This year, CHAI made their Sub Pop debut with WINK, securing their position as “a professional purveyor of whimsy” (The New York Times). Today, the band announces their forthcoming WINK TOGETHER EP, a reimagination of songs from their beloved record, and reveals “END” (Confidence Man Remix). For WINK TOGETHER, CHAI tapped their favorite artists from around the world for what they call their “most powerful album yet.” Collaborators include Korea’s Beenzino, Japan’s ZAZEN BOYS and STUTS, as well as Australia’s Confidence Man. “CHAI and ConMan are a match made in party heaven,” Confidence Man explains. “When we heard their track ‘END,’ we just knew we had to put our hands all over it. Make the girls the 90’s hip hop stars they truly are. And if we do say so ourselves, it’s truly turned into the collab of our dreams.”
Today’s remix is a small taste of what CHAI have in store with WINK TOGETHER, as well as what they will bring to their 2022 North American tour of the same name. The WINK TOGETHER tour will see CHAI bookending their run of dates supporting Mitski, including stops in Chicago, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles.
WINK TOGETHER Tracklist 1. END (Confidence Man Remix) 2. ACTION (with ZAZEN BOYS) 3. Miracle (Scoobert Doobert Remix) 4. PING PONG! (Busy P Remix) 5. Nobody Knows We Are Fun (STUTS Remix) 6. Donuts Mind If I Do (with Beenzino)
CHAI TOUR DATES Fri. Feb. 4 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall Sat. Feb. 5 – Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club Sun. Feb. 6 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry Wed. Feb. 9 – Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace Fri. Feb. 11 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair Sat. Feb. 12 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry Sun. Feb. 13 – Washington, DC @ Union Stage Tue. Feb. 15 – Brooklyn NY @ Elsewhere Thu. Feb. 17 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel * – SOLD OUT Fri. Feb. 18 – Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz * – SOLD OUT Sat. Feb. 19 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern * – SOLD OUT Mon. Feb. 21 – Birmingham, AL @ Iron City * – SOLD OUT Tue. Feb. 22 – New Orleans, LA @ Civic Theatre * – SOLD OUT Thu. Feb. 24 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall (Outside Lawn) * – SOLD OUT Fri. Feb. 25 – Dallas, TX @ The Bomb Factory * – SOLD OUT Sat. Feb. 26 – Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater * – SOLD OUT Mon. Feb. 28 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren * – SOLD OUT Wed. March 2 – Los Angeles, CA @ Shrine Expo Hall * – SOLD OUT Thu. March 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ Shrine Expo Hall * – SOLD OUT Fri. March 4 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater * – SOLD OUT Sat. March 5 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater * – SOLD OUT Mon. March 7 – Portland, OR @ Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall * – SOLD OUT Wed. March 9 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre * – SOLD OUT Thu. March 10 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre * – SOLD OUT Sat. March 12 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile Sun. March 13 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge Tue. March 15 – San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s 365 Club Thu. March 17 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom *= supporting Mitski
Squid’s acclaimed debut album Bright Green Field, released via Warp Records, has been called one of the best albums of 2021 by Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Quietus, Consequence, Paste, Exclaim!, and beyond. On the heels of their sold out first-ever US tour, the UK band announces a 2022 North American tour which sees them playing their biggest venues yet. Having built a reputation for their must-see live performances, Squid — Ollie Judge, Louis Borlase, Arthur Leadbetter, Laurie Nankivell, and Anton Pearson — are not to be missed. Tour dates are listed below and tickets are on sale here.
Squid Tour Dates Wed. Jan. 26 – Belfast, UK @ Empire Music Hall Thu. Jan 27 – Galway, IE @ Roisin Dubh Fri. Jan. 28 – Cork, IE @ Cyprus Avenue Sun. Jan. 30 – Dublin, IE @ The Button Factory Mon. Jan. 31 – Dublin, IE @ The Button Factory Mon. March 7 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom Tue. March 8 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile Wed. March 9 – Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre Sat. March 12 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall Sun. March 13 – Los Angeles, CA @ Regent Theater Wed. March 16 – Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre Thu. March 17 – Detroit, MI @ El Club Fri. March 18 – Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern Sat. March 19 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz Mon. March 21 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat Tue. March 22 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom Wed. March 23 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg Fri. March 25 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall Sun. June 5 – Sun. June 12 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound Fri. Jul. 8 – London, UK @ Somerset House Fri. Aug. 5 – Sun. Aug. 7 – Katowice, PL @ OFF Festival Wed. Aug. 17 – Sat. Aug. 20 – Paredes de Coura, PT @ Paredes de Coura Festival Thu. Aug. 25 – Sun. Aug. 28 – Saint Cloud, FR @ Rock en Seine Mon. Sep. 16 – Sun. Sep. 18 – Los Angeles, CA @ Primavera Sound LA
Singer, guitarist, and folk music interpreter Jake Xerxes Fussell shares two new songs, “Breast of Glass” and “Frolic,” from his forthcoming album, Good and Green Again, out January 21st on Paradise of Bachelors. Produced by James Elkington (Jeff Tweedy, Michael Chapman, Steve Gunn, etc.), Good and Green Again is Fussell’s most conceptually focused and breathtakingly rendered album to date, a transcendent place on a musical map of melancholy, quietude, and foot-stomping joy. Following previously released album opener “Love Farewell,” “Breast of Glass” features beautiful, sparse horn arrangements written by Fussell and Elkington and performed by Anna Jacobson. “Frolic,” one of the three airy instrumentals on Good and Green Again, punctuates the program, offering respite and light in the form of crisp, shuffling play-party tunes.
Fussell has distinguished himself as one of his generation’s preeminent interpreters of traditional (and not so traditional) “folk” songs, a practice which he approaches with a refreshingly unfussy lack of nostalgia and preciousness. By recontextualizing ancient vernacular songs and sources of the American South, he allows them to breathe and speak for themselves and for himself; he alternately inhabits them and allows them to inhabit him. In all his work, Fussell humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways. The robust burr of his voice, which periodically melts and catches at a particularly tender turn of phrase, and the swung rhythmic undertow of exquisite, seemingly effortless guitar-playing pull new valences of meaning from ostensibly antique songs and subjects.
For Good and Green Again, Elkington and Fussell enlisted engineer Jason Richmond and a group of formidable players hailing from Durham, North Carolina (where Fussell lives) and elsewhere, including regular band members Casey Toll (Mt. Moriah, Nathan Bowles) on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel. They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributes additional vocals.
Jake Xerxes Fussell Tour Dates (new dates in bold): Fri. Jan. 21 – Chapel Hill, NC @ The Nightlight Sat. Jan. 22 – Richmond, VA @ The Camel Sun. Jan. 23 – Washington, DC @ Pie Shop Tue. Jan. 25 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA Wed. Jan. 26 – Brooklyn, NY @ The Knitting Factory Thu. Jan. 27 – Boston, MA @ Club Passim Fri. Jan 28 – Keene, NH @ Nova Arts Sat. Jan. 29 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Caffe Lena Thu. Feb. 17 – Los Angeles, CA @ Gold Diggers * Sat. Feb 19 – Santa Monica, CA @ McCabe’s Guitar Shop * Tue. Feb 22 – Portland, OR @ The Old Church * Sun. May 1 – Kilkenny, IE @ Kilkenny Roots Mon. May 2 – Kilkenny, IE @ Kilkenny Roots Tue. May 3 – Dublin, IE @ Bello Bar Wed. May 4 – Belfast, UK @ Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival Fri. May 6 – Manchester, UK @ Gulliver’s Sat. May 7 – London, UK @ Oslo Sun. May 8 – Glasgow, UK @ Glad Cafe Mon. May 9 – York, UK @ Fulford Arms Wed. May 11 – Ultrecht, NL @ Tivoli (Club Nine) Fri. May 13 – Nijmegen, NL @ Merleyn Sat. May 14 – Cologne, DE @ King Georg Mon. May 16 – Hamburg, DE @ Aalhaus Tue. May 17 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Darkwave duo Boy Harsher have announced the release of their debut horror film, The Runner, with Shudder – AMC Network’s premium streaming service for horror, thriller, and the supernatural – to stream the film in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand beginning Sunday, January 16th (Mandolin will host the film for the rest of the world).
Written, directed, and produced by Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller of Boy Harsher, The Runner follows a strange woman as she travels to a secluded, rural town where her violent compulsions are slowly revealed. The story intertwines with Boy Harsher performing on a public access channel. Their music scores the strange woman’s descent deeper into the unknown. The Runner features break-out performances by musician Kris Esfandiari (King Woman), performance artist Sigrid Lauren (FlucT), and musician Cooper B. Handy (Lucy).
Last year, in the midst of the obvious chaos, but additionally with Matthews’ MS diagnosis, Muller started working on moody, cinematic sketches. It was uncertain what these pieces would become other than catharsis — the duo were unable to tour and making “club music” did not feel right. In Matthews’ period of convalescence, she kept thinking about a sinister character: a woman running through the woods. Together, the duo developed this idea further into a film that explores lust, compulsion, and the horrific tendencies of seduction. The movie is intercut with a meta-style “documentary” about Boy Harsher’s recording process. Being released alongside the film is Boy Harsher’s new album, The Runner (Original Soundtrack), out January 21st on Nude Club/City Slang. The soundtrack balances eerie instrumentals with pop songs that push the boundaries of the duo’s sound.
After a stellar year that saw them release their debut album and join IDLES on a largely sold-out nationwide tour, Brooklyn art punks Gustaf have returned with a fiery remix of their track “Design” by none other than the multi-time Grammy-winner Beck. Their friendship with Beck blossomed after he invited them to play a secret loft party at his New York apartment, and his re-work of their first ever recorded single comes alongside a throughly enjoyable Interview Magazine piece in which they discuss the merits of creating and sharing outside of the box. Today, they’re also announcing a slew of headline dates across the United States and the UK, as well as a Talkhouse conversation with tourmates IDLES.
LISTEN: to Beck’s remix of Gustaf’s “Design” on YouTube
Audio Drag For Ego Slobscame out via Royal Mountain Records on October 1st to rapturous praise from the likes of NPR, NME, BrooklynVegan, DIY, Paste, and the band will continue to prove why they are one of America’s most “reliably fun bands” as they head out on a full US headline tour with stops at SXSW, Treefort, Savannah Music Fest and many more, before jumping across the Atlantic for their first UK shows, a run that will see them appearing at Brighton’s The Great Escape festival.
Beck’s remix of Gustaf’s “Design” is out now on Royal Mountain Records. It is available to stream here.
Tour Dates
2022 3/10 – Washington, DC @ DC9 3/11 – Durham, NC @ Pinhook 3/11-12 – Savannah, GA @ Savannah Stopover Music Fest 3/13 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl 3/15 – Dallas, TX @ Sundown at Granada 3/16-18 – Austin, TX @ SXSW 3/20 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress 3/21 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo 3/23 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop 3/23-27 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Fest 3/25 – Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern 3/26 – Portland, OR @ Bunk Bar 3/31 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry 4/1 – Milwaukee, WI @ Colectivo 4/2 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle 4/3 – Columbus, OH @ Ace Of Cups 4/5 – Toronto, ON @ Garrison 4/7 – Burlington, VT – Higher Ground 4/8 – Portland, ME @ Portland House of Music 4/14 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s 4/15 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall 4/16 – New York, NY @ The Broadway 4/29 – Nottingham, United Kingdom @ Bodega 4/30 – Edinburgh, United Kingdom @ Stag & Dagger Edinburgh 5/1 – Glasgow, United Kingdom @ Stag & Dagger Glasgow 5/3 – Dublin, Ireland @ The Workman’s Club 5/4 – Manchester, United Kingdom @ YES / Pink Room 5/6 – Leeds, United Kingdom @ Headrow House 5/7 – Coventry, United Kingdom @ Coventry Central Library 5/8 – Birmingham, United Kingdom @ Hare & Hounds 5/9 – London, United Kingdom @ Moth Club (co-headline w/ Kills Birds) 5/10 – London, United Kingdom @ Moth Club (co-headline w/ Kills Birds) 5/11 – Cambridge, United Kingdom @ The Portland Arms 5/13 – Brighton, United Kingdom @ The Great Escape Festival 5/14 – Bristol, United Kingdom @ Crofters Rights
With her new album ‘Mutual Dreaming‘ set for release Feb 11th via ShapesRecordings, Norwegian producer and singer Sea Change has shared a new single from the record, “Is There Anybody There“.
Speaking about the track, Sea Change said “‘Is There Anybody There’ came from a very lonely place – it was in the middle of the lockdown and all the streets were empty, and I guess I can say for a lot of people it was quite lonely at times. But then the song developed into this mindset where I tried to put myself into the body of someone who feels this lonely and alienated all the time, who longs for contact and validation, someone that’s outside of the system, living on the fringes of society, longing to be understood.”
Listen to “Is There Anybody There” here: https://youtu.be/UEZSHX6b8HI Embed code: <iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/UEZSHX6b8HI” title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe>
Music sometimes takes place in a world that’s more emotional than rational, less something you think about and more something you feel. That’s the home turf of the new album from Sea Change – Mutual Dreaming. With inspiration from the world of club music, another dreamspace where reality seems to slip, these songs come from a place where shadows of memories and feelings dance in the listener’s sub-consciousness. With its subtle, infectious sense of rhythm, delivered through fractured, hallucinogenic electronica, the music here moves through your body like a pulse, for a record that manages to be both enigmatic and elusive, and at the same time totally compelling.
Sea Change is the project of Norway’s Ellen A. W. Sunde. From her debut album, 2015’s Breakage, to her music today, her sound has fluctuated and mutated – from airy, atmospheric pop to bubbling, shapeshifting electronica, but her creative vision hasn’t changed. With whatever style she’s working with, she’s on a mission to push and stretch it into new shapes, to explore the fringes of what the music can become. Across three records, it’s made for a musical vision that’s adventurous, hard to pin down, and even harder to predict. And on the latest of those albums, Mutual Dreaming, that’s more the case than ever before, as she follows her feelings in painting an intuitive, impressionistic world that wraps itself around the listener.
Her previous album INSIDE was inspired by club culture in Los Angeles and Berlin – having spent some time exploring the hazy spaces of those clubs, she made her own version of that feeling in sound. In terms of time and place at least, Mutual Dreaming was born somewhere very different. Sunde relocated back to Norway, to the southern coastal town of Kristiansand, and had just started work on the new album when lockdown hit. So instead of the overstimulation of city life, the new album was made with a distinct absence of input from the outside world. Still, Sunde found she enjoyed it. “It was very quiet”, she says. “I could really concentrate on making new music. In a way, it was starting from scratch. The vibe was very explorative, and I had fun making it. It was easier to dive into it when there weren’t any distractions”. Sunde was keen to explore the physical side of music in the songs, the way it interacts with the body: “Music can be very primal. When you are going clubbing and dancing you can lose yourself in your own headspace, and be more in time with your body”.
With her new music, Sunde wanted to make something fresh and fast, even setting herself the challenge of making the album as quickly as possible, so she could follow her ideas without overthinking or over-processing them. The approach to writing and production (with co-producing help on some of the songs from frequent collaborator Andrew Murray Baardsen at Luft Studio) was driven by impulse and instinct rather than planning, something that gave her freedom: “It was liberating for me, to not think things through too much. To be able to just go where the song could take me. I felt more relaxed when making this one. This album is more deconstructed and very intuitive. With INSIDE, the process was more thought-through. This one was more anti-intellectual and also very visual. I often see images when I produce music, like different scenes in movies”. Even the lyrics followed this approach, written first as filler to suit the sound of the track, and then later reworked and remoulded to serve its mood. “It was very intuitive and stream-of-consciousness”, she says. “Visceral and very introspective”.
What emerged from that process is an album of fractured, spectral electronic music. Despite that fracturing, the sense of rhythm remains – the music on Mutual Dreaming is driven by a strange, morphing danceability, a clockwork sense of groove. Beats steer the songs and provide their overarching structure, like on opener “I Put My Hand Into A Fist”, where the other parts of the song, the shivering synths and fluttering snares, swirl like currents around it. “Everything we made is fluid” intones Sunde on that song, and that goes for the whole album, a feeling of nothing being fixed, a constant flux. As you move from song to song, the mood changes slowly, like a sky shifting from light to dark. All the way through, the texture and tone are perfectly engineered, to the point where you almost feel them physically – “Mirages” slowly rises, softly making contact with your senses, like the feeling of gentle waves washing over you, whereas “Night Eyes” pulls you, into murkier, heavier territory. Sunde says she sees the record visually, and it’s one that almost demands you close your eyes when listening to it, to let the music draw its shapes and scenes in your own imagination.
The music’s deconstructed nature, the way it refuses to slip into any structure for very long, fits into the record’s theme. Sunde sees freedom in Mutual Dreaming, not only for her, in an emotional sense, but also for the outside listener, who is given the interpretive space by the album to follow their own path through it, somewhere in the floating interzone of its sounds. “I prefer a more abstract framework”, she says. “I rarely find it so interesting to write songs with a clear song structure – I’d rather explore a freer form”.
So ultimately, and in a nod to its title, Mutual Dreaming is a record that can draw as much from its listener as from the artist herself. The blurry, murky world these songs inhabit moves restlessly, always dissolving and reforming – leaving it to the observer to find their own meaning in it. It’s a record where Sea Change found her way in fragments, letting her feelings guide her, and then knitted those fragments into a vision of dance music that’s free-floating and immersive, a space where reality’s grip seems to lose its hold. It’s beyond club music, beyond its inspirations, and in the sonic richness and detail you can find the power of something beyond words – put it on, and the normal world feels very far away.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announce Butterfly 3001, a remix album of their original out January 21st, 2022 on KGLW. Today, they share two of its singles, “Neu Butterfly” (Peaches Remix) and “Shanghai” (Dub by The Scientist). King Gizzard’s Joey Walker elaborates: “We’ve put off doing a remix album for a long time. Maybe it was conscious, maybe it wasn’t. But it’s happening now. That’s not to say that Butterfly 3000 makes the most sense to remix. It might seem like the obvious one, but it’s not. Yes it’s electronic. But so is a fridge. Have you tried to dance to Butterfly? It’s hard. It ties your shoelaces together. It’s duplicitous in its simplicity. But Butterfly 3001 expands on this. It also deviates and obliterates. We’re honoured to have such esteemed people go to work on these songs. We hope you love this album as much as we do. See you in DA CLUB!!!”
For their “Neu Butterfly” remix, Peaches “wanted to make this remix sound like a lizard. Slippery wet and scaly dry. Something that wiggles through wide open spaces… with slits for eyeballs…. And danceable.”
Legendary producer The Scientist says “I’ve always enjoyed being able to apply my dub mixing techniques to music outside of the typical ‘reggae mold.’ The music of KGLW, and specifically the song ‘Shanghai,’ provided me with the perfect landscape to be able to create something sonically rich and exciting for the listener. KGLW fans and dub-reggae fans, alike, will enjoy this song very much.”
Pre-order Butterfly 3001 Butterfly 3001 Tracklist 1. Black Hot Soup (DJ Shadow “My Own Reality” Re-Write) 2. Shanghai (The Scientist Dub) 3. Shanghai (Deaton Chris Anthony Remix) 4. Dreams (Yu Su Instrumental Mix) 5. Blue Morpho (Donato Dozzy Remix) 6. Blue Morpho (VRIL Remix) 7. Blue Morpho (Ciel’s Fluttering Dub) 8. Blue Morpho (ZANDOLI II remix) 9. Catching Smoke (DāM-FunK Instrumental Re-Freak) 10. Ya Love (Flaming Lips’ Fascinating Haircut Re-Do) 11. Ya Love (Geneva Jacuzzi Remix) 12. Ya Love (Héctor Oaks playing w/ Fire Mix) 13. 2.02 Killer Year (Bullant’s Fuck Mike Love Remix) 14. Yours (Fred P Journey Mix) 15. Butterfly 3000 (Terry Tracksuit Remix) 16. Neu Butterfly 3000 (Peaches Remix) 17. Catching Smoke (4am Wack Rmx By Hieroglyphic Being) * 18. Blue Morpho (Mall Grab Remix) * 19. Dreams (Peaking Lights Trancedellic Macrodosing Mix) * 20. Interior People (Confidence Man Remix) * 21. Catching Smoke (Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Remix) *
*= available on digital release only
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard 2022 Tour Dates Sat. Mar. 19 – Buenos Aires, AR @ Lollapalooza Argentina Sat. Mar. 26 – São Paulo, BR @ Lollapalooza Brazil Sun. Mar. 27 – Bogotá, CO @ Festival Estereo Picnic Sun. April 17 – Las Vegas, NV @ Event Lawn at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas % Sun. April 24 – San Luis Obispo, CA @ Madonna Inn $ Tue. April 26 – Sonoma, CA @ Gundlach Bundschu $ Wed. April 27 – Petaluma, CA @ Phoenix Theater $ Sat. April 30 – Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Festival Fri. May 20 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre Sat. May 21 – Columbus, OH @ Express Live Sun. May 22 – Millvale, PA @ Mr. Smalls Funhouse Tue. May 24 – Rochester, NY @ Water Street Music Hall Wed. May 25 – South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground Thu. May 26 – South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground Tue. May 31 – Athens, Greece @ Gagarin 205 Wed. June 1 – Athens, Greece @ Gagarin 205 Fri. June 3 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound – SOLD OUT Sun. June 5 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera in the City Mon. June 6 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera in the City Tue. June 7 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera in the City Thu. June 9 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound – SOLD OUT Sat. June 11 – Mannheim, DE @ Maifeld Derby Festival Tue. June 14 – Berlin, DE @ Tempodrom Sat. June 18 – Miami, FL @ Space Park Sun. July 31 – Waterford, IE @ All Together Now Tue. Aug. 2 – Šibenik, HR @ St. Michael’s Fortress Wed. Aug. 3 – Šibenik, HR @ St. Michael’s Fortress Fri. Aug. 5 – Prague, CZ @ Archa Theatre Sun. Aug. 7 – Vienna, AT @ Arena Wien (Open Air) Tue. Aug. 9 – Leipzig, DE @ Parkbühne Wed. Aug. 10 – Munich, DE @ Tonhalle Fri. Aug. 12 – Sion, CH @ Palp Festival Thu. Aug. 18 – Paredes de Coura, PT @ Paredes de Coura Festival Fri. Aug. 19 – Gueret, FR @ Check-In Party Festival Sat. Aug. 20 – Saint-Malo, FR @ La Route du Rock Festival Tue. Aug. 23 – Cologne, DE @ E-Werk Wed. Aug. 24 – Hamburg, DE @ Markthalle Sat. Aug. 27 – Málaga, ES @ Canela Party Sun. Oct. 2 – Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre * Tue. Oct. 4 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater* Wed. Oct. 5 – Vancouver, BC @ PNE Forum* Thu. Oct. 6 – Seattle, WA @ Paramount * Mon. Oc. 10 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre* – SOLD OUT Tue. Oct. 11 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre* – SOLD OUT Fri. Oct. 14 – St Paul, MN @ The Palace Theatre* – SOLD OUT Sat. Oct. 15 – Chicago, IL @ RADIUS* Sun. Oct. 16 – Detroit, MI @ Masonic Temple* Tue. Oct. 18 – Toronto, ON @ History* Wed. Oct. 19 – Montreal, QC @ L’Olympia* Fri. Oct. 21 – New York, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium* Sat. Oct. 22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Franklin Music Hall* Sun. Oct. 23 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem at The Wharf* Mon. Oct. 24 – Asheville, NC @ Rabbit Rabbit* Wed. Oct. 26 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern* Thu. Oct. 27 – New Orleans, LA @ Orpheum Theater * Mon. Oc. 31 – Oklahoma City, OK @ The Criterion #
% w/ Amyl and the Sniffers, SPELLLING, Dj Crenshaw $ w/ SPELLLING, DJ Crenshaw * w/ Leah Senior # w/ The Murlocs, Leah Senior
Recorded live at London’s Town & Country Club on June 13, 1988, Final Damnation is a time capsule of The Damned‘s reunion concert. All of the original members of the band are here: Dan Vanian on vocals, Rat Scabies on drums, Captain Sensible on bass and guitar, and Brian James on guitar. They also bring in Bryan Merrick on bass and Roman Jugg on keyboards for songs on which those guys played on Damned albums featuring them. The band had just been dropped by their label before cutting this record, and the unhinged chaos of that moment in the band’s timeline can be felt and heard.
Starting with “See Her Tonite,” the band barely has time to say hello before launching into furious punk riffs. “We’re not doin’ it for the money!” Captain Sensible yells to the crowd afterwards. The crowd replies with, “Oh, yes you are!” and soon Sensible is chugging out the always thrilling bass line of “Neat Neat Neat” and the crowd is going bonkers. “Born to Kill” hits like a metal rockabilly.
I’m not sure if Sensible or Scabies is playing hardest on “I Fall,” as they’re both going nuts throughout it (Scabies has the slight edge, I think.). “Fan Club” has a great swagger to it, and a great solo from James, too. “Fish” is a fast fan-favorite. Their cover of The Beatles’ “Help” is almost unrecognizable as it hits like repeated punches to the face. “New Rose,” of course, gets the crowd into a frenzy, and their cover of The Stooges‘ “I Feel Alright” is stunning.
The “second half” of the album / show starts with their classic tune “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today” – a song that’s still resonant decades later. “Wait for the Blackout” has Sensible wailing on his guitar for the back of the room. Jugg’s opening piano chords on “Melody Lee” are like a fake jab before the hard cross of the guitars and drums. “Noise, Noise, Noise” is as raucous as you hope it will be, as is “Love Song” – in which it sounds like Scabies destroys his kit.
The opening chords and beats of “Smash It Up” give you some time to catch your breath before you want to join the band in smashing everything in sight, and they end the show with two snarky covers – “Looking at You” by MC5 and The Rolling Stones‘ “The Last Time.”
Thankfully, this wouldn’t be the last time The Damned played a show or even released an album, but Final Damnation is a great recording of a great show. There’s also a DVD of the entire performance out there (which can also be found on YouTube) to help capture the madness.
Psymon Spine —the Brooklyn, NY music collective fusing psychedelic indie pop and the deep grooves of dance music—have shared two new songs out as a digital 7” via Northern Spy Records. “‘Mr. Metronome’ and ‘Drums Valentino’ were among the first song ideas we came up with when first starting our sophomore record” says founding member Noah Prebish. “We wrote them near the end of a two year hiatus which was spent pursuing various other projects by the individuals in the band. Following the break, we were all feeling hungry to make a new Psymon Spine record and we quickly began exploring the new sounds that would ultimately define the album. This process left us with two tracks which were a bit too crazy for Charismatic Megafauna, but too good not to finish.” Listen to the tracks here.
While the lyrics to “Mr. Metronome” include musings on dating and social dynamics, they mostly reflect the group’s restlessness and desire to quit all unfulfilling obligations in order to make music together. With the theme of ‘work’ in mind, member Sabine Holler wrote the German vocal hook, which translates to “I saw your message, I have to go to work,” followed by the repeated refrain, “my schedule, my schedule.” The track is high-energy and synth-centric, drawing on electronic/dance artists such as Kraftwerk and Soulwax.
Released earlier in 2021, Psymon Spine’s Charismatic Megafauna—an album exploring complicated feelings and catharsis through a singular approach to left-of-center indie, electronic and dance sounds—earned support from publications such as Paste, FLOOD, Brooklyn Vegan, Under The Radar, and NME; playlists from NPR Music (New Music Friday), Spotify (All New Indie, undercurrents, Fresh Finds), Apple Music (Midnight City, Today’s Indie Rock), and TIDAL (Rising: Indie/Rock); and airplay from BBC, KEXP, and KCRW.
Good heavens…This album is so lush, haunting, and beautiful that it will sweep you away from whatever you’re doing when you play it. Anika’s voice immediately drapes over you like a luxurious robe with a knife hidden in a back pocket.
Seriously, why aren’t more people going nuts over Rochelle Jordan? She mixes soul, house, disco, and trip hop better than most, and Play with the Changes is, if you ask me, the sexiest album of 2021.
This lovely mix of trip hop, dream pop, bossa nova, and house music is a delight from start to finish. It was a much-needed tonic during the crappy 365 days of 2021. It’s a perfect spin for any time of year. Got the winter blues? Play this. Need a fun record for that summer beach trip? Play this. Need a boost to start your garden? Play this. Looking forward to sipping hot cider in the fall? Play this.
This solo record from one of the cats in Durand Jones and The Indications is one of the best soul and R&B records of 2021. Frazer puts down his trademark sharp beats and brings his other trademark, high-end vocals, with him to create a groovy, sexy blend that impressed Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys so much that he produced it.
This album got locked into my number one spot not long after it was released. It’s a sharp post-punk record, and I remember being more and more impressed with it after each listen. It covers everything from Brexit and the pandemic to boredom and hope for the future. It’s snarky, witty, and powerful.
There you have it. I hope 2022 is good to all of us.
Keep your mind open.
[Why not start off the new year right by subscribing?]
