30 years ago today, on 31st May 1994, far-out hip-rap-hop-rock mavericks BEASTIE BOYS released their 4th scream & shout LP ILL COMMUNICATION.
An artistic and commercial success, hitting the top spot of the US Albums Chart.
Rolling Stone wrote: “Ill Communication continues the formula established on ‘Check’ — home-grown jams powered by live instruments; speedy hardcore rants; and insane rhyme
styles buried under the warm hiss of vintage analog studio equipment. ‘Ill’ maintains the Beasties’ consistency of style, but underneath its goofy, dope-smokin’ antics lies — gasp! —
an artistic maturity that reveals how the Boys have grown since they began as pimply New
York punks making anarchic noise.’
Out of bed at eight am
Out my head by half past ten
Out with mates and dates and friends
That’s what I do at weekends
I can’t talk and I can’t walk
But I know where I’m going to go
I’m going to watch my money go
At the Locarno, no
When my feet go through the door
I know what my right arm is for
Buy a drink and pull a chair
Up to the edge of the dance floor
Bouncers bouncing through the night
Trying to stop or start a fight
I sit and watch the flashing lights
Moving legs in footless tights
I go out on Friday night and
I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and
I like to venture into town
I like to get a few drinks down
The floor gets packed, the bar gets full
I don’t like life when things get dull
The hen party have saved the night
And freed themselves from drunken stags
Having fun and dancing in
A circle round their leather bags
I go out on Friday night and
I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and
I come home on Saturday morning
But two o’clock has come again
It’s time to leave this paradise
Hope the chip shop isn’t closed
Cause their pies are really nice
I’ll eat it in the taxi queue
Stand in someone else’s spew
Wish I had lipstick on my shirt
Instead of piss stains on my shoes
I go out on Friday night and
I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and
I come home on Saturday morning
As already announced in MarchNICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS finished the recordings of album number 18. It’s titled WILD GOD and will be shared with the world on August 30.
The LP is produced by Cave and his buddy Warren Ellis. Pre-order info here
Album artwork
Following the epic lead title track Wild God we get another new one with FROGS.
Info: “The journey to creating ‘Wild God’ began with sweeping epic ‘Frogs’. The first
lines Nick Cave penned for the album were powerfully evocative, referencing the first murder in the Bible, Cain’s slaying of Abel. He wrote, “Ushering in the week he knelt down
and crushed his brother’s head in with a bone/It’s my great privilege to walk you home.”
This striking couplet became the opening lines to the song,
and set the tone for the imagery and themes that followed.”
Cave: “The sheer exuberance of a song like ‘Frogs’, it just puts a big fucking smile on my face.”
Frogs is an emotive, spellbinding and orchestral piece of topmost music
Another NC & TBS feat. Yes, it puts a fucking smile on your face.
British post-punks THE HORRORS from Southend-on-Sea had their biggest
moment, so far, with their 2nd LP Primary Colors that came out in 2009.
It put them on the European indie map.
The track I always go back to is the almost 8-minute
closer SEA WITHIN A SEA (more than 12 million streams
on Spotify, half of which are mine. Just kidding).
It’s a repetitive, addictive, and hypnotizing synth-Kraut-rock trip that goes
on like forever and ever and puts you slowly but surely in a trance.
3 LPs and two EPs followed, but no sign of musical life since 2021.
Gibbons about the album: “I realised what life was like with no hope. And that was
a sadness I’d never felt. Before, I had the ability to change my future, but when you’re
up against your body, you can’t make it do something it doesn’t want to do. People
started dying.
TUTV: Gibbons processes her pains of loss on this shadowy solo debut.
She still has that ghostly vocal vulnerability, as if she wanders, in slo-mo,
in a thick fog far away from the real world, to to get away from her
harming demons.
Musically, the tone is both delicate and tender, mysterious and introspective, with an overall sense of disturbing catharsis, accompanied by mourning strings, big drums and acoustic melancholia. You need several spins to connect with Gibbons‘ enigmatic world, but in the end, the result is truly affecting.
Two months ago renowned noise rock producer STEVE ALBINI
announced a new LP with his band SHELLAC, titled TO ALL TRAINS.
Their 6th and first in 10 years.
Unfortunately, Albini couldn’t experience its release (May 17)
as the fatal news came in, on May 7, of his passing following
a heart attack.
It wasn’t really certain if the release would go ahead or not. But here it is,
featuring his long-time, faithful friends/musicians Bob Weston (bass) and
drummer Todd Trainer.
(Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Belgium 2017)
The recordings already started in 2017 featuring several songs
the band used to play live for quite some time by then.
TUTV: It’s vintage Shellac/Steve Albini with its fractured song structures, its capricious and minimalistic resonance, its broken riffs, edgy hooks, sinewy drumming, Albini‘s poignant vocals and the raw and rough post-punk dynamics at play. Absolutely weird to listen to
it, with the incredible knowledge that Albini is no more.
The album closes with the ominous track I Don’t Fear Hell, including these lines “I don’t fear hell. Their baseball team is undefeated. If there’s a heaven, I hope they’re
having fun. ‘Cause if there’s a hell, I’m gonna know everyone.” Sounds quite bizarre and macabre at this very moment. Maybe, just maybe, Albini is happy, wherever he might
be. Rest in peace.
Info: “FIAFTNSLABB is not only an ode to celebrating naivety, the record is
deliberately kept very raw and playful. The band plays a kind of duplo-metal
that opts for simplicity and a wide color palette.
The band sounds hungry, nervous and exaggerated in its bipolar nature: the je-m’en-foutism of post-punk and the concrete character of 90’s alt-metal both contribute equally to their DNA. In their brew where chunks of hardcore are mixed with noise, indie, prog
and punk, no house is sacred anymore.”
Aaaarggghhhhh (photo by TUTV)
TUTV: No pop tunes, no songs about the bees and the trees. This record is stuffed with manicial mind-fuckers and badass brain-breakers that trash and slash your poor stereo relentlessly and mercilessly. The maddening man in the middle, mental vocalist Jasper, screams and howls, and spits and sneers, with bone-chilling and psychotic horsepower.
Think Kurt Cobain with 4 lungs, fronting a hellish hardcore gang featuring 3 other ruthless punks on an ear-splitting mission. No brakes, no breaks. No rest for the wicked. Ronker is
a barbaric force, their singer is an out-of-this-normal-world performer, their debut is a flabbergasting monster.
All you loonies out there, get out of your straitjackets, escape from the asylum
and jump up and down on your way home like post-punk kangaroos on speed.
The four mustache horsemen of the Apocalypse have arrived.
TUTV: Ever heard of politically and society-caring techno?
Well, thematically, it’s what this record is about. And the
alarming music is its perfect soundtrack.
As theoretical physicist Einstein said (1879-1955): “Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth” and English modernist novelist D.H. Lawrence (1985-1930) wrote: “Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically“. Two quotes, so relevant in 2024, meaning that nobody, especially all power-greedy world leaders/politicians, ever listened carefully to what these geniuses had to say. No wonder these two masterminds show up on this record.
As Leg Puppy states about his UK country: “This used to be a hell of a great country.”
Again the narcissistic Tories fucked up. Brexshit is their awful work. Unfortunately,
they get away with their bullshit.
Sonically, Humanity 2.0 is heavily influenced by Puppy‘s natural musical habitat:
the 90s techno/acid house revolution, developed around the mid-1980s by DJs
from Chicago and British trance-dance and (il)legal rave-orientated acts such as Chemical Brothers, The Orb, Leftfield, The Prodigy and lots of other e-tastic
crusaders. Throw all this together and you get Humanity 2.0.
Again LPI (Leg Puppy Intelligence) created an intoxicating
roller coaster with mind-exploring, electronic symphonies
for a 2024 space Odyssey.
Leg Puppy 1.0 is canceled, welcome to Leg Puppy 2.0
Info: “The album explores the dichotomy between an inner turmoil that can plague a fragile mind and the euphoria of letting go and tuning out the outside world. The heavy burden of insomnia is a recurring theme while the album also celebrates the static hums and pulsating rhythms which contrast humans and machines.”
TUTV: Seadog alternate trippy synth dream-pop symphonies with delicate and subtle acoustic musings and with inventive, compelling compositions. Stylishly crafted melodies and crystalline harmonies are omnipresent, but in different tones and timbres, which makes Internal Noise a sonically multi-colored record.
📷 Zara Pears
Its production is spot-on, not over or underdone, the arrangements and orchestrations match the overall sparkling sonority. It’s obvious that a lot of work, creativity, energy and love went into this album. Give it a couple of spins and you’ll discover a high-songwriting-quality opus.
Noel Thomas David Gallagher was born in Manchester on 29 May 1967.
Happy 57 to the sublime singer/songwriter who wrote/recorded a series of unforgettable
world hits and a couple of superb LPs with Oasis (1991–2009), one of my all-time favorite bands (on record and on stage).
He went solo – with his High Flying Birds – 15 years ago, after the umpteenth fight with his brother Liam. He canned 4 longplayers so far with his birds, with last year’s Council Skies as the most recent one.
This Australian rawk ‘n’ roll tornado released their second LP ‘Comfort To Me‘
already 3 years ago and they’re still touring it. It calls popularity and success.
But they found some time recently to record this belter. U Should Not Be Doing
That bounces forth and back, and funks and punks with big beats, schreeching
guitars, a sexy sax and Amyl ‘s sneering vocality.
2024 is supersonic Irish post-punk turbineSprints‘s breakthrough year.
Their rad riff ‘n’ roar debut LP Letter To Self, caused/causes exciting waves
among critics and old/new fans.
To keep the momentum going they dropped this new whirlwind stroke.
Truly hypnotizing from start to finish with velvety vocals and darkwavish synths
in the back adding a twilight tone. Top-tier tune. The on-repeat button was invented
for this kind of arousing thrills. Don’t miss this ecstatic MM jam.
“In and out
Inside again
I’m passing out
To ease the strain”
The British pop/rock team that scored three successful albums between 2003 and 2014 returned in 2022 for some live action. They all got in the mood again and wrote/recorded thsi brand new song Don’t Go Making Plans.
It’s an infectious, brassy tune that swings around with a dance-inviting oomph.
“Where’s everybody? Where’s everyone? / I’m coming out tonight, I wanna have some fun /
But these empty streets and shut-up bars/ Too broke to eat, to nowhere to dance.”
This rotating riff-ripper is just irresistible. It’s a head-spinning stomper that gets under
your skin from the get-go. A fervid upper with a jump-up-and-down with your fists in the air chorus that doubles your adrenalin production for 4 and a half banging minutes.
Think of the early zealous gusto and the buzzing drive of NYC’s celebs The Strokes.
In a normal world, this revved-up stunner of a tune should top all indie charts
all over the globe.
Rosie Rebel and her robust retro rock combo do it again. This one is for their beloved dog of six years and tour companion, Canaan, who now rocks his tail off, up there in the sky.
As we experienced before Typhoid Rosie always storm full steam ahead from start
to finish. This punked-up, harmonious chant with its sickly sticky chorus triggers your
best zigzagging moves. It’ll feature on their 5th album, called Last Words, which lands
on June 21.
“We’re not gonna leave you in this shithole town!
Get in the car, let’s go!”
10. ‘Nothing To Report’ by FOLD PAPER (Winnipeg, US)
This far-out trio is masterminded by the Nigerian-born, Michigan-raised and Winnipeg-based Chell Osuntade, who delivers almost-spoken-word lyrics searing
with intent. They produce a raw, jittery and energetic brand of post-punk.
Nothing To Report is a glorious cacophonous jackhammer going everywhere fast.
It rattles and rambles, motorized by schizophrenic guitars, a mean bass/drum
tandem and Chell Osuntade‘s sloganesque chant. Almost 5 minutes of razzle-dazzle turmoil, revved-up dynamics and jazzed-up rhythms. Think British mavericks black midi.
11. ‘So Desperate’ by SALEM WOLVES (Providence, Rhode Island)
Photo Credit: Black Cherry Creative
With this new piece, Salem Wolves taps into the human
psyche and a lost wrestler’s supernatural ambition.
Gray Bouchard (songwriter): “‘So Desperate’ is about recontextualizing what should be a moment of triumph as something grimy. If you’re ambitious or a dreamer, it’s easy to just focus on the goal, the stage, that moment in the spotlight when all eyes are on you. You tune out the noise, ignore your screaming muscles and tired bones, and march toward victory.”
Expect a riveting mid-tempo flare-up pushed by an agonizing vocalist,
an ironclad rhythm section, and mental guitars. Vehement emotionality.
This North Carolina outfit formed, fuelled by late-night jam sessions, where the only
rule was to keep the spirit of Tom Petty alive, with members who found themselves
veering away from their roles as backing musicians for solo artists.
With Cold they hit bullseye. It’s a bittersweet epic Americana
symphony that touches heart and soul. Splendid score!
The 82-year-old VU legend JOHN CALE is one of those artists who’ll never stop
making music until his final breath. Back in January 2023 he released one of the
finest records of that year with Mercy.
And he has already another one to offer.
It’s called POPtical Illusion and he will share it with the world
on June 14. The songs were written around the time he worked
on Mercy.
While you wait for the LP find
out how old(er) dogs still rock.
Common CultureCommon Culture is a rousing, fiddle-driven alternative folk band from Barnsley, England who fuse traditional and contemporary elements into an upbeat and energetic sound.
From the very start their new pîece Taking Hold explodes like a firecracker. Peppy, bustling
and stimulating. It’s a highly encouraging mind-and-body booster incited by a dizzying pace, flaming violin play, electrical rapture, pepped-up vocals, and a delirious chorus.
There’s always a common culture light at the end of the tunnel.
Folk rock veterans Levellers should take them on tour.
“War, Hate, Distrust, Propaganda, Bullying and all the horrible attributes of life,
we don’t need it!! We have seen it all and it does not make us happy, let us break
the cycle and stop the unhappiness!!”
Wow! What a powerhouse debut smack this is. Terrifically vigorous
and puissant, with a titanic guitar-blazing and drum-hammering chorus.
This Boston collective knows how to shake their booty. They did it before and
they do it again with this instantly working booster and exultant chant.
A rotating bass riff dictates the jumping-for-joy pace, alternating female/male vocals add some more jubilation and on the chorus, we all can go nuts. And let’s not forget that brisk violin with a jocund vibe.
Cemento Atlantico is the electronic project of Italian
producer and DJ Alessandro “ToffoloMuzik” Zoffoli.
His new single is a mid-tempo techno boomer that spellbinds from start to finish.
Magnetic vibrations interwoven with hip-swaying synth eurhythmics and echoing
vocals.
