Eleven knockout killer tracks from the past month…
Eleven Knockout Tracks on repeat this past month!
A smoking mix of rolling rippers and mesmeric musings.
Here’s Turn Up The Volume‘s Knockout March Team!
. 1. ‘Tastes Good With The Money’ by FAT WHITE FAMILY (London, UK)
The Family tackles good old Britain with groovy and bloody pop stroke…
Here’s what Turn Up The Volume! wrote after hearing roaring Boston rockers THE GALA
for very the first time: “If Debbie Harry and Chris Stein would have been into brawny garage rock instead of bubblegum punk Blondie would have sounded just like this. Hefty, robust, provocative and with an unstoppable appetite for lively tumult fueled by organ orgasms.”
The good news is this cracking turbo still rolls madly and badass-ly as they prove
on repeat on their debut album, titled BAD NEWS. A frenetic and frenzied record
with several soul-healing tracks inspired by the energetic frontwoman Emily Doran‘s unfortunate relationship breakdown which led to the overall raging resonance and
spitting force of this rowdy LP and to the discharging album sleeve. Ladies and gents, please welcome Emily who will tell you all about the bad news, track by track…
Here’s Emily…
Here’s the music…
. Here’s the track by track guide…
1. OH ABBY
“I thought it appropriate to kick off the album with a song is about sharing a Lyft with
a drunk girl. It was a Friday night, not quite yet 10pm. The driver picked me up first,
then headed to a bar, whereupon arrival, he exclaims “oh no, that’s Abby?!” The next
thing I know, this Amazonian sorority chick is barreling in the backseat on top of me, followed by her date. She proceeds to ramble on about wanting pizza before passing
out. Once we get to her apartment, naturally she refuses to get out of the car. Her date ever so gently nudges her to wake up, but she doesn’t budge, until suddenly she pops
up and tries to climb out the front seat of the car, then comes crashing back on top of
me, again, before finally crawling out the back.”
2. NICOTINE
“Smoking is bad for your health. So is carrying on and on,
and onnnnnn about the last person you dated.”
3. BLOOD ORANGE
“Inspired by a can San Pellegrino blood orange soda, what was supposed to be
a working title to the song, just sounded too cool to change, so it stuck. At the
same time, I was seeing this new guy, we were really into each other, he was being
really noncommittal, but he was really hot, and we were really into each other, so the relationship stuck, (for a little while)… continue reading for the details of its destruction!”
Song-inspiring drink…
4. CRYBABY (DREAM OF ME)
“On the surface, this is simply my recollection of the last moments with the aforementioned guy, (after waking from a dream, thinking he was lying beside me)
but looking back now, I see writing this as more about acceptance. Letting the feelings
of loss wash over me, without any anger, or denial, and allowing myself to feel utterly heartbroken. As much as it hurt, as much as I cried, as much as I sobbed writing this song, it felt indescribably good, to allow myself that release, and bc I knew I had captured this moment of pure unfiltered emotion, something I couldn’t ever create under any other circumstances.”
5. FRAGILE
“This was the first song I wrote post-breakup. I had lost my shit for a minute, words were exchanged, and when I realized I’d said too much, this was my way to keep talking, to say all the things I wanted to say, when I knew I could no longer speak to this person anymore. (Really that’s what most of these songs were). I wrote it in four hours, and I was pissed, if you couldn’t tell.”
6. BOY
“I wanted to have one kinda ‘sweet’ song, and I knew I wanted to write about relishing in the pre-date ritual, the anticipation and excitement that comes with knowing you’re gonna get to see your sweetie soon. While I had no problem tapping into those feelings, I still struggled with this one, so of course, it is not without a subtext of bitterness.”
The clip about the boy…
7. SORRY
“I wrote this song to express feelings so painful, I refused talk about them, physically I couldn’t speak the words aloud. But I couldn’t write a song that devastating, so instead, this was my way of turning the tables, and taking that power back into my hands.”
Sorry seems to be the hardest word…
8. LONG WAY HOME
“There were a lot of compounding factors that made it a particularly difficult breakup,
one of them being that I had very recently moved from Boston to one of the neighboring cities. It was not by choice, and I wasn’t happy about it, but I was much closer to this guy, only about a mile away, that was the upshot. Everything I knew about the neighborhood was associated with him. For a while, I only knew my way around based off the relative location of his house (which was on the main drag). I felt like I was lost every time I left home. I ended up finding alternate routes to get from place to place, so as to avoid his block. It was a very traumatic, and overly dramatic time!”
9. XX
“Here we have my little rant on how women’s bodies are objectified and demonized, inspired by Lizzy Martinez, who at the time age 17, was reprimanded by officials at her Florida high school for not wearing a bra. I won’t get into the details of her story, but you can look it up if you want to share in the fury.”
10. GUILTY PASS
“This was the last song we wrote for the record, I actually finished it in the studio, as I was tracking the vocals. It’s more or less about holding onto everything when you know it’s time to let go. Because moving on means redefining your identity, and opening yourself up for the potential to get hurt, again (and I did). There was definitely this desire to stay in a place that while painful, had become comfortable in its familiarity, and what is scarier than the unknown?”
11. PITY PARTY
“But we can still be friends. Why do people feel like that is an appropriate way to punctuate a breakup? No thanks. And let me tell you why… that’s what this song is about, alongside the awkward discomfort of running into your ex at a party, except from the perspective of the new girl. Recalling on those experiences after the fact, I swore not to put myself in those shoes, and as I write this, I have still not run into that guy, sooo success?”
12. THE SPINS
“The oldest track of the bunch, I was reading Spinster by Kate Bolick at the time, and really feeling my single status. The spins was sort of my take on the subject matter, disguised as a song about drinking too much and losing control. It’s kind of apropos it ended up being the final track on the album, because I’m basically right back there where I started.”
Song-inspiring book…
Thank you, Emily, for opening your heart and guiding us
through the album. May the road rise with THE GALA!
Somewhat unexpected New York’s gloomy rockers INTERPOL shared a new single,
called Fine Mess last January. Today they announced that the song is actually the title track of an upcoming 5-track EP and simultaneously they dropped a second piece thereof. THE WEEKEND is vintage Interpol electricity. Check it out here…
Wholehearted Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson aka THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH will issue his first album in four years, entitled I LOVE YOU. ‘IT’S A FEVER DREAM’
“Making the album I was thinking a lot about the lenses we view our lives through, and that,
for some reason, our worst tendencies seem to be carried out so loudly, while our best can go unnoticed. I’ve come to realize that some of the most powerful, most inspiring moments in my life have been the most subtle and that so often the thing that deserves my attention, is trying the least to get it”, said Matsson in a press statement. The LP will be out on 19th April.
Here’s the second single off the album. On ‘I’M A STRANGER NOW‘ he tries to come to grips with growing apart from his lover. “Now so deep into the forest with my Swedish little heart/ I am nowhere near your sunset it’s so quiet after all/ And I’m a stranger now, I’m a stranger now” he grieves at the end. Gripping sadness. Touching sentiments. Here’s
the audio clip…
Kentucky rockers CAGE THE ELEPHANT release their fifth full length, titled SOCIAL CUES next month. After sharing two tracks already: post breakup lead single Ready To Let Go and ripper House Of Glass here’s another new cut featuring BECK. His presence is quite clear. NIGHT RUNNING has that typical Beckesque dance beat. Here’s the audio clip…
BLONDIE scored their fourth No 1 in the US with RAPTURE on 28 March 1981.
The sort of funky disco pop song you still hear these days too. It appeared on
their fifth studio album Autoamerican. Dance with Debbie here…
SUNFLOWER – BarBroos Ghent, Belgium – 26 March 2019
One of the most intriguing bands on the flourishing alternative music scene in Belgium
are darksome romantics SUNFLOWER. I suspect them from having stolen all the post-punk and new wave albums of their parents, then listened to all that marvelous vinyl on repeat, got obsessed and decided to form a band themselves and create their own sonic mysticism. After two years of working in progress, the quintet released their debut record last month. THE SPIDERS WE CAUGHT is a glowing 5-track trip into Sunflower‘s emotional world. Imagine The Cure‘s gloomiest guitar lines, The Banshees melodic weirdness, Mogwai‘s quiet.loud.quiet impact and a soul-stirring frontman with a hot-blooded vox. What you then get is a poignant roller coaster track like this. Here’s HEROIN…
Last Tuesday the group played my hometown Ghent and confirmed everything what was already written about them. I witnessed five musicians who get really quick into a puzzling zone of emotive intensity and impassioned devotion and play as if this was their last gig. Although it was dark up there on stage, you could see and feel this team’s vital excitation.
Their electrifying songs transfer you to a melancholic twilight where reality looks confused and disorderly. Their wayward melodies are wrapped in captivating sound constructions that hold your attention non-stop while singer Brent De Wulf is the screaming heart of this special act on a special mission. A striking performance it was.
Here’s their newest excellent single KOSMONAUT I …
One of his most haunting and powerful songs, from his eight LP Let Love In, was released as a single on 28 March 1994, 25 years
ago today. B-sides: ‘Cassiels Song‘ and ‘Sail Away‘.
