It’s always good to see Clutch. They never disappoint and always sound great live, so seeing them at a small venue just over an hour’s drive from my house was an easy decision. They’re on their thirtieth year as a band, which is quite impressive.
Opening for them were two other bands I was keen on catching, and the first was King Buffalo, who opened the night with a fine set of space / psych doom rock that was just what I needed after a weird day at work. There weren’t many in the crowd who’d heard of them before, but their merch table was packed immediately after their set. They won over a lot of fans. It would be great to see them on their own.
King Buffalo wowing the crowd.
Up next were desert / stoner rock power trio Stöner, who were equally impressive with heavy bass, garage-psych drums, and cosmic fuzz guitar work. My wife was happy to hear them and understand their lyrics (topics ranging from ghosts to Evel Knievel). They also won over many fans in Ft. Wayne.
Stöner pummeling the crowd with heavy rock.
Clutch came out to a crowd that was, by now, fired up from seeing two bands that were alone worth the price of admission. They launched into a wild set, showing no rust at thirty years of age as a band. Among the highlights of the set were them playing “Far Country” from their first 7″ single back in 1991 and “Passive Restraints” (another early track). Another treat was a new single, the name of which I still can’t find, that has lyrics involving witchcraft, the Mayflower, and Nosferatu.
Clutch hitting it hard after almost two years off.
We overheard a guy on the way out telling his friend that he’d seen Clutch “twenty times” and “that’s probably in the top five” of shows he’d seen. It was a good one. All three bands were hungry for the stage and the energy gained from a live crowd. I certainly needed it, and I got it in spades.
Today, Parquet Courts share a new single/video, “Black Widow Spider,” from their forthcoming album, Sympathy For Life, out October 22nd on Rough Trade Records. In conjunction, they announce extensive touring plans for 2022, starting with a run of North American shows in the spring. Following their highly-praised lead single “Walking at a Downtown Pace,” “Black Widow Spider” kicks off with scorching guitar. In A Savage’s words, “I told [producer] Rodaidh McDonald that I wanted to find a sound that was equal parts Can, Canned Heat and This Heat. He was really into that and probably took some glee in having such a bizarre challenge.” It’s one of the many songs on the new album that began with the band improvising onto tape, after which they started editing and cutting up, leading to the verse.
The accompanying video, directed and animated by Shayne Ehman, is simply great. “We were inspired by the claymation master Art Clokey,” says Ehmman. “I wanted the video to feel like it was shot in the 1950’s and so I used very old lenses. One was a brass projection lens from the 1860’s and another was radioactive.”
Alongside the release of their first single last month, the band also announced the Power of Eleven – eleven global happenings that will occur around the release of the album. The first of these took place in Manhattan with the Gay & Lesbian Big Apple Corp marching band debuting “Walking At A Downtown Pace”. The second of these is happening in Tokyo in conjunction with Big Love Records, with an extremely limited “Black Widow Spider” 7” and t-shirt. More info for this event and the others has been revealed on the band’s website. Sign up to their mailing list for updates.
Sympathy For Life was built largely from improvised jams and produced in league with Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Hot Chip, David Byrne) and John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, Dry Cleaning). Unlike its globally adored predecessor, 2018’s Wide Awake!, the focus fell on grooves rather than rhythm.
“Most of the songs were created by taking long improvisations and moulding them through our own editing,” explains Austin Brown. “The biggest asset we have as artists is the band. After 10 years together, our greatest instrument is each other. The purest expression of Parquet Courts is when we are improvising.” In a very real sense, the band sampled themselves, molding and chopping their rhythmic and melodic jams to create these songs, to manifest something new.
On Sympathy For Life, Parquet Courts’ thought-provoking rock is dancing to a new tune. The album finds the Brooklyn band at both their most instinctive and electronic, spinning their bewitching, psychedelic storytelling into fresh territory, yet maintaining their unique identity.
Thu. Oct. 28 – Saxapahaw, NC @ Haw River Ballroom ^ Fri. Oct. 29 – Richmond, VA @ The National ^ Sat. Oct. 30 – Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar ^ Sun. Oct. 31 – Lancaster, PA @ Tellus360 ^ Wed. Nov. 03 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground ! Thu. Nov. 04 – Portland, ME @ State Theatre ! Fri. Nov. 05 – Holyoke, MA @ Gateway City Arts ! Sat. Nov. 06 – Asbury Park, NJ @ The Stone Pony ! Mon. Nov. 15 – Dallas, TX @ Studio at the Factory Wed. Nov. 17 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall Fri. Nov. 19 – Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheatre Sun. Nov. 21 – Mexico City, MX @ Corona Capital Music Festival Sun. Feb. 27 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel * Mon. Feb. 28 – Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre * Wed. March 2 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse * Thu. March 3 – Birmingham, AL @ Saturn * Fri. March 4 – Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom * Sat. March 5 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant * Mon. March 7 – Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall * Tue. March 8 – Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room * Thu. March 10 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue * Fri. March 11 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall * Sat. March 12 – Chicago, IL @ The Riviera Theatre * Sun. March 13 – Detroit, MI @ MOCAD * Tue. Mar. 15, 2022 – Millvale, PA @ Mr. Smalls Theatre * Wed. Mar. 16, 2022 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre * Thu. March 17 – Toronto, ON @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre * Fri. March 18 – Montreal, QC @ Corona Theatre * Thu. March 31 – Boston, MA @ Royale # Fri. April 1 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel $ Sat. April 2 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel # Mon. April 4 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club # Tue. April 5 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore % Fri. April 22 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox at the Market Sat. April 23 – Vancouver, BC @ The Imperial Mon. April 25 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom Wed. April 27 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater Thu. April 28 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern Theatre Fri. April 29 – Pomona, CA @ The Glass House Sat. April 30 – San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park Sat. May 21 – Paris, FR @ La Trianon Sun. May 22 – Antwerp, BE @ Trix Tue. May 24 – Cologne, DE @ Stollwerck Wed. May 25 – Berlin, DE @ Heimathafen Neukölln Fri. May 27 – Hamburg, DE @ Uebel & Gefährlich Sat. May 28 – Nijmegen, NL @ Doornroosje Mon. May 30 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Tue. May 31 – Lille, FR @ Le Grand Mix Wed. June 1 – Lyon, FR @ Epicerie Moderne Fri. June 3 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound Wed. June 8 – Brighton, UK @ Chalk Thu. June 9 – London, UK @ Brixton O2 Academy Sat. June 11 – Dublin, IE @ Helix Sun. June 12 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall Mon. June 13 – Leeds, UK @ Stylus Wed. June 15 – Glasgow, UK @ The Barrowland Ballroom Thu. June 16 – Birmingham, UK @ O2 Institute
& supporting Portugal. The Man ^ w/ P.E. ! w/ Public Practice * w/ Mdou Moctar # w/ Hailu Mergia % w/ Sun Ra Arkestra$ w/ Yu Su
Keep your mind open.
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Today, Los Angeles-based artist Hana Vu releases “Keeper,” the newest single from her upcoming album Public Storage, out November 5th on Ghostly International, following “Maker” and “Everybody’s Birthday.” “Keeper” is a pulsating new wave cut, replete with soaring dreamy synths and a cool-voiced narrator. The accompanying video, directed by Meagen Houang and choreographed by Jas Lin, sees Vu honing in on her artistic craft, both sonically and physically. It was shot in a single take on 16mm film by cinematographer Andrew Yuyi Truong and it’s a compelling exploration of feeling unnoticed. “Shooting ‘Keeper’ was really an intense experience,” says Vu. “We had a few choreography rehearsals leading in, and then on shoot day we rehearsed for about 9 hours and only shot in the last hour.”
“When I listened to ‘Keeper,’ I thought about how we’re all trapped by different societal expectations — whether it’s from work, family, friends or the devil inside ourselves,” says Houang. “I wanted to make a video that expressed the feeling of not being seen when all you really want to do is explode. By shooting the video in a single take we never let the audience off the hook. Just like Hana, we’re trapped in a cycle of being constantly ignored. I set the film in a family environment because as viewers we usually associate families with a sense of security and safety. The family environment created a contrast to Hana’s bursting performance and underscored the pain of not being visible, even sometimes by your own relatives.”
Storage units hold possessions on pause from the outside world, objects capable of reconnecting us to a time or place. Vu grew up with her family making regular use of public storage spaces in Los Angeles, moving every few years, leaving a mix of the sacred and the mundane to sit inside concrete and steel. The 21-year-old musician sees the art of making and releasing songs in a similar sense: “these public expressions of thoughts, feelings, baggage, experiences that accumulate every year and fill little units such as ‘albums.’”
Public Storage builds on the sound of Vu’s early work, underscoring her strengths as a songwriter with a deeper sense of luster, sophistication, and urgency. She calls it “very invasive and intense sounding music,” refreshingly out of step with contemporary trends; this is music to engage with rather than lean back to. For the first time, she welcomes a co-producer, Jackson Phillips (Day Wave), who helps Vu create a vast, grainy, multifaceted world to stretch into vocally, her distinct contralto drifting freely between evocative low-lit ruminations and soulful, skyward bursts.
Toronto-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Robin Hatch has released the new single “Mockingbird” today, a sublime peace floating on spacious synths featuring Nick Thorburn of indie rock staple Islands and The Unicorn on synth and drum machines. The track comes from the upcoming album T.O.N.T.O., out October 29th on Robin Records, which was written and recorded during a 4-day residency on the behemoth synth that the album takes its title from.
Robin describes the equipment used to make the recording, working with Thorburn, and where the track’s title comes from.
“Mockingbird features the Maestro drum machine built into the TONTO synthesizer. I improvised this song on the second day of my residency. The bass line is a study in triggering the envelope filter of its Moog Modular 3 system as the arpeggiator runs to create a wah-pedal type sound reminiscent of Jan Hammer Group or Penguin Cafe Orchestra. The outro has the Yamaha CS80 and features Randy Bachman’s Space Echo pedal. I threw in a VST of a CMI Fairlight to give it an Enya touch in the chorus.”
Besides his prodigal output as an indie frontman, Nick is also a real deal composer and he helped me flesh out this song with an Atari chiptune synth, Roland Jupiter 4, Korg M1, and Compurhythm drum machine.
The title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the duet by James Taylor and Carly Simon.”
Keep your mind open.
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Today, LA-based post-punk quartet Cuffed Up are sharing their driving and propulsive new single “Bonnie,” as well as well as announcing their new EP Asymmetry, out on October 22nd via Royal Mountain Records (Alvvays, Wild Pink, METZ). “Bonnie” sees vocalists & guitarists Ralph Torrefranca and Sapphire Jewell trading vocals amidst a relentless onslaught of soaring guitars and crashing drums and bass via Joe Liptock and Victor Ordonez.
The band explains that ““Bonnie” is an anti-love anthem about the grief and pitfalls of a serious relationship crumbling due to lies and deceit. This is explored through the eyes of Bonnie (of Bonnie & Clyde fame), in an alternative universe where Clyde selfishly leaves Bonnie for dead. Bonnie is arrested and she decides to give Clyde up to the cops out of pure spite. Not because he left her in a dangerous situation — purely because of the end of their romantic, albeit toxic relationship.” With a video directed by Torrefranca (an award-winning filmmaker outside of Cuffed Up), it stars himself and Jewell in a role-reversal swapping Bonnie and Clyde.
Already seeing support for the EP from outlets like SPIN, Beats Per Minute, Buzz Bands LA, KEXP, KCRW in Los Angeles and Double J in Australia, Cuffed Up are heading out on a full US tour as main support for The Joy Formidable. Beginning in Seattle on 11/26, it will make stops in Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, New York, Philadelphia along the way, ending in Burlington on 12/18. Full routing below. —– For Asymmetry, Cuffed Up paired up with producer Brad Wood (Touché Amoré, Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair) spending a week honing the songs through experimentation with sounds and ideas and the result is a collaborative effort that tackles one’s own mortality, abandonment in relationships and reckoning with shame. It expands on their refreshing self-titled debut that saw love from the likes of KEXP, NME, DIY, Bandcamp, and The Line Of Best Fit, as well as Steve Lamacq (BBC Radio 6), Daniel P Carter (BBC Radio 1) and John Kennedy (Radio X) and a supporting run with Silversun Pickups.
Cohesive yet expansive, soaring yet direct, Asymmetry draws lines across the globe to the burgeoning post-punk scene in the UK, while also leaning into ‘90s indie rock and grunge, a loud and rhythmic rainbow of post-punk that is fluid and versatile. Whether it’s the aforementioned “Bonnie”, Torrefranca’s brutal reckoning with his own health struggles on “Terminal”, the inventive freeform of Jewell’s guitars in “Canaries” or Ordonez and Liptock’s fidgeting and dexterous rhythms in “One By One”, Asymmetry is a line in the sand for Cuffed Up, a declaration of intent from the young band who are poised to breakout from their West Coast home.
“Bonnie” is out now on Royal Mountain Records. It is available here. Asymmetry is out on October 22nd through Royal Mountain Records. You can pre-order it here.
Keep your mind open.
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