Just released…
12 April 2019
Band: THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS
Ninth LP: NO GEOGRAPHY
Rolling Stone score: 2.5/5 – read here
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Top Tracks MAH / The Universe Sent Me
– MAH –
– THE UNIVERSE SENT ME –
THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS: Website – Facebook – Discography
12 April 2019
Today 25 years ago, on 12 April 2014 Courtney Love‘s band HOLE released their second album LIVE THROUGH THIS. A week after her husband Kurt Cobain shot himself.
The record was overall praised by music critics with Rolling Stone writing: “Love delivers punk not only as insinuating as Nirvana’s but as corrosive as the Sex Pistols’. More significantly, Live Through This may be the most potent blast of female insurgency ever committed to tape.”
It peaked at #52 in America but sold remarkably better in Europe, the UK and Australia.
Top Tracks: Doll Parts / Violet / Softer, Softest…
– DOLL PARTS –
– VIOLET –
– SOFTER, SOFTEST –
Album in full…
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HOLE: Biography – All Albums / COURTNEY LOVE: Facebook
Back sleeve…
Discover up and coming bands in 10 questions…
12 April 2019
Cape Town‘s THE MEDICINE DOLLS are the kind of sonic misfits who do it their own way no matter what. Anything that the recalcitrant duo of Greg Allan (singer/guitar) and Bex Nicholas (vocals/bass) have released so far has an authentic DIY stamp on it. Their messy hullabaloo fits their way of life, their reality, their state of fucked-up confusion. The rowdy pair produces garage rock havoc that hits you straight in the face and they look like The Cramps‘ evil children. Utterly cool indeed! They are natural born outsiders doing what they do best: creating scissored punk mayhem. Frontman Greg Allan will tell you more about their troubled souls, but let’s start the acquaintance with a loud and clear video clip…
1. What sparked you to start the band?
“I guess the spark came when my previous band broke up. Bex and I were living together in Johannesburg, Scraping by and dealing with a lot of what you might call ‘Bad life choices’. Instead of trying to breath new life into that project, I decided we ought to change our entire life situation. She had never played a note, so I thought she would be the perfect bass player. We used all the money we had left, and flew to Cape Town with nothing but the idea of this band.”
2. What’s the story behind the group’s name?
“In our favorite film, ‘Withnail and I‘ there is a character called Danny, who is the drug dealer of these two struggling actors who live in a grotty flat together. He keeps his gear, which he refers to as ‘Medicine‘ in the head of a little doll. We thought it was appropriate.”
3. What triggered the new EP’s title ‘COMPULSION TO RUIN’ and its destructive tone?
“I think it has a lot to do with the current emotional climate of the world, things are fucked, and people are feeling that fucked-ness… but it really goes full circle, people fuck themselves up to deal with fucked-ness, and that leads inevitably to more fucked-ness.
4. Which track would you pick as THE MEDICINE DOLLS signature song so far?
“I think ‘Covered in Filth‘ sums us up quite well.”
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5. What is ‘COVERED IN FILTH’ about?
“Fucked-up-ness.”
6. So far the band only released a series of EPs, not a full-length album yet.
Is that a conscious choice or can we expect an LP soon?
“Certainly looking at releasing an LP soon.”
7. Which movie would you pick to visualize your music
on a big screen while playing a gig?
“Withnail and I.”
8. Number one band on your list to go on tour with?
“I would say certainly Death Valley Girls, they have us so
hooked at the minute… incredible band!”
Death Valley Girls, incredible band indeed…
9. If you could go back into the past on whose famous door
would you knock and ask to have a selfie together?
“Certainly Lux and Ivy of The Cramps… We are in love with what
they did, the art, the attitude, they were the perfect rock ‘n’ roll band.”
10. Any chance THE MEDICINE DOLLS will play outside of South-Africa someday?
“We have just returned from our first international trip, we played the Rock A La Buse Festival on the French island of La Reunion. We are looking at putting together our first European tour beginning of 2020.”
Thank you for this interview, Greg.
May the road rise with THE MEDICINE DOLLS!
COMPULSION TO RUIN EP
in full here…
https://open.spotify.com/album/2geUvetd1OBSHPpRUsZnmf?si=qsqqfElVQ-ut9-keRKuGqQ
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THE MEDICINE DOLLS: Facebook
(promo press photos of band via Medicine Dolls pr agent)
Three tracks to soundtrack the ongoing Brexshit soap…
About… THERESA MAY
About… the LEAVE FREAKS
About… the NO UK FUTURE
Daily fuel to load your sonic batteries…
11 April 2019
(photo by Nando Carniel Machado / received via Beth)
Beth Rettig, the notable frontwoman of former British electro act Blindness started her solo project WHERE WE SLEEP last summer with three strikingly ambient tracks (Veins , Crawl and The First One). Now she presents brand new track THE DESERT from her upcoming debut EP, entitled EXPERIMENTS IN THE DARK.
‘The Desert’ is an electrical groove with an intoxicating beat that creeps under your skin instantly while a harrowing guitar sends shivers down your spine. On top of it comes Rettig‘s mystifying vox. Splintering passion is at play here. ‘I destroy myself / There’s been
no-one else.’ Similar spellbinding sentiments as in Garbage‘s soul-stirring ‘Beloved Freak’. Haunting score! Absorb the gloom right here…
WHERE WE SLEEP: Facebook – Instagram – Bandcamp
EXPERIMENTS IN THE DARK – 5-track EP out 31 May – all details here
Brand new sonic impulses…
10 April 2019
THE RACONTEURS announced their new, third, album HELP US STRANGER a few weeks ago. Ahead of its release the band already released a double A-side single. Blues rocker Sunday Driver and sad love song Now That You’re Gone. And here’s another track. A flaring cover of a DONOVAN song, the famous 60s singer-songwriter, viewed by many
as the British Bob Dylan back then. Here’s ‘HEY GYP (DIG THE SLOWNESS)…
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THE RACONTEURS: Facebook
(Image on top: debut LP Raconteurs)
Clips that will have an impact on your eyes and your ears…
2 April 2019
Last month former Animal Collective member Noah Lennox aka PANDA BEAR launched
his sixth solo album called BUOYS. Today he shares a curious and notable clip for the sterling title track.
“Dogs see past how many followers we have and how many tickets we sell. This allows us to relax, be ourselves and not sweat the small stuff. I wanted to make a video that relayed the themes of the song’s lyrics to the confidence and bliss that comes from the relationship with
an animal.” said Lennox about the idea behind the video.
Watch here…
PANDA BEAR: Facebook
10 April 2019
On 10 April 1989, yes, already 30 years ago today British cool dance act SOUL II SOUL released their debut bestseller CLUB CLASSICS VOL. ONE. The LP hit the number one spot in the UK and was certified triple platinum for sales in excess of more than 900,000 copies. In America the album, titled ‘Keep On Movin‘ (named after the successful second single off the record) reached the Top 20. Here’s ‘Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)’, undoubtedly the most famous masterstroke on the longplayer…
Album in full
(original track list #1 – #10)…
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SOUL II SOUL: Biography
Making noise for up and coming artists…
10 April 2019
Band: TURQUOISE
Who: Synth pop quartet from Brussels, led by dreamy vox Sarah Boom, producing
music “from 70’s beaches to 80’s shores (Durutti Column, The Chameleons, Cleaners from Venus), through the sirens’ songs, with their ethereal and hazy voices, and hours of listening
to Broadcast, Cocteau Twins or Slowdive as an inspiration.”
Release: self-titled 4-track debut EP – out now and available on Bandcamp
and streamable via Spotify
Score: Four different tracks, four different moods, four different trips. From the bouncy and flourishing opener MIRROIR that will make your heartbeat jump for joy, to the more reflective sentiment of MIRADOR, before getting to the sparkling, yet darksome twilight poppiness of CHAT NOIR and closing with my favorite track PARABOLE, an exhilarating electro pearl fueled with fabulous guitar play that causes goosebumps along its ravishing way. This 4-stage journey is a splendid cocktail of dreamy ingredients, from New Order‘s blue dynamics to Cocteau Twins‘ transcendent melodiousness. And as we all know that French is probably the sexiest language in the world you will be thrilled to start your electronic odyssey right now, right here…
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TURQUOISE: Facebook
10 April 2019
After J MASCIS was captured singing DON’T DO ME LIKE THAT, a top track
from the late, great TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS that appeared
on their 1979 album Damn The Torpedoes in a mostly empty Massachusetts
karaoke bar last summer he has now recorded the song officially. Check here…
Here’s the less impressive, yet lively karaoke version…
J MASCIS: Facebook / TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS: Facebook