Coming in hot and heavy and all the way from New Zealand, The D4 are like a Down Under MC5 (who also are probably the inspiration for the band’s name). Their album, 6Twenty, is full of crunchy guitar riffs, thunderous drums, and horny, wailing vocals.

Take opening track, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Motherfucker,” for example. It bursts through the window like John Shaft swinging into the room with a machine gun and proceeds to lay waste to everything around it. Dion Palmer (AKA Dion Lunadon) and Jimmy Christmas unleash killer vocals and guitars throughout it – and every other track for that matter. “Get Loose” has Christmas craving for action while Daniel “Beaver” Pooley hammers out a snappy beat full of Keith Moon-like fills. He also gets the party started on “Party,” and soon Vaughn Williams is joining him with a wild bass line that inspires you to go nuts. The MC5 influence is clear here, especially in Christmas’ vocal styling.

“Come On!” yanks you out of your chair and tosses you into the crowd to either get sweaty or get the hell out of the way. Their cover of Guitar Wolf‘s “Invader Ace” is a lights-out rocker. Williams and Pooley barely give you time to breathe, and then the guitar solo comes in to clothesline you over the top rope. “Exit to the City” is the slowest track on the record, and I lightly use that term. It’s a swaggering bit of cock rock with cool phaser effects and another sizzling guitar solo.

“Heartbreaker” has Christmas yelling about losing a lover while the rest of the band gives him moral support by flattening any walls around him. “Running on Empty” isn’t a Jackson Browne cover (which would’ve been amazing), but rather a fun garage rock track that has a rock-solid rhythm from Williams and Pooley. “Ladies Man” has the confidence of the Tim Meadows‘ Saturday Night Live and film character, and great organ work from guest Cameron Rowe. Their cover of Johnny Thunders‘ “Pirate Love” is a great tribute to him (and The New York Dolls).

“Little Baby” screams right on by you like a runaway armored truck, “Rebekah” has an undeniable rock groove that catches your attention no matter what you’re doing, their cover of Scavengers‘ “Mysterex” is an ode to “nine to fivers” and “soul survivors.” The album closes with “Outta Blues,” in which Christmas sings, “I’m outta blues, but I’m okay,” making us wonder which part of that statement is correct (and all of the instruments are right-on throughout it).

It’s a great debut record of rock sizzlers beginning to end.

Keep your mind open.

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A Place to Bury Strangers announces new lineup, new tour, new EP, and new single.

Brooklyn’s A Place To Bury Strangers announces their new EP, Hologram, out July 16th on founding member Oliver Ackermann’s label Dedstrange, and presents a new single/video, “End Of The Night.” Hologram is the anticipated follow-up to 2018‘s Pinned and will be capped by a world tour in early 2022. In 2003, A Place To Bury Strangers emerged on the scene out of Ackermann’s psychotropic vision. Often cited as “the loudest band in New York,” A Place To Bury Strangers is known for their vicious live performances overloaded with all-consuming visuals, experimental sonic warfare, and treacherous stage antics. 2021 welcomes a lineup change. Ackermann is joined by new members John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) of Ceremony East Coast, cementing the most sensational version of the band to date. John and Oliver were childhood friends who had played in the legendary underground shoegaze band Skywave, crafting futuristic punk music together. This next phase is a sonic return to the band’s most raw and unhinged endeavors, pushed even further into a new chaotically apocalyptic incarnation.

Lead single “End Of The Night” buzzes with percussion and murky noise and synth, as reflected in the disorienting self-directed video. Oliver Ackermann elborates: “‘End Of The Night’ is the first written in collaboration with either of the new band members. John sent me the drum track and challenged me to write a song over it. It sort of came about as a strange stream of consciousness and unknowingly became about the end of the former band and the beginning of the new one. Each layer of the song stripping away the dead skin from the old and regrowing layer and layer of distortion of the new band. It’s great to be working again with John Fedowitz. I feel like our songwriting styles shot off in different directions from our earlier band Skywave only to come back to the table with different experiences to create something special again.”

A Place To Bury Strangers will host a screening of the Dedstrange SXSW Showcase this Friday, April 23rd at 7PM Eastern Time via the label’s Facebook and YouTube. It’s the first performance featuring the band’s new lineup, and other artists performing include Holy F–k, Randy Randall (No Age), Paul Jacobs (Pottery), Data Animal and Jealous.

Watch “End Of The Night” Video

Pre-order Hologram EP

Hologram EP Tracklist
1. End Of The Night
2. I Might Have
3. Playing The Part
4. In My Hive
5. I Need You A Place To Bury Strangers 2022 Tour Dates:
Wed. March 9 – Hamburg, DE @ Hafenklang
Thu. March 10 – Dresden, DE @ Beatpol
Fri. March 11 – Warsaw, PL @ Klub Poglos
Sat. March 12 – Prague, CZ @ Futurum
Sun. March 13 – Bratislava, SK @ Randal Club
Mon. March 14 – Budapest, HU @ Durer Kert
Wed. March 16 – Bucharest, RO @ Control Club
Thu. March 17 – Sofia, BG @ Mixtape5Fri. March 18 – Thessaloniki, GR @ Eightball
Sat. March 19 – Athens, GR @ Temple
Mon. March 21 – Skopje, MK @ 25th of May Hall
Tue. March 22 – Belgrade, RS @ Club Drugstore
Thu. March 24 – Zagreb, HR @ Mochvara
Fri. March 25 – Bologna, IT @ Freakout Club
Sat. March 26 – Rome, IT @ Largo
Sun. March 27 – Milan, IT @ Legend Club
Tue. March 29 – Zurich, CH @ Bogen F
Wed. March 30 – Munich, DE @ Backstage
Thu. March 31 – Martigny, CH @ Caves Du Memoir
Fri. April 1 – Paris, FR @ La TrabendoSat. April 2 – London, UK @ Lafayette
Mon. April 4 – Antwerp, BE @ Kayka
Tue. April 5 – Munster, DE @ Gleis 22
Wed. April 6 – Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg
Thu. April 7 – Groningen, NL @ Vera
Sat. April 9 – Stockholm, SE @ Hus 7
Sun. April 10 – Oslo, NO @ John Dee
Mon. April 11 – Copenhagen, DK @ Pumpehuset
Tue. April 12 – Berlin, DE @ Hole 44
Wed. April 13 – Cologne, DE @ MTC

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe while you’re here.]

[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Jealous announced debut double-EP due August 13th

Jealous are a powerhouse trio making adventurous, unhinged art-punk and Dedstrange is here to cram it down your throat.

“Lover/What’s Your Damage?” is the first Dedstrange release and the debut double EP from these freaks from Berlin. It’s a co-release with Jealous’ label Baby Satan Records, who will be issuing it on cassette. It’s got nine rippin’ tracks that twist glam, garage, cowpunk, and riot-grrl influences into a potent strain of DIY post-punk fury with enough energy to tear down the wall one more time. They’ve played across the pond with the likes of Viagra Boys, The Black Lips, Amyl And The Sniffers, and Surfbort—and they’re coming for you, world!

You might think you’re ready for “Lover/What’s Your Damage?” to hit the streets on August 13, 2021, but you’re not. These here songs are about what goes on inside a serial killer’s brain, the flaws inherent to human nature, and the softer side of drug comedowns.

Lead single “K-Hole II” is a soundtrack for the highs and lows of navigating an existential post-break-up trip. On “Blackeye,” pounding minimalist drums keep rhythm while a guitar part like a Vulcan mind meld between Mary Timony and Poison Ivy snakes its way across the mix until all hell breaks loose. “Fastcars” is a high-octane, in-the-red, just absolute bruiser of a cut, so try to keep up, alright?

Limited to 300 copies, “Lover/What’s Your Damage?” is the first official physical release from Jealous, and with all the buzz is sure to sell out quickly. Indie Berlin calls Jealous “rising stars within the alternative microcosm” with “a rather intriguing spectacle,” “mad pack energy,” and “an explosive sound.”

Keep your mind open.

[You can keep me of being jealous of other music blogs by subscribing to mine.]

[Thanks to Steven at Dedstrange.]

Angel Olsen to release box set of three albums and a 40-page book due out May 07th.

Today, Angel Olsen announces Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories, a box set featuring All Mirrors and Whole New Mess, plus a bonus LP titled Far Memory, and a 40-page book collection, out May 7th on Jagjaguwar. In conjunction with the announcement, she presents “It’s Every Season (Whole New Mess).” Originally conceived as a double album, All Mirrors and Whole New Mess were distinct parts of a larger whole, twin stars that each expressed something bigger and bolder than Angel Olsen had ever made. Now, with Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories, these twin stars become a constellation with the full extent of the songs’ iterations: all the alternate takes, b-sides, remixes and reimaginings are here, together. Alongside, a 40-page book collection tells a similar story, not just through outtakes and unseen photos but through the smaller, evocative details: handwritten lyrics, a favorite necklace, a beaded chandelier. As if it could be more plainly stated (there’s nothing more), Angel adds one cover here: a loving, assertive rendition of Roxy Music’s “More Than This.”

“It’s Every Season (Whole New Mess)” was recorded during the All Mirrors session, and is an alternate version of “Whole New Mess.” It has an acoustic backbone, blooming with Olsen’s singular voice. As it continues, the song erupts with drums, electric bass, and Nate Walcott’s brass arrangement.

Watch/Listen to “It’s Every Season (Whole New Mess)” Via the Visualizer

Released in 2019, All Mirrors is massive in scope and sound, tracing Olsen’s ascent into the unknown, to a place of true self-acceptance, no matter how dark, or difficult, or seemingly lonely. All Mirrors is colossal, moving, dramatic in an Old Hollywood manner. Recorded before All Mirrors but released after, Whole New Mess is the bones and beginnings of the songs that would rewrite Olsen’s story. This is Angel Olsen in her classic style: stark solo performances, echoes and open spaces, her voice both whispered and enormous. All Mirrors and Whole New Mess presented the two glorious extremes of an artist who, in these songs, became new by embracing herself entirely.

In first speaking about Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories, Olsen said, “It feels like part of my writing has come back from the past, and another part of it was waiting to exist.” What better way to articulate timelessness. If Whole New Mess holds the truths of Olsen’s enduring self, and All Mirrors documents her ascent toward a new future, Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories exists out of time, capturing the whole artist beyond this one sound, or that one recording, or any one idea. It is a definitive collection, not just of these songs, but of their revelations and their writer, from their simplest origins to their mightiest realizations.

Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories is limited to 3,000 physical pieces. To celebrate the announcement, Olsen filmed an unboxing video to show the scope of the package.
Watch the Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories Unboxing Video

Pre-order Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories

Far Memory Bonus LP Tracklist:
1. All Mirrors (Johnny Jewel Remix)
2. New Love Cassette (Mark Ronson Remix)
3. More Than This
4. Smaller
5. It’s Every Season (Whole New Mess)
6. Alive and Dying (Waving, Smiling)

All Mirrors Tracklist:
1. Lark
2. All Mirrors
3. Too Easy
4. New Love Cassette
5. Spring
6. What It Is
7. Impasse
8. Tonight
9. Summer
10. Endgame
11. Chance

Whole New Mess Tracklist
1. Whole New Mess
2. Too Easy (Bigger Than Us)
3. (New Love) Cassette
4. (We Are All Mirrors)
5. (Summer Song)
6. Waving, Smiling
7. Tonight (Without You)
8. Lark Song
9. Impasse (Workin’ For The Name)
10. Chance (Forever Love)
11. What It Is (What It Is)

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe while you’re here.]

[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

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

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.

Keep your mind open.

[Subscribing might make you a new person.]

[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]

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

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

Keep your mind open.

[It wouldn’t hurt to subscribe.]

[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

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

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 Records. Distance 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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[I can’t tell you why you won’t subscribe. I keep trying to figure it out, but no luck…]

[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]