I’ve been waiting for a new album from Japanese kraut-rockers Minami Deutsch for a while. They were too good to fade away without at least one more record of their intoxicating music. Thankfully, Fortune Goodiescame along last October and gave us a nice record for sitting back and contemplating our higher selves.
Starting with “Your Pulse,” the album gets off to a thumping start by mixing electronic and physical beats with breath sounds to simulate the rising, enjoyable tension in you as the song grows. You might feel “Still Foggy” by the next track. It blends repetitive bass notes with what sounds like clinking glasses, shuffling papers, and other subtle, odd noises that bring to mind going to work after staying up too late. “Grumpy Joa” is so fun and peppy that you really can’t be grumpy during it.
The guitars on “Pueblo” fire up a sense of adventure and a few nods to Carlos Santana. “Interpreters of Forest” slides like a lazy cat into psychedelia, and the title track (appropriately the longest on the record) is nearly eight minutes of toe-tapping, trippy delights. They pump up the fuzz a bit on “Whereabouts,” which has a bit of a 1960s garage rock touch. It’s also one of multiple tracks in which lead singer and guitarist Kyotaro Miula adds an interesting vocal effect that makes it sound like his voice is coming out of an old radio. It’s a neat touch that adds to the otherworldly sounds they create.
“Steller Waffle” is wonderfully weird with its percolator beats and synths. “Floating Fountain” is just as relaxing and meditative as you hope it will be with a title like that, and the final track, “The Border,” is even more elevating. It might cause astral projection if listened to at the right volume and in the right space.
I’m glad Minami Deutsch is back, and hope to see them tour the U.S. again soon. A live show of this new material would be transcendent.
Keep your mind open.
[I would consider it good fortune if you subscribed.]
The Hermosillo, Mexico-based quartet Margaritas Podridas have been riding a rare wave of excitement in 2023. An underground sensation in their native Mexico, the band began to make inroads in the US with their 2022 KEXP session, which has racked up over 500k views, and showcased the band’s ferocious live show and transfixing blend of shoegaze, grunge and punk influences. 2023 has seen the group hit the road consistently, playing the SXSW, opening for The Smashing Pumpkins at Mexico City’s The World Is A Vampire festival and opening touring in support of Mannequin Pussy and Protomartyr in the US. The American press has taken notice as well, with the band featured in Rolling Stone, Spin, Brooklyn Vegan, and last month their single “Filosa” was given a glowing write up from NPR when it was released as part of the Sub Pop Singles Club series.
Today, following a triumphant headlining show in LA over the weekend, the band are sharing a new single entitled “Corazon” which is accompanied by a video directed by the group’s leader Carolina Rivera.
WATCH Margaritas Podridas – “Corazon” video on YouTube
Rivera says of the track:
“I made this song when I was angry. It’s about being hurt by the words of someone you love. I wrote it at El Corazon venue in Seattle. It is a very personal song about how my heart was at the time. I felt like nothing made sense anymore; being there wasn’t enough even although it was my dream I wasn’t happy. Probably lack of sun and all my bad choices in life.”
In July Margaritas Podridas will embark on their first European tour. Full details can be found below.
Tour Dates 7/10 – Berlin – Reverberation Fest 7/17 – Groningen – VERA 7/20 – London – The Lower Third 7/22 – Bristol – Crofter’s Rights 7/23 – Brighton – The Hope & Ruin 7/25 – Paris – Supersonic 7/27 – San Sebastian – Dabadaba 7/28 – Oviedo – Edificio Histórico de la Universidad de Oviedo 729 – Madrid – Sala Clamores 7/31 – Barcelona – Upload 8/1 – Marseille – La Molotov
Today, Portland, Oregon multi-faceted musician quickly, quickly shares dreamy, jazz-influenced single “Falling Apart Without You”. The track follows funky lead-single “Satellite” and the announcement of his new EP, Easy Listening, out May 26th via Ghostly.
On the track, Jonson shares: “This song started out as sort of a joke, a tongue in cheek breakup song leaning heavy on the camp. I wanted to make something that sounded like a weird 70’s song from a different planet with the sensibilities of a blossom dearie track or something similar. I made the whole track in a night and forgot about it for a while and upon re-listening I figured it would fit perfectly on the EP as campy as it is.”
The new quickly, quickly EP finds Portland, Oregon’s Graham Jonson back in his home studio, engrossed in ‘60s psychedelic soul music, imagining some bygone era where it was all about the drum sounds and tape decay. He calls itEasy Listening; the songs are short and inviting, modest yet loaded with ideas. Each started with the drum part, a loose grid for Jonson to paint his idiosyncratic psych-pop across, again playing nearly every instrument.
The set follows his 2021 LP, The Long And The Short of It, the 22-year-old musician’s debut on Ghostly International, a coming-of-age jump from the chill beats-oriented corners of the internet to a full-fledged songwriting project with hi-fi sophistication. The moment culminated with Pitchfork’s Rising profile, “quickly, quickly’s Technicolor Pop Bursts Beyond the Algorithm,” and kickstarted the formation of his 6-piece live band for a run of exploratory shows along the west coast. But as the tangible demands for his music pulled him outward and some growing pains in his personal life ensued, Jonson focused his energy back inside; to the comforts of home recording, filling his space with more gear and sessions with friends. Maybe a bit of a droll title for a hard time, Easy Listening briefly pauses for air, offering five of his breeziest basement jams for public enjoyment.
That basement is home to racks of synthesizers and an array of drum machines, guitars, bongos, xylophones, and the like. One notable addition to the Easy Listening setup was the Teac reel-to-reel tape machine he found on eBay and hooked up to Ableton. “I used it frequently to add color/texture to the project by running individual instruments through and warping the tape with my finger. After I had finished all the songs, I ran the full mix of every song in a row through the tape to add one more layer of low-fidelity weirdness.”
“Colors” opens the portal to Jonson’s retro-tinged dream world; a symphonic section pulls the curtain back to reveal a drum kit spattering rapid fills as the bassline grooves deeply between organ shimmers and hazy hums. The din of what sounds like a ‘60s church service appears here and throughout the collection; the words are blurred by decades of tape mold, adding to an overall hypnotic, disorienting feel.
“Satellite,” one of Jonson’s funkiest and catchiest tracks to date, is either a love letter to technology or a tongue-in-cheek song about surveillance. The jazzy percussion taps from the get-go as he peppers clever lines to his subject in the sky, at one point losing his wallet (evoking the comedic tone of Thundercat’s “Captain Stupido”), before riding out on a squealing synth solo.
The campy, softly psychedelic “Falling Apart Without You” is in the vein of Stereolab. It started out as a fictional breakup song but ultimately became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only cut from the EP that Jonson and his band have played live so far, it’s easy to picture it translating on stage; the lovesick singer flanked by a tight ensemble on keys, bass, and drums. Next, he slows it down for “Photobook,” the first half is an organ-led ballad for self-improvement — “I think I can, think I can…” Jonson trails off into a rhythmic reverie. We end on the wistful, soulful “Natural Form,” featuring The Long And The Short of It collaborator Elliot Cleverdon on strings. “I can’t say goodbye,” are Jonson’s parting words; it’s a sweet outro, some healing for him, and for us as fans, it’s a lovely place to leave quickly, quickly for now.
In the quiet surrounding the pandemic, Madeline Kenney made sonic sketches in the basement studio she shared with her then-partner. She arranged phrases that called her—the sharp knife of a synth cutting a path along a blooming arpeggio, drums stuttering firm and tight. Working this way, she amassed a collection of songs she had no particular aims for. Some formed her 2021 EP Summer Quarter, others languished.
But in 2022, Kenney’s partner left suddenly and without warning, plunging her into the solitary act of untangling what happened. In the wake of her ensuing depression, she revisited these songs and found in them something prescient. She’d already laid the foundation for A New Reality Mind, her fourth LP (due out July 28th via Carpark Records) which she is announcing today with the album’s first single “Superficial Conversation,” alongside the track’s self-directed video.
WATCH Madeline Kenney’s “Superficial Conversation” video on YouTube
That her relationship’s end came without warning is only half true, though. The warnings were in the feelings and fears that inspired Kenney’s critically-acclaimed third album, Sucker’s Lunch (2020), which was co-produced by Jenn Wasner (Flock of Dimes) and centered around the idea of flinging oneself freely into the seemingly-assured destruction of new love, come what may.
If sonically Sucker’s Lunch was letting yourself be pulled into the warm bath of a good story, A New Reality Mind reflects the harsh light of truth coming to break the spell. But as sobering as morning light can be, there’s brilliance to it, too. To see in the clarity of day is a gift. A revolution.
This is Kenney’s most expansive work, while also her most solitary. Produced and recorded alone in her basement, these songs are manifestations of what it feels like to be transformed by pain. Textures collide and collude; sonic ornaments emerge and dissipate capriciously; saxophones soar untamed. There’s a propulsive power in the album, and there’s also acceptance, self-forgiveness, and a willingness to move forward into life, with all its ways of making a sucker of you. “That way of living, I’m over it,” Kenney declares of the habits that hold her back on “Superficial Conversation.” “I do not need to be reminded of what I did,” she assures, the song opening wide and beaming, like a smile expanding to taste a new breath of air.
“‘Superficial Conversation’ is my way of looking back at the ways I shrunk myself or ignored my own needs in favor of the needs and desires of others,” Kenney explains. “While I wish I had acted differently, I want to be kind and forgiving to my past self and be able to grow and move forward with more power and love.
I wanted the video to show a forced transformation, from the inside and out. Jess Bozzo’s choreography really captured what I wanted to evoke; a painful change that becomes a pretty joyous opening with room for desire and play.“
A New Reality Mind Will be released on Carpark Records on July 28th. It is available for pre-order/pre-save HERE.
Kevin Morby and The Salvation Choir are proud to present “This Is A Photograph (The Salvation Choir Version),” a new reimagining of the title track from Morby’s acclaimed 2022 album. The Salvation Choir is a Congolese rumba choir from Congo and Tanzania based in Kevin’s hometown of Kansas City. “This Is A Photograph (The Salvation Choir Version)” is a stirring iteration of Morby’s original, and is presented alongside a new website on which others can access stems, instrumentals, tutorials and templates so they can make their own family history epics. Kevin Morby elaborates:
At some point last year, a few of you reached out with the request of getting the music to my song “This Is A Photograph” so you could make your own version and tell your own family’s history. I found this incredibly interesting and had never gotten such requests about any of my other songs before. I have decided to heed the call of those few who reached out and I have made a website
In celebration of this website, and to lead with an example, I reached out to one of my favorite bands, Kansas City’s own The Salvation Choir, to see if they would want to make their own version of ‘This Is A Photograph’ and was over the moon when they agreed. They created their own version in which they reinterpreted the music in their Congolese Rumba style and reworked the lyrics to their own story and sang in both English and Swahili to provide the listener with a window into their past.
Pelo King Wilondja, The Salvation Choir’s 15-year-old drummer, states: “We met Kevin at one of our practices. I didn’t know who he was at first but then our friend played us his music and I started really liking his songs. Now he’s in my top ten. He invited us to his concert and I was actually sweating because it was so good. Kevin asked us if we wanted to remake his song to be about our family’s history and play it in our style. It was my first time recording drums in a real studio. We loved his idea because photographs are really important to our family and we’re always playing music together. There are over 20 members in the choir and everyone has their own story. The song starts out in Africa and it ends in Kansas City where we all live now. It’s about our family’s history and how we got here.”
This month will also see the release of More Photographs (A Continuum), Morby’s companion piece to last year’s This Is A Photograph. Here, Morby returns to his landmark album’s bottomless themes with new wisdom, new imagination, and the winking, looping callbacks that tie his full body of work together in uniquely special ways. “With every collection of songs,” says Morby, “I feel I have to cast them out of me before moving onto the next project, and here I knew that what I had begun with This Is A Photograph was not finished. Releasing this collection is me tying a bow on that time and place in my creative life.” With a luxurious nine tracks – three re-imaginings and six brand new songs – More Photographs (A Continuum) is prequel, sequel and primer to an already rich and generous record from one of our most luminous modern songwriters. More Photographs (A Continuum) will be available on vinyl in the fall and is available to pre-order now.
KEVIN MORBY TOUR DATES (NEW DATES IN BOLD) Fri. June 2 – Aarhus, DK @ Northside Festival Sat. June 3 – Malmö, SW @ Plan B Mon. June 5 – Manchester, UK @ New Century Tue. June 6 – Bristol, UK @ SWX Wed. June 7 – London, UK @ Roundhouse Fri. June 9 – Gent, BE @ Vooruit Fri. June 9 – Sun. June 11 – Hilvarenbeek, NL @ Best Kept Secret Mon. June 12 – Zurich, CH @ Dynamo Saal Tue. June 13 – Milan, IT @ Giardino Della Triennale Wed. June 14 – Ferrara, IT @ Ferrara Sotto Le Stelle Thur. June 15 – Munich, DE @ Strom Fri. June 16 – Sun. Jun 18 – Vilnius, LI @ 8 Festival Fri. June 16 – Dresden, DE @ Beatpol Mon. June 19 – Warsaw, PL @ Proxima Tue. June 20 – Poznan, PL @ Tama Wed. June 21 – Berlin, DE @ Columbia Theater Fri. June 23 – Vienna, AU @ Akzent Sat. June 24 – Krakow, PL @ Kwadrat Sun. June 25 – Budapest, HU @ Akvárium Klub Tue. June 27 – Ljubljana, SL @ Kino Siska Wed. June 28 – Geneva, CH @ Usine Fri. June 30 – Paris, FR @ Days Off Festival Sat. July 1 – Petit Couronne, FR @ Theatre de Verdure Sun. July 2 – La Rochelle, FR @ La Sirene Mon. July 3 – Toulouse, FR @ Le Bikini Wed. July 5 – Lisboa, PT @ LAV Thur. July 6 – Porto, PT @ Hard Club Fri. July 7 – Madrid, ES @ Mad Cool Festival Sat. July 8 – Six-Fours-les-Plages, FR @ Pointu Festival Aug. 25- Aug. 27 – Tisbury, MA @ Beach Road Weekend Sun. Aug. 27 – Rockville Centre, NY @ Madison Theatre at Molloy University Wed. Sep. 27 – Auckland, NZ @ Hollywood Avondale Thur. Sep. 28 – Wellington, NZ @ Meow Sat. Sep. 30 – Sydney, AUS @ Factory Theatre Sun. Oct. 1 – Sapphire Coast, AUS @ Wanderer Festival Tue. Oct. 3 – Melbourne, AUS @ Northcote Theatre Thur. Oct. 5 – Eltham, AUS @ Eltham Hotel Fri. Oct. 6 – Brisbane, AUS @ Princess Theatre Sat. Oct. 7 – Adelaide, AUS @ Summertown Studio Sun. Oct. 8 – Perth, AUS @ The Rechabite Sat. Dec. 2 – Riviera Maya, MX @ Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky
Today, Austin, Texas band Holy Wave announce their new album Five Of Cups, out August 4, 2023 on Suicide Squeeze Records. In addition to the announcement, listen to the psych-tinged single “Happier,” premiering on FLOOD Magazine, and features vocals from Mexico-City songwriter and instrumentalist Estrella del Sol, of the band Mint Field. The track sounds like it was unearthed from a time capsule buried on a commune in 1970s California. It’s accompanied by an appropriately dark, trippy video directed by Arturo Baston that only heightens the acid-washed listening experience. The band have also announced a string of August US tour dates.
On the track, Fuson offers:“We had been working on this song on and off again for a while and it all kind of came together right before we started recording this album. The song is loosely a song to Kurt Vonnegut, and a song taking some of his ideas and quotes and exploring them a little further. Mainly just a song about happiness today and maybe where it was during his time. While recording this song we knew that we wanted something unique for the outro, but we didn’t really know what it was that we were looking for, so we sent the song to Estrella and basically asked her to do whatever she thought was right and she completely exceeded our vision. It really took the song to a whole new level, some place we have never been before.”
In Tarot readings, the Five of Cups card signifies loss and grief. Depicting a cloaked figure with a bowed head looming over three spilled chalices while ignoring two remaining vessels, the Five of Cups is generally interpreted as representing a forlorn dwelling on the past and an inability to appreciate the positive things in the present. It was this card that struck a chord with vocalist/guitarist Ryan Fuson, member of the Austin TX subversive subterranean pop outfit Holy Wave, during a Tarot reading at the height of the pandemic. “I was really sure that the music world was finished and it seemed like internet aggression and, well, aggression in general was at an all-time high, so I was ready to stop playing music,” Fuson says. “It could be so easy to become jaded and pessimistic and I had to really decide what perspective I was going to take.”Rather than abandon music, Fuson and his compatriots chose to immerse themselves in their work. Fittingly, the Tarot card became the muse for Holy Wave’s sixth full-length album—Five of Cups.
Back at the beginning of their fifteen-year career, Holy Wave leaned into a tranquil realm of psychedelia, eschewing long-form jams and guitar heroics for a dreamy pop-oriented approach. As the band evolved, the early Sgt. Peppers-meets-the-Velvets sound yielded to more sophisticated melodies and tripped-out instrumentation, effectively steering their music away from sun-bleached nostalgia to a color-saturated dimension where sounds of the past, present, and future intermingled.
The childhood friends of Fuson, Joey Cook,Kyle Hager, and Julian Ruiz grew up in El Paso, where they cut their teeth in the local DIY scene. Hungry for more music and broader perspectives, the members made frequent road trips across the Southwest to catch touring bands who opted to skip West Texas markets. That wanderlust eventually prompted their relocation to Austin, but it also permeated in their adventurous songwriting and love for touring. No small surprise then that these aural explorers felt that a whole way of life was taken from them with the onset of the pandemic. But on Five of Cups, it sounds as if the physical limitations of quarantine life prompted Holy Wave to wander even deeper into new sonic territories.
Five of Cups opens with the title track, establishing the album’s auditory and thematic modus operandi from the get-go. Holy Wave’s lysergic textural palette is immediately apparent in the song’s woozy synth lead and anti-gravity guitar jangle, but the atypical chord progressions and vocal melody steers the music away from anodyne escapism into a pensive grappling between self-determination and defeatism. Holy Wave continue to ride the wistful and phantasmic train on “Bog Song,” where the members vacillate between swells of austere minor chords and layered electric orchestration. From there, the previously released digital single “Chaparral” plays with the band’s own sense of nostalgia, weaving references of their El Paso past into a tapestry of transcendental triumph.
Like so much classic album-oriented rock music, the real magic begins to unfold in the latter half of Five of Cups. On “The Darkest Timeline,” Holy Wave recruits their friends Lorena Quintanilla and Alberto Gonzalez from the Baja California, Mexico psych duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete to add additional ethereal layers to their intoxicating after-midnight grooves. “Nothing in the Dark” functions on a similar principle, using a steady propulsive drum pattern as the bedrock to tape-warbled synths, arpeggiated guitar chords, jet streams of fuzz, and serene vocals. Five of Cups’ ruminations on combating defeat and disappointment are directly confronted on album closer “Happier.” Once again straddling the melodic line between melancholy and breezy sophistication, Holy Wave examines the synthetic construct of happiness in our modern age and how so often the attainment of comfort lacks any true sense of joy. Yet this isn’t some nihilistic dirge. Rather, it translates as a buoyant reminder that the bandwidth of human experience inherently requires peaks and valleys, and that euphoria is often found in the search outside of the familiar.
As with the Tarot card from which it got its name, Five of Cups is an acknowledgement of hardship and a reminder to embrace the joys available to us. And like early ‘70s Pink Floyd, Holy Wave have figured out how to conjure a sense of profound exhilaration out of pathos, filtering dark elements through a lens and bending them into a kaleidoscope of light.
Suicide Squeeze is proud to present Holy Wave’s Five of Cups on CD/LP/DSP on August 4, 2023.
New York City’s loudest band A Place to Bury Strangers have had their intense live performance captured and immortalized directly to 12” wax. The post-punk legends are the 9th & latest entry in the Live at Levitation archival vinyl series. Live at Levitation ends with “Have You Ever Been In Love?” – a brand new song from APTBS only available on this record, written and performed by the current lineup.
“Levitation 2021 was our second show as a new band and I felt so psyched to bring the new band members to such an epic festival. It was like a homecoming for me. Bob Mustachio was doing lights and playing with Ringo Deathstarr, Kikagaku Moyo & the Black Angels all on the same bill had me so rev’d up and excited. I knew it had to be an epic show. I remember right when we started I was flailing around so much like a freak on speed that I almost flung my guitar off the stage. By the time we got out into the crowd I thought I was gonna pass out. I remember we rented this PA speaker from Rock N Roll Rentals and for some reason they trusted us with this top of the line like $5000 12” monitor that we rolled around in the crowd while I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I love Levitation and Austin Psych Fest shows, they are always a UFO of a good time.” – Oliver Ackermann (APTBS)
LEVITATION and the LIVE AT LEVITATION Vinyl Series
The first Austin Psych Fest was held in March 2008, and expanded to a 3 day event the following year. The event quickly developed into an international destination for psychedelic rock fans, with lineups spanning the fringes of indie rock, from up-and-comers to vintage legends, and capped off with headline performances from co-founders The Black Angels, along with Tame Impala, The Flaming Lips, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Thee Oh Sees (in various forms) and many more. LEVITATION helped spark a movement, inspiring the creation of similar events across the globe and a burgeoning psych scene that would soon ignite. The series captures key moments in psychedelic rock history, and live music in Austin, Texas, pressed on beautiful limited edition colorful vinyl pressings – each an eye popping visual representation of the music contained within.
The artists and sets showcased on Live at LEVITATION have been chosen from over a decade of recordings at the world-renowned event, and document key artists in the scene performing for a crowd of their peers and fans who gather at LEVITATION annually from all over the world.
This 9th release follows Live at Levitation releases from Kikagaku Moyo, The Black Angels, Primal Scream, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Moon Duo, Psychic Ills, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Thee Oh Sees.
A Place to Bury Strangers – Live at LEVITATION is out in stores on Friday, June 30, 2023.
Get a taste of the LP with a live cut of “Let’s See Each Other” filmed at LEVITATION 2021. Watch and share below.
Tinariwen, the pioneering, Grammy-winning Tuareg collective, unveil their enthralling new single, “Anemouhagh,” from their forthcoming album, Amatssou, out next Friday, May 19th on Wedge. “Anemouhagh” continues along Tinariwen’s electric trail of singles — the “anthemic” (Paste) “Kek Alghalm” and lead single “Tenere Den,” which was praised by The FADER as “a continuation of both the desert blues sound they pioneered and the revolutionary message they’ve always held close” — and offers another captivating glimpse into Amatssou.
Later this month, Tinariwen will embark on their first US tour since 2019, beginning on May 27th at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music and including stops in Los Angeles, New York and more. A list of full dates are below and tickets are on sale now.
For decades, Tinariwen have remained ambassadors for the Tuareg people, a way of life in tune with the natural world, which is under threat as never before. Throughout Amatssou — the legendary collective’s ninth studio album — Tinariwen set out to explore the shared sensibilities between their trademark desert blues and the vibrant country music of rural America. Recorded in Djanet, an oasis in the desert of southern Algeria located in Tassili N’Ajjer National Park, with additional production on two tracks by Daniel Lanois (Brian Eno, U2, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson), Amatssou finds Tinariwen’s signature snaking guitar lines and hypnotic grooves seamlessly co-existing alongside banjos, fiddles and pedal steel.
Though Tuareg culture is as old as that of ancient Greece or Rome, the songs of Amatssou speak to the current and often tough reality of Tuareg life today. Unsurprisingly, there are impassioned references to Mali’s ongoing political and social turmoil. Full of poetic allegory, the lyrics call for unity and freedom. There are songs of struggle and resistance with oblique references to the recent desperate political upheavals in Mali and the increasing power of the Salafists. Tinariwen’s message has never sounded more urgent and compelling than it does on Amatssou.
Tinariwen Tour Dates Sat. May 27 – Chicago, IL @ Old Town School of Folk Music Tue. May 30 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom Wed. May 31 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox Fri. June 2 – Berkeley, CA @ UC Theater Sat. June 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theater Mon. June 5 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall Tue. June 6 – Boston, MA @ Sinclair Wed. June 7 – Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre Sat. June 10 – Hilvarenbeek, NL @ Best Kept Secret Festival Mon. June 12 – Rubigen, CH @ Muhle Hunziken Wed. June 14 – Florence, IT @Ultravox Thu. June 15 – Milan, IT @ Triennale Garden Fri. June 16 – Turin, IT @ Hiroshima Mon Amour Sun. June 18 – Dublin, IE @ Body & Soul Festival Thu. June 22 – Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg Sat. June 24 – Glastonbury, UK @ Glastonbury Festival Mon. 26 – Lille, FR @ Splendid Wed. June 28 – Paris, FR @ Salle Pleyel Thu. June 29 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique Sat. July 1 – Roskilde, DK @ Roskilde Festival Sun. July 2 – Stockholm, SE @ Slaktkyran Tue. July 4 – Oslo, NO @ Rockefeller Fri. July 7 – Bilbao, ES @ BBK Live Festival Tue. July 11 – Arles, FR @ Les Suds Arles Thu. July 13 – London, UK @ Somerset House Sat. July 15 – Bristol, UK @ SWX Mon. July 17 – Glasgow, UK @ St Lukes Wed. July 19 – Bermingham, UK @ Institute 2 Sat. July 22 – Cheshire, UK @ Bluedot Festival Tue. 25 – Vigo, SP @ Terraceo Festival Sat. July 29 – Luxey, FR @ Musicalarue Festival
Charlotte Cornfield presents her new single/video, “Gentle Like The Drugs,” from her forthcoming album, Could Have Done Anything, out this Friday, May 12 on Polyvinyl/Double Double Whammy. “Gentle Like the Drugs” draws on imagery from a spring tour in the American west. “I wrote this song after a particularly special and memorable tour opening for Pedro the Lion in the west of the US. Something strong clicked on that tour, and I was experiencing joy on the road in a way I really hadn’t before, feeling fully present and just revelling in the company of my bandmates and taking in the spectacular landscape in a way that felt like a deep breath.” Cornfield says, “I had never really been to the desert before, to Southern Utah and Arizona, and I was very moved by it. This is a drifting summer song to me, about letting grief and anxiety go and feeling light and buzzed and in love and joyful.”
You can hear it in the patient pleasure of these chords, or the way Cornfield narrates her first impressions of Arizona: “I watch the colors get real / the pink and the teal / I see a dust devil / I see an elevator.” Like riding across the desert with your friends; like smoking a joint at the end of a long day; but the song’s alternating verses orient themselves towards another sensation, too: that feeling of being home, and happy, when your lover’s not around. Not because they’re gone, but because you know they will return.
“Gentle Like The Drugs” is presented alongside a transportive video directed by Ali Vanderkruyk. Of the video, Vanderkruyk adds: “The video is a 16mm travelogue following the hand of a wanderer writing postcards to a loved one back home. Each vignette acts as vessel for the lyrics for the song, acknowledging the beauty of home while observing the unfamiliar. We see the kitsch in chosen images for a postcard, as well as the ways one can personalize an object that is available to the masses.”
Could Have Done Anything, the follow-up to Cornfield’s break-out hit Highs in the Minuses, is a testament to this uncommon life and all its possibilities, an acknowledgment that the best musicians can turn fleeting moments into timeless songs. Throughout, Cornfield tried to channel the energy of her favorite classic records, from Tapestry to Blood On The Tracks to Car Wheels On A Gravel Road — albums where the listener is simply carried by the songs and the playing.
Whereas Cornfield’s preceding albums were made in familiar settings, with troupes of friends, this time she reached into the unknown, contacting producer Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman). The two convened in Upstate New York, first at the stained-glass-tinted Dreamland Recording Studios, then at the nearby Isokon Studio, run by engineer D. James Goodwin (Kevin Morby, Whitney) and assistant engineer Gillian Pelkonen. Four people, one album, six days; Kaufman and Cornfield (who went to school for jazz drums) played every instrument themselves, from ringing guitars to cozy piano, Hammond B3, pedal steel and synthesizers. That was the spirit of this record: connection, possibility, acceptance. “Don’t be afraid to take a left,” Kaufman would say.
After six days of recording, Cornfield went back to Canada, with a new album to mix and master. Another day-long drive; another homecoming; and one more thing, too, which would arise a little over nine months later: the singer’s first baby, who was born in mid-April. Anything can happen. Every year’s a kind of coming-of-age, and over these nine magnetic tracks, Cornfield begins yet another chapter as a mother.
CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD TOUR DATES Thu. July 6 – Sun. July 9 – Winnipeg, MB @ Winnipeg Folk Fest Fri. July 21 – Sun. July 23 – Nelsonville, OH @ Nelsonville Music Festival Thu. Aug. 31 – Sun. Sept. 3 – Dorset, UK @ End of the Road Festival Thu. Sept. 28 – Montreal, QC @ Rialto Rooftop – Pop Montreal
For one thing, the influences abound. Spencer, an Englishman, was born in Peru, also has Swedish roots, and now lives most of the time in France. I think he speaks at least four languages. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to learn French and stuttering through English half the time. As a result of his multi-cultural upbringing, Spencer’s album combines a lot of styles ranging from surf rock to torch songs, and he especially shows off his love of French music (Spencer calls the album “…a love letter to France”) from the 1960s through the 1980s by collaborating with famous French musicians on the record. The mix of influences and styles is one he pulls off with ease. I don’t know how he kept track of all of it, let alone made it sound effortless.
“Hail Caesar,” with guitar assists by French rock icons Gilles Tandy and Jean Felzine, launches the album with a wild surf guitar rocker before taking a turn down a dark cobblestone road in Angers, France for “Get Out into the Pigs” – which reminds me a lot of some of Julian Cope‘s work with Spencer’s vocal style and his rumination on things past that linger in his memory.
“Isn’t That What Jimi Said” is both a lovely look back on Spencer’s childhood days in Sweden (“Sometimes the breadth of my emotion’s not covered.”) and Jimi Hendrix‘s influence on him (and everyone else, really). As if Spencer wasn’t cool enough, the next thing you know he’s singing a duet, “When I Whisper in Your Ear,” with singer, actress, and former “Miss Tahiti,” Mareva Galenter. The two of them team up for a sultry, and somewhat spooky, song that even includes siren-like sounds from opera star Aurélie Ligerot.
The thick bass on “Jane Loves the Highway” will have you tearing away from the curb as you leave the bank in a hurry with a lovely lady in the back seat holding a heavy bag and a handgun. “Everything I ever did was bad,” he says on “Requiem,” making me wonder if he and Jane are to regret their roadtrip. It has a bit of a 1960s R&B girl group sound to it (particularly in the drum beat) that’s a nice touch. “Cult of Personality” is not a cover of Living Colour‘s classic hit (although it would be interesting to hear Spencer do this). It’s rather a song of hope (“There’s an angel passing over you.”) hidden among somber piano chords and lonely western guitars.
The uplifting messages, and his passion for so many different types of music, continue on “Broken By the Song,” with Spencer telling us, “You can be beautiful…There will come a day.” Things can always turn around and change. Sorrow, like joy, will pass away like everything else. “Waiting for Sorrow,” his first single from the album, features an intro from French pop icon Jacqueline Taïeb and has Spencer’s boldest vocals on the record. I mean, he absolutely belts the chorus and bounces it off the back of the concert hall to lodge deep in your chest, and the bright, jangling guitar riffs only help it settle there.
The title track has slithering snake-like guitar and percussion and Spencer’s witty lyrics (and David Vanian-like vocals) about his complicated relationship with an ex-lover, and perhaps even with England. The way the album fades out with sparkling synths on “Knew That One Day” is a neat way to send us out on a levitating note.
The album is multi-layered, like Spencer himself, and I suspect will reveal more of itself with multiple listens. Vous devriez l’entendre.
