Band: NEW FOUND GLORY Who: Veteran power rockers
from Coral Springs, Florida Active: 1997-present
Artwork: Cover of their new Xmas album called (oh my gosh) December’s Here.
It looks like the band was pretty drunk when they decided to pick this silly image
for their festive Jingle Bells record. It’s out next Friday, 3 December.
Band: SLY & THE FAMILY STONE (San Francisco) Who: Pioneers of mixing soul, rock, psychedelia
and gospel into one hot melting pot Active: 1966-1983 / 10 LPs
Hit single: FAMILY AFFAIR
With the late great Billy Preston (who also
played with The Stones) on electric piano
Score: No 1 on the US Singles Chart this
day 50 years ago, on 30 November 1971,
their 4th and final No 1 in America
I discovered this brilliant post-punk turbo last month at an indoor festival in Amsterdam. The whole crowd went bananas. These motherrockers slash and trash with a burning vehemence and a flabbergasting fervency. Miami Lounge is the crackerjack opener of this year’s released 5-track EP Bad Time.
Now it’s your turn to discover this awesome London squad.
Earlier this month this dynamite hit team blew all punters away with their jaw-dropping gig in my hometown Ghent (Belgium). They razzled and dazzled with ebullient exertion, blistering British bluster, and a fuck Brexit fierceness. The roof went off.
Ded Würst, their newest single, is nothing less
than a nasty and filthy sledgehammer. Das super!
6. ‘His Ilk’ by BRONSON ARM (Kalamazoo, Michigan, US)
From Michigan here come 2 Pc Noisey Slacker Psychedelic Sludge Punks.
They joined Canada-based indie label Off White House Records
this year with a big bang.
Their newest outburst is a riffin’ rollercoaster that makes the hair in
your neck stand up with its metallic resonance and relentless bass
frenzy. Add nightmarish vocals and I’m sure Santa Claus will run
away in fear.
The alias of British singer-songwriter of Bobby Anderson.
Never Ready is a vicious droning blast. Wïlderman rankles,
rages, and has a bad taste in his mouth. Never ready for
her look and her voice. 133 seconds of sonic sex.
Hot groove, hot intensity, hot slam dunk. Fucktastic!
8. I Don’t’ Love You Anymore’ by CHATEAU CHATEAU (Tucson, Arizona, US)
Glam and glitter riot tattoo grrl Blue attracts all attention,
sonically as well as visually. She swirls and scintillates on this
new kick while cursing idiots who hate the LGBTQ+ community,
who hate tattoos, and who hate anybody who doesn’t live by
their ultra-conservative rules.
To hell with all these idiots.
Meanwhile, enjoy this jangly earworm that sticks as
first-class glue and reaches an aural orgasm every
time the chorus pops up.
With Absent Transient they show their masterly skills of writing ear-and-mind
pleasing pop tunes charged-up with rotating riffs and dreamy vocal harmonies.
When an old skool DJ teams up with Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker you
get a sizzling acid house corker to start and end all upcoming New Year’s Eve parties with.
13. ‘What You Keep Telling Yourself’ by DOWN WITH SPACE (Montreal, Canada)
The motorik and magnetic rhythm of this electronic exploit makes your head
turn 360°. The catching combination of near whispering vocals, scintillating David
Gilmour guitar vibrance and cybernated elegance create an overall ear-ecstatic
vibe culminating in a dynamic finale.
Expect flashy echoes of the 80s British New Romantics movement with
this instant catching pop spark, fueled with glimmering guitar/play,
impassioned vocals, and a non-stop drum beat.
This sugary pop bliss feels good at first, better the second time,
and the best with all other spins. Great pop-ular music is about
lifting up the listener’s mood to a euphoric level for about
3/4 minutes. Easier said than done, but not here.
Still is a glorious harmonious touchy-feely gem that appeals from
the kick-off with Gardiner‘s tantalising voice and Kuras‘ vitalizing
guitar ravishment. Add a delirious chorus and you have yourself
a 24-Carat top thrill.
This Italian singer-songwriter, born Patrizio Ottavianiiter,
produces a blend of psychedelic rock and Arabic harmonies.
Knight Of Cups is the latest single in a series of monthly releases this year.
Electric dream-pop at its tempting best. Sparkling, spirited, and seductive.
Nell Smith is a 13-year old fan of Oklahoma’s eccentric stargazers Flaming Lips
(one of my all-time fav bands). Frontman Wayne Coyne spotted her at one point
as she attended several gigs with her father. They got in touch and after Coyne
found out that she’s a singer he proposed her to work with the band on a Nick
Cave tribute album he already had in mind for some time.
They got all in the studio and the result is a 9-song Nick Cave
covers album baptized Where The Viaduct Looms with
the nightingale voice of Nell as the heroine in the middle.
You can stream the brand new record on Spotify
One of the standouts is her version of
the heart and soul ballad The Ship Song.
19. ‘Always Together With You’ by SPIRITUALIZED (Rugby, UK)
Jason Pierce and his orchestra have a new LP,
called Everything Was Beautiful coming on
25 February 2022
With this spellbinding symphony, he does what he does so splendidly for so long. This
first new piece is another soulful spiritual growing slowly into a gospel-like trance. Epic!
Last June mega-star-crooner Cave and his bad seed friend Warren Ellis
signed for one of the best LPs of 2021 with their astonishing Carnage opus.
And they’re not done yet. The duo releases the soundtrack they wrote for the French nature documentary Panthère Des Neiges (The Snow Leopard)on 17 December.
Here’s the magnificent taster We Are Not Alone.
A characteristic Cave humdinger. Tender and gripping.
Watch the magic, hear the magic…
See/hear you next month with the best 20 knockouts of 2021…
NEIL YOUNG‘s cellar must be huge. The legend keeps on finding lost music.
This time it’s, as he posted on his website, a collection of tracks from 1987
that was dubbed SUMMER SONGS.
Young: “We are not sure of the exact original dates of these recordings yet. They were
all given the same date in the NYA Vault’s records, but they all have a very similar unique
sound. To give you an idea of place and time, Farm Aid and the Bridge School concerts
had just begun their long runs.”
“This group of songs had just been written and put down in the studio at Broken Arrow, as far as we can figure. We cannot completely be sure of the engineer who was recording these and I don’t remember the sessions at all! Every song in the collection was with acoustic guitar or piano and simple added embellishments — sketches of arrangements we made to preserve the initial ideas.”
Some of the songs found their way in a finished version on different albums like ‘The Last Of His Kind’, ‘For The Love Of Man’, ‘American Dream’, ‘Name Of Love’, ‘Someday’, One Of These Days, ‘Hanging’ On A Limb’, and ‘Wrecking Ball’ appearing on longplayers Freedom, American Dream, Psychedelic Pill, and Harvest Moon, but “the words of these originals are significantly different from their subsequent master album releases in many cases” says Young.
The songs will be included on his next massive archival volume,
and also may be released separately before that.
To celebrate this year’s Hanukkah, the traditional Jewish Festivals Of Lights
Foo Fighter DAVE GROHL and producer GREG KURSTIN got together for
a smashing cover of Ramones classic Blitzkrieg Bop.
Grohl wrote on Twitter: “Once upon a time, two nice Jewish boys from Queens
named Jeffery Hyman and Thomas Erdelyi changed the world forever with their
music as Joey and Tommy Ramone!” wrote Grohl and Kurstin. “GABBAI GABBAI HEY!
Ladies and gentlemen… It’s the Blitzkrieg Bop!”
They’re forming in straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The blitzkrieg bop
The Beatles guitarist and occasionally songwriter GEORGE HARRISON
passed away 20 years ago today in Los Angeles due to lung cancer.
He was only 58.
Harrison was both lucky and unlucky to be in The Beatles. Lucky as the Fab Four
fame helped when he started his solo career, and unlucky as the Lennon/McCartney
tandem prevented him to write far more songs, in the band, than he was worthy of
which he proved the most on his lauded and best-known (triple) album All Things
Must Pass in 1970. The sitar-loving musician and Hare Krishna devotee had ups and
downs regarding his solo discography.
Press statement: “A hooky bass line opens the track, ultimately taunting
whip-crack drums into entering an unabating duel. Oscillating echoes materialize,
like murmurs from the netherworld, eventually culminating into actual voices. Does
the song’s mantra, “you’re not dead or alive” refer to liminality, as we hurl towards
whatever is next, or call into question our somatic state entirely?”
Doom or hope. Despair or trust. Darkness of brightness.
The pandemic future is about death or life…
Band: DEAP VALLY Who: Utterly cool female rock duo out of Los Angeles Active: Since 2011 / 4 studio albums (the ace collaborative
one with The Flaming Lips last year, and the upcoming new
one included).
Recent work: Two EPs Digital Dreamand American Cockroach,
featuring several guests, released this year. Put together it’s an
extra Deap Vally album to my ears.
New album: MARRIAGE Released: 12th November 2021 – order info here
Deap Vally: “Being in a band is like being in a marriage: sometimes it’s magical,
sometimes it’s unbearably challenging. To reinvigorate that marriage we’ve made
album three a genre-bending experiment with new collaborators and instrumentation
that push the limits of what has previously defined us. Marriage’ is our musical Rumspringa,
if you will. We’re breaking free of the rigid creative constraints within which we previously existed (two members, two instruments, two voices). Writing with the calibre of musicians
that we did on this record was an unforgettable experience, and we’re so happy to have
the result of our creative rebirth eternalised in ‘Marriage’.”
The new LP also features a number of collaborations from the aforementioned
EPs, including songs with Peaches, KT Tunstall, and Warpaint‘s Jenny Lee.
(Halfway their marriage, 5 years ago in Amsterdam – photo by Turn Up The Volume)
DIY magazine/website says: “Deap Vally have never lacked swagger. Their riff-heavy combo has always seen them packing unending amounts of attitude, but on ‘Marriage’, it’s immediately evident that they’re striking out to a magnitude unreached so far… ‘Marriage’ is the sound of Deap Vally tapping back into what makes them tick, and lays the groundwork for their most exciting era yet. Score: 4/5.
Turn Up The Volume: The message of Marriage is loud and clear: Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards are here to stay. Their musical bond is tighter than ever. Looking to the future they broadened their musical horizons impressively. Mind you, don’t expect a free jazz record. Deap Vally are still about rocking and rolling while tackling their demons with an intimidating vocal bravado, but in a far more varied way than before.
I hear eruptive echoes of Death From Above (Perfuction / Billions / I’m The Master), The Black Keys (Where Do We Go / Better Run), and early Deap Vally with a full-sound injection (Tsunami / Magic Medicine). And with Give Me A Sign (bringing Sparklehorse to mind) and the soul-stirring beauty of Look Away the couple shows their softer sonic side.
Trust me, after 10 years their matrimony is alive and kicking.
Singles/clips: Tsunami / Magic Medicine / Perfuction