One of the many things I love about The Schizophonics and their new album, Hoof It, is how they’re not afraid to show their love for MC5. The whole album bursts at the seams with a raucous energy reminiscent of the Detroit powerhouses, always feeling dangerous and thrilling.
I mean, “Desert Girl,” pretty much walks into the room and punches you in the face. Pat Beers‘ guitar riffs on “Creature” shove the gas pedal to the floor for you in case you happen to be running moonshine and the state police are on your trail. The title track has a swinging 1960s garage rock shag to it that’s just great. “Won Your Love” will have you jumping out of your seat to dance wherever you happen to be at the moment. Pat Beers’ solo on it shreds with vibrant passion.
Beers and his wife, Lety Beers (drums), get psychedelic on “Pendulum” and then swinging and scorching on “The Alchemist Twist.” It’s a fuzzed-out burner that I’m sure tears down the house live. You’re barely able to keep up by the time they reach “Turn to Glass” and “Underneath the Moonlight” (which has some of Lety Beers’ best precision drumming, cleverly hidden among the guitar fuzz). They add some sexy swagger on “I’m Ready,” and ending your record with a cosmic garage rock trak called “Dance at the End of Time” is a fun way to do it.
This album is nothing but fun, fuzz, and funk. Don’t miss it.
Keep your mind open.
[Hoof it on over to the subscription box while you’re here.]
Dry Cleaning share a new single/video, “No Decent Shoes for Rain,” off their upcoming album Stumpwork, out October 21st on 4AD. Following the recently released “Gary Ashby,” the group takes a more somber turn on “No Decent Shoes for Rain.” It begins with Florence Shaw’s vocals coiled tightly over woozy guitar and minimal percussion: “my poor heart is breaking.” Shaw says about the track; “’No Decent Shoes for Rain’ is inspired by grief, grief over past relationships, grief for loved ones who have died, and all the things that come with that; loneliness, numbness, yearning, ruminating about the past.” It shows Dry Cleaning in a more pared back state, not seen in their previous discography. The video is made of footage of the band in the studio at Rockfield and on tour.
Stumpwork was made in the aftermath of the death of two very important people to the band; bassist Lewis Maynard’s mother, and guitarist Tom Dowse’s grandfather. Both were instrumental in the band’s development, both in encouragement and, in the case of Maynard’s mother, literally providing the band with a place to rehearse. Shaw’s lyrics explore not only loss and detachment but all the twists and turns, simple joys and minor gripes of human experience too. Ultimately, what emerges from it all is a subtle but assertive optimism, and a lesson in the value of curiosity. Stumpwork is a heady mix that is entirely the band’s own, distinguishing it from anything produced by their contemporaries.
This fall, Dry Cleaning will tour across Europe. Following, they’ll play in Australia, and then embark on a lengthy run in the US. Then, they’ll return to Europe. Tickets for all shows are on sale now and a full list of dates can be found below.
Today Porto-based harpist Angélica Salvi has announced details of her forthcoming album ‘Habitat’ for release on November 4th via Lovers & Lollypops.
Since releasing her debut record ‘Phantone’ in 2019, Salvi has worked across multiple projects, both solo and in collaborations in the fields of cinema, dance, theatre, photography and music, working with names such as Valentina Magaletti, Lafawndah, The Pyramids, Natural Information Society,Evan Parker and more.
On ‘Habitat’ she continues to deepen her sonic exploration across eight songs with the harp at the centre, supported by the use of real-time audio signal processing tools to create complex textural works – each one evoking a specific sensory memory.
Today she shares the brisk, breathlessly racing first single and accompanying video, “Crina”. “Crina” means mane or horsehair in Portuguese, and Salvi describes the song as “The feeling of riding a horse… A journey into the unknown.”
The accompanying video, directed by award-winning Portuguese filmmaker André Gil Mata, was inspired by the album’s cover. “He said he really enjoys to look at my hands when I play. He says it is like a dance” Salvi explains. “He imagined my hands mimetized with a natural habitat. I told him I was imagining a mimetic atmosphere in the whole album: with water, plants, sand… so he chose plants, moss and water.”
On ‘Habitat’, Angélica is inspired by the habitat of her own, and the way in which she relates to it in her daily life. Each of the songs is a sensory memory that can be relived over and over again, with changing nuances and subtleties. It’s a set of moments of interaction with the elements that are, or have been, part of her routine and are transformed or modified with her actions. Memories captured and reproduced infinitely through labyrinthine patterns and sound textures, ambiguous melodies and flourishing harmonies that fluctuate, coexist and interact with other beings or elements in their universe of minimal language.
The album was created and recorded in her home studio with the aim of being fully possible to reproduce and process the sound in real time, in the context of live music. On the album there is almost no post-production. All sounds that appear on it come out of the harp and the affiliated pedals.
This was my second time seeing Chicago queercore punk band Bev Rage and the Drinks, and it was, so far, the loudest set I’ve seen them play.
First up in the small Brass Rail dive bar in downtown Fort Wayne, were The Namby Pamby, who I hadn’t seen before now. Their stuff reminded me of some of Nirvana‘s mellower tracks with harder-edged R.E.M. thrown in for good measure. It’s an interesting sound that feels familiar and yet kind of exotic.
As I mentioned before, Bev Rage and the Drinks came out and proceeded to blast the Brass Rail’s bar out onto Broadway. I don’t know how much of it was the place’s acoustics, how much was their amps turned up to eleven, and how much of it was Ms. Rage and her band’s blazing fury, but the power of their set was palpable. They ripped through tracks from their last two albums, ending with a hard-hitting version of “Permanent Receptionist.”
Necromoon played after them, but I was exhausted after a long work day and had to leave to make it home safe that night. It was a fun night, however, and Bev Rage always puts on a great show.
There was a guy wearing a TV set on his head when I walked into Piere’s Entertainment Center in Ft. Wayne, Indiana on September 20, 2022.
That guy was Mobley – a one-man show who played a wild mix of electro and soul on everything from guitar, drum kit, keyboards, and a sequencer. His video clips displayed behind him were perfectly synchronized with his fun set, showing lyrics and images from his tracks.
I was mainly there to see The Joy Formidable, who were opening for The Front Bottoms. The crowd was heavy with Front Bottoms fans, judging by the number of band shirts I saw in the crowd, and hardly anyone knew who The Joy Formidable were. It was also, according to lead singer and guitarist Rhiannon “Ritzy” Bryan, the band’s first time playing in Fort Wayne.
They proceeded to shred the entire stage, almost demolishing it and leaving nothing for The Front Bottoms to use afterwards. They were fired up to play, with Bryan sometimes so energetic that she head-butted bassist / co-vocalist Rhydian Dafydd in the chest – twice.
They opened with “The Greatest Light Is the Greatest Shade” and rarely let up to take a breath. They would retune, and then rip into another track, ending their too short set with a stunning, long, blazing edition of “Whirring.”
I left after their set. The Front Bottoms’ style of music isn’t my thing, and I felt bad for them having to follow The Joy Formidable, because, as one guy in the crowd who’d never heard them before said after their set, “That was some hard shit.”
Starting with bright, jangly guitar and weird filter effects, Frankie and The Witch Fingers‘ 2017 album, Brain Telephone, plunges you straight into their weird, wonderful world of psychedelic garage rock with the opening title track and barely lets up on the rabbit hole plunge for the album’s entire length.
The harmonica on “Learnings of the Light” brings early Rolling Stones to mind, if the Stones got even trippier in their first decade. The heavy fuzz of “Primitive Delight” is perfect for rolling down the windows and blasting it as you pull into the Tasty Freeze drive-thru for a strawberry milkshake and some onion rings. “Sunshine Earthquake” and “Microscope” have a neat “soaring” energy to them that seems to lift both tracks, and you, off the ground.
“Doomed” embraces the band’s love of The Doors and southern California (where the band relocated after starting in Bloomington, Indiana) rock. “Sinister Poison” has a fun, slightly spooky keyboard riff throughout that it might make it your new favorite addition to your Halloween playlists. “Owsley” takes Beatles-era psychedelia and injects it with about a liter of straight fuzz and cosmic rock riffs. I’m not sure if the guitars or the drums are bigger in it.
You might think “Let Love Be Love” is going to be a full-blown “hippy” track with its title and opening guitar strums and ballad vocals from Dylan Sizemore, but the track doesn’t devolve into navel-gazing jams and instead remains a straight-up Summer of Love pop-rock cut. They save the epic jamming for “Mother’s Mirror,” which is over eight minutes of ripping solos, tight chops, and warped vocals. It starts as a mind-trip jam (with flute!) and slowly builds into a fast blast through space.
It’s a cool album because you can hear the band’s sound evolving into what would become their harder-edged garage rock face-melting style.
The first thing you learn about The Bobby Lees upon playing their new album, Bellevue, is that they don’t waste time. The title track, which opens the album, explodes like ambush machine gun fire. It’s hard to determine who is going fastest. Is it Sam Quartin with her frantic vocals, Macky Bowman with his raging drums, Nick Casa with his blazing guitar, or Kendall Wind with her bonkers bass?
They only stop to breathe for the beginning of “Hollywood Junkyard,” which soon grows into a savage beast of a track that has Quartin ripping apart fame and all the trappings and expectations that come with it. “Ma Likes to Drink” ups the punk (and the funk on Wind’s bass). “Death Train” brings in monster surf elements and Quartin tells us to “shut up and dance.”
“Strange Days” takes a strange left turn, reminding me of some early tracks by Yeah Yeah Yeahs with its haunted house piano, rock star swagger, and air of mystery. “Dig Your Hips” lights a new fuse under your feet with some of Bowman’s hardest snare slaps on the record. I love how the whole band sings on the chorus of “Have You Seen a Girl.” Casa’s guitar solo on “In Low” is jaw-dropping. It sounds like the rest of the band told him, “Just go nuts.”, and he took them up on the offer.
“Little Table” might be a song about human furniture fetish, or a song about the interdependency of relationships. It could be both. “Monkey Mind” has Quartin protesting her inability to stay present. We can all relate to this, and to Wind’s dance bass groove. “Greta Van Fake” is, as you’d expect and hope, a brutal takedown of Greta Van Fleet (“I watch you from the crowd as you fake it, now watch us from the ground as we make it.”). The album closes with “Be My Enemy,” which has Quartin telling her detractors that she’s biding her time as they push her down so she can grow in strength and then smash them to pieces.
Bellevue is named after the upstate New York mental hospital, and Quartin has mentioned that she wrote many of the album’s lyrics while undergoing great stress during the pandemic. The album is manic, for sure, but there’s a tightness to it like a straitjacket that’s tearing at the seams.
Partner‘s newest EP, Time Is a Car, is both a throwback to their love of fellow Canadians Rush and a drive into the future of their careers as rock icons of their own.
The title track, with its danceable bass from Lucy Niles, brings in post-punk guitars by Joseé Caron and existentialist vocals from both of them such as, “If you’re part of the fabric, do you know you’re a thread?” “Boundaries (No Offense)” has a country twang to it that accentuates the theme of leaving a relationship and putting up a metaphorical fence so you won’t return because you know it would be bad for both of you.
After the lovely, almost ambient “Rest Stop Interlude,” we floor it with “Fear That Closes the Heart” – a track in which Partner happily wear their Rush influence on their sleeves. On it, Caron and Niles sing that they’re “Scared to let go of the fear, scared of what might take its place.” The ego is a tough bastard, and it will go all it can to keep its hold on you.
Partner encourages us to finish the race on the closer, “Not Today,” with powerful lyrics like “Not today, but one day, the world won’t be the same…The things that we believe in will evolve and they will change…When illusions turn to dust and institutions rust, maybe that’ll be the day truth will light the way.” It’s a strong example of how Partner have grown as songwriters, and it has Caron’s fiercest solo on the record.
It’s more good stuff from Partner, who seem to get a hit every time they’re at the plate.
Brooklyn-based GIFT unveils “Share The Present,” the new single from their forthcoming album, Momentary Presence, out October 14th on Dedstrange. Following previous singles “Feather” and “Gumball Garden,” “Share the Present” stays grounded with solid motorik riffs and airy 80s-inspired synths making a comfortable bed for bandleader TJ Freda’s gentle affirmations. Freda explains, “Sharing the present is being in the present moment. Not looking towards the future or dwelling on the past. Being present is the most important thing you can do when you are feeling down. ‘Don’t look back, you’ll fall down’ don’t dwell on the past of who you were. Look to the present moment and appreciate who you are and where you’re going.” This ethos is central to Momentary Presence, a chronicle of the plight to stay present, and a celebration of the eternal now.
Composed of Freda and his bandmates Jessica Gurewitz, Kallan Campbell, Justin Hrabovsky, and Cooper Naess, GIFT have a knack for conjuring soundscapes that are simultaneously turbulent and gorgeous. GIFT’s debut album, Momentary Presence, is a natural match for Dedstrange, the new label co-founded by Oliver Ackermann of New York City noise-rock and psychedelic legends A Place to Bury Strangers and Death by Audio. Inspired by Be Here Now, the 1971 spiritual guide and counterculture landmark by guru Ram Dass, Momentary Presence is a meditation on working through the anxiety and self doubt that we all, at one point, carry.
Momentary Presence introduces TJ Freda as a sorcerous and versatile home-recording engineer. GIFT’s full-length debut contains recordings that seem to tease something seismic coming around the corner, as well as dense, layered productions that feel complete, definitive, and impermeable. Can you open yourself up and appreciate it in its fullness – the ugliness and confusion as well as the beauty and joy? The members of GIFT believe you can. Together, they share the quest for perfect sound, harmony during times of trouble, and radical openness.
The Stooges, who would become known for their fierce punk garage rock, could’ve been one of the greatest psychedelic rock bands of all time if they had chosen to go down that road.
Take the opening track (“1969”) of their debut album, for example. It’s loaded with psych-fuzz guitar from Ron Asheton that sounds like he just walked in from San Francisco instead of Detroit, and Iggy Pop‘s vocals are almost spoken word poetry rambled from a dingy coffee house. “I Wanna Be Your Dog” almost induces bad acid trip panic.
The third track, “We Will Fall,” is over ten minutes of floating down a lazy river while monks wearing saffron-colored robes chant and play hand percussion instruments along the banks. “No Fun” brings back the grungy fuzz with Dave Alexander‘s distorted bass leading the romp. “Real Cool Time” has Asheton jamming like a damn sawmill of sound tearing through your house.
Pop’s vocals on “Ann” blend right into Asheton’s guitar squalls while Alexander and Scott Asheton lay down a hypnotic rhythm to further trip you out of your headspace. “Not Right” has Pop feeling frisky, but his lady friend isn’t “feeling right,” so he’s stuck again frustrated, and then even more so when she’s finally in the mood and he isn’t. “It’s always this way,” he moans while the rest of the Stooges proceed to melt our faces. The album closes with “Little Doll” and its swirling, scratchy, savage guitars fading the album, and us, into oblivion.
Everyone knows how important The Stooges are to music, but their debut album is a forgotten psychedelic rock classic.