Remember Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood,
Sonny and Cher all back in the sixties, when almost all songs were about eternal
amour, but also sad heartbreaks and saying somethin’ stupid like I Love You?
Today another couple of celebrities turns up and brings that universal romanticism
back. Primal Scream‘s frontman Bobby Gillespie and Savages’ emo voice Jenny Beth already met in 2015 and started working together two years later on Utopian Ashes.
A collaborative album out July 2. Order info here.
“In the same way you create characters for a novel, we’ve created characters here.
But you put yourself in it, because you’re trying to understand the human situation.
The singing has to be authentic. That’s all that matters” says Jenny Beth about
the record’s main theme.
Gillespie – who cried himself blind now and then with Primal Scream added: “When you write a song you marry the personal with the fictional and make art. I was thinking about two people living alone, together but apart, existing and suffering in a psychic malaise, who plough on because of responsibilities and commitments. It’s about the impermanence of everything — an existential fact that everyone has to face at some point in their lives.”
Concert movie of a one-off Led Zeppelinshow on 10 December 2007,
in the O2 Arena, in London, as part of an Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert
(Ertegun was a famous and highly praised music executive – founder of
Atlantic Records – who passed away in 2006). The film started a limited
cinema release on 17 October 2012, and came out on several home audio
and video formats.
According to the Guinness World Records issue of 2009, the concert holds
the world record for the “Highest Demand for Tickets for One Music Concert”
as 20 million requests for a ticket were registered online.
TUTV said: Manimal and Samara are a poetallica sensation. A new laser light at the end of
a mythical tunnel where anything can happen. Imagine Sylvia Plath fronting a theatrical and mind-challenging psychedelic noise band. Their debut album is a multi-faceted opus in sound and vision. Compelling poetry exploring life, death, birth, past, present, and future embedded
in a titanic thunder and lighting symphony going from perplexing metal to chill-out ambient. The final result is at times jaw-dropping, at times weirdly confusing, at times dumbfounding
but always flabbergasting and fascinating. When surreality becomes reality you know something is about to happen.
TUTV wrote: Gusto, high-spiritedness and anxiety are the keywords here.
This warm-blooded record is a heart-rending reflection of the group’s state of
2021 mind. A galvanizing collection of cohesive poignant emo songs influenced by
the disturbing way our troubled world is handling human issues, once-in-a-lifetime
dramas, and the personal turmoil of frontwoman Chavez. Her soul-stirring and
powerful (Aretha Franklin / young Tina Turner) voice, weeping guitars, and the
electrical intensity are at times overwhelming and heartbreaking. Impressive!
Released: 12 March 2021 – second LP TUTV wrote: “The essential message of this new powerhouse album is loud and clear:
noise-challenging turbo Pink Room is here to stay! Their tsunami energy is beyond any
decibel regulation. Again, loudmouth Bart Cocquyt leads the rip-roaring troops. As I said
before his vocal range is out-of-this-world. He easily could front a death metal band (Stay Black/Stay White) or a Nirvana reunion (Losing/Skin) or kick Ozzy Osbourne‘s ass (Hail Satan). Expect ear-shattering jackhammers, over-the-top frenzy, and an overall sonic lockdown paranoia.”
TUTV wrote: “The masters of drone rock are back, and they’re getting better over the years. Gigantic fuzz and buzz jackhammers but also some softer – yes, since they became fathers they let their heart & soul speak/play more – stuff. This stunning work will end up on many end-of-the-year lists.”
tutv wrote: “i’m damn sure this incredible punch-powered-punk-passion turbo was here before, about 40 years ago, inspiring bored kids like black flag , shellac, melvins, jello biafra, and other anarchist snotnoses, to leave home, steal guitars and drums in order to have some wild fun while scaring bad people with their deafening racket that’ll teach those old-fashioned adults watching fox.news all day long. so here they are back again, inspiring young social media junkies to steal guitars and drums instead of watching their phones all day long. home is where it all starts when you have no money to rent a smelly rehearsal room to rock your heads off. so you move into your own smelly basement and scream your poor lungs to pieces. listen up all you lost teenagers out there, play i became birds over and over again ’cause these hungry florida misfits can and will save your lives.”
Key track: sewn together from the membrane of the great sea cucumber
TUTV wrote: “A mix of the romantic crooner and the haunting crooner. Growing with every spin. Compelling orchestrations, classical arrangements, with Ellis showing his musical skills once more. Can’t remember when Cave made an average album. Did he, actually? Okay, Carnage once again on my headphones.”
TUTV wrote: “The rap and roll venom of Rage Against The Machine, the fuck-you-hypocrites grimness of Black Flag, the punky saxophone of X-Ray-Spex, the sharp poetic spit and sneer anarchy of Mark. E. Smith, the challenging spirit of an open-minded-plainspoken-asskicking-anti-establishement-and-other-scumbags force of doom and gloom. Sounds exactly like 2020/2021, like the end of the world as we know it, but also like an album that’s going
to be on my earphones for a long time.”
Golden voice ANGEL OLSEN comes up on 7 May with a Box Set featuring
her 2019 album All Mirrors and the 2020 full-length Whole New Mess, but
also a bonus LP with remixes, alternate tracks, and a cover of Roxy Music’s ‘More Than This.’
And if this isn’t enough the box also includes a 40-page book with photos
and press articles from when All Mirrors/Whole New Mess were first coming
into focus. The box calls Song Of The Lark And Other Memories and
is limited to 3,000 physical copies. More info here.
Album: PRESENCE – 7th LP Released: 31 March 1996 – 45 years ago today Score: No 1 in the UK & US
Rolling Stone wrote: “In spite of a few dull blues rock songs, the album is
another monster in what by now is a continuing tradition of battles won by
this band of survivors.”
Turn Up The Volume: For many bands, this would have been a top album,
for Led Zep – given the brilliant work they released before – it was nothing
more than a good, but too familiar sounding LP.
Gary Anthony James Webb aka GARY NUMAN started his triumphant career in 1975
as frontman of Tubeway Army. He celebrated his 63rd birthday on 8 March. And his new – already 19th – album titled Intruder sees the day of light on 21st May. Order info here.
Ahead of it comes (another) new track. SAINTS AND LIARS is “the earth drawing attention
to our blind faith in religion, in a fictitious God, who in reality does nothing for us, while at the same time abusing and destroying the planet, which does everything for us” says the God of all Numanoids.
Pittsburgh‘s sound wizards ZOMBI are making all
sorts of electrifying waves for several years now.
“Their work is epic in concept, sound, and artistic approach, the masterminds
and multi-instrumentalists behind Zombi have re-imagined the architecture of
progressive rock and dynamic instrumentals by carving a niche in underground
music distinctly their own. The band’s signature sound is deceptively lush
considering its two man skeleton crew ensemble.”
Last year’s 2020 album was their first longplayer since 2015. And early this
month my ears trembled with joy on hearing how they remixed a track from
their hard-horror-core buddies Uniform and vice versa (listen here).
The party isn’t over yet. The prog-ambient-Krautrock tandem has a 5-track EP,
titledLiquid Crystal in the pipeline, waiting for a 14 May release via Relapse.
The EP’s 6-minute taster BLACK FOREST could easily be the perfect theme for
a remake of Stanley Kubrick‘s 1968 science-fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Spooky and haunting, but also elevating and hallucinatory with moony Pink Floyd
guitar echoes and the trippy resonance of British techno act Leftfield. Psychotropic!
Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in space.
Join the flight…
TURN UP THE VOLUME 