*Rips* indeed. Ex Hex’s debut delivers a steady stream of muscular riffs, dirty hooks, and sticky melodies. It’s tight, lean, and a lot of fun. Made up of singer and guitarist Mary Timony (Helium, Wild Flag, solo), drummer Laura Harris (The Aquarium), and bassist Betsy Wright (The Fire Tapes), Ex Hex cross garage rock with power pop. It’s not revolutionary, but it’s done well. You can pump your fist to it while appreciating Timony’s clever and often biting lyrics and straight-ahead guitar solos. Longtime Timony fans will also notice the difference in her voice. Trading her hushed vocals for a full-throated wail, here she sounds tough and assured.
In interviews, Aaron Freeman—once known as Gene Ween—has explained he left his old band Ween to stay sober. “Covert Discretion,” the lead-off cut from his first album of new material in years, lays out the dead-end scenarios that could go on no longer. Ween were stunning craftsmen whose outrageous sense of humor caused many listeners to not take their music seriously. Yet, all fooling aside, the musicianship was impeccable. In Freeman\'s solo work, that same flawlessness comes through on *FREEMAN*. Even the “bum” notes on “(For a While) I Couldn’t Play My Guitar Like a Man” are on purpose. “The English and Western Stallion” connects to Freeman’s Ween days, and fans not aware of the situation might think this is a new Ween album. For years, people thought Ween\'s main duo were brothers—Gene and Dean Ween—and with good reason. Now, Freeman finishes his own sentences and his own songs. His first solo album, *Marvelous Clouds*, a collection of Rod McKuen covers, prepped us for the largely mellow magic of songs here, like “El Shaddai,” “Black Bush,” “More Than the World,” and “Delicate Green.”
Aimee Mann and Ted Leo toured together and discovered a musical chemistry that comes to brilliant light on *The Both*. Each songwriter contributes songs that sound personal, though all were collaborations in the end. The two then perform them with arrangements where both musicians give their input. Leo’s “Milwaukee” benefits from having Mann’s harmony attached; whether Mann and Leo are harmonizing or singing to each other in an emotionally charged call-and-response, their voices work well together (the key to any vocal duo). Leo adds his Thin Lizzy/hard rock guitars to Mann’s somber pop; they also cover the early Thin Lizzy tune “Honesty Is No Excuse,” and Mann lends a prettiness to Leo\'s power-punk dreams. Mann sweetens Leo’s “Volunteers of America,” while Mann’s “You Can’t Help Me Now” is toughened up by his snarling guitar work. While it’s often obvious who wrote the heart of each song here, it’s a great feeling when Mann and Leo are on equal footing during “The Prisoner,” “Bedtime Stories,” and “The Inevitable Shove,” and you’re not really sure.
With 2011’s *Slave Ambient*, The War on Drugs offered a collection of emotionally rich, guitar-driven grandeur that earned songwriter/bandleader Adam Granduciel accolades from far beyond his hometown scene in Philadelphia. The War on Drugs’ fourth full-length operates with a bigger, bolder agenda—evident in the clattering electronics and hypnotic production of the nearly nine-minute opener, “Under the Pressure”. From there, *Lost in the Dream* unfolds with warm, melancholic rock that combines Granduciel’s mystical tenor with a blurry haze of vintage synths, chiming guitars, horn accents and reverb-soaked ambience. Uptempo tracks like “Red Eyes” and “An Ocean in Between the Waves” juxtapose pulsing, mechanical backbeats with droning synths. Ballads, like the heartbreaking “Suffering” and the gently paced title track, float along in a beautiful fog. After *Lost in the Dream* closes with a couple of minutes of wordless feedback, the album leaves a hypnotic, lingering impression.
'Lost In The Dream' is the third album by Philadelphia band The War on Drugs, but in many ways, it feels like the first. Around the release of the 2011 breakthrough 'Slave Ambient', Adam Granduciel spent the bulk of two years on the road, touring through progressively larger rock clubs, festival stages and late-night television slots. As these dozen songs shifted and grew beyond what they’d been in the studio, The War on Drugs became a bona fide rock ’n’ roll band. That essence drives 'Lost In The Dream', a 10-song set produced by Granduciel and longtime engineer Jeff Zeigler. In the past, Granduciel built the core of songs largely by himself. But these tunes were played and recorded by the group that had solidified so much on the road: Dave Hartley, (his favorite bassist in the world), who had played a bit on The War on Drugs’ 2008 debut 'Wagonwheel Blues', and pianist Robbie Bennett, a multi-instrumentalist who contributed to 'Slave Ambient'. This unit spent eight months bouncing between a half-dozen different studios that stretched from the mountains of North Carolina to the boroughs of New York City. Only then did Granduciel—the proudly self-professed gearhead, and unrepentant perfectionist—add and subtract, invite guests and retrofit pieces. He sculpted these songs into a musical rescue mission, through and then beyond personal despair and anxiety. 'Lost In The Dream' represents the trials of the trip and the triumphs of its destination.
*Transgender Dysphoria Blues* is a powerful album that features many changes. Two previous band members (drummer Jay Weinberg and bassist Andrew Seward) had left the group, leaving just guitarist James Bowman and guitarist/leader Laura Jane Grace. However, as the album title and songs make clear, Grace—who’d made previous references to wishing she’d been born a woman—was now going through the changes and issues that come with transitioning one’s gender. As music, the songs on *Transgender Dysphoria Blues* are more powerful than ever: electric punk-pop (in place of folk-punk-pop) that shows that this Florida band are fully capable of performing under pressure. In fact, Grace now writes songs with stronger hook-filled melodies and a better-defined sense of purpose. The emotions of the agitated bellows of “Drinking with the Jocks” and the hummable melody of “F\*\*\*MYLIFE666” are so refreshingly honest and heartfelt that it’s just as incredible that Grace and Bowman crafted the record as a universal cry for anyone who\'s struggled with their identity or place in the world.
You can purchase this album on vinyl or CD at store.spoontheband.com.
It’s no surprise that both *Rolling Stone* and Spin magazines named Columbus, Ohio’s Lydia Loveless an artist who readers need to know. Loveless captures an honesty in her songs and in her performances, demanding that people listen. She plays with her band flawlessly, as if she’s already been around the bar circuit for a lot longer than her 23 years. The electric guitars from Todd May sound like a cross between Keith Richards, Scott “Top Ten” Kempner, and Eric “Roscoe” Ambel of The Del-Lords, with a slicing rhythmic efficiency that’s been at the heart of rock ’n’ roll ever since Richards took Chuck Berry’s licks and worked them into his own signature five-string open tuning. Whether it’s “Wine Lips,” “Chris Isaak,” or “To Love Somebody,” the band comes together to seriously kick out these jams. The album’s opening cut, “Really Wanna See You,” sounds like a Stones song already in progress. Her previous recordings (2011’s *Indestructible Machine* and 2013’s *Boy Crazy* EP) were excellent, but *Somewhere Else* takes her music somewhere special.
Future Island’s fourth album and debut for 4AD deserves the title *Singles* since it does play out like an album of individual tracks with great commercial potential all joined as one. The Baltimore trio’s powerful sound is based in synths and electric basslines, from J. Gerrit Welmers and William Cashion, respectively. Together, they layer and push forward an orchestrated groove that’s both modern and steeped in the tradition of Philly soul, glam rock, and postpunk. Singer Samuel T. Herring—a stage hound who captures the audience’s imagination with the movements of a boxer—provides a soulful croon on record that can turn into a virile growl. It’s Joy Division as ballet for “Back in the Tall Grass” and Blue Nile/Talk Talk/Roxy Music for the inescapable hooks of “Seasons (Waiting on You),” “Spirit,\" and “Doves.” Producer Chris Coady (known for his work with Beach House and Grizzly Bear) works with Welmers’ synth loops and smartly composed parts until everything meshes together beautifully for a perfect musicality.
Singer/songwriter/guitar-shredder Annie Clark\'s fourth studio album as St. Vincent is, simply, her best yet. While her catalog is full of twists and turns, including 2013 David Byrne collaboration *Love This Giant*, this self-titled release is both audacious *and* accessible, a canny balancing of Clark\'s experimental leanings with her pop sensibility. Amid a flurry of sonic textures ranging from the clamoring horn section of \"Digital Witness\" to the subdued balladry of \"Prince Johnny,\" Clark critiques our technology-obsessed culture (\"Huey Newton\"), satirizes suburban ennui (\"Birth in Reverse\"), and shares about her love for her mother (\"I Prefer Your Love\"). Her anxieties laid bare, the songwriter asserts herself via pyrotechnic guitar riffs, rhythmic somersaults, and a wayfaring vocal range, resulting in a vertiginous set that\'s as dizzying as it is captivating.
TV on the Radio\'s fifth album sounds as fresh as their debut, proving that the band\'s incandescent fusion of alt, world, and electronic influences remains as inimitable today as it was in 2004. There are subtle tweaks to the formula, though: producer and founding member David Sitek employs a warmer sonic palette, and the songs aren\'t as frenetic. With its lockstep drums and whirring guitars, the single \"Happy Idiot\" nods to the saccharine precision of The Cars, while the horn section on \"Could You\" lends vibrancy to the song\'s motorik pulse. *Seeds* manages the neat trick of being the band\'s most accessible release to date while still being characteristically adventurous.
Ty Segall’s public profile has steadily grown, along with a critical reputation for being the real deal when it comes to reinvigorating rock ’n’ roll from numerous angles. The garage rocker hasn’t only stayed in the garage but ventured into other genres to go along with his Iggy Pop–style psych-punk rock fixations. (*Manipulator* shows signs of picking through the T. Rex catalog.) At 17 tracks, Segall’s seventh album is laid out like a classic double album, with enough focused music to satisfy fans and enough fooling around to make the two LPs feel like the proper format for Segall’s consistently shifting visions.
The clarion call/siren sound of his guitar....the helium-steamed ride of the vocals....track after track, releasing the thought that have been holding us down, all in the name of getting higher on pop songs. Why have one when you can have two? It's a big world, and MANIPULATOR has only begun to fight.
Guided by Voices never seem to run out of ideas. Four months after 2014\'s *Motivational Jumpsuit*, the group have returned with *Cool Planet*. It was recorded during the coldest winter in years, with Robert Pollard working in a studio in Ohio and Tobin Sprout recording in his home studio in Wisconsin. Throw the results together, and you have an 18-track album that comes as close as any GBV album at distilling their essence. Songs such as “Table at Fool’s Tooth,” “Pan Swimmer,” “You Get Every Game,” “Bad Love Is Easy to Do,\" and “The No Doubters” feel like songs that were worked on as opposed to being the product of immediate gratification. This is often courtesy of drummer Kevin March, who gives the songs an extra tightness. Sprout certainly comes through with the piano-based “All American Boy,” “Narrated by Paul,\" and the acoustic “Ticket to Hide,” three of the album’s best songs. Why this album above many others? Apparently, Lady Luck was smiling down on the GBV boys this cycle. Either that or the band members really respond to polar vortexes.
www.paradiseofbachelors.com/pob-15 Other online purchase options (physical/download/streaming): smarturl.it/PoB15 NARRATIVE In Donald Barthelme’s 1982 story “Lightning,” the narrator, a journalist investigating lightning strike survivors, reflects that “lightning changes things; the soul burns, having been struck by lightning.” He wonders about aesthetic (and supernatural) dimensions—is “lightning an attempt at music on the part of God?” Three decades later, as the catastrophic effects of climate change encroach upon the realms of science fiction, how might our communications and social conventions change, becoming correspondingly weirder and darker? Weather is, after all, both a formulaic conversation starter across cultures and a shared condition that connects us experientially. So what happens when “How about this weather?” becomes a less banal and much more compelling, and dangerous, question? While ecological unease worries at the edges of Steve Gunn’s bold new full-band album Way Out Weather—the breathing sea of the billowing title track, the bad wind and moon over “Wildwood,” the polluted pyramid and blue bins in “Shadow Bros,” the desert heat sickness of “Atmosphere”—the resonance of the title is primarily metaphorical and oblique. Written largely while on tour, the record is an elliptical but seductive travelogue, more engaged with navigating foreign (“way out”) emotional landscapes, and with grasping at universal threads of language and narrative, than with bemoaning rising sea levels. Despite the album-opening lyric to the contrary, “Way Out Weather” is an uncommon song in Steve Gunn’s discography. Sonically and lyrically the album demonstrates a radical evolution, lighting out for lusher, more expansive, and impressionistic territories; it’s his first major work as an artist for whom the studio provides a critical context. A more enigmatic and elevated affair than its predecessor, Way Out Weather completes Gunn’s satisfying transformation into a mature songwriter, singer, and bandleader of subtlety and authority. It ranks as most impressive and inviting record yet, an inscrutable but entirely self-assured masterpiece. The critically acclaimed Time Off (2013), his first full-band album highlighting his vocals, represented the culmination of Steve’s steady fifteen-year migration from the frontier fringes of the guitar avant-garde, where he is regarded as a prodigy, and toward his especial style of more traditionally informed (albeit deconstructed) songcraft. Those songs developed from years of woodshedding and performance, offering a linear, local narrative that mapped the contours of Gunn’s Brooklyn neighborhood and a matrix of musical friendships, earning him a broad new following. Less patently intimate, Way Out Weather angles for something far more cosmic, dynamic, and widescreen in sound and sentiment. In contrast to the interiority of Time Off, these eight decidedly exterior songs aren’t grounded by the specifics of geography, instead inhabiting headier, more rarefied altitudes (see in particular the ethereal “Shadow Bros,” “Fiction,” and “Atmosphere.”) They step beyond home and hover above horizon, unmoored from immediate circumstances and surroundings. Here Gunn’s discursive, mantric guitar style, at once transcendent and methodical—and as influenced by Western guitarists such as Michael Chapman and Sonny Sharrock as by Ghanaian highlife, Gnawa, and Carnatic forms—maintains its signature helical intricacy and mesmeric propulsion, while buoyed by a bigger crew of musicians, a wider instrumental palette, and higher production values than ever before. Belying their ambitious new scale and scope, most of these songs arrived at Westtown, New York’s scene-seminal Black Dirt Studio as skeletal solo demos. An enthusiastic and generous collaborator—recently he has partnered with Kurt Vile, Michael Chapman, Mike Cooper, the Black Twig Pickers, Cian Nugent, et al.—Gunn assembled an accomplished group of comrades to flesh out the full arrangements, trusting the germinal songs to an instinctual process of spontaneous composition, transposition, and improvisation. The WOW studio band comprised longtime musical brothers Jason Meagher (bass, drones, engineering), Justin Tripp (bass, guitar, keys, production), and John Truscinski (drums), in addition to newcomers Nathan Bowles (drums, banjo, keys: Black Twig Pickers, Pelt); James Elkington (guitar, lap steel, dobro: Freakwater, Jeff Tweedy); Mary Lattimore (harp, keys: Thurston Moore, Kurt Vile); and Jimy SeiTang (synths, electronics: Psychic Ills, Rhyton.) This preternaturally intuitive and inventive band allowed Gunn to sculpt the album as a composer and colorist as well as a player. The cascading runs of “Milly’s Garden,” the menacing urgency of “Drifter,” and the alien, galvanic syncopation of album closer “Tommy’s Congo” (the latter unlike anything Gunn has heretofore recorded) display a thrilling mastery of heavier, increasingly kinetic full-band arrangements. His vocals throughout are more present, commanding, and refined, revealing a restrained but highly nuanced baritone capable of remarkable grace. Way Out Weather is Steve’s career-defining statement to date. Lightning changes things; the soul burns. + A radical widescreen evolution, featuring a larger band and lusher arrangements, this is the virtuosic guitarist and songwriter’s career-defining statement to date + Available on 150g virgin vinyl as an LP, with deluxe tip-on jacket and full-color inner sleeve, as well as on gatefold CD and digital formats (later LP editions feature heavy-duty board jacket instead of tip-on) + Vinyl edition includes digital download coupon + Featuring photography by KT Auleta, Dan Murphy, and Constance Mensh www.paradiseofbachelors.com/shop/pob-015 www.paradiseofbachelors.com/steve-gunn
Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner believe that anything is possible and that every genre has its place somewhere in their music. That so many others relate to this eclectic, unpredictable mix of sounds proves they’re tapping into a sound that’s greater than themselves. Listeners love to be dazzled by sound and even the sharpest critics are left wondering what’s exactly happening here. Garbus chants into her vocoders and steps out into the spotlight for a guiding lead vocal on “Real Thing” that’s accompanied by a complex mix of odd rhythms, synthetic sounds and swooping bass lines. Producers Malay (Alicia Keys, Frank Ocean) and John Hill (Santigold, MIA, Shakira) keep the minimalism rocking. The synths frequently sound like sketches that have been cut-up beyond recognition while vocals sound like schoolyard taunts and personal moments caught on tape (“Hey Life,” “Stop That Man”). This mix of casual, random and precise captures a relatively conventional tune and pop arrangement in “Wait for a Minute” and a field holler for “Rocking Chair.” Eclecticism is in.
After a four-year hiatus, The Hold Steady returned in 2014 with *Teeth Dreams*, the group’s sixth studio album. In between releases, the group recorded a version of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” for HBO’s *Game of Thrones*—series co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss were devoted Hold Steady fans—while lead singer Craig Finn released his debut solo record, 2012’s *Clear Heart Full Eyes*. Meanwhile, guitarist Steve Selvidge—who’d toured with the band for *Heaven Is Whenever*—had joined as a full-time member. You can hear his contributions throughout *Teeth Dreams*, which finds Selvidge and founding member Tad Kubler slamming out dueling guitars as Finn howls and sings his spirited, blue-collar tales of rough living and even rougher redemption. The first lyrics on the album—referring to Finn’s fictional Twin Cities gang—could double as a mission statement: “I heard the Cityscape Skins are kinda kicking it again.” With *Teeth Dreams*, The Hold Steady created a big, rollicking album that focuses on both heartbreak and hopeful longing. The band’s mature confidence is on full display in songs like “I Hope This Whole Thing Didn\'t Frighten You,” “Spinners,” “The Only Thing,” and \"Big Cig.” But it’s the album’s closing track—the soulful, nine-minute ballad “Oaks”—that steals the show, quenching the thirst of any Hold Steady fan who\'d missed the band’s music for almost half a decade.
On their third full-length, Cleveland-bred outfit Cloud Nothings give joy a hard, sharp edge. “I was feeling pretty good about everything so I just made stuff that made me happy,” says founding member and mild-mannered chief songwriter Dylan Baldi of "Here and Nowhere Else." “I had nothing to be angry about really so the approach was more positive and less ‘fuck everything.’ I just sat down and played until I found something that I like, because I was finally in a position to do that.” Utilizing every possible opportunity to write while on the road for 18 consecutive months following the release of 2012′s "Attack on Memory," Baldi presented an album’s worth of new material to his bandmates with just days before they’d enter the studio with esteemed producer John Congleton. “I’m pretty sure every song was written in a different country,” he says. “It’s the product of only having a couple of minutes here and there.” But Cloud Nothings would enjoy a full week with Congleton at Water Music in Hoboken, New Jersey, followed by three days of mixing at his own studio in Dallas shortly thereafter. The result is Cloud Nothings, refined: impossibly melodic, white-knuckle noise-rock that shimmers with sumptuous detail, from Baldi’s lone, corkscrewing guitar to his dramatically improved singing to bassist TJ Duke’s piledriving bass lines and drummer Jayson Gerycz’s volcanic fills. “It’s more subtle,” says Baldi. “It’s not just an in-your-face rock record. There’s more going on. You can listen to a song 20 times and still hear different little things in there that you didn’t notice before. Every time I listen I notice something that I didn’t even realize we did.” It’s yet another staggering show of a progress from a songwriter and band still coming into their own.
On his first album in 13 years, Richard D. James, the godfather of cerebral electronic music, is in top form. This isn\'t a comeback, nor a departure of any kind: *Syro* sounds like highly concentrated, classic Aphex Twin, a singular aesthetic that dates all the way back to 1982: beat patterns wiggle into the foreground, then disappear; analog synths snap, crackle and pop; moods vacillate between aggressively percussive and smoothly melodic. These tracks – they work together like one long set -- demand to be listened to with excellent headphones, the better to discern their highly intricate sequencing, arguably some of James\' most ambitious. Each tune is teeming with juicy noise, all of it gleefully arranged. What comes through most is joy: it sounds like James is having so much fun.
Parquet Courts’ highly flammable third album clinches their place as one of the best—and smartest—rock bands of the post-grunge era. They\'re capable of mixing psychedelic looseness with the muscle of hardcore (“Sunbathing Animal”), odd post-punk experiments (“Vienna II”) with rambling, romantic ballads (“Instant Disassembly”), blues with Black Flag (“Ducking & Dodging”), and poetic visions with moments of hilarious plain-spokenness (“Whoever she might be going to bed with/You can read about that in her Moleskine,” goes a line on “Dear Ramona”). Students of history without being beholden to it, the band manages to synthesize about 70 years of guitar music into a strange, lopsided groove all their own.
The year and change since the release of Parquet Courts monumental Light Up Gold is reflected in ways expected and not with Sunbathing Animal, its sharper, harder follow up. Light Up Gold caught the ears of everyone paying even a little bit of attention, garnering glowing reviews across the board for its weird colors and raw energy, saturated punk songs that offered crystal clear lyrical snapshots of city life. It was immediately memorable, a vivid portrait of ragged days, listlessness, aimlessness and urgency, broadcast with the intimacy of hearing a stranger's thoughts as you passed them on the street. As it goes with these things, the band went on tour for a short eternity, spending most of 2013 on the road, their sound growing more direct in the process and their observations expanding beyond life at home. Constant touring was broken up by three recording sessions that would make up the new album, and the time spent in transit comes through in repeated lyrical themes of displacement, doubt and situational captivity. To be sure, Sunbathing Animal isn't a record about hopelessness, as any sort of incarceration implies an understanding of freedom and peace of mind. Fleeting moments of bliss are also captured in its grooves, and extended at length as if to preserve them. Pointed articulations of these ideas are heard as schizoid blues rants, shrill guitar leads, purposefully lengthy repetition and controlled explosions, reaching their peak on the blistering title track. A propulsive projection of how people might play the blues 300 years from now, "Sunbathing Animal" is a roller coaster you can't get off, moving far too fast and looping into eternity. Much as Light Up Gold and the subsequent EP Tally All The Things That You Broke offered a uniquely tattered perspective on everyday city life, Sunbathing Animal applies the same layered thoughts and sprawling noise to more cerebral, inward- looking themes. While heightened in its heaviness and mania, the album also represents a huge leap forward in terms of songwriting and vision. Still rooted firmly in the unshackled exploration and bombastic playing of their earlier work,everything here is amplified in its lucidity and intent. The songs wander through threads of blurry brilliance, exhaustion and fury at the hilt of every note. Parquet Courts remain, Austin Brown, A. Savage, Sean Yeaton, and M. Savage.
At two hours in length, *To Be Kind* shows Michael Gira’s Swans are as serious, demanding and extreme in 2014 as they were back in the early ‘80s when their music was either greatly praised or harshly condemned. There is little middle ground for this group and anyone spooked by the 12-1/2 minute Howlin’ Wolf Tribute “Just A Little Boy” should probably not go forward. However, for fans of slow, gothic, death-rattle Swans, the track is just one sign that the band’s sessions with John Congleton at Sonic Ranch, outside El Paso, Texas were an overwhelming success. Much of the material was developed live during the tours of 2012-13 and explains why there is so much to sift through. Special guests such as Little Annie, who duets with Gira on “Some Things We Do,” Cold Specks, whose multi-tracked vocals guide “Bring the Sun” and honorary Swan Bill Rieflin filled out the sessions that were recorded with a solid sextet in place. “A Little God In My Hands” adds a touch of Krautrock to its elliptical groove. The 34-minute “Bring the Sun/ Tousaaint L’Ouverture” is a complex epic worthy of their reputation.
A NOTE FROM MICHAEL GIRA: Hello There, We (Swans) have recently completed our new album. It is called To Be Kind. The release date is set for May 13, 2014. It will be available as a triple vinyl album, a double CD, and a 2XCD Deluxe Edition that will include a live DVD. It will also be available digitally. The album was produced by me, and it was recorded by the venerable John Congleton at Sonic Ranch, outside El Paso Texas, and further recordings and mixing were accomplished at John’s studio in Dallas, Texas. We commenced rehearsals as Sonic Ranch in early October 2013, began recording soon thereafter, then completed the process of mixing with John in Dallas by mid December 2013. A good portion of the material for this album was developed live during the Swans tours of 2012/13. Much of the music was otherwise conjured in the studio environment. The recordings and entire process of this album were generously and perhaps vaingloriously funded by Swans supporters through our auspices at younggodrecords.com via the release of a special, handmade 2xCD live album entitled Not Here / Not Now. The Swans are: Michael Gira, Norman Westberg, Christoph Hahn, Phil Puleo, Thor Harris, Christopher Pravdica. Special Guests for this record include: Little Annie (Annie sang a duet with me on the song Some Things We Do, the strings for which were ecstatically arranged and played by Julia Kent); St. Vincent (Annie Clark sang numerous, multi-tracked vocals throughout the record); Cold Specks (Al contributed numerous multi-tracked vocals to the song “Bring the Sun”); Bill Rieflin (honorary Swan Bill played instruments ranging from additional drums, to synthesizers, to piano, to electric guitar and so on. He has been a frequent contributor to Swans and Angels of Light and is currently playing with King Crimson)... FULL MUSICIAN CREDITS:Swans: Michael Gira - vocals, electric and acoustic guitar; Norman Westberg - electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals; Phil Puleo - drums, percussion, dulcimer, piano, keys, vocals; Christoph Hahn - lap steel guitars, electric guitar, vocals; Thor Harris - drums / percussion, vibes and bells, wind instruments, handmade viola, vocals; Christopher Pravdica - bass guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals. Honorary Swan Forever: Bill Rieflin - (on multiple songs throughout the record) drums / percussion, piano, bass, guitar, synths, keyboards. Guest Musicians: Duet with MG on Some Things We Do - Little Annie. Strings and String Arrangement on Some Things We Do - Julia Kent. Background Vocals on Nathalie Neal, Bring the Sun, Screen Shot, Kirsten Supine - St. Vincent (appears courtesy of Loma Vista Recordings). Background vocals on Bring the Sun - Cold Specks (appears courtesy of Mute Artists LTD). Background Vocals on She Loves Us, A Little God in My Hands - Jennifer Church. More Musicians (Dallas): Violin - Daniel Hart; Mandolin - Rex Emerson; Trombone - David Pierce; Trumpet - Evan Weiss; Piano, Harpsichord, Synth - Sean Kirkpatrick; Piano – John Congleton. I love you! Michael Gira
Decades of playing together only energized these pop-rockers from Halifax, Nova Scotia, as 2011’s *The Double Cross* was considered by many to be their best album to date. Figuring out how to differentiate their new album from their others, Sloan made *Commonwealth* a strictly defined double album with each member taking a side. Jay Ferguson opens with a track that sounds exactly like vintage Sloan. “You’ve Got a Lot on Your Mind,” \"Three Sisters,” and the gentle, acoustic “Neither Here nor There” are clear highlights. Lead singer Chris Murphy brings a power-pop punch on “Carried Away,” while “Get Out” and “You Don’t Need Excuses to Be Good” favor electric guitars over the piano featured elsewhere. Lead guitarist Patrick Pentland offers the guitar-led “13 (Under a Bad Sign)” and “Take It Easy,” which sound like versions of the same song. It’s drummer Andrew Scott who pushes things with the 18-minute pastiche “Forty-Eight Portraits,” which sounds like the band walked in on a Pink Floyd session—complete with barking dogs and random piano chords—until a song forms around the three-minute mark. From there, various song ideas pop out of the mix.
Sloan is without doubt the most truly democratic group in the annals of rock, with Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, and Andrew Scott all contributing original compositions to each record, equal partners with equal say over every aspect of their work. Commonwealth – their first all-new release in three years – sees the Toronto-based quartet disassociating ever so slightly to create one of the more unique and ambitious recordings of their two-decade-plus career, an old-school double album with each member staking out a single side as their own artistic dominion. “I think that perhaps we are one of the few bands that could make an LP like this,” says Ferguson. “Everyone could probably make their own solo LP if they wanted.” “Name another,” says Murphy. “The only act that comes to mind with equally recognizable/regarded members who all write and are capable of taking the lead vocals would have been the Beastie Boys but alas…” Concept-driven works are nothing new to Sloan. Over the course of 10 albums and more than 30 singles – not to mention multiple EPs, hits and rarities collections, live albums and official bootlegs released, like all the band’s work, on their own independent label, Murderecords – the band has tackled countless creative conceits from hardcore punk 7-inches to kaleidoscopic song cycles like 2006’s 30-track Yep Roc debut, Never Hear The End Of It. “We’re always trying to do something a little different from what we’ve done in the past,” Pentland says. “This can be as much to challenge ourselves or just stave off boredom. With four strong writers, it was inevitable that we would eventually do something like this.” “It would be pointless to make just another 12 or 13 song Sloan record at this point,” Scott says. “I personally don’t find this to be too far outside of the box for us, just a slightly different approach.” Indeed, the only arguable difference between Commonwealth and the preceding Sloan oeuvre is down to sequencing. Classic collections like 1999’s Between The Bridges blended each songwriter’s work over the span of the album, their cohesion and continuity provided by all four members’ mastery of big melodies and power hooks, cheeky charm and tearjerking introspection, rich harmonies and idiosyncratic personality. “For the most part everyone has been left to their own when contributing to a record,” says Pentland, “with no real ‘rules’ to adhere to. That was the case this time as well, except instead of then having to put the different writer’s contributions into a sequence that made sense after the fact, we each just got our own side.” The plan to record a solo-sided double was first hatched at a February 2013 band meeting, with all members optimistically agreeing upon a June target date. The sessions – produced by Sloan and Ryan Haslett at the band’s Sloan Studio in Toronto – ultimately wrapped in January the following year, a protracted gestation Scott attributes to “a combination of availability, determination, readiness, willingness, intentionality, hoping, wanting, doubting, fearing, needing, waffling, trying, failing, restarting, assembling, writing, and eventually deciding and trusting.” Designated by the four French playing card suits, Commonwealth’s four solo sides allow for Sloan’s work to at last be heard through a prism of individual identity. Ferguson’s thematically intertwined “Diamond” side showcases his remarkable knack for symphonic pop, defined by the tender and trippy “Three Sisters.” Pentland’s “Shamrock” is loud, fast, and lean, the pedal-hoppin’ psych rock of “What’s Inside” marked by “noise, ambient keys, and a general sense of the unwell.” Murphy – the album’s Zelig, the only member to appear on each of his three bandmates’ sides – offers up exuberant tracks like “Carried Away,” his “Heart” fit to burst with wit, jangle, and eclectic energy. As if the four-tiered concept weren’t challenge enough, Commonwealth finishes with “Forty Eight Portraits,” an ingenious 18-minute pop suite – replete with string section and children’s choir – that encompasses the entirely of Scott’s closing “Spade” side. Ultimately, what makes Commonwealth so special – and so distinctly Sloan – is how the disjointed approach manages to underscore the veteran band’s extraordinary strengths, setting off the particular ingredients without ever losing sight of the sum of their parts. While Murphy insists that there is no “group identity beyond including songs from the same four guys every time,” Ferguson argues that the essence of Sloan can always be found in their trademark vocal accord. “No matter how disparate sounding our songs can sound at times, the one thing that balances and forces unity is the harmonies on each others’ songs,” he says. “The music can seem unrelated but I think the singing and harmonies unifies our records.” Sloan will celebrate Commonwealth with a long overdue US tour, slated to get underway in the fall. For all their talk of separate real estate and album apartheid, Sloan remains very much a rock ‘n’ roll band, exemplified every time the members team on the concert stage. “The true group identity plays out on a stage playing as a band performing in front of an audience,” Scott says. “Recording is so controlled. We just do it how we do it and then we become a true band again after the fact.” Commonwealth follows 2011’s The Double Cross, which earned Sloan some of the most glowing notices of their acclaimed career. Pitchfork summed it up best: “20 years in, they’ve made one of their best albums…That (Sloan) sound this creatively fresh this deep into their career is a real treat for people who've stuck with them through the years. If you've never given them a chance before, this is a great time to get to know them.” Having been at it for almost a quarter century, Sloan still has a few aspirations in the collective hopper. Pentland is keen to revisit the band’s seminal works via deluxe reissue and tour (a la 2012’s epic celebration of their landmark Twice Removed), while Ferguson would like to bang out “a real live off-the-floor rocking Sloan LP in our own studio, just quickly learn and record a song each day.” For his part, Murphy has a very specific target in mind. “Andrew’s decision to make his side into one giant song meant that Sloan would remain shy of 200 released songs,” he says. “By my count, we are at 197. I’d like to record at least one more song each so we can crack 200.” “I think – or hope – that there is a collective drive to continue to make great records and to leave some important work behind for others to hear and appreciate (or not),” says Scott. “As long as there is still gas in the tank it is our duty to see this through and continue to contribute some good to this world.” July 2014
Over the course of two astonishing albums, Perfume Genius, aka Seattle native Mike Hadreas, cemented his place as a singer-songwriter of rare frankness, creating songs that, while achingly emotional, offered empathy and hope, rather than any judgment or handwringing. Sparse, gorgeous and with Hadreas’ quavering vocals often only accompanied by piano, they were uncommonly beautiful tales of a life lived on the dark side – scarred, brutalised, yet ultimately, slowly but surely reclaimed. Too Bright, however, is something else altogether. Less self-conscious, and less concerned with storytelling and easily-digested melodies, it is a brave, bold, unpredictably quixotic exploration of what Hadreas calls “an underlying rage that has slowly been growing since ten and has just begun to bubble up”. Recorded with Adrian Utley of Portishead and featuring John Parish on several tracks, it is a stunning about-face which brings to mind audacious career-shift albums like Kate Bush’s The Dreaming or Scott Walker’s Tilt, records which walk the tightrope between pure songwriting and overt experimentation.
Every time Ryan Adams thinks he’s out, he pulls himself back in. It turns out the follow-up to 2011’s *Ashes & Fire* isn\'t the completed album he made with Glyn Johns but a self-produced collection of songs recorded at Adams’ recording studio, PAX AM. (Some tunes were coproduced with Mike Viola.) The mercurial singer/songwriter who broke up his band (The Cardinals), flirted with retirement, and formed a punk group sounds plenty much like the Ryan Adams we’ve come to expect. The alt-country sounds are scrubbed down for an electric guitar–based heartland rock that gets a touch of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, thanks to the involvement of longtime Petty organist Benmont Tench. “Shadows” is the loudest cry in the dark, with Adams’ guitars ringing and clashing over Tal Wilkenfeld’s stalking bassline. “Feels Like Fire” follows up the existential ache, with Johnny Depp playing guitar and adding a backing vocal. “I Just Might” pulses with a hint of Bruce Springsteen’s “State Trooper.”
Do to the Beast is the first new album by The Afghan Whigs in over a decade and a half. Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1988, the band has long stood out from its peers, with their savage, rapturous blend of hard rock, classic soul, and frontman Greg Dulli’s searing obsessions. The new album serves as both a homecoming – it marks their return to Sub Pop, for whom the Whigs were the first signing from outside the label’s Northwest base – and a glimpse into the future of one of the most acclaimed bands of the past thirty years. Do to the Beast proves an appropriately feral title for one of the most intense, cathartic records of Dulli’s entire career – one that adds fresh twists to The Afghan Whigs canon. On it, one finds the film noir storytelling of Black Love, the exuberance of 1965, the brutal introspection of Gentlemen, but rendered with a galvanized musical spirit and rhythmic heft that suggests transcendence and hope amidst the bloodletting. “A lot of records I’ve done stemmed from epochal experiences in my life – and this time I’ve used them all,” Dulli says. “These new songs are very visual to me. They come from the neighborhoods of my mind. It’s like Rashomon, with the story told from different points of memory.” Do to the Beast was created in L.A., New Orleans, Cincinnati, and Joshua Tree – a virtual map of the band’s past and present homes. “The album was named in Cincinnati, which is especially fitting,” Dulli notes. “I was recording a beatbox track for the song ‘Matamoros,’ and my friend Manuel Agnelli (of Italian rock band Afterhours) was in the control room. After I finished, he said it sounded like I was singing ‘Do to the beast what you do to the bush.’ And I thought, ‘Brother, you just named the record.’” Do to the Beast features Dulli and Curley joined by the Whigs’ current core players – guitarists Dave Rosser and Jon Skibic, multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson, and drummer Cully Symington. While original Whigs guitarist Rick McCollum does not appear on the record, a panoply of notable personages from the group’s past and present make memorable cameos: soul maverick Van Hunt, Mark McGuire (Emeralds), Usher’s musical director Johnny “Natural” Najera, Alain Johannes (Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys), Clay Tarver (Bullet LaVolta, Chavez), Dave Catching (QOTSA, Eagles of Death Metal), Patrick Keeler (Raconteurs, Greenhornes), Ben Daughtrey (Squirrel Bait), Joseph Arthur, and a host of others. For Dulli, these outside collaborators add crucial dimension. “Someone like Alain is a great texturalist,” Dulli says. “He and Mark McGuire create these, womblike tapestries and nuances. And Johnny Natural blew our minds when we played with him and Usher at South By Southwest. They were all instructed to play guitar not as guitar, but to create a supernatural sound – and each one of them ran with that.” Likewise, “It Kills” contrasts its lush Gamble and Huff-style orchestration with Van Hunt unleashing a passionate virtuoso howl – transforming the song in the process. “We’d brought Van Hunt on tour with the Whigs, and began duetting on his song ‘Mean Sleep’ together every night.,” Dulli notes. “He’d do this scream live that he didn’t do on the recording; and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, he sounds like Bobby Womack!’ When I wrote ‘It Kills,’ I wanted another voice on it, like a Greek chorus, so I called Van. I said, “Do whatever you like, just try not to use actual words – and if you can do that Bobby Womack thing, do that, too!” Indeed, Do to the Beast takes The Afghan Whigs to previously uncharted zones. That’s clear from the Lennonesque primal screaming announcing album opener “Parked Outside” – one of the hardest-rocking Whigs songs ever, propelled by a pile-driving riff that would make Malcolm Young envious. First single “Algiers,” meanwhile, hotwires a pounding “Be My Baby” drumbeat with spaghetti-western atmospherics. Elsewhere, “Matamoros” – named after a town in Mexico cursed by a series of Satanic murders – finds Dulli at his most psychosexually sinister: over its relentless, Zeppelin-meets-disco groove, he coolly threatens to expose “every little crime that you hide.” Such themes of duality, viscera, and love destroyed echo throughout tracks that dynamically flow in and out of each other – from ambitious revenge fantasy “These Sticks” to album centerpiece “Lost in the Woods.” Here, Dulli imagines himself on his deathbed in an especially haunting lyric, set to a swinging melody evoking Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. “That song resonates the most with me,” he says. “It reminds me of my childhood; sitting in the back of my parents’ Bonneville hearing ‘You’re My Best Friend’ by Queen on AM radio. I played a distorted Wurlitzer at the end to capture that feeling; I did a lot of little personal homages like that throughout this record.” That there’s even a new Afghan Whigs release at all comes as something of a surprise, even to its members. After the band initially split in 2001, Dulli went on to considerable notoriety with his bands The Twilight Singers and The Gutter Twins (the latter an ongoing collaboration with close friend Mark Lanegan). While Whigs songs would pop up occasionally in his sets, Dulli didn’t fully engage that material again until a solo acoustic tour in 2010, which Curley joined for a few dates. The Afghan Whigs subsequently reunited for a successful 2012 tour that found them headlining major festivals like Lollapalooza, curating their own All Tomorrow’s Parties gathering, and selling out prestigious venues throughout the U.S., Europe, and Southern Hemisphere. But once the tour was over, so, apparently, were the Whigs. “We played a final New Year’s Eve show in Cincinnati,” Dulli recalls. “And I assumed we were done. We’d completed the cycle.” That wasn’t actually the case, however. The Afghan Whigs were unexpectedly brought back into the ring by The Fader, which had arranged for them to play a surprise collaborative set with R&B superstar Usher at 2013’s SXSW conference. “That moment crystallized the possibility that we’d record together again,” Curley says. “Soon after, Greg began compiling the ideas he’d kept in his pocket that he felt were distinctly Whigs songs.” Reunited anew, The Afghan Whigs will tour worldwide in support of Do to the Beast – kicking off an extensive jaunt with a performance at Coachella 2014 in April. “It feels like a celebration, and the start of something new,” Curley says. “Something that’s exhilarating and scary at the same time.”
In terms of Guided by Voices albums, of which there are more than many, 2014’s *Motivational Jumpsuit* is a notable one. It\'s filled with songs that appear to have made the cut as opposed to just having been written during the time since the last one. Both Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout are writing at the top of their capabilities here, and while “Save the Company” starts with a lo-fi crusty guitar, the supplementary guitars come forward with a meaty bassline to solidify the attack. Sprout’s “Jupiter Spin” captures the beauty of low-key psychedelia. Pollard’s “Littlest League Possible” announces itself with a brash insistence. “Go Without Packing” speaks to the Syd Barrett end of Pollard’s late-\'60s troubadour phase. Since the band’s “reunion” in 2010, they’ve been trying to better their ‘90s selves—and the ghost of *Bee Thousand*, their “breakthrough” record of sorts, has been the measuring stick. Anyone who spends enough time with “Record Level Love,” “I Am Columbus,\" and “Calling Up Washington” will surely have another key reference album in the band’s overwhelming catalog.