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♡”
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)
CLUTCHannounces 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
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” HERE. Revolver 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-Nirvana, The Misfits, The Spits and Master of Reality-era Black Sabbath, Next 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.
British post-bunkers Dry Cleaning have a way of combining angular, jagged, rollicking chords, riffs, and drum fills with spoken word vocals that is difficult to describe and even more difficult for anyone to attempt to emulate. Front woman Florence Shaw is one of the wittiest and most enigmatic lyricists out there right now, and her bandmates (Nick Buxton – drums, Tom Dowse – guitar, and Lewis Maynard – bass) are wild craftsmen in their own right. Their first full-length album, New Long Leg, is a cool record that’s a little tighter than their previous EPs, made so by having plenty of time to tweak tracks and explore new sounds thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic cancelling their 2020 tour, but no less intriguing.
Maynard’s bass is something the Delta 5 would love on the opening track, “Scratchcard Lanyard,” while Shaw tells us, “It’s okay, I just need to be weird and hide for a bit and eat an old sandwich from my bag.” Haven’t we all felt like that at some point since March 2020? “Unsmart Lady” starts with a wild cacophony and then settles into a solid rock groove from Dowse that reminds me of good Foreigner tracks. Shaw also lets you know how to find a girlfriend: “If you like a girl, be nice. It’s not rocket science.”
My favorite lyric of Shaw’s on “Strong Feelings” is “That seems like a lot of garlic.” It comes out of nowhere among Buxton’s tight, yet slippery beats. “Leafy” seems to be about a break-up with Shaw singing about cleaning out a house (“What about all the uneaten sausages?”) while her bandmates seem to be playing a different song in another room. This is the kind of song Dry Cleaning does so well. Shaw seems to be doing her own thing while Buxton, Dowse, and Maynard are jamming on their own, but both elements somehow perfectly combine.
It will be a crime if Dry Cleaning doesn’t produce merchandise that reads “More espresso, less depresso.” – a great lyric from the jangly, yet smooth “Her Hippo.” The title track, with its stabbing guitar riffs, has Shaw musing over the idea of going on a cruise while she’s stuck at home due to every travel plan getting cancelled last year. “If you’re an Aries, then I’m an Aries,” Shaw says, perhaps flirtatiously, on “John Wick” – which has nothing to do with an Uber-assassin and more to do with old men griping about things that don’t matter. Dowse’s guitar on it is almost the sound of these men bitching about Antiques Roadshow and the trash truck running late.
Shaw’s vocals sound slightly electronic / robotic on “More Big Birds,” almost turning her into a computer voice. It’s a slight touch, but instantly intriguing. I’d love to know the story behind “ALC” because it starts with Shaw telling someone, “You can’t just come into my garden in your football kit and start asking questions about who lives here. Who’s asking?”
The closer, “Every Day Carry,” is a wild, psychedelic trip that has Dowse, Maynard, and Buxton playing a cool psych-jazz / post-punk blend in a dark club in the back of a former clock factory while Shaw sings / speaks about topics ranging from chocolate chips cookies and imminent domain construction to cab drivers and geese. There’s a great breakdown about halfway through when the band dissolves into a noise rock jam and then kicks back into gear with swirling sounds and Shaw’s voice and lyrics being the eye of their hurricane. It ends like a power outage.
New Long Leg is setting the bar high for other post-punk bands (or any other genre, really) to follow in 2021. Dry Cleaning’s forced vacation did wonders for their creative energy and focus, and for our ears.
Keep your mind open.
[Stretch your legs over to the subscription box while you’re here.]
Ten years in the making, Open Hand‘s newest album, Weirdo, has plenty of appropriately weird stuff, psychedelic fuzz, vintage synths, and seriously cool chops. The album opens with someone saying, “I’ve got a message for you, and you’re not going to like it.” Okay, Open Hand. You have my attention.
“The People’s Temple” has guitarist / vocalists Justin Isham encouraging us to leave because he’s feeling much better. It’s an interesting suggestion after a decade, and even more so as Isham sings that he’s considering running away from something (Stardom? A relationship? People in general?). It’s difficult to take him too seriously, however, because the opening track bumps and jams with funky keys by Kyle Hammond and damn funky drumming by Gil Sharone.
Mike Longworth‘s rapid bass chords open the danceable “It Takes Me,” which reminds me of the dance-funk stylings of !!!. Isham and Ryan Castanga‘s guitars shimmer on the fuzz-heavy “Again?”, showing off the band’s deftness at switching from dance-funk to shoegaze and doing both genres well. They go back to dance-funk on “Like I Do,” and Hammond gets another chance to strut his stuff with formidable synth bleeps, bloops, and beats.
“Return” (with guest drums from Mike Levine and guest vocals from Lisa Loeb) is a neat, spacey track, and “In My Way” gets us firmly back into shoegaze territory, reminding one of Humand Failurecuts. Sharone puts down some of his fiercest beats on the track. Seriously, some of his fills will knock you back in your chair. Isham, Longworth, and Castanga crank up the fuzz on “I Think So,” and it mixes well with Sharone’s rocket fuel drums and Hammond’s sunshine synths.
“Loved,” with guest co-vocals from Brittany Snow, has a bit of a prog-rock feel to it that changes things up a bit. Bill Gaal takes over on bass on “Chances,” and proceeds to get his money’s worth by thudding us with glorious fuzz and low end as the rest of Open Hand unleash a track that Josh Homme would envy. “Draw the Line” ends the album with some space rock and, I think, samples from the weird John Carpenter horror film, The Prince of Darkness.
I don’t know why Open Hand took a decade off from releasing new material, but I’m glad they’re back in 2021. Everyone needs good music nowadays, and stuff as good as Weirdo is more than welcome.
Max Heart, the new album by Kalbells, is lovely synth-pop created by four ladies who have a love of grooving and jamming. Led by Kalmia Traver, the band started as a solo project for her but she and her touring bandmates bonded so tight that they became a regular thing and started creating funky psych-synth tunes that seem effortless. The band (Angelica Bess, Zoe Becher, Sarah Pedinotti, and Traver) have often spoken about this Zen-like state of locking into each other’s energy and letting thins naturally occur. Much of Max Heart is centered around love – finding it, embracing it, losing it, and rediscovering it – and the Zen mantra of “Let go or be dragged.”
“Red Marker” begins with spacey lounge vocal stylings as Traver tells us to “kiss her inner bouncy ball.” and that she’s “in her element although the skies are getting darker.” “Flute Windows Open in the Rain” is a peppy tale about Traver finding happiness in self-isolation and moving forward after a break-up. The warped bass and sexy groove of “Purplepink” make it a standout on the album. It’s great for rainy late night drives, making out, or even dancing around in your kitchen while making backed macaroni.
The simple beats of “Poppy Tree” blend well with the space-age airport hangar keyboards throughout it. Besides having a fun title, “Hump the Beach,” also has sexy French vocals, bubbling synths, and even a weird horn section piece. “Pickles” is full of double entendres, especially when guest rapper Miss Eaves unloads some fun lyrics on it. The beats on “Bubbles” sound like a sped-up ping-pong game played underwater in a dream in which you’re also playing hide and seek with a lovely woman who might be a mermaid. It’ll make sense once you hear it, trust me.
The electro beats on “Big Lake” sizzle like water flicked into a hot skillet. “I woke up with a fish tank in my hips,” Traver sings on “Diagram of Me Sleeping.” It’s a witty, weird, and sensual lyric that puts into mind the joke of Groucho Marx watching a femme fatale walk away from him with her hips swaying, and then Groucho turning to the camera and saying, “That reminds me, I need to get my watch fixed.” The saxophone solo on the track is a nice touch, too. The title track closes the album with a joyful sway, keyboards that sound like giddy birds, a jazzy piano solo, and fat synth-bass.
It’s a fun record, and a much-needed uplifting album as we (here in the U.S., at least) emerge from winter and isolation to embrace the sun and, hopefully, the beginning of a return to human interaction.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
New Zealand’s Swallow the Rat (featuring ex-My Education guitarist Brian Purington) and New York’s Clone (ex-Dead Leaf Echo, Squad 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.
